AAAHH! Real Monsters!
By Melissa Camp and Kiah Vandergrift
Loch Ness . Bigfoot. These names are usually recognizable to the average person, but have you ever heard of Stalin’s Ape Man? Urban myths are all around us, ranging from the depths of the Amazon to the swamps of Louisiana and Florida . Can they be explained? Or are they just exactly what they seem…legends?
We start the quest for truth in the Scotland ’s Loch Ness. The Loch Ness Monster, more commonly known as “Nessie,” is rumored to inhabit the freshwater loch since the first public sighting in 1933. On July 22, 1933, George Spicer and his wife saw an unusual animal cross the road in front of their car and walk towards the loch over 20 yards away. Their recap of the creature consisted of large body and a long, narrow neck about the size of an elephant’s trunk. Only one month later, a motorcyclist, Arthur Grant, almost hit the creature while driving to Avriachan in the middle of the night. He also described a small head and long neck. The most well-known photo of Nessie is called the “Surgeon’s Photograph” which shows the head and neck of the creature. Unfortunately, the photo was proven to be a hoax in 1994. There has been no physical evidence of the beast such as skeletal remains, capture of the species, or definite tissue samples. If you ask us, this one can go down in history as just an urban myth.
The popular “ape-like” creature known as Bigfoot is said to linger around the forests of the Pacific Northwest United States and British Columbia . It is rumored to have some close relatives around the world, such as the Yeti of Tibet and Nepal , the Yeren of China, and the Yowie of Australia. Bigfoot is supposedly around 9 feet tall and is covered in a thick, dark brown coat. He has similar features to those of a gorilla but walks in an upright position on two feet. Numerous sightings have been reported throughout history dating from 1840 all the way to last year. Beloved Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt is among those who have reported an encounter with the beast. The most common explanation of these sightings is a misidentification between other animals. In our opinion, if the species really does exist, then there should be a bigger population of the creature, which would result in more sightings, making this one just another fairy tale.
Stalin’s Ape Man? Most people are skeptical of this particular legend, but did you know that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin actually did try to genetically engineer a “super warrior?” Stalin’s mad obsession with creating invincible armies gave him the idea to create half-man, half-monkey soldiers by manipulating the DNA of the two species. Stalin knew that spreading Communism around the world was no easy task, so he hired Ilya Ivannov, one of Russia ’s top animal breeding scientists, to create the Ape Man. The project was given the budget of $200,000 per soldier, a hefty amount of the economy in the 1920’s. After many experiments in creating the “super warrior,” the mathematics of the genetics did not add up, creating a doomed failure for Stalin. Since we were not around in Russia in the 1920’s, we cannot say either way that this did or did not actually happen, however, because of the genetic miscalculations, we do know that Stalin’s Ape Man still remains a fantasy for Joseph Stalin.
Some people may think that these “freaks of nature” are explainable and may be lurking among us, but as of now, we remain unconvinced.
