01-11-2006 Monster hunters release film

MONSTER HUNTERS RELEASE FILM
Only a month after returning from the Lake District, the Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] the world's only full time organisation dedicated to searching for unknown animals, has released "Eel or No Eel", a forty-minute film chronicling their attempts to find a strange creature reported from Lake Windermere.

The film is the flagship production for CFZtv - an exciting new project for the CFZ: The world's first multimedia website devoted entirely to Cryptozoology: The study of unknown animals. The website already hosts over six hours of exclusive video, and it is hoped that within the next twelve months, an ongoing partnership between the CFZ and some of the market-leaders in both hardware and software will bring forth fruit.

The CFZ, the world's leading cryptozoological organisation, took an expedition to Windermere after Steve Burnip, a university lecturer, saw and photographed an eel-like creature over 20 feet long. Prior to the investigation there were no known reports of 'monsters' from the lake but the team turned up witnesses going back to the 1950s. All described what seemed to be a huge eel. The team employed an underwater camera, a diver and underwater bait in their hunt. The film follows them as they carry out their investigations and make plans for the future, and features well-known television personality Jon Ronson.

CFZ zoologists think the creature may be a strain of giant sterile eel. Huge eels have been reported from other bodies of water such as the 25-foot specimen seen by Canadian tourists in Loch Ness in 2004. The Centre for Fortean Zoology carried out a similar hunt at Loch Morar in Scotland were they heard tell of two tourists from Yorkshire being frightened off the Loch by a 30 foot creature resembling a tree trunk. The team intend to return to both Windermere and Loch Morar in 2007.

Other adventures have taken the Centre for Fortean Zoology to remote parts of Asia, Central America, and Africa in search of ape-men, giant snakes, monster worms dragon like beasts and blood drinking creatures. Their adventures both abroad and in the UK are being made into films available on their website at www.cfztv.org

Already you can see clips from their 2005 expedition to the Gobi desert including an eyewitness account of a monstrous worm and spectacular sight of their camp being destroyed by a tornado. There is also a short taster from the forthcoming film of the team's 2006 trip to the swamps of West Africa on the track of a killer dragon.

With plans afoot for new monster-hunting expeditions in Asia, South America, and the South Atlantic on the cards the resulting films should be of interest both to naturalists and aficionados of the strange.

Watch this space!

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

+ The Centre for Fortean Zoology is a non profit-making organisation, which was founded in 1992. Over the last 11 years we have mounted expeditions to Central America, Thailand, Mexico, various parts of the United States, as well as numerous investigations in the UK. Further information on the CFZ can be found on their website, www.cfz.org.uk.
+ C F Z director Jonathan Downes has written numerous books on the subject of mystery animals. The latest, entitled `Monster Hunter` is his long awaited autobiography.
+ The honorary life President of the Centre for Fortean Zoology is renowned explorer, author and soldier Colonel John Blashford-Snell OBE, best known for his pioneering Operation Drake and Operation Raleigh expeditions during the 1970s.
+ The CFZ is looking for corporate and private sponsors
+ Photographs from the expedition are available. Please contact Jonathan Downes or Mark North on +44 (0)1237 431413