© 2005 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/retired/the-tracks-of-the-mokl-mbmb/
This article is marked as 'retired'. The information here may be out of date, incomplete, and/or incorrect.
The people around the Congo River Basin have a long oral history of their people and their lands. Among and intertwined with those stories are tales of a gigantic beast that lives in the swamps and rivers of the Congo. Generally it’s a harmless beast, uninterested in eating people, and sticking to a type of liana that grows along the river. That isn’t to say that it isn’t dangerous; the tales say that the Mokèlé-mbèmbé will attack and sometimes kill people and hippos. Strangely, this area of the lowlands has an unusually low hippo population.
So the question arises: what exactly is the Mokèlé-mbèmbé? Simplest answer is that it is the Sasquatch of Africa. The name even means “one who stops the flow of rivers”. There are crypozoologists in the world who would say that it/they are real living dinosaurs of the sauropod family still roaming the earth.
They are described as being bigger than a forest elephant with a long neck, a small snake-like or lizard-like head, which was decorated with a comb-like frill. They have a long, flexible tail, reddish-brown skin and four stubby, but powerful legs with clawed toes.
Not unlike Nessy of Lock Ness fame, Mokèlé-mbèmbé just aren’t photogenic. There are some pictures that claim to have captured the image of such a creature, but as a rule they are too distant, too blurry, or too dark. Such obstacles are no deterrent to the determined. Expeditions to find the Mokèlé-mbèmbé have come home with photos of footprints and super-sized trails through the flora.
There is a long history of people encountering the Mokèlé-mbèmbé, including:
- 1776 – French priest Abbé Lievain Bonaventure Proyart described the natural history of the Congo Basin of Africa. He wrote about a creature “which was not seen but which must have been monstrous: the marks of the claws were noted on the ground, and these formed a print about three feet in circumference.”
Photo of Mokèlé-mbèmbé in the distance. - 1909 – Naturalist Carl Hagenbeck recounted how two separate individuals: a German named Hans Schomburgh and an English hunter, told him about a “huge monster, half elephant, half dragon,” which lived in the Congo swamps.
- 1980 – An expedition mounted by engineer Herman Regusters and his wife Kia managed to make its way to Lake Tele, where they heard the growls and roars of an unknown creature. They also claimed to have photographed Mokèlé-mbèmbé in the lake, as well as watching it walk on land through the brush. According to Regusters, the creature they saw was 30-35 feet long.
- 1983 – A Congolese expedition led by Marcellin Agnagna, a zoologist from the Brazzaville Zoo, arrived to Lake Tele. Agnagna claimed to have seen the beast some 275 meters out in the lake. The animal held its thin, reddish head – which had crocodile-looking, oval eyes and a thin nose – on a height of 90 cm and looked from side to side, almost as if it was watching him. According to Agnagna, the animal was a reptile, though not a crocodile, nor a python or a freshwater turtle.
- 1987 – A piece of blurry video footage filmed by a Japanese film crew supposedly showing the creature in Lake Tele remains disputable evidence of the animal’s existence. The film is indistinct and grainy, possibly just showing two men in a boat with one of them standing upright in the front of the vessel, as is common in Africa. This has been interpreted as a head and neck, but this interpretation of the videotape is purely speculative at best.
- 2000 – Cameroon, Boumba River, Two Congolese security guards spotted a Mokèlé-mbèmbé in the water.
Though there is no conclusive evidence that the Mokèlé-mbèmbé are loitering in the lakes and swamps of the Congo, there are enough hints to make one wonder. Personally, I think it would be keen if such a monster were still out there. Improbable as it is that a beast of such dimension could elude being caught on film for so long, it isn’t impossible. New species are still being cataloged in Africa—and other parts of the world—though none quite so big.
© 2005 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/retired/the-tracks-of-the-mokl-mbmb/
Since you enjoyed our work enough to print it out, and read it clear to the end, would you consider donating a few dollars at https://www.damninteresting.com/donate ?
Maybe this is what’s terrorizing the castaways on LOST.
Ever since I first heard about this critter many years ago I imagined that a significantly smaller version of a sauropod could easilly elude detection in the jungles of Africa, and if climatological assumptions about the dinosaur era are correct, it seems the most logical place to find such animals. It may just be that the beastie’s size has been exaggerated.
I have always wondered about the longevity of elusive creatures such as Nessie, Bigfoot,Mokele-mbembe, etc. It would stand to reason, barring extaordinary lifespans, that there must be at least a breeding population. If that is the case, the number of creatures should be large enough to make sightings and other evidence far more abundant than the occasional footprint or grainy photograph. That being said, it would be soooo cool if they were all really out there!
TDavis said: “I have always wondered about the longevity of elusive creatures such as Nessie, Bigfoot,Mokele-mbembe, etc. It would stand to reason, barring extaordinary lifespans, that there must be at least a breeding population. If that is the case, the number of creatures should be large enough to make sightings and other evidence far more abundant than the occasional footprint or grainy photograph. That being said, it would be soooo cool if they were all really out there!”
That is precisely why I stopped believing in Bigfoot and Nessie(that was a hard one to let go) years ago. For a large enough Sasquatch population to exist in the US and still be unfound is very unlikely, and unless Nessie is a water breather, and not the air breather she is supposed to be, there is no way for it to still be undocumented. But in the jungles of Africa, assuming an animal no larger than, say, a rhino or hippo, it is quite plausible. IMHO, of course. ;-)
A quick look at a rhino or crocodile and one realizes that a surviving dinosaur species is really not far fetched. While it is unfortunate that the extinction list keeps growing; it is always wonderful to see the “new species list” grow as well. Here’s to the ongoing search!
Alex: “Maybe this is what’s terrorizing the castaways on LOST.”
Lost is in hawaii, i do believe though that if there are pre historic creatures to be found, it would probably happen around here (Africa)
we are QUITE pre historic around here :)
another big foot, another little surprise
New species are still being cataloged in Africa—and other parts of the world—though none quite so big.
Well, it’s still not as big as the bloop. We haven’t found that one either. https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=517
Just in case anyone was wondering about the pronunciation as much as I was, it is apparently “moe-kay-la-em-bem-bay”. (The period goes on the inside or the outside of the quotes?)
Just in case anyone was wondering about the pronunciation as much as I was, it is apparently “moe-kay-la-em-bem-bay.” (Never mind, I figured it out for myself.)
Of course it isn’t (though neither of your examples is all that related to dinosaurs). There are all kinds of surviving dinosaur species. I have one in a cage in my living room.
Depends on where you’re from. Brits put the punctuation outside the quotes, Americans put it inside.
“There are crypozoologists in the world who would say that it/they are real living dinosaurs of the sauropod family still roaming the earth.”
I think the term is “cryptozoologists,” according to most references I’ve seen.
is it just me or is there nothing in the photo labelled ‘Photo of Mokèlé-mbèmbé in the distance’
Redmond O’Hanlon wrote extensively about Mokele Mbembe in his book “No Mercy”, in which he travels to Lake Tele on foot (best travel book you’ll ever read). He pretty much completely debunks Mokele Mbembe’s (phsyical) existance.
While in the middle of Lake Tele, he notices the water is only about 4 feet deep until it reaches thick, almost inpenetrable muck. Meaning that if Mokele Mbembe is swimming around in there, he is very flat and oddly-shaped.
The “mysterious howling noises” are attributed to the sounds of monkeys – their voices echo across the lake. Being that Lake Tele is the only area of open space for hundreds of miles where the sound could actually echo, few recognize the sound.
Lake Tele is a seasonal home to all manners of enormous pythons, commonly seen in and around the water. Much of the “huge figures” seen in the lake are likely pythons swimming across.
Things are commonly attributed to superstition rather than science in the Congo – hence the common idea that there really is a monster living in there. People in the Congo believe in all manners of spirits, black magic, and unseen forces. A dinosaur in a lake in an unpopulated area of the jungle hundreds of miles from anything isn’t very far fetched by Congo standards.
Most of all, at one point in the book, Redmond asks two of his (guides? laborers? porters?) if Mokele Mbembe exists, to which they laugh in his face. They explain that Marcellin Agagna (the Congolese scientist who has taken all the blurry photos of Mokele Mbembe and led most of the expeditions to Lake Tele) perpetuates the story to “lure dumb white men like yourself out here for lots of money”. Mokele Mbembe, they say, is a spiritual creature that exists in their minds, not in the physical world.
Don’t take any paranormal stories from Africa too seriously, they’re a dime a dozen.