Monsters You Never Heard Of by Daniel Cohen Read Free Book Online

beast jumped at him. He drew his hunting knife and tried to stab it, but the creature's scales were so thick that the blade would barely penetrate. After a couple of attacks the tazelworm retreated into a hole in the ground. The stunned hunter was not able to find it again.
    An Austrian schoolteacher was doing a little mountain climbing in April, 1929. He stopped for a moment to rest and saw what he called a "snake-like animal" sprawled out on the ground.
    "It did not move," he said, "but kept staring at me with its remarkably large eyes. I know every one of our animals at first glance and knew that I faced one that is unknown to science, the tazelworm. Excited, joyful, but at the same time somewhat fearful, I tried to grab the animal but I was too late."
    For a rather stumpy looking animal, the tazelworm moved with remarkable speed. It disappeared down a hole in the ground. The disappointed schoolteacher remarked, "I am certain that it was not my imagination that led me see the animal, but that I observed with a clear head."
    So another chance to prove the existence of the tazelworm skipped or slithered away. In 1934, a Swiss photographer said he snapped a picture of the beast. The picture was published in the newspapers, but frankly it looks phony.
    The animal has been so hard to catch that there are many skeptics who say that it does not exist at all. They say that perhaps the people are seeing something else. One suggestion was that people might be seeing a badger that had some kind of skin condition that made it hairless and scaly looking. Badgers live in holes in the ground. They have very short legs, and can make hissing sounds. Usually badgers hide, but they can become very aggressive when they think they are being threatened.
    Nonsense, say the witnesses. They know the difference between a strange-looking lizard and a bald badger.
    So the argument goes on. It will go on until someone actually catches a tazelworm, or until no one reports seeing a tazelworm for so many years that people forget about it.
    The same kind of argument goes on about other monsters as well.

CHAPTER 11

    THE INVISIBLE KILLERS

    Is someone or something going around the country killing cows and sheep, and then cutting them up?
    There are a lot of people who think so.
    The so-called cattle mutilation mystery is one of the goriest, and most discussed, mysteries in America today. There have been several conferences on the subject. There is an organization devoted to solving it. There is even a magazine about the cattle mutilation mystery.
    Current interest in the subject began in 1974 in Nebraska and South Dakota. Ranchers would find some of their cattle dead on the range. There was no obvious cause of death. Worse yet, parts of the animal might be missing. There were no footprints or other evidence to hint at what had happened or why.
    There was a real panic on the ranches. Ranchers began patrolling their ranges at night with guns. They wanted to catch whoever or whatever was responsible. They never caught anything; they never even saw anything.
    The police were called in. So were veterinarians. Some veterinarians said that there was really no mystery at all. The cattle, they said, had died natural deaths. Cattle, like other living things, die for a variety of reasons. There was no evidence they had been specially killed. What about the mutilations'? The veterinarians said that small predatory animals like weasels might have gotten to the dead animals. These animals were so small and light that they would leave no footprints.
    Cattle rustlers might also account for some of the deaths. Most people think that cattle rustling is only a part of the Old West. This isn't true. With the price of beef as high as it is, stealing cattle has become a very profitable business.
    Still another possibility is that some of the ranchers might be killing or mutilating their own cattle. They might do this for the insurance money. Insurance companies will pay for