Posted by: John Kirk on April 28th, 2007
The annual Cadborosaurus season is about to move into high gear. Operation Caddyscan is a Cadborosaurus research group comprising Jason Walton, Dr. Ed Bousfield, Dr. Paul Leblond and myself. We have been in existence since 1998 and the focus of this group is solely the marine megaserpent of British Columbia and adjacent coastal waters known as Cadborosaurus.
Sightings have been thin on the water in recent years, but with a new high resolution camera enclosed in a waterproof casing installed at a secret site on Vancouver Island we are hopeful that we might be able to capture further Cadborosaurus activity in addition to some footage we captured in 1999. The footage we shot then is by no means definitive, but what is interesting is that the locomotion of the creature seen in that footage is unusual to say the least. Up to now we have been using video cameras and a digital video camera that captures sixty stills a minute, so the new camera will be a highly useful addition to our arsenal.
Cadborosaurus may also have been videotaped in San Francisco Bay by Bill and Bob Clark a few years ago. While I personally cannot see the megaserpent in the Clark footage, others feel there is a case for it being there and have extensively and exhaustively studied the Clark footage and so we will just agree to disagree about conclusions. However, Bill and Bob’s diligence and hard work in search of this creature is to be applauded.
What is interesting about Cadborosaurus sightings is that there are a number of witnesses that have seen the animal more than once in the same locale. This rarely happens with cryptid sightings, but there are a variety of reasons behind why some witnesses see Caddy repeatedly. One is that the cryptids may be following schools of fish including the many salmon runs we have each year off the coast of British Columbia.
Although Caddy was seen in 2006, we have no sighting reports to show for 2007 yet. We remain optimistic that the location of our camera will afford us a better chance of capturing at least one image of the beast. We have had some terrific shots of killer whales from our camera position and so if a Cadborosaurus was to pass through the camera’s field of view, we would get a very good image indeed.
Any British Columbians who have a sighting of Cadborosaurus are encouraged to contact the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club through the website at bcscc.ca. We will treat each report with respect and the strictest confidence.
One of the founders of the BCSCC, John Kirk has enjoyed a varied and exciting career path. Both a print and broadcast journalist, John Kirk has in recent years been at the forefront of much of the BCSCC’s expeditions, investigations and publishing. John has been particularly interested in the phenomenon of unknown aquatic cryptids around the world and is the author of In the Domain of the Lake Monsters (Key Porter Books, 1998). In addition to his interest in freshwater cryptids, John has been keenly interested in investigating the possible existence of sasquatch and other bipedal hominids of the world, and in particular, the Yeren of China. John is also chairman of the Crypto Safari organization, which specializes in sending teams of investigators to remote parts of the world to search for animals as yet unidentified by science. John travelled with a Crypto Safari team to Cameroon and northern Republic of Congo to interview witnesses among the Baka pygmies and Bantu bushmen who have sighted a large unknown animal that bears more than a superficial resemblance to a dinosaur. Since 1996, John Kirk has been editor and publisher of the BCSCC Quarterly which is the flagship publication of the BCSCC. In demand at conferences, seminars, lectures and on television and radio programs, John has spoken all over North America and has appeared in programs on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, TLC, Discovery, CBC, CTV and the BBC. In his personal life John spends much time studying the histories of Scottish Clans and is himself the president of the Clan Kirk Society. John is also an avid soccer enthusiast and player.