Mokele mbembe

The stories of Mokele mbembe are straight from the pages of 19th Century adventure books like ‘The Lost World‘. In dense swamp lands at the remote heart of the Congo, a few survivors of the dinosaur extinction that are huge, steal out from their sanctuary to devour people almost whole. Local people tell the stories of a vast long necked reptile similar to what we understand−Apatosaurus or Brontosaurus, which has left three-toed footprints similar to the size of a frying pan.
Most Mok’ele mbembe sightings and reports came from local tribes but when European explorers heard about the creature, the hunt for it was on. There were several hoax finds of bones and tracks, most which were thought to be the doctored hippo remains. Moreover, at the beginning of the 20th century, more reliable reports of a long necked animal about thirty feet long and the colour of an elephant came out of Congo.

In the 1980s, a study of this story was undertaken and several locals who were interviewed talked about a creature the same as the earlier description being killed in Lake Tel in 1959. The story continued that anyone who ate the meat of the creature became ill and died. Local people were shown photographs of animals living in the region all of which they could correctly identify followed by a picture of an Apatosaurus which most identified as Mok’ele mbembe. No sightings were made of any unknown creatures but several strange tracks were found.
More recent expeditions have failed to produce any definite proof, however a Japanese team shot twenty seconds of aerial video showing what appears to be a huge long necked animal swimming in Lake Tel.