| This article is about a confirmed hoax |
| The subject of this article, be it purported cryptid or a supposed event, is known to have been deliberately made up. |
The most famous of the hoaxed Kasai rex photographs, created by superimposing a monitor lizard over a photograph of a dead hippopotamus.
"Kasai rex" is the modern name given to a supposed giant lizard, later interpreted as a theropod dinosaur, reported from the southern Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1932 by J. C. Johanson. The story is best known for the fake photographs it has inspired; these include one created by Johanson himself, a fraud which proves his report a hoax.[1] Johanson's photograph was quickly mistaken for a photo of the chipekwe,[2][3] which has influenced the popular image of that cryptid.
Hoax[]
The letter containing the story of the alleged eyewitness, Swedish plantation owner J. C. Johanson, appeared alongside the famous fake photograph in an issue of the Rhodesia Herald in 1932. In the letter, Johanson claimed that while travelling through the Kasai Valley (in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) on 16 February, he and his local helper caught a glimpse of "something incredible—a monster, about 16 yards in length, with a lizard's head and tail". Johanson claimed that they encountered the animal again later in the day, in a swamp:[1]
| “ | There in the swamp, the huge lizard appeared once more, tearing lumps from a dead rhino. It was covered in ooze. I was only about 25 yards away ... I thought of my camera. I could plainly hear the crunching of rhino bones in the lizard's mouth. Just as I clicked, it jumped into deep water.
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The photograph, however, was an obvious fake, featuring a Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) cut out of a different photograph.[2] Johanson himself never claimed that the supposed animal had been a dinosaur, only ever calling it a giant lizard. The dinosaur claim originated with a comment from one of the Rhodesia Heralds staff, who wrote that...[1]
| “ | Johanson stumbled upon a unique specimen of a dinosaur family that must have lived millenniums ago.
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Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Shuker, Karl P. N. (2016) Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors: The Creatures That Time Forgot?, Coachwhip Publications, ISBN 978-1616463908
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Heuvelmans, Bernard (1955) On the Track of Unknown Animals, Routledge, ISBN 978-1138977525
- ↑ Heuvelmans, Bernard (1978) Les Derniers Dragons d'Afrique, Plon, ISBN 978-2259003872