When it comes to cryptid documentaries, MonsterQuest is one of my go-tos. They line up a panel of experts, mount an expedition, and see what they can find. They tend to fall less on the side of “I Want to Believe” than some; they give equal time to skeptics as well as believers. They’re big on science and debunking.
Late in Season 3, in 2009, the show went in search of what it calls “the last living dinosaur.” (Yes. We know. Birds. But the team is hunting an actual survivor of a species that’s been believed extinct for 65 million years.)
The episode begins by consulting a paleontologist, Dr. Donald Prothero of Occidental College. Prothero is extremely skeptical. He points out that you can’t just have one individual of a species. For that species to survive, it needs a breeding population. If the Mokele-Mbembe really exists, and really is as large as it’s purported to be, there should be extensive physical evidence.
He’s been asked to examine plaster casts of a heavy animal with round feet about a foot across, with what appear to be three claws. These are not the tracks of an elephant or hippopotamus; they’re different. We learn later in the show that these were made in 2004 by an American science teacher named Peter Beach. Beach was hunting the Mokele-Mbembe along one of the rivers on the border of Cameroon and the Republic of Congo.
In 2008, MonsterQuest mounted an expedition to Cameroon, led by cryptozoologist Bill Gibbons (who says this is his sixth attempt to find the Mokele-Mbeme) and researcher Rob Mullin, with the help of a local guide, Pierre Sima. It’s classic adventure TV: remote location, terrible roads, dangerous political climate. The locals, we’re told, have little contact with the West (though this comment is accompanied by a camera pan across a group of locals in distinctly Western attire).
Meanwhile, back in the USA, we hear from Professor Emeritus Roy Mackal from the University of Chicago. Professor Mackal is introduced as “the world’s foremost expert in Mokele-Mbembe.” He gives us the historical context, beginning with the first Western account in 1776 of a large semiaquatic animal reputed to inhabit the rivers and the jungles of the Congo. This and subsequent accounts describe an animal around 25 to 30 feet (8 to 10 meters) long, “reddish in color, with a frill on the back of the neck, a long head and neck, that looks snake-like.” It’s able to submerge itself like a crocodile, but appears to spend most of its time on land.
Mackal is convinced, based on eyewitness testimony during his own expeditions to the area, that this must be a small dinosaur. For what may be proof, we’re introduced to Peter Beach, who went to Africa to get pictures of a sauropod. He didn’t succeed in that, but he found tracks, “fairly fresh, probably no more than a week old,” on the banks of a river between Cameroon and the Congo.
Beach believes that the animal came up on the bank to browse on leaves from trees that overhung the river. He took casts of the tracks, measured them and noted the three claws. They were a few feet apart, and “you can see where there’s more than just a foot, toes in other words, perhaps three toes a foot in diameter with a heel of some sort. Maybe it’s the haunches of the animal, or maybe it’s part of its foot.”
He gauges its size by the fact that the trees had been stripped of foliage up to 18 feet (he measured). The entire area had been cleared of leaves. The narrator notes that the only native African animal that can reach this high is the giraffe (though I would wonder personally about a large elephant), but there are no giraffes in this region. The locals and the guide, Beach says, declared that no other animal is quite like this one.
That’s a theme that will carry on through the MonsterQuest expedition. Gibbons and Mullin interview the locals, who consistently draw pictures of a large animal with a bulbous body, thick legs, and a long tail and neck with a small head. When presented with pictures of various animals including a giraffe, an elephant, and a sauropod, they invariably point to the sauropod. They don’t recognize the bear or the deer (neither of which exists in that part of Africa), but when they see the dinosaur, they say that’s it, that’s what we saw. They further refine the search by pointing to images of specific species—namely, sauropods.
Gibbons makes a point of stating that the locals have no apparent reason to make up stories. They’re not being paid; they’re not getting a reward. There’s no incentive for them to do any leg-pulling (though I think he’s being a little disingenuous in ignoring people’s inclination to tell other people, especially outsiders, what they want to hear).
The stories have a common thread, though the witnesses are spread across a fairly large geographical area. The animal is large, it’s seen in the river, and it eats leaves. Usually they see just the head and neck. It’s large enough to roil up the water and rock a boat.
Gibbons and Mullin head down the Dja River, where Beach found the tracks. It’s a dangerous area; quite apart from large unkown maybe-dinosaurs, there are guerillas in the jungle. They search for new tracks, investigate possible lairs in the bank, and set up game cams.
They have a theory. If the Mokele-Mbembe exists, it may only emerge during the rainy season. When it’s dry, they hole up underground and go dormant. Gibbons is quite keen on this theory, and he believes he’d found a number of suitable caves, complete with concrete-like walls and possible air vents for the “hibernating” animal.
He interviews more witnesses including one who describes “an animal like an elephant, but the neck is very long.” It makes a great disturbance in the water, and terrifies him with its hooting, howling call. It feeds on leaves for a while, then dives back into the water with a loud splash.
Gibbons’ investigation of the caves yields no results. He and Mullin turn next to a cool tool, a fish-shaped camera that “swims” and records underwater. Unfortunately, the water is extremely murky and visibility is terrible.
They get a couple of possible hits. One is probably a crocodile. There’s something else big down there, but it could be a sunken branch or tree. Mullin thinks not: it seems to be long and serpentine and possibly alive. As a further oddity, there are no fish around these long, large animals or objects.
Many witnesses’ stories tell of sightings at night. This is not a benign creature, they say. It’s not an elephant or a rhino, either. Its neck and tail are too long. It’s dangerous; it kills people.
Gibbons and Mullin mount a night investigation. It’s scary; even apart from possible dinosaurs, there are numerous crocodiles and venomous snakes. They drift down the river in their locally made wooden canoe (carved from a single tree trunk) with the motor off, to avoid alarming their quarry.
As inevitably happens in cryptid investigations, they can’t complete their investigation. A storm blows up and drives them to shore. In the morning, the water is full of silt, with even worse visibility than before. They keep spotting something long and large, but they can’t get video of it.
The episode takes a break from the expedition to air Dr. Prothero’s analysis of Peter Beach’s plaster casts. He compares them with fossilized tracks dating back 65 million years, and concludes: Not a sauropod. Much too small, and the toes/claws aren’t right. He doesn’t speculate as to what they are. He does maintain that it’s very unlikely a population of this species has survived to the present day. Then he hedges his bet, possibly encouraged by the producers of the show: “We never say never in science, even if things are extremely improbable.”
Right then. As for the expedition, its findings are at best inconclusive. They might have found evidence of an unknown snakelike creature in the rivers. They get no video, find no tracks. They think there’s something big lairing in caves along the banks, but there are no physical traces. Whenever they look like getting close, the water is too cloudy or a storm brews up or they’re too close to a dangerous international border.
There’s always a reason why they can’t find their cryptid, but they don’t give up hope. It’s a remote area, highly politically sensitive, which makes it difficult for Westerners to get in. Locals report frequent sightings, but what they’re seeing, MonsterQuest can’t definitively say. Professor Mackal and the river explorers very much want it to be a small sauropod. Dr. Prothero doesn’t believe it can be.
My feeling is that as with other cryptid sightings, notably Bigfoot and Nessie, legend builds on legend. Expeditions come in, describe that they’re looking for, and the power of suggestion causes witnesses to see what they expect to see.
Could there be some sort of giant snakelike animal in those rivers? We know from South America and Asia that very big snakes will take to the water to support their weight and mass. But there’s ample evidence of anacondas and pythons, and nothing but some blurry sonar to support the existence of similar creatures in the rivers of western Africa.
