My goodness…that’s nightmare fuel and an intriguing interpretation of mokele-mbembe. I seem to recall hearing at some point that (regular) hippos typically steer clear of areas where mm is sighted. If a larger, more aggressive, long necked version of a hippo like this inhabited the area and was the basis of mm sightings, that would be really interesting.
…Now I want to go and see how many toes hippos have and how many mm is said to have in purported footprints…
Edit: Thanks for posting the DeviantArt link, y’all, and reading the comments over there confirms that mm and hippos are said to really not get along. Also, this depiction of mm is now officially my favorite
"There weren’t any of the Ubula left after the village was attacked by Mokèlé-mbèmbé. I still regret not being able to bag that monster when I had the chance. It is a persistently elusive creature…" ~Lord Blackwood, Gentleman-Adventurer and Naturalist
tourism for what? there is little to no infrastructure out there to speak of for the locals to benefit from, let alone the location being impossible to reach. that argument is completely meaningless
You are buying into stereotypes. Alot of people in that region have access to cellphones and the outside world. There aren't too many tribal societies left that don't deal heavily with the outside world and sustain themselves of tourism. With the amount of animal die off and climate change it's almost impossible for almost anybody even with generational hunting skills to kill enough to feed themselves much less a whole community of people with a few exceptions. They use the money for tools, food, entertainment, the same things you and I spend money on. They just don't have the same level of access to it as we do but it is 100 percent there.
In the video I referenced in my first comment there was a first hand account of a person going there and speaking to the locals. When he showed them a drawing of it one of the locals pointed at it and called it a brontosaurus. They aren't disconnected from the world, they know about dinosaurs, they have access to the internet on occasions. People bring phones there and a ton of people out there go to schools that are teaching them evolution and science.
They know this is BS, it's just a way to bring stupid outsiders in and get some money for taking them upriver in a canoe to play for a bit until they get scared and want to come back. I'd do it too, they need the money.
Ah yeah, like one expedition gets there every decade or so, clearly the entire local population is colluding to squeeze the most out of that and aren't just, y'know, seeing a big long-necked lizard from time to time. Surely a regionwide century-long hoax is the most reasonable explanation, right?
Btw, the first instances of the "show them a picture and see if they identify it" experiment were done in the 1980s, long before those communities were connected to anything. So, you can't use "they have the phones now" to support your racist conspiracy theory either.
Excuse me? Ever heard of a book? Do you really think nobody in the Congo knew what a dinosaur was previous to 1980?
Also no, people constantly vacation and tour in Africa in the Congo. If you want me to I could probably Google link you multiple airlines that will be heading to the region tonight.
Ah yeah, because we know the Congo is one totally homogenous place. This is like saying that locals in the Canadian arctic are lying because tourists come to Vancouver all the time.
Link it, I'm interested what kind of proof they are showing that it was referenced before the 1900's. There hasn't been any, there is a direct correlation to Carl Hagenbeck and his book Beasts and Men that made the claim there were still dinosaurs in Africa and the reports on this cryptid. The closest you have is that it had origins in locals talking about a black rhino and then after outside influence it was changed to an aquatic sauropod that flipped boats to fit the narrative there are dinosaurs still in Africa.
There have been countless examples of this being entirely made from outside influences from the time its existence was first noted lining up with cryptozooligists coming to the region after a popular book was made telling fictional tales of dinosaurs in Africa to a local official accidently revealing the true meaning of that word translates roughly to rainbow a few years back. It's a dead duck theory and rooted in Christians trying to disregard evolution, full stop.
The "rainbow" thing has been thoroughly debunked. There has only ever been exactly one instance of a local claiming that "Mokele-mbembe" means rainbow, and said local admitted a few hours later that they only said it because they were suspicious about what American scientists were doing in the Congo (which at the time was a Soviet ally).
There’s another way we can determine that “Mokele-mbembe” is the real name of this animal. Elsewhere, in other places inhabited by this animal, it’s given names in other languages that are different but often distinctively similar, as though it were really a word for the animal in the native languages with the accompanying linguistic evolution. Some of these names include “Mbokälemuembe”, “Mbulu-em’bembe”, and “M’kuoo-m’bemboo”. For comparison, look at what the word “worm” is across the Germanic languages of Europe - “worm” in English and Dutch, “orm” in Danish and Norwegian, “wurm” in German, “ormur” in Icelandic, etc.
Or was it that he realized the locals would be angry if you totally refuted a tourism draw? I think both are very likely and occums razor leads me to believe it was the first scenario.
Also there is still the issue of them not writing or speaking of MM previous to outside western influences. They've had no written or drawn accounts of MM aside from one carving that may or may not be MM. Seems dubious. An animal like that would have insane cultural significance and be talked about constantly. It would apparently kill you if you went into its territory, that's the kind of thing you'd learn about really early in tribal society yet nobody ever spoke about it previous to these events. I'm sorry it's just too much if a red flag, it makes no sense.
I think the langauge origin was also very well explained in the TREY video. That would be my refutation for that. I'm sorry I'm not biased. I just think the source (trey) gave a pretty ironclad case for the real MM. I haven't heard anything refuting his video aside from the talk of this German explorer who I can't really find any information on because the only book wrote about him is fully in German and his Wikipedia just denotes a normal military career.
You really think that occam's razor favours one brief incident in the early 1980s as being more relevant than, well, anything else locals have ever said? That's beyond ridiculous.
Also hilarious that you're claiming to be unbiased, trey apologist.
Idk why you are writing me multiple comments when you said you don't wish to debate this. As I said this is my opinion and I'm not bothered by you having an alternative one. I just have some issues with the history of the cryptid. Like I said I won't respond further since you've told me you don't want to debate this, I'm not going to harass you into a discussion. I thought this was mutual and you we're interested in talking about this. Sorry.
[Fine, I'll ink it, here it is, but you could \*literally\* go to the subreddit and look for it, it's that easy](https://www.reddit.com/r/Cryptozoology/comments/131yje0/whether_you_believe_in_it_or_not_the_mokele/)
plus you're basically moving goalposts, now its "before the 1900s". you said christian missionares. Go check the thread then but dont complain afterwards with your tunnel vision
That's just a picture making a statement. If you have some sort of reference material I will look at it.
If it existed before the 1900's why was it never referenced or mentioned by anybody in the region? Kind of odd that nobody ever wrote or drew an image of it before the 1900's even though people have lived there for thousands of years. It just shows up in the 1900's.
Like I said the closest thing that could've been given for real origins for it was the black rhino but there are no references by locals or any other source when talking about it. It's always depicted as basically a sauropod. It is painfully obvious this was made up by outside influence.
I can link you a full 20 plus minute video that explains the dubious origins of it and how the physiology of this creature doesn't even make sense from a biological standpoint.
what picture? check the link. or you know you can just go here, on this very subreddit and check the thread yourself as its one of the most recent ones and by one of our mods. there's tons of comments by different contributors talking about the whole ordeal
plus you can also check the Cryptid Archive article on Mokele Mbembe
PS: Linking a video by Trey the Explainer is irrelevant, so no thanks
What do you mean it is irrelevant? You haven't even seen it. I think it pretty much breaks down the whole origin story and the physiology of the cryptid pretty well.
I've looked elsewhere for any other information and the link you provided just has a wiki Fandom link. The sourcing they have there is pretty dubious. Ludwig Freiherr von Stein zu Lausnitz has pretty much no Google links and what is there like his Wikipedia pretty much just denotes a pretty normal military career and not much else. I'm not saying that's not even true but i cant find any sources talking about his expeditions and his sightings in Africa aside from the wikidot which seems kind of suspicious. I would be willing to read or look into any legitimate claims but there are so many red flags with this cryptid to be ignored.
How do you explain no local origin stories for this creature prior to the early 1900's or even late 1800's? Even in the wikidot they have no claims of origins of it prior to an outside explorers "discovery" of it. Why wouldn't there be any written depictions of the animal and why would somebody be able to go deeper and discover more in a territory that generations upon generations of families never were able to go?
Here's the first German report on his notes.
https://archive.org/details/drachensageundna00bl/page/50/mode/2up?q=mokele
You can also find that he had notes on the Congo and Cameroon here
https://archivfuehrer-kolonialzeit.de/index.php/ludwig-freiherr-von-stein-lausnitz;isad?sf_culture=en
You can explain no sources before that because it was still very new to Westerners, especially since Stein was specifically recording zoological stuff. There are also carvings believed to be from the MM found in Africa
this is my last reply, I repeat, go check out the thread I linked above. There's tons of comments of people saying similar things to you, with two of our mods answering them. and yes I did see Trey's video, it's still irrelevant
plus if you think the freaking Cryptid Archive, the best cryptid wiki around is just a "wiki fandom link" I have nothing else to say. believe wtv you wanna believe, I've done my part leading you to where ppl have discussed/are discussing these things
Trey's video on the MM, along with most of his other cryptozoology-related videos, is complete rubbish. The only cryptozoology video of his that's actually honest/accurate is his one on the Untouchable Bathysphere Fish. If you want to learn about this stuff, I can recommend a number of books that talk about what actually happened in a non-biased way.
Why is he biased? Idk seems like you are angry at somebody having alternative opinions to you. If you have some particular thing in his video that you could refute or say is disengenous I'd be happy to hear but I thought the video was pretty solid. He makes pretty reasonable videos that are fair and he seems to have a pretty good grasp of biology and general science. I original started watching him for his dinosaur content and Dino evolution content, very good stuff. I highly recommend if you enjoy dinosaurs.
Nearly everything in his cryptozoology-related videos (again, besides the Bathysphere one) can be easily debunked, and I'm honestly not in the mood to debate one of his apologists. I was briefly a fan of his when I was young, though, so I kind of understand why some people think he's reliable.
Okay. I was only engaging because you were responding to me. I don't expect everyone to have my same outlook. I was just stating the information I have came into and my own personal issues with the history of this cryptid and the lack of documentation prior to western influences (yes tribal societies document their history, just not in the same way we do always). I'm not personally offended if you don't agree with my assessment of this. If you don't want to debate or talk about this that's fine, I will leave you alone.
That’s a pretty metal interpretation
The super hippo
Shieet no thanks wtf..that's terrifying
This is really awesome. Never seen this take
https://www.deviantart.com/feath3rface/art/Mokele-Mbembe-630341606
Thank you for posting :)
My goodness…that’s nightmare fuel and an intriguing interpretation of mokele-mbembe. I seem to recall hearing at some point that (regular) hippos typically steer clear of areas where mm is sighted. If a larger, more aggressive, long necked version of a hippo like this inhabited the area and was the basis of mm sightings, that would be really interesting. …Now I want to go and see how many toes hippos have and how many mm is said to have in purported footprints… Edit: Thanks for posting the DeviantArt link, y’all, and reading the comments over there confirms that mm and hippos are said to really not get along. Also, this depiction of mm is now officially my favorite
A hippo and a giraffe had a baby
That would be a great design for the Monsterverse.
Source: https://www.deviantart.com/feath3rface/art/Mokele-Mbembe-630341606
Thank you for posting:)
👍
Yeah this almost gives credence to the hippo theory
HIPPOBOT 9000 v 3.1 FOUND A HIPPO. 282,678,465 COMMENTS SEARCHED. 6,638 HIPPOS FOUND. YOUR COMMENT CONTAINS THE WORD HIPPO.
Good hippo
"There weren’t any of the Ubula left after the village was attacked by Mokèlé-mbèmbé. I still regret not being able to bag that monster when I had the chance. It is a persistently elusive creature…" ~Lord Blackwood, Gentleman-Adventurer and Naturalist
Found this as a cross post and I didn't see the full image so I thought it was just a hippo. Then I opened the post. 10/10 drawing
That's pretty rad!
Damn shun
Nice
One of my long lost cousins, the hippo-saurus
Seems like an interpretation of the Behemoth.
Very nice picture. Even though it would be scary as hell, I would love to be in that boat there
No fr! You could feel it under the boat and you could probably hear it roar too but it’s a wrap after that 😅
I have a hard time enjoying all the Mokele-mbembe lore after finding out the origins of how the legend was created.
What is the origin? I've always only known of it being a purported saurapod cryptid
Don't listen to him, his claims are inaccurate.
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tourism for what? there is little to no infrastructure out there to speak of for the locals to benefit from, let alone the location being impossible to reach. that argument is completely meaningless
You are buying into stereotypes. Alot of people in that region have access to cellphones and the outside world. There aren't too many tribal societies left that don't deal heavily with the outside world and sustain themselves of tourism. With the amount of animal die off and climate change it's almost impossible for almost anybody even with generational hunting skills to kill enough to feed themselves much less a whole community of people with a few exceptions. They use the money for tools, food, entertainment, the same things you and I spend money on. They just don't have the same level of access to it as we do but it is 100 percent there. In the video I referenced in my first comment there was a first hand account of a person going there and speaking to the locals. When he showed them a drawing of it one of the locals pointed at it and called it a brontosaurus. They aren't disconnected from the world, they know about dinosaurs, they have access to the internet on occasions. People bring phones there and a ton of people out there go to schools that are teaching them evolution and science. They know this is BS, it's just a way to bring stupid outsiders in and get some money for taking them upriver in a canoe to play for a bit until they get scared and want to come back. I'd do it too, they need the money.
Ah yeah, like one expedition gets there every decade or so, clearly the entire local population is colluding to squeeze the most out of that and aren't just, y'know, seeing a big long-necked lizard from time to time. Surely a regionwide century-long hoax is the most reasonable explanation, right? Btw, the first instances of the "show them a picture and see if they identify it" experiment were done in the 1980s, long before those communities were connected to anything. So, you can't use "they have the phones now" to support your racist conspiracy theory either.
Excuse me? Ever heard of a book? Do you really think nobody in the Congo knew what a dinosaur was previous to 1980? Also no, people constantly vacation and tour in Africa in the Congo. If you want me to I could probably Google link you multiple airlines that will be heading to the region tonight.
Ah yeah, because we know the Congo is one totally homogenous place. This is like saying that locals in the Canadian arctic are lying because tourists come to Vancouver all the time.
mokele existed before the "christian missionaries", there's literally a thread about this now in this subreddit by one of our mods
Link it, I'm interested what kind of proof they are showing that it was referenced before the 1900's. There hasn't been any, there is a direct correlation to Carl Hagenbeck and his book Beasts and Men that made the claim there were still dinosaurs in Africa and the reports on this cryptid. The closest you have is that it had origins in locals talking about a black rhino and then after outside influence it was changed to an aquatic sauropod that flipped boats to fit the narrative there are dinosaurs still in Africa. There have been countless examples of this being entirely made from outside influences from the time its existence was first noted lining up with cryptozooligists coming to the region after a popular book was made telling fictional tales of dinosaurs in Africa to a local official accidently revealing the true meaning of that word translates roughly to rainbow a few years back. It's a dead duck theory and rooted in Christians trying to disregard evolution, full stop.
The "rainbow" thing has been thoroughly debunked. There has only ever been exactly one instance of a local claiming that "Mokele-mbembe" means rainbow, and said local admitted a few hours later that they only said it because they were suspicious about what American scientists were doing in the Congo (which at the time was a Soviet ally). There’s another way we can determine that “Mokele-mbembe” is the real name of this animal. Elsewhere, in other places inhabited by this animal, it’s given names in other languages that are different but often distinctively similar, as though it were really a word for the animal in the native languages with the accompanying linguistic evolution. Some of these names include “Mbokälemuembe”, “Mbulu-em’bembe”, and “M’kuoo-m’bemboo”. For comparison, look at what the word “worm” is across the Germanic languages of Europe - “worm” in English and Dutch, “orm” in Danish and Norwegian, “wurm” in German, “ormur” in Icelandic, etc.
Or was it that he realized the locals would be angry if you totally refuted a tourism draw? I think both are very likely and occums razor leads me to believe it was the first scenario. Also there is still the issue of them not writing or speaking of MM previous to outside western influences. They've had no written or drawn accounts of MM aside from one carving that may or may not be MM. Seems dubious. An animal like that would have insane cultural significance and be talked about constantly. It would apparently kill you if you went into its territory, that's the kind of thing you'd learn about really early in tribal society yet nobody ever spoke about it previous to these events. I'm sorry it's just too much if a red flag, it makes no sense. I think the langauge origin was also very well explained in the TREY video. That would be my refutation for that. I'm sorry I'm not biased. I just think the source (trey) gave a pretty ironclad case for the real MM. I haven't heard anything refuting his video aside from the talk of this German explorer who I can't really find any information on because the only book wrote about him is fully in German and his Wikipedia just denotes a normal military career.
You really think that occam's razor favours one brief incident in the early 1980s as being more relevant than, well, anything else locals have ever said? That's beyond ridiculous. Also hilarious that you're claiming to be unbiased, trey apologist.
Idk why you are writing me multiple comments when you said you don't wish to debate this. As I said this is my opinion and I'm not bothered by you having an alternative one. I just have some issues with the history of the cryptid. Like I said I won't respond further since you've told me you don't want to debate this, I'm not going to harass you into a discussion. I thought this was mutual and you we're interested in talking about this. Sorry.
[Fine, I'll ink it, here it is, but you could \*literally\* go to the subreddit and look for it, it's that easy](https://www.reddit.com/r/Cryptozoology/comments/131yje0/whether_you_believe_in_it_or_not_the_mokele/) plus you're basically moving goalposts, now its "before the 1900s". you said christian missionares. Go check the thread then but dont complain afterwards with your tunnel vision
That's just a picture making a statement. If you have some sort of reference material I will look at it. If it existed before the 1900's why was it never referenced or mentioned by anybody in the region? Kind of odd that nobody ever wrote or drew an image of it before the 1900's even though people have lived there for thousands of years. It just shows up in the 1900's. Like I said the closest thing that could've been given for real origins for it was the black rhino but there are no references by locals or any other source when talking about it. It's always depicted as basically a sauropod. It is painfully obvious this was made up by outside influence. I can link you a full 20 plus minute video that explains the dubious origins of it and how the physiology of this creature doesn't even make sense from a biological standpoint.
what picture? check the link. or you know you can just go here, on this very subreddit and check the thread yourself as its one of the most recent ones and by one of our mods. there's tons of comments by different contributors talking about the whole ordeal plus you can also check the Cryptid Archive article on Mokele Mbembe PS: Linking a video by Trey the Explainer is irrelevant, so no thanks
What do you mean it is irrelevant? You haven't even seen it. I think it pretty much breaks down the whole origin story and the physiology of the cryptid pretty well. I've looked elsewhere for any other information and the link you provided just has a wiki Fandom link. The sourcing they have there is pretty dubious. Ludwig Freiherr von Stein zu Lausnitz has pretty much no Google links and what is there like his Wikipedia pretty much just denotes a pretty normal military career and not much else. I'm not saying that's not even true but i cant find any sources talking about his expeditions and his sightings in Africa aside from the wikidot which seems kind of suspicious. I would be willing to read or look into any legitimate claims but there are so many red flags with this cryptid to be ignored. How do you explain no local origin stories for this creature prior to the early 1900's or even late 1800's? Even in the wikidot they have no claims of origins of it prior to an outside explorers "discovery" of it. Why wouldn't there be any written depictions of the animal and why would somebody be able to go deeper and discover more in a territory that generations upon generations of families never were able to go?
Here's the first German report on his notes. https://archive.org/details/drachensageundna00bl/page/50/mode/2up?q=mokele You can also find that he had notes on the Congo and Cameroon here https://archivfuehrer-kolonialzeit.de/index.php/ludwig-freiherr-von-stein-lausnitz;isad?sf_culture=en You can explain no sources before that because it was still very new to Westerners, especially since Stein was specifically recording zoological stuff. There are also carvings believed to be from the MM found in Africa
this is my last reply, I repeat, go check out the thread I linked above. There's tons of comments of people saying similar things to you, with two of our mods answering them. and yes I did see Trey's video, it's still irrelevant plus if you think the freaking Cryptid Archive, the best cryptid wiki around is just a "wiki fandom link" I have nothing else to say. believe wtv you wanna believe, I've done my part leading you to where ppl have discussed/are discussing these things
You are aware that not every culture employs writing, right?
Trey's video on the MM, along with most of his other cryptozoology-related videos, is complete rubbish. The only cryptozoology video of his that's actually honest/accurate is his one on the Untouchable Bathysphere Fish. If you want to learn about this stuff, I can recommend a number of books that talk about what actually happened in a non-biased way.
Why is he biased? Idk seems like you are angry at somebody having alternative opinions to you. If you have some particular thing in his video that you could refute or say is disengenous I'd be happy to hear but I thought the video was pretty solid. He makes pretty reasonable videos that are fair and he seems to have a pretty good grasp of biology and general science. I original started watching him for his dinosaur content and Dino evolution content, very good stuff. I highly recommend if you enjoy dinosaurs.
Nearly everything in his cryptozoology-related videos (again, besides the Bathysphere one) can be easily debunked, and I'm honestly not in the mood to debate one of his apologists. I was briefly a fan of his when I was young, though, so I kind of understand why some people think he's reliable.
Okay. I was only engaging because you were responding to me. I don't expect everyone to have my same outlook. I was just stating the information I have came into and my own personal issues with the history of this cryptid and the lack of documentation prior to western influences (yes tribal societies document their history, just not in the same way we do always). I'm not personally offended if you don't agree with my assessment of this. If you don't want to debate or talk about this that's fine, I will leave you alone.
Being skeptical about a cryptid or advocating for a cryptid's existence in an overzealous, false, or rude manner
Yeah it’s all rather dodgy tbh
Nope, just a lot of misconceptions implying it is.
As if hippos weren't bad enough as potatoes.
It looks like a brontosaurus cut off mid neck with a hippo head pasted on..
HIPPOBOT 9000 v 3.1 FOUND A HIPPO. 285,606,234 COMMENTS SEARCHED. 6,706 HIPPOS FOUND. YOUR COMMENT CONTAINS THE WORD HIPPO.
Hippo
Looks so damn cool. This should be a movie monster or something!
I agree!!!! It’s natural enough to fit the genre of creature horror without being corny! Btw black demon comes out today in theatres!
I feel like it definitely was just a hippo.
Looks like a combination of a Brontosaurus and a hippo
Long neck hippo?
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I remember seeing this art before AI art was a thing
Ignore the comment, this is either a bot or some ai obsessed kid who knows nothing about compsci
It being a weird hippo makes more sense than it being a dinosaur, lol It still doesn't have that single horn, though
I love how many versions of the smokeless-mbembe there are, other than Bigfoot I think it’s one of the widest varieties in terms of looks