Forests and Folklore…Joshua’s Pond

A view of Joshua’s Pond last night.

This weekend I took long walks, and a few glorious swims wandering the trails around Micah and Joshua’s pond. This land isn’t just a quiet, beautiful getaway it’s also rich with history and lore. 

The ponds were carved out roughly 18,000 years ago by retreating glaciers. While Micah’s Pond is an untouched kettle pond, Joshua’s Pond is fed by clean, cold underground springs and considered the cleanest ponds in the region. 

Long before European settled the land, it was the homelands of the Wampanoag people, specifically the Cotochese tribe. 

When the Europeans came so did the legend of Liza Tower Hill. Born Elizabeth Lewis in 1711, lore has it that she was raised”wild” and independent on the outskirts of Barnstable, she eventually married William Blatchford and built a home deep in woods near the ponds. Because she lived far from the village people and had knowledge of the forest,  townspeople began fearing her. As the rumors grew,  Liza was no longer seen as a fiercely independent woman, she was said to be a witch. Anything going wrong in the area from a missing traveler, to failed crops were blamed on her. Soon tales of travelers witnessing her dancing barefoot upon the glassy surface of the forest ponds at night, surrounded by flickering flames, while bedeviled fish swam beneath her feet and strange animals gathered at the shoreline were being spread. Centuries after her passing in 1790, her name and lore still remains, the road you take to Joshua’s Pond is named Tower Hill Road after Liza a true woman of the woods.

And finally the paths have just a little more history for you. The Kennedy Family once used these trails to run their horses. These trails have become my favorite of the area, and nothing beats a swim in a pristine quiet pond. The days like I had this weekend , when you get the woods to yourself are truly heaven for the soul…

Have a great Sunday evening everyone!

In Search of Bigfoot In Mashpee…

I spent two beautiful days wandering in the woods of Mashpee Ma in the area this post had described. I sadly didn’t see or hear a small Bigfoot. This post was older and the area has been built up, but I could definitely see how it might have been very creepy before that..

Here is this original post:

“A lot of us had had “run-ins” with a local wildman, a sort of mini-bigfoot that lived somewhere in the woods between where the Quashnett Valley golf course recently built a few new neighborhoods, and the Bingham place near 151. We were convinced it would eat our dogs if it could catch them, and it would chase us through the woods. When it would “talk” at us, it sounded like it was coughing.”

Later he came back to his post to add this. So I went to this area next and spent some time.

“We went a bit further down Mashpee Neck and pulled into the main entrance of the Woodlands. I got out the car, went down one of the paths and started yelling out things to provoke it. Finally I got a loud grunt yelled back at me that sounded like it was deep in the woods. It sent chills down my spine and I ran like a girl back into the car.”

I have put messages out to try to get more information, hopefully I get a reply. 

To watch the video of the area you can see it here:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdZ0wInix66/?stkn=aXF6cnl5d3ZyNjU0

A Visit to Iron Mill Hill…

Image of Cumberlandite on Iron Mill Hill

I was out for a stroll in Cumberland RI to grab some Cumberlandite for the sister and friend. Cumberlandite is a rare igneous rock made up of a high concentration of iron and titanium, making it magnetic.

Named the official state rock back in 1966, its primary home is a small 4-acre deposit at Iron Mine Hill. 

The color is a dark brown to solid black with white or greenich speckles. 

Because of its color and it being slightly magnetic some believed it was actually from a meteorite.

The local indigenous tribes, revered the stones as sacred and used it to fashion tools.

Back during the Revolutionary War the settlers attempted to cast cannonballs from it but the metal composition proved too weak and the cannons infamously cracked or exploded. Often called the cannonball debacle!

At one time it was used to create the Iron Mine Railroad, which operated for less than ten years to transport the mined Cumberlandite.

Now There is Two of Them! A new Nessie Sighting Reported…


Eoin Fagan Nessie sighting from the web cam

new Nessie sighting was made on the afternoon of July 9 by Eoin Fagan, who spied unusual moving objects submerging on the Visit Inverness Loch Ness webcam at Shoreland Lodges.

Commenting on the sighting, which was made at 3.26pm, the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register said: “He said that one large singular object emerged from the water of Loch Ness way out in the loch and at the same time a sailing boat was hugging the northern shore heading north.

“A second large object emerged from the water a minute later behind the first one. The first one lay motionless, then the second object moved towards it and passed by close to it heading north, then the motionless object moved north in the same direction.”

You can read the rest of article from the Inverness Courier here:

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/loch-ness-monster-sightings-equal-entire-2025-total-after-441446/

You can see the web cam video in its entirety here:

https://youtu.be/3lfiHO-Ok-o?is=hvyO76OWi1y8G4C9

Have a great Tuesday!

Meanwhile 1.4 MILLION YEARS AGO… A Paranthropus boisei Takes a Walk

Approximately 1.43-million-year-old hominin footprint from Koobi Fora, Kenya. Image Credit: Kevin G. Hatala.

Paranthropus Boisei went for a walk over a million years ago left more than just a footprint…

One of the large, 1.4-million-year-old footprints that the team excavated. A 6-inch (~15 cm) ruler is shown for scale. Image Credit: Kay Behrensmeyer.

Scientists recently made a huge discovery about our past. A new analysis of a 1.4-million-year-old fossilized footprints in Kenya has completely rewritten what we know about our ancient human cousin.

Paranthropus boisei was previously assumed to be a quite small hominid as only skulls and jaw bones had been collected, but these tracks revealed they stand up to 5’11” and weighed approximately 165 lbs.


Most Paranthropus boisei fossils are skulls. By Matt Celeskey from Albuquerque – Australopithecus boisei, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32845963

Beyond their size, the tracks offered scientists a rare window into their ancient behavior. A group of eight adult males were found traveling together, suggesting a complex social structure where competing males cooperated for the sake of group safety. Since most fossils from this species were just skulls, these footprints provided an incredible snapshot of how they actually lived and moved…

You can read the full study published in the journal PNAS here.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2530996123

And more from the article at The Debrief here.

https://thedebrief.org/the-sizes-of-the-footprints-indicate-human-like-body-sizes-origin-of-1-4-million-year-old-fossilized-footprints-stuns-scientists/

Winged Being Sighting in Mexico…

The incident took place on July 20, 1994. A ranch worker was heading home for a meal around 11:00 a.m., taking his usual route that passed near the cemetery, unaware of what fate had in store for him further along the path. He was walking calmly when, at first paying it little mind, he glimpsed a figure emerging from a converging trail about 50 meters away. Initially, he thought it was another person, but as he drew closer, he was astonished to see a half-human, half-bird being; the creature showed neither surprise nor agitation at the worker’s presence. The strange being continued walking along the same path, and upon reaching an intersection, it seemed to puff itself up, spread its enormous wings, and turn. By the time the worker reached the intersection, the being was already about a kilometer away, walking on until it disappeared from sight around the bends of the desolate landscape.

On July 25, 1994, the being was spotted again, this time by a woman wandering through the cemetery. We received a report of this new sighting and decided to take immediate action, organizing an expedition to investigate the strange winged being….

Full article here;

http://inexplicata.blogspot.com/2026/07/mexico-investigation-into-strange_01524931589.html

A Study of the Shipton Footprint…

W. Tschernezky from the Zoology Department of Queen Mary College, published an article for Nature in 1960, based on Shipton’s snowman print. He created a model from the picture of the print and was then able to use the model to recreate the same print in the snow.
After his study of the print he determined the “Snowman was a very huge, heavily built bipedal primate, most probably of a similar type to the fossil of Gigantopithecus.”

What are your thoughts on Shipton snowman print?

Have a great Monday…

The Glitch That Sparked a NASA Conspiracy…Again 

Well here we go again..,

For some of us space enthusiasts, this launch of the Artemis II was a historic milestone, the first time humans have returned to the moon’s vicinity in over 50 years. I know I was excited to watch the launch, and also praying everything would go off without a hitch.

However, for some of the internet, a series of technical glitches in the live broadcast had become “proof” of yet another hoax.

The conspiracy began following a live interview with the crew. Viewers noticed strange distortions flickering across the “zero-gravity indicator”, an adorable plush toy created by Lucas Ye, A San Francisco Bay Area second-grader who won a competition for his “moon mascot ”. On social media, the distortions were labeled as a “green screen failures” but In reality, the “glitch” was just a byproduct of modern day broadcasting. To make live feeds more informative, networks use chromakey overlays to digitally layer text and graphics over the footage. When the signal fluctuated, these digital layers momentarily flickered, creating the illusion that the background was being “faked”.  Filmed in a Hollywood studio like some believe the 1969 Apollo II mission to the moon was only this trip had the “waving flag” dilemma. 

For me? I didn’t notice that at the time, but I just assume “glitches” and pauses in audio are expected given that they are the distance away that they are. Our technology has issues just home in our home let alone in space. 

But it is humorous that here we are with a moon expedition again, and once again the conspiracy theorists are ready for it. 

In the current climate of this country I personally welcomed the distraction, something most of us could come together for.  And it also had a Canadian Astronaut with a Sasquatch on his patch, making it a first for a cryptid in space! 

Congratulations to the astronauts of the Artemis II for this historic trip to the dark side of the moon. 

Have a great Wednesday everyone..

Photo credit: NASA

The Loch Ness Horror (1981)

The Loch Ness Horror, or as I like to call it, what the f*** am I watching…was my movie choice on this rainy day today. I stumbled on to it through YouTube as it rolled into this while watching some different cryptid documentaries.

This movie was another gem from Larry Buchanan, (who also brought us Mars Needs Women and the Curse of the Swamp Creature) and starring Sandy Kenyon, Miki MacKenzie, Barry Buchanan and Eric Scott. The plot of the film, which I’ll let Wikipedia describe because it’s to insane is:

“The Loch Ness Monster is feeding on unsuspecting swimmers and eventually goes on a killing spree. There are three subplots: the monster’s egg that is ready to hatch, a scientist who wants to capture the beast, and a mysterious sunken Nazi bomber plane which the military is trying to cover up.”

The movie which was filmed in Lake Tahoe California, and not in fact on Loch Ness, starts with two men out on the lake looking for Nessie and finding her egg, Nessie of course didn’t really approve of this idea so she pops up and attacks like Godzilla with a vengeance. Let’s just say only one man makes it to shore, and he has escaped with her egg. Which maybe wasn’t the best idea as you can imagine. And this film does just happens to mention in the beginning that Nessie can also move around on dry land, that should have alerted me to what was to come.

The script was something special in itself, the young couple that is the “yankee” that came over to look for Nessie and a Scottish local girl was just crazy. The lead man kept saying over and over that he’d like to see the girl in a skirt. I have no idea why this had to be said over and over but if this is Buchanan’s attempt at flirting, it just comes off creepy. It would have been creepy in 1981 too!

The Loch Ness Monster is a puppet with the large head usually on a pole, and when she attacks the actors have to stand there patiently and not move while she slowly attacks. I just had to take a little recording so you could get the full idea of what I’m saying. And also because if I had to sit through this someone else should too!

But despite all this insanity I just laid out for you, I’m still going to recommend this movie to you if you love cryptid movies and/or cheesy B-movies. It was still a ridiculous amusement just begging for Riff Tracks to take it on. So pop some popcorn, grab a friend and just enjoy.

Have a great Sunday evening everyone…

For your viewing pleasure:

Loch Ness Horror full film