Walking with A Dinosaur

Author: Rhianna Bogard

Dinosaurs: animals that fuel the imaginations of millions of people all around the world. The obsession with dinosaurs even inspires pop-culture with movie such as the Jurassic Park series or urban legends like the Loch Ness Monster. There is even a rumor that a dinosaur still lives in the Congo River Basin called the Mokele-Mbembe. The Mokele-Mbembe which most popularly translates from Lingala to “the one who stops the flow of the river” is a supposed sauropod (formerly known as brontosauruses) that roams Africa.

The rumored dinosaur is said to live, hunt, and reproduce in or around the Congo River Basin, more specifically Lake Tele, located in the Republic of Congo. With color ranging from a red based brown to grey, these creatures are said to be between the size of a Hippopotamus to an Elephant with a reported length of anywhere from 16 to 32 feet (5 to 10 meters). They are said to create burrows along the river bank where they would sleep, hide or raise young. According to Unexplained Mysteries the Mokele-Mbembe are quiet creatures that spend a lot of time in the water. There are reports that the Mokele-Mbembe follows a plant-based diet, however, they are extremely territorial and will kill trespassers, specifically hippopotamuses, on site.

Heavy speculation surrounds whether the Mokele-Mbembe is real especially with such lack of definitive evidence. Most believers claim that the size of the Congo River Basin, over 1.5 million miles, is the main reason for such lack of evidence. Many theories circulate about the origins of the rumor of the Mokele-Mbembe including one which states the creature is a ghost spirit. Authors of Abominable Science!: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero claim that the Mokele-Mbembe and the rumors surrounding it have been pushed by the wide spread popularity of dinosaurs and fanatics from the creationist movement. The large popularity of dinosaurs during the early 20th century gave life to the first wide spread rumors about the cryptid and since the hype about dinosaurs has yet to die down the rumor thrived. It still inspires people to go searching for the creature today.

The reality of an animal this size living and thriving, is that they would need a large breeding population to be sustained. Even though the Congo River Basin is huge with the numbers needed to sustain the population as well as size of the animal there is an extremely slim to none chance humans would not have found them by now. The existence and searches for this creature is heavily supported by creationist. The existence of the Mokele-Mbembe would greatly support their ideals that man walked with the dinosaurs and evolution didn’t happen. Many searches for the creature have been led by creationist and therefore may not be purely for scientific research. All in all, with no sustainable evidence of any kind, it is hard to believe the Mokele-Mbembe is out there. However, maybe just maybe there is a dinosaur hiding from the world in the vast jungle, keeping the hopes and dreams of children everywhere alive.

Work Cited      
 Loxton, Daniel, and Donald R. Prothero. “Abominable Science! : Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and  Other Famous Cryptids.” Pp.260-295. Academic Search Premier. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=d49e0785-932b-4535-a869d2d8a539f9e4%40sessionmgr4008&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN =619706&db=nlebk     

Corbell 2025, Lorieli.”Stevens dinosaur” Youtube.com, 2 Mar. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-0Tj1OEm8M       

“Painting of Mokele-Mbembe.” Mingren,wu. “Mokele-mbembe: A Legendary Water-Dwelling Creature of the Congo River.” Ancient Origins, 18 Feb. 2016, https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/mokele-mbembe-legendary-water-dwelling-creature-congo-river-005375   

Unexplained Mysteries. “The Mokele Mbembe: A Real-Life Dinosaur Living in The Congo?” Youtube.com, 26 Jul 2018.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS6hsrxaZRM.     

Links for further research   
Mokele-Mbembe: the search for a living dinosaur  
https://www.livescience.com/38871-mokele-mbembe.html.     
The source is an online article which mentions the origins of the Mokele-Mbembe and provides detailed information about the modern searches for this creature 

 MOKELE MBEMBE A SHORT HISTORY. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6CatFN3mv4.   
This video provides an in-depth history of the Mokele-Mbembe.     

Mokele Mbembe!   
http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=bf3a93f3-c6ac-4433-bc8abfc818614fcb%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN= 79787557&db=aph. 
This source is an article that dives into the existence of the Mokele Mbembe.   

The Ghost Town of Kolmanskop

Author: Kelsey Hattaway

Kolmanskop, Namibia, from National Geographic

Looking at this photograph, one may be curious as to where this interesting location is, and how it ended up this way. This is the deserted ghost town of Kolmanskop. Kolmanskop is a town located in Southern Namibia . It is accepted as one of the creepiest ghost towns in the world, and is said to be haunted.

             Kolmanskop was once a very prosperous diamond mine. In 1908, Zacharias Lewala discovered a “glimmering stone in the sand” (Kolmanskop). This glimmering stone was actually a diamond. The discovery of diamonds led to a “diamond boom,” and many German miners flocked to the area to seek their fortune (Martin). Many miners’ families moved there, which helped to greatly develop the town. Houses, hotels, businesses, hospitals, schools, and even theaters were built.

            However, when the value of diamonds slowly began to decrease, so did the miners. They left the area one by one, until the town was completely abandoned in 1954. The once booming, profitable town transitioned quickly into a creepy, barren ghost town. Being in the desert, buildings started to completely fill with sand. Every room now has sand pouring through the doorways, halfway filling the entire building. Soon the buildings may be buried entirely (McLachlan). The desert is forcefully overtaking the whole city (Martin).

            It is an eerie site, which is now a very popular tourist attraction. Southern Africa has received a significant escalation of tourists in these past few years, solely because of Kolmanskop. Perhaps one of the reasons this ghost town is one of the creepiest and most popular in the world, may be because of how recently it was abandoned- just a little under sixty years ago (McLaughlan). Although the buildings have been halfway filled with sand for the past sixty years, the desert environment has proven to well-preserve the area (McLaughlan). No rain or natural disasters can damage the buildings. One thing is for sure: Kolmanskop, Namibia is an intriguing location. Some people find the location to be more interesting than creepy. Justin Delaney is one of these, a publisher onto a travel website, who claims “The sight of a decaying German town in the shifting sands of the Namib desert is anachronistically delightful” (Delaney). This seems like an accurate way to describe the present state of Kolmanskop, Namibia. So if you would like to take a trip to one of the world’s creepiest but yet beautiful ghost towns, I suggest Kolmanskop!

Dunes reclaim a house in Kolmanskop

Works Cited:

“Kolmanskop.” The Basement Geographer. N.p. 07 Feb. 2011. Web. 13 Oct. 2013.

“Kolmanskop Ghost Town Tour.” The Cardboard Box. Cardboard Box Travel Shop, n.d.     Web. 13 Oct. 2013.

AM. “Kolmanskop Slideshow.” Online video clip. Trip Advisor.com. Trip Advisor, n.d.        Web. 18 Oct. 2013.

Delaney, Justin. “The World’s Ten Creepiest Abandoned Cities.” Gadling.com. AOL, 27     Apr. 2011. Web. 13 Oct. 2013.

Gray, Chris. Kolmanskop, Namibia. 2009. National Geographic, New York.             Nationalgeographic.com. Web. 18 Oct. 2013.

MagicOlf. Kolmanskop Ghost Town. 2003. Flickr.com. Web. 18 Oct. 2013.

Martin, Grant. “New Photos from Kolmanskop, Namibia’s Diamond Ghost Town.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 03 Sept. 2013. Web. 10. Oct. 2013.

McLachlan, Sean. “Kolmanskop: Namibia’s Eerie Ghost Town.” Gadling.com. AOL, 17       May 2012. Web. 10. Oct. 2013.

Links for Further Research:

http://www.yourghoststories.com/ghost-stories-countries.php?country=NA&page=1

The link above directs you to ghost stories published by writers that supposedly occurred in Kolmanskop, Namibia.

RoomsForAfrica. “Kolmanskop Ghost Town Near Luderitz.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 23 Aug. 2010. Web. 13 Oct. 2013.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jL4zUBK-dk

The link above is a YouTube video explaining the history of Kolmanskop, included with a slideshow of pictures.

The King is Alive. Dir. Kristian Levring. Perf. Miles Anderson, Romane Bohringer, David Bradley. Nordisk Film, 2000. Film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208911/

The above link is a movie that was filmed entirely in the town of Kolmanskop, Namibia.

Mokele-Mbembe

Author: Lauren Faircloth

by  Nik Petsev, 2002

Mokele-mbembe is Lingala , and can mean a variety of things. The word is commonly defined as "one that stops the flow of rivers," but can also mean "one who eats the tops of palm trees," "monstrous animal," or even "half-God, half-beast." Mokele-mbembe is also used as a generic term to refer to other animals like Emela-ntouka, Mbielu-mbielu-mbielu, and Nguma-monene. Mokele-mbembe has been described as an animal with a long neck, tail, and rounded shaped tracks with three claws. The closest known animal that has these characteristics is a Sauropod dinosaur. 

The body size of each specimen is said to be somewhere between the size of a hippopotamus and an elephant. Its length is reportedly between 16 to 32 feet (5 to 10 meters). The length of the neck, according to various descriptions, is between 5 to 10 feet (1.6 to 3.3 meters). The length of the tail is somewhere between 5 to 10 feet as well.

             The pygmies, natives of the Likouala Swamp region, report that the essential diet of Mokele-Mbembe consists primarily of the Malombo plant. Since it only eats plants, it is classified as an herbivore. The Malombo plant actually describes two plants: Landolphia mannii and Landolphia owariensis.

Mokele-mbembe lives in the pools and swamps adjacent to the rivers of the Likouala swamp region of The People's Republic of Congo on the continent of Africa. It is said to use the lakes as a crossing path to go from one river to another. Mokele-Mbembe lives underwater most of the time except when it eats or travels to other parts of the swamp. It has been reported that it does not like hippopotamuses and will kill them on sight, though it does not eat them. According to the pygmies, Hippopotamuses cannot be found where Mokele-Mbembe lives.

            Expeditions in search of the mokele-mbembe primarily began in the 1880s. In 1913, a German explorer reported stories of, what the natives called, "Mokele-mbembe," which he had heard while in the Congo. Hearing the reports, a few scientists noticed that the descriptions of the creatures made them sound much like sauropod dinosaurs. Sauropods were the giants of the dinosaurs world, averaging about 70 feet (21 meters) long and standing 12-15 feet (3.7 to 4.8 m) tall at the hips.

In 1932, a British scientist, exploring near the Likouala region where the creatures are said to live, came across some abnormally huge footprints. Later, when he went down one of the rivers in a canoe, he heard strange sounds, but did not see anything. Coincidentally, that same year the world famous zoologist and biologist, Ivan T. Sanderson, along with animal-trader Gerald Russel, were paddling up the Mainyu River in the heart of western Africa when, according to Sanderson's report:

"The most terrifying sound I have ever heard, which sounded like an on-coming earthquake or an exploding, nearby robot, suddenly greeted us from a large underwater cave."

While the water of the river was boiling and foaming directly in front of their canoe, a “darkish, shining lizard-like head” suddenly rose from the dark water. They described the head as nearly the size of the head of a fully grown hippo, which sat on a thick, swan-like neck. The enormous neck was turned towards the two men, and for just a few seconds, although it seemed like an eternity, the monster simply stared at Sanderson and Russel. Mr. Sanderson summed up his thoughts with these words:

"I don't know what we saw, but the animal, the monster, burned itself into my retinas. It looked like something that ought to have been dead millions of years ago. As a scientist, I should have been happy, of course, but this encounter was so frightening, so nasty that I never want to see it again."

 

Works Cited:

Gibbons, William J. "In Search Of the Congo Dinosaur." In Search Of the Congo Dinosaur. ICR, July 2002. Web. 22 Oct. 2012. http://www.icr.org/article/306/

"Lingala." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2012. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lingala?s=t.

"Mokele Mbembe!." Skeptic 17.3 (2012): 63. Science Reference Center. Web. 22 Oct. 2012.

Petsev, Nick. "Cryptids - Mokele-mbembe." Cryptozoology.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2012. http://www.cryptozoology.com/cryptids/mokele.php.

"Sauropod." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2012. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sauropod?o=100505.

Wilford, John Noble. "'Dinosaur' Eludes Six-Week Search in Africa." New York Times (1923-Current file): 1. Dec 10 1981. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2008). Web. 22 Oct. 2012.

Links for further research:

Mokele-Mbembe: The Living Dinosaur

http://www.mokelembembe.com/

Articles and information compiled by Scott Norman

Was a Mokele-mbembe killed at Lake Tele?

http://www.anomalist.com/reports/mokele.html

An account of an encountering with a mokele-mbembe

'Mokele-Mbembe' The Last Dinosaur Documentary Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBZrZNy2LU8

A documentary of the search for Mokele-Mbembe from The History Channel