I figured it was a good time to introduce myself and discuss what this blog is really all about. My name is Jake, I have had an interest in cryptids and the like for as long as I can remember. Before we get too far into the woods, lets define what Cryptozoology is. Cryptozoology is, for the uninitiated, the study of unknown to science animals (literally meaning “hidden zoology” in Latin.) Cryptozoologists often have no formal training and are very rarely successful in actually finding hidden animals. The science in the field is often lacking, but what isn’t lacking is the personalities, people, and history for small towns and municiplaities like St. Augustine, or Minerva or Whitehall, or Boggy Creek or any number of small towns across the country that have their 15 minutes of fame tied to stories of the unknown.
As a child I really idolized the khaki clad explorers explorers of the unknown, and the idea that there may still be unknown things to discover someday in our own world was always extraordinarily attractive to me. Bigfoot, Nessie and all the other cryptids really captured my imagination. I remember in 6th grade geography class a friend of mine and I did our Australia project on the down under’s version of the Bigfoot, the famed “Yowie”. We even wrote a song for the assignment that we creatively titled “walk like a Yowie”. Pretty sure we got an “A” on that one. We even ended up starting a short lived “Cryptozoology Club” and we had a car wash to raise money for the group to go to the Everglades searching for the Skunkape. Being middle schoolers we all eventually got distracted and the club sort of fell apart and to be honest I’m not sure what happened to the money we raised, I think our club sponsor must have donated it to something eventually.
So yes, over the years I have had an on again, off again relationship with cryptids. Nowadays I’m a dad to two girls (6 and 2) and husband, and that is very fulfilling, but its important to also do things for yourself. I have been sort of writing in this blog for a couple years, and in the past 6 years especially I have been thinking more critically about cryptozoology than I ever had as a young man. Listening to podcasts like Monstertalk and eventually “In Research Of” and hearing academics like Brian Regal, Ken Feder, Jeb Card, Blake Smith and many others approach these topics that I really loved, from a much more skeptical point of view than I was used to. At the same time they also approached it with love and passion for the subject. In reading the work of people like Brian Regal and Darren Naish use not just science investigation or a jounralistic approach, but also historical methods to investigate these so called phenomenon I found a lot of inspiration. Eventually I want to combine my historical training with my passion and write a book based on the history of Skunkape sightings in Florida, but hopefully we will get to that another day.
So what is the point of Cryptid History? Well, its all in the name! I want to look at the history of Cryptids, sightings and stories. How they influence society, how society influences them, and what these things tell us about our selves and our societies. Thank you for joining me on this journey and for reading my scribbles. Someday I may do bigger and better things, but for now, just having a small outlet for some creativity is pretty nice. So stick around, read, offer some feedback and I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Jake
Comments
Post a Comment