It's totally ironic that even though there's no physical evidence of plesiosaurs being seen alive today, creationists Woetzel still don't have the brains enough to abandon the claims of discovering alleged modern plesiosaurs even when it is discovered that the alleged carcass of modern plesiosaurs turned out to be nothing more than decaying bodies of sharks and whales. This is the last part of the Genesis Park tours where we find a list of claims Woetzel presents to make a case for live modern plesiosaurs in the Plesiosaur Tank page. Thankfully, this is going to be brief because we already know what they really are. Even most creationists are abandoning them because they've finally got it in their hard-heads of what evolutionists have been trying to tell them all along; They are not plesiosaurs. They are shark and whale bodies either fished up or washed ashore. Yet people have mistaken them as dead bodies of plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and mosasaurs because they're simply shape like one, never mind the devil being in the details and gross inaccuracies pertaining to such carcasses.
The first stop of the Plesiosaur section is the main section where Woetzel gives a brief info about the plesiosaurids and adds,
"Scientists still have no absolute confirmation that plesiosaurs remain alive. But enough evidence exists to suggest that some of these creature still lurk in very deep lakes and in the sea!"
Sorry, Woetzel. The evidence you claim to exist only consist of nothing more than shark and whale carcasses and hoaxes. The first alleged case comes form Lake Champlain right between New York and Vermont and the Canadian border of Quebec, where it is claimed that an alleged long necked, horse-headed, multi-colored sea creature nicknamed "Champ" is seen dwelling within the lake. About 300 alleged sightings of Champ, who is also known as the North American version of the Loch Ness Monster, made over the years has lead Lake Champlain to become a major tourist attraction drawn in by scores of people who wanted to go see the lake in hopes of getting a real good look at the monster. Some even tried to make the creature be put under wildlife protection so that no one will try to harass and hunt the creature to extinction, but there's nothing in the lake that would make anyone consider protecting the animal by Law. These 300 reports of Champ sightings are swarmed with conflicting descriptions of the creature. One of the reports, includes a famous photo, the Mansi Photo, taken of the alleged cryptid emerging from the water. From a perspective, it looks like a plesiosaur. In Woetzel's eyes, if it looks like a plesiosaur, it is a plesiosaur, never mind the details that clearly says it isn't. This is the first thing Woetzel shows on the Champ page. Although famous, the photo is highly questionable. Sandra Mansi, the one who took the photo, had to wait 4 years to present the photo to avoid suspicion and admits to throwing the negatives away that could have proved whether it's the alleged monster or not. Such sightings could be nothing more than floating debris, swimming otters, or a large fish such as the Longnose Gar or a sturgeon. Woetzel asserted that French Explorer Samuel de Champlain was the first to have discovered and described Champ, but that's false. What Champlain actually saw and described was the Longnose Gar, one of the fish inhabiting the lake.
Woetzel claims Champ to be an Elasmosaurus, the largest plesiosaur that lived 70-65 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period. But there is a problem with this claim. The lake is known to be cold and shallow (about 400 feet), yet the creature is said to always be hiding in the water. Unless the plesiosaur is a warm-blooded juvenile, there's no way can a massive cold-blooded plesiosaur hide completely in the water. Just like in the Loch Ness are of Scotland, no traces of plesiosaur remains has ever been found in Lake Champlain.
The next claim involves Dennis Hall, a world renown expert in finding Champ, who claims to have allegedly saw the cryptid multiple times over the years,
"Dennis Hall has personally encountered the creature on several occasions and has obtained several photographs and videotaped evidence. In fact, Dennis may be the only person to have ever captured a Champ specimen. In the 1970's Dennis discovered an unusual looking 12-inch-long reptile in a marshy area bordering the lake. The creature looked like no other living reptile and possessed a strange forked tongue. Upon inspecting the creature Dennis' father thought the beastie strange enough to be worthy of examination by the scientists at the University of Vermont who indicated that it was unlike any living reptile in the catalog. Like many a cryptozoological creature, this one was somehow lost thereby ensuring that the monster would remain an enigma. Dennis Hall subsequently saw what he thought was the spitting image of the creature he once possessed in a book on prehistoric reptiles. Tanystropheus, extinct for millions of years, appeared to be the long-lost twin of Hall's 12-inch specimen. Considerably larger and with a fairly long neck, Tanystropheus enjoyed a semi-aquatic existence much like Champ." (Kirk, John [Kirk Johnson], In the Domain of the Lake Monsters, pp. 132-133.)"
All those claims and evidence are likely false, including the alleged Champ specimen Hall claims to have captured as a teenager. His father allegedly showed the specimen to the University of Vermont to be identified, but the specimen was never identified and became lost to posterity. Hall believes Champ to be a surviving species of Tanystropheus (a Middle Triassic reptile that lives in what is now Europe and the Middle East in reality) to which he calls Champtanystropheus, a name rejected by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), because there is no physical evidence of any kind for the animal available for study and probably never will be. The same man who claims to have uncovered scores of evidence for the Champ's existence vanished from the public over a year ago just after he allegedly made a video film of the creature. His site Champquest.com have also vanished, too. Apparently he decided to go into hiding upon realizing that all his claims he made over the years could be exposed as a bunch of hoaxes, including the photo and the possible non-existent specimen.
The next claim involves an alleged recording of a sound strikingly similar to the echolocation calls made by dolphins and whales Champ is said to make. Although dolphins and whales don't live in cold, shallow lakes, it is very unlikely that plesiosaurs could make such echolocation sounds. Nor is there evidence that plesiosaurs could make such sounds either.
The third claim Woetzel mentions on the Champ page involves a video made by two fishermen showing what appears to be Champ emerging to the surface of the lake. Although the video is lost, it appeared on ABC's Good Morning America one time. The two fishermen who made the film just couldn't figure out what the creature really was. It was nothing like they ever seen before. Whatever it is, it is unlikely that it's a plesiosaur. The shape is more of fish like. Perhaps what they saw is either a sturgeon or floating debris rising up to the surface of the water before sinking back down again.
The last claim involves a Japanese sonar team scouring all over the lake, using the most updated cameras and sonar equipment to find the elusive creature only for them to return and report a large object swimming underneath them. But despite what Woetzel has asserted, what they actually did saw was nothing substantive.
The next page is all about the Loch Ness Monster whose evidences obtained over the years is now to be highly regarded as a complete hoax collection made up of the following: cardboard cutout of a dinosaur attached to a remote control submarine, swimming elephants, bails of hay floating under a large sheet of tarp, water sediment, floating debris, a hand-held puppet, fossils dug up and relocated to the lake (no plesiosaur fossils have been found in and around the lake), deer antlers, and a test bouy.
The third page just comes to show just how creationists like Woetzel simply do not have the brains enough to abandon such once proudly defended claims once the real truth behind them is revealed. Even though the Zuiyo-maru catch is now known to be a dead carcass of a basking shark, creationists like Woetzel still stupidly regards it as a plesiosaur that have recently died simply because it's shape like one.
The forth page is another example of Woetzel not having the brains enough to acknowledge the alleged sea monster of Santa Cruz being nothing more dead carcass of a beaked whale.
The final page focuses on 2 shark and seal carcasses and 5 sea serpents with similar descriptions of humps, horse-like heads and snake-like bodies. None of them resemble any known plesiosaur whatsoever in one form or another. The first sea serpent Woetzel mentions is known as Nahuelito, a Argentinian "Loch Ness Monster" living in the Nahuel Huapi Lake in Patagonia, Argentina. The monster, named after the lake, is claimed by Woetzel to be associated with recent discoveries of Ichthyosaur fossils found in the region of Bariloche located near the lake.
"Fossilized skeletons of the icthyosaur [Ichthyosaur misspelled] (like that on the right) have been found near Bariloche not far from the lake, leading some to assign this identity to the cryptid."
The Ichthyosaur fossils remains are of Mollesaurus (Junior synonym of Opthalamosaurus) coming from the Los Molles Formation, located in the Neuquen Basin in Northwestern Patagonia. The site is dated to the Middle Jurassic Period during the Early Bajocian stage 170 million years ago. Woetzel just asserts that finding ichthyosaur fossils near the lake has lead some to assign the fish lizard to the cryptid. Does he has proof of this? No, he doesn't. He just made it all up out of ignorance of the cryptid's descriptions that says nothing of the ichthyosaurs and lots about a sea serpent. Conflicting descriptions of the creature have been made over time including estimates of it being measured from 15 to 150 feet and descriptions of it being a giant water snake with humps and fish-like fins, a swan with a snake's head, the overturned hull of a boat, and the stump of a tree. No indications of ichthyosaurs (let alone plesiosaurs) found among such alleged reports.
Some believed it to be a plesiosaur, but no such evidence has ever turned up to confirm such beliefs to be true. Although fossils of plesiosaurs have been found in the Allen Formation in Northern Patagonia dated to the Middle and Late Cretaceous Period, no traces of plesiosaur remains of any kind has ever been found in and around the Nahuel Huapi Lake.
Woetzel then mentions 4 more alleged sightings of the creature in which the creature is described to have surfaced for a few minutes before disappearing into the lake and described to have "a huge neck like a swan which moved with a body like that of a crocodile" and left behind "huge tracks and crushed bushes and undergrowth leading to the lake shore." This alleged photo, recently made by an anonymous person who claims, "It is not a twisted tree trunk. It is not a wave. Nahuelito has shown his face. Lake Nahuel Huapi, Saturday April 15, 9 o'clock. I'm not giving out my personal information in order to avoid future headaches," indeed looked more of a model of a sea serpent than an actual plesiosaur. Plesiosaurs have broad sea turtle-like bodies and flippers they flapped up and down like penguins and long necks that can not be raised upward above the surface in a swan-like pose as depicted in so many prehistoric art. Thus the descriptions of Nahuelito, fits more of a sea serpent than a plesiosaur.
The second sea serpent cryptid is Bessie an alleged monster living in the waters of Lake Erie that's described as a sea serpent with a head as large as a car. It has been known to be very aggressive, attacking even killing people that dared to venture into its watery home. This sea serpent is anything but a plesiosaur. It doesn't have a sea turtle body with flippers and the actual heads of plesiosaurs are very small in comparison with the sea serpent's huge car-sized head.
The third sea serpent cryptid is Ogopogo, another sea serpent that's anything but a plesiosaur; no descriptions of the creature mentions it having broad turtle-like body and 4 flippers on its body.
The fourth is Memphre, a sea serpent with many humps (unlike real plesiosaurs) found in Lake Memphremagog of Vermont/Canada, whose actual identification remains a mystery.
The fifth cryptid is claimed to have been sighted in Bynoe Harbor in Australia. Known as the Beast of Bynoe, this cryptid is known to be extremely rare. Very little is known of the creature although it has been described to be plesiosaur-like. It is said there are cave paintings depicting the monster located on the north side of the harbor, but no such paintings, let alone physical evidence, has ever been found.
The sixth cryptid is another dead carcass of a basking shark grossly mistaken as a plesiosaur carcass (just like the Zuiyo Maru carcass) found washed up along the shores of Mann Hill Beach in Plymouth, MA in 1970. The people who found it described it as a camel without legs.
The seventh and final cryptid Woetzel mentions is another carcass that was found inside of a sperm whale fished up from the waters of Cadboro Bay in British Columbia in 1937. This is a serpentine animal, known as "Cadborosaurus" or "Caddy," described to have a camel-like head with two small bumps, two flippers, fish-like tail, serrated ridges, serpentine body, and brownish hair. As always without any concept of what a plesiosaur is really like, creationists like Woetzel blindly asserts it to be a plesiosaur, taking these 2 speculating scientists Ed Bousfield, retired Research Associate at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto and the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, and Paul LeBlond, professor at the Department of Oceanography at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver), the authors behind Cadborosaurus: Survivor of the Deep, as their word, never mind the creature not having a broad turtle-shaped body with 4 flippers, a short tail, a long neck held only horizontally, and a small, flat arrow-head like real plesiosaurs. Caddy only has hair, ridges, camel-like head with two small bumps, fish-like fin, and a snaky body. Real plesiosaurs don't.
In reality, according to Darren Naish, the famous cryptid, that so-called sea serpent that was eaten by the sperm whale, fished up, and became a speculative sensation, has turned out to be nothing more than just a pipefish - no "Caddy" and no plesiosaur.
Then Woetzel at the conclusion of this page states,
"Other speculative stories about USO's (Unidentified Swimming Objects) abound from England, Sweden, Russia, France, Japan, etc. Could some of these creatures be plesiosaurs as well?"'
No, Woetzel. None of them will likely be surviving plesiosaurs. All these cryptids are just assumed to be plesiosaurs out of pure ignorance of the plesiosaurs' true anatomy and functional morphology that's everything but what the cryptid sea monsters are described to be like. Even if the sea monsters are plesiosaurs, all these sightings still do not explain why don't we find fossils of plesiosaurs above and below the Mesozoic strata.
And this my friends concludes the tour of Genesis Park. The rest of the park consists of just Komodo dragon, monitor lizards, and crocodile pens, book store, and sections of the exhibit hall I'm not going to get into containing flawed claims about the vapor canopy once covered the earth, elaborate creationist made fossil hoaxes, out of context quotes from Charles Darwin's Origins of Species book, outright denial of the true fossil record, outright bible distortions, clear examples of Woetzel not having the brains enough to abandon claims even when they're already debunked multiple times, and gross misunderstandings of true science. I would like to go and visit s8int.com and see to exposing all the pure deceptions behind all those flawed claims about ancient civilizations with advanced technology and Pre-pliocene prehistoric life of all types living with humans from a few thousands to a few hundreds of years ago, but that will be some another time.
