cryptidcurrency

Kevin Wikse investigates ShipGoo001 through the lens of black-goo folklore and Stephen King’s “The Raft,” adapted for Creepshow 2. Original Wikseverse artwork depicts Wikse overlooking a mysterious black slick surrounding an abandoned lake raft. I have a rule concerning mysterious black goo. Probably don’t touch it. I don't care if you're a scientist, cryptozoologist, occultist, government contractor, college kid swimming in an isolated lake, or the expendable NPC, whose sole purpose is demonstrating what the monster does before the opening credits. If you encounter an unidentified black substance somewhere it clearly should not be, perhaps leave it alone. Scientists aboard the research vessel R/V Blue Heron, however, did not follow this rule. Maybe that was a good thing, and maybe not.  Because what they discovered is one of the strangest legitimate biological stories I have encountered in a while. It has been given the wonderfully ominous designation: ShipGoo001. And yes, ap...

  Kevin Wikse greets the legendary Lusca in an Andros blue hole—a meeting of cryptozoology, Bahamian folklore, and mutual respect.  Some monsters require considerable imagination to make work. The giant octopus is not one of them. Years ago, I spoke with a man on a bus who told me about something that happened to him as a teenager while diving in Puget Sound, Washington. He wasn't looking for monsters. There was no expedition into the paranormal, no cryptozoological investigation and, as he told it to me, no ambiguity about what attacked him. It was an octopus. He was underwater when a long arm suddenly reached toward him and caught his leg. Then it pulled. He estimated that the animal dragged him downward perhaps ten or fifteen feet before he felt an intense pain in his calf. The octopus had bitten him, tearing away a chunk of flesh. What remained especially vivid in his memory, however, was the strength of the animal. The arm gripping his leg constricted so tightly that he b...