• Mary Anning, a working-class Englishwoman whose sharp eye and sheer physical stamina made her (in an era of gentleman geology) perhaps the greatest fossil collector of her time...found large marine reptiles whose discovery triggered a stunning upheaval of human understanding of the past.
• Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot [Philip Henry Gosse]--now widely mocked, attempt to unify the new findings of geology with his own biblical literalism by supposing that god had created the living world with built-in evidence of a past that had never existed.
• popular entertainment embraces the sea serpent: Journey to the Center of the Earth
  
  , The Lost World [Arthur Conan Doyle], The Land that Time Forgot [Edgar Rice Burroughs]
• case-sensitive Google Ngram search on "sea serpent" and "Sea Serpent"
• Mokele Mbembe creationist proponents: William Gibbons, Robert Mullin, Kent Hovind, Rory Nugent, James Powell, Paul Rockel, Milt Marcy, Peter Beach, Brian Sass,
• Journalist Elizabeth Landau put it this way: "Across human societies, variations on mythical creature stories like that of Bigfoot have persisted for thousands of years, and accounts of seeing or hearing them still abound. There may be some basic culture-based need for these fantastic tales, said Todd Disotell, professor of anthropology at New York University. // Monsters represent dark aspects of our subconscious worlds and can be metaphors for the challenges of life, said Karen Sharf, a psychotherapist in New York. // 'Some monsters are scary. Some monsters are friendly. Sometimes in movies or myths, we befriend the monster, and it's just like in our inner world: There are monsters; there are dark aspects that we have to face,' she said. // Humans also have a fascination with the divide between their species and animals, and Bigfoot bridges that gap, said John Hawkes, anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. // Believing in these creatures and following their trails in the forest is somewhat akin to an amusement park ride: They are safe ways of experiencing fear, said Jacqueline Woolley, professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin."
• Baylor Religion Survey, Gallup
• Linguist Karen Stollznow, co-host of the skeptical cryptozoology podcast MonsterTalk
• folklorist Michel Meurger, classical folklorist Adrienne Mayor, paleozoologist Darren Naish--"post-cryptid cryptozoology": a folkloristic cryptozoology that investigates animal-themed mysteries without any particular expectation of discovering new species
• "living fossils" (late-surviving descendants of groups known from fossils): birds, coelacanths, three genera of lungfish, horseshoe crabs, monoplacophoran mollusks, trigoniid bivalves, lingulid brachiopods, sharks, crocodiles, turtles
• Roy Mackal, Bernard Heuvelmans, Richard Greenwell, Ivan Sanderson, Grover Krantz, Karl Shuker = exceptions among cryptozoologists, have formal science education and training, promote scientific approaches
• psychologist Susan Clancy's experimental work with people who believe they've been abducted by space aliens
• "Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture" 2011 [sociologists Christopher Bader, F. Carson Mencken, Joseph Baker]
  • All humans are seeking enlightenment and discovery. New information helps us to reduce risk in our lives, and to make better informed decisions. Many paranormal practices (psychics, mediums, communication with the dead, astrology, etc.) are about giving people an insight into their future. Those groups not bound to conventional religious systems are freer to explore these alternative systems in order to gain information that may help them improve their lives....Since conventional religiosity is for and run by highly conventional people and provides many empirical rewards for this group, those from lower socioeconomic status groups will not gain many spiritual or conventional rewards from participating in conventional religion. Alternative belief systems can be empowering....those who are hyper-educated, or cultural elites, may condemn conventional norms of behavior as too bourgeosie."
• Association of Religion Data Archives
• Scholars and scientists like Darren Naish, Leigh Van Valen, Christine Janis, Colin Groves, and Adrienne Mayor not only regularly publish mainstream academic papers, but also occasionally write articles on topics of interest to cryptozoologists...These scientists publish their papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and their work exhibits the appropriate degree of skepticism and caution.
• 18 percent of the United States population still believes that the sun revolves around Earth. Not all for religious reasons.
• Gerald Durrell
• Carl Hagenbeck developed lower-stress exotic animal-training techniques, in 1876 patented a bar-less zoo enclosure. "Carl Hagenbeck's Tierpark and Modern Zoological Gardens," Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History 9, no 4. 1980
• Elizabeth Landau, "Why Do We Need to Look for Bigfoot?" http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-21/health/bigfoot.psychology.monsters_1_bigfoot-goat-sucker-monsters?_s=PM:HEALTH
• thearda.com/includes/crosstabs.asp?file+BRS2005&v=390&v2=377&p=2&s=on
• Brian Regal, "Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads, and Cryptozoology" 2011
• John Napier, "Bigfoot: The Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality" 1973
• cryptomundo.com
• noanswersingenesis.org.au
• "The Dissertation Kent Hovind Doesn't Want You to Read," noanswersingenesis.org.au/bartelt_dissertation_on_hovind_thesis.htm
• Journal of Cryptozoology--a new, peer-reviewed scientific journal devoted to mystery animals, karlshuker.blogspot.com/2012/02/welcome-to-journal-of-cryptozoology-new.html
• David Orr, chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2011/06/scaphognathus-crassirostris-pterosaur.html
• "Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens" 2005 Susan Clancy
• gallup.com/poll/16915/three-four-americans-believe-paranormal.aspx
• thearda.com/trend/featured/paranormal-is-the-new-normal-in-america/
• thearda.com/archive/files/analysis/BRS2005/BRS2005_VAR390_1.asp
• "Cognition and Belief in Paranormal Phenomena: Gestalt/Feature-Intensive Processing theory and Tendencies Toward ADHD, Depression, and Dissociation" Journal of Psychology 140 no 6, 2006
• Loren Coleman, "Mothman and Other Curious Encounters" 2002
• skeptic.com
• Tony Shiels, "Monstrum! A Wizard's Tale"
• idoubtit.wordpress.com
• skepticblog.org
• "Public Acceptance of Evolution," Science 313, 2006
• ncse.com/creationism/general/creationevolution-continuum
• PISA
• engineering.curiouscatblog.net/2009/09/22/neil-degrasse-tyson-scientifically-literate-see-a-different-world/
• Carl Sagan, "The Demon-Haunted world: Science as a Candle in the Dark" 1996

Terrible stuff

• "The Last Dinosaur" MonsterQuest (season 3 episode 52), YouTube
• William Gibbons, "Mokele-Mbembe: Mystery Beast of the Congo Basin" 2010
• Rory Nugent, "Drums Along the Congo: On the Trail of Mokele-Mbembe, the Last Living Dinosaur" 1993
• "Inside Story: Mullin on Mokele-Mbembe," cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/mullin-mm/
• creationgeneration.com
• Redmond O'Hanlon, "No Mercy: A Journey into the Heart of the Congo" 1998
• William Gibbons, "Was a Mokele-Mbembe Killed at Lake Tele?" anomalist.com/reports/mokele.html
• Paul Rockel, therecord.com/opinion/letters/article/318832--where-are-the-facts
• "Living Dinosaurs? Cryptozoologists and Dinosaur Hunters, Dr. William Gibbons and Milt Marcy," Divine Intervention podcast, divineintervention.typepad.com/divine_intervention/2008/03/episode-6-livin.html
• Nathan Coleman, "A Brave Biologist: Living Dinosaurs and Pterosaurs," livepterosaur.com/brave-biologist
• mokelembembe.com, livingdinos.com, icr.org/article/306/
• William Gibbons and Kent Hovind, "Claws, Jaws and Dinosaurs" 1999
• galileowaswrong.blogspot.com/p/summary.html