Have cryptozoology play a part in politics

Like it says in the title. Some specific issue related to cryptozoology becomes a political issue.

A couple of things...

This isn't meant as sci-fi, so the scenario shouldn't involve the confirmation of a cryptid's existence. IOW nothing like "Bigfoot is found alive, and the governor of Washington tries to cover it up etc".

Also, no piggybacking on the creation/evolution controversy. I say this because some creationists have recently started arguing that sea monsters are real, in order to bolster the idea that dinosaurs co-existed with humans. But the cryptozoology should be a stand-alone issue.

So something like "Kelowna Board Of Tourism protests local university professor mocking Ogopogo on You Tube" would fit the bill.

Though I think it's best to try and work from actual events which tocuhed on cryptzoology, and amplify that aspect of it. eg. "Critics mock Carter over Killer Rabbit, cryptozoologist in Georgia says such rabbits might really exist, Carter appears to endorse the view, Republicans question Carter's sanity, Reagan wins an even bigger landslide."
 
I mean I think you pretty much hit it. The most likely way is for either a U.S. candidate to reveal they believe in Bigfoot or for someone in the UK running for something to reveal the same about the Loch Ness monster and for that to become an issue on the trail.
 
There was a Letter to the Editor of the Geelong Advertiser some years ago now (I've only lived in Geelong for 15 years, so less than that) demanding that 'Panther Safe Areas' be created in Victorian National Parks to protect campers from the legendary big cats that allegedly roam various parts of Australia; descended from WW2 US military mascots and escapees from Zoos, private menageries and circus trains.

It wouldn't take much, perhaps some halfwit local Councillor or two jumping on board, leading to comment and perhaps even action from the local State and Federal members.

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Nicola Sturgeon said that she believes in the Loch Ness monster. Whether she was serious or not is another matter.

Indeed, a body funded by the Scottish Government have a plan in the event of its capture.

Hmm. It seems from this video that she was probably being faecitious(eg. saying "Everyone in Scotland knows that Nessie exists", when it's pretty obvious that many Scots don't), sort of like news anchors who announce the flight-plan of Santa Claus on Xmas Eve.

Though, not knowing much about Scotland, I wonder if refusing to deny the existence of Nessie could also be a dog-whistle to whatever number of true-believers(as opposed to those who just claim to believe it as a patriotic lark) exist in the country.

So here's a scenario(which for reasons I'll outline at the end, I don't think breaks the "no creationists" rule I laid out at the beginning)...

A creation-science textbook published in the US Bible Belt gives prominence to Sturgeon's claim to believe in Nessie. The textbook becomes the centre of a controversy over its inclusion in a school curriculum somewhere.

Word of this gets back to the UK, with reporters asking Sturgeon if she really believes that Nessie is real. It might be harder for her to answer with a whimsical "yes", when it's known that her previous approval has already been quoted in support of dangerous pseudo-scientific rubbish. But if she says "No, of course not", it could be raw meat for people who want to catch her in a contradiction, hoping that the public will assume her previous avowal of Nessie was meant literally.

And the reason I'd argue this doesn't violate my rule is that in this case, Nessie was brought up as a political issue to begin with, with the creationists playing a junior role in advancing the story, rather than it being a religious controversy which later gets politicized.
 
The American Government's Advice for Yeti Hunters, 1959

These regulations were actually first issued by the government of Nepal in 1957. The U.S. established diplomatic relations with Nepal in 1947, and the embassy had just opened in 1959, when the memo was written. The Yeti presence in a State Department document doesn’t prove that the U.S. believed in the Snowmen. Rather, by reprinting the Nepalese government’s regulations, the embassy could show Nepal that the U.S. respected its sovereignty, even in the matter of hypothetical hairy beasts.
 

Kaze

Banned
I have two theories on Loch Ness monsters:

1.
The Loch Ness Monster is the personal pet of Vivianne, the Lady of the Lake, of Arthurian Lore. She keeps a certain magic sword there in the bottom of the Loch - the Monster is the attack dog to protect it.

2.
It plys the loch only when you have enough Scotch to drink - it is the ONLY way to see it.
 
The legislatures of Vermont and New York State have passed laws protecting Champ, the Nessie like creature said to live in Lake Champlain.
 
The legislatures of Vermont and New York State have passed laws protecting Champ, the Nessie like creature said to live in Lake Champlain.
bit of a funfact, they also have a genus name lined up and waiting for if they're found to really exist: Champtanystropheus (the descriptions of Champ tend to be more like that reptile as opposed to a plesiosaur)
 
this thread is now OTL x'D:coldsweat:

Jesus Christ. And to think that when I started this thread, I worried that the premise might be a bit of a stretch.

(Though if we're getting technical here, the isse is less cryptozoology than it is porn, specifically Cockburn's rather censorious take on it. Can't say I'm overjoyed to see Democrats engaging in puritanical attacks, though I guess this is the Bible Belt).
 
TV shows on channels like Animal Planet and NATGEO where people are looking for cryptos or extinct animals are all the rage these days. Have some more of those expeditions succeed. Not necessarily the guys on Finding Bigfoot find a Sasquatch but have shows like Extinct or Alive enjoy some successes. They did apparently discover that the sub-species of leopard on Zanzibar are not extinct, have them find a few more animals on their expeditions.
 
TV shows on channels like Animal Planet and NATGEO where people are looking for cryptos or extinct animals are all the rage these days. Have some more of those expeditions succeed. Not necessarily the guys on Finding Bigfoot find a Sasquatch but have shows like Extinct or Alive enjoy some successes. They did apparently discover that the sub-species of leopard on Zanzibar are not extinct, have them find a few more animals on their expeditions.

Or the opposite. Have them NOT discover a crypto, after a lot of hype about the animal possibly existing. So the jurisdiction in question is really ticked off about losing tourist dollars etc, and tries to convince the world otherwise.

Jaws 23
 
Or the opposite. Have them NOT discover a crypto, after a lot of hype about the animal possibly existing. So the jurisdiction in question is really ticked off about losing tourist dollars etc, and tries to convince the world otherwise.

Jaws 23

How is that different than what is already happening and has been happening for decades (yes I loved In Search Of back in the day)? How many seasons of Finding Bigfoot where they do a lot of things except for find a Sasquatch does Animal Planet need to run before they give up? This gets to the ultimate question, "How do you prove a negative?" How did you conclusively prove to people who really want to believe that Nessie is a Plesiosaur that it is probably just a combination of floating trees, wave configurations, and maybe the occasional oversized sturgeon?

I could see a combination - have a show like Extinct or Alive enjoy a few more success stories, maybe they even discover that Tasmanian Tigers are currently not extinct (that is a current favorite). At the same time, have a sturgeon longer than 20 feet wash up on the shores of Loch Ness. A lot of people will say, "That's probably Nessie" while others concerned about the loss of tourist dollars (who wants to come to Loch Ness to see a sturgeon?) will point to the recent discovery in Tasmania that we should not be so quick to judge.
 
Not technically about cryptozoology, but if something like this had been done with cryptids instead of aliens, and exposed while it was going on, I could see it becoming an issue....

The documentary film The Mirage Men, which came out in 2013, begins by telling the story of Paul Bennewitz, a businessman from Albuquerque who was driven mad by spies in the 1980s. Bennewitz had noticed strange lights and sounds coming from a nearby military base and reported them to staff there, who assigned him to an agent called Richard Doty. Doty discovered that Bennewitz had collected a lot of accurate data relating to a top-secret project and decided to mislead him into thinking he’d been witnessing UFOs. He encouraged Bennewitz in his research, feeding him disinformation that led him to believe he’d discovered a secret alien base. Bennewitz obsessively collected evidence, much of it planted by Doty and his colleagues, which he then passed on to other UFO researchers and government agencies, eventually becoming so deranged that his family had to have him committed.

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