Fascination for freaks

The Internet is a great breeding ground for mythical phenomena. Allowing people to pool their collective histrionics about semi-certain sightings of half-imagined creatures has allowed a kind of mass online hysteria to persist.

Everyone who has ever seen a strange blob floating in the sea, or a misshapen cloud, or had the prickling sensation of goose bumps travelling up their spine at the rustling of some unknown entity in the nearby shrubbery, can now use the Internet to research the possible causes of their experience. Once they have allocated a culprit to their sensory disturbance, they can use their own experience to fan the flames of conviction surrounding that particular myth or legend.

I have taken the liberty of putting together a couple of the best examples of myths that have taken shape online.

We`ve all heard of the Bigfoot or the Yeti, America and Tibet`s respective versions of a giant wild man. Various footprints, some of them proven hoaxes, some of them not, have peppered media reports for years. Blurred photographs can be found at any number of sites, as can plenty of reports of "actual" sightings.

Blurred photographs can be found at any number of sites, as can plenty of reports of "actual" sightings.

Georgina Guedes, editor, Brainstorm

But the strangest story of these ape-like creatures has to be that of Zana the Alma. Almas were the reputed wild men of the western Caucauses region of Abkhazia (if that doesn`t sound like something someone made up, I don`t know what does). In the mid-1800s, a female of their number was apparently captured, named Zana, and integrated into society. She was covered in fur, and had a flat nose, and showed feats of outstanding strength. She was also reportedly a bit of a boozehound, and her predilection for the bottle resulted in a number of pregnancies after encounters with a variety of different local men.

Unfortunately, her first few offspring died when she tried to wash them in the nearby freezing river, but subsequent children were taken from her and raised by townspeople. Their burly, athletic descendents can still be visited in the region today.

In 1966, sightings of a giant beast, standing over seven feet tall, with giant glowing red eyes and no discernible head, began in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The number of sightings and reliability of the locals who observed the phenomenon led to a degree of conviction in the fact that something strange was happening in the area. Of course, the number of sightings also resulted in a raised town-wide awareness, and many owl sightings were blown out of proportion by more highly-strung residents, but these did not serve to dilute the conviction that something "spooky" was going on.

The townspeople erupted into a gaggle of reports of strange lights, men in black, strange voices, and hundreds of sightings of the Mothman creature. The area, also unfortunate enough to be the target of a Native American curse, eventually saw the tragic collapse of a bridge linking Point Pleasant to Ohio. Dozens of cars plunged into the river and 46 people were killed. After the tragedy, Mothman was never seen again.

With an abundance of uncharted depths, the ocean remains a credible home to those creatures intent on teasing seafarers with only the occasional sighting of a flipper or curved neck. Every time a mass of blubber washes up on a shore somewhere, local biologists flock to the scene, like ants to a picnic, to try to finally prove the existence of a giant squid, shark, octopus or even completely new species.

While scientists are pretty determined that giant squid of some description do exist, the creatures remain coquettish, and little evidence supports claims that they can grow up to 30m. Many conclusions have been drawn from giant sucker marks that have been found on whales, which are frequently depicted in death struggles with this behemoth, but as yet, despite intensive investigations, not a single massive specimen has been uncovered.

Which is kind of disappointing, I think. If the Internet is to be believed, there are thousands of these things floating around beneath the surface of our oceans. And scientists are out there doing their best to turn them up. If we can put a man on the moon, why can`t we get a bit of calamari to come out of hiding? I guess if the world was as fascinating a place as the Internet makes it out to be, we`d never spend any time on the Internet.