Cryptozoology: The First Documented Case?

From Scott Corrales UFO DIgest Latin America Correspondent

Any discipline worth its salt has a more or less well defined point of departure, based upon a specific event or the presence of a given researcher or any other reason. This situation can be hard to pin down at times, as can be the case with cryptozoology, where there is no definite date that marks the start of this science. The first photo of Nessie, perhaps? Or the publication of the first book by Heuvelmans? Each individual probably has a starting point in his or her own head.

It is not our intention to kick off a debate on the subject, which we find absurd. What we want to show is that if there has indeed been a starting point with regard to the study of unknown animals, it occurred in an earlier age. A cryptozoological prehistory, so to speak, in which spectacular cases involving strange animals occurred, even if there were no researchers to disseminate the phenomenon explicitly.

And apropos of this, we have perhaps come across what may be the first documented cryptozoological case in the history of Spain. Our reporter of the age is none other than Roman author and scientist Gaius Plinius Cecilius Secundus (23-79 B.C.E.) better known as Pliny the Elder. His vast work Historia Naturalis, which collects all of the knowledge of his age with regard to zoology, botany and other sciences in 37 volumes, mentions the case of a “polyp” that killed off all the fish in the wells of Carteia, a city adjacent to modern San Roque, in Cadiz, where the salted meat and fish works of the time were housed.

[Click here to read full article]