Reports of a prehistoric creature in untouched Lake Murray

A cryptid known as “Murray” reportedly lives in the swamps on the edges of the largest lake in PNG, Lake Murray in Western Province, which covers a vast area of about 700 sq. miles.

While tales of long ago dinosaurs may sound farfetched and exaggerating, Lake Murray residents says they may have a living, breathing dinosaur hiding out in the swamp land.

Research conducted by Genesis Park found that this creature has been described as resembling a theropod dinosaur.

While Genesis Park says that it was not difficult to find people who claim to have seen a large reptilian that walks erect and is about 15 ft tall. Only a few of the villagers around the lake have actually seen it in the lake. More common were reports from village hunters of running into the creature in the remote swamplands and rivers that feed into the lake.

According to eyewitnesses, villagers travelling in a canoe reported seeing the creature wading in shallow water near Boboa. The following day, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor and a church elder say they saw the animal not far from the first sighting. The creature was described as having a body ‘as long as a dump truck’ and nearly two metres wide, with a long neck and a long slender tail. It was walking on two hind legs ‘as thick as coconut palm tree trunks’, and had two smaller forelegs. The head was similar in shape to a cow’s head, with large eyes and ‘sharp teeth as long as fingers.’ The skin was likened to that of a crocodile, and the creature had ‘largish triangular scoops on the back.

While the testimonials from the local Lake Murray Monster witnesses came across as reasoned, consistent, and credible, more research is needed and a follow-up trip that would press further into the swamps and rivers is pending.

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4,000–year-old Mesopotamian city discovered in Kurdistan

The site where Xarab I Kilashin lies.

Archaeologists have discovered an ancient city, roughly 4,000 years old, on the banks of the Great Zab River in the Kurdistan Region.

The city known as Xarab-I Kilashin was unearthed as part of a major archaeological investigation of a 3,000 square kilometer area in the Region which began in 2012 and is expected to conclude this year.

The region had been off-limits to archaeologists for many years, first because of political instability in the area and later due to the presence of the Islamic State (IS).

"What is surprising is the size of this settlement," one of the expedition leaders, Rafał Koliński of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, told IBTimes UK.

"All the earlier settlements evidenced in the area are very small in size, rarely exceeding 1 hectare. The same can be said of settlements contemporary to Xarab-i Kilashin, our urban site, which were mere villages."

Xarab-i Kilashin is arranged in a semi-circle around the northern river bank, stretching for a diameter of about 300 meters. Settlements of this size were not thought to have existed in the region before the Middle Ages.

The major research project on the settlement history of the Kurdistan Region led by the Institute of Archeology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań is to be based on the result of an extensive archaeological reconnaissance carried out on both banks of the Great Zab River, 50 km north of Erbil

Some 12,000 artifacts were discovered in the area, including pottery and terracotta stamps used mainly for decorating tissues.

The ancient Mesopotamian city is thought to have been an independent administrative seat for a dignitary who ruled prior to the rise of the Assyrian empire.

The archaeologists plan on releasing a series of maps of the area by 2018.

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Ape-like creature filmed in La Crescenta woodland

Wildlife authorities have been investigating the recent sighting of an ape-like creature in California.

Jake Gardiner had been walking along a woodland hiking trail in the La Crescenta foothills last week when he encountered a peculiar uneasiness and the feeling that something was watching him.

Taking out his cellphone, he recorded footage of the surrounding area in the hope of picking something up. To his surprise, when he watched the video back afterwards he noticed what appeared to be a large ape swinging through the trees above.

"It's a little startling, too, you know? Because you're not really expecting to see an ape up in the trees out there. You're looking for more like deer or mountain lions, stuff like that," he said.

"You can definitely see a torso and four limbs moving around and swinging around," he said.

The video has caught the attention of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Andrew Hughan, with the department, said the video is being investigated with help from Los Angeles animal control.

"We think that it's a pretty good possibility that it is some kind of ape," said spokesman Andrew Hughan. "These animals are incredibly strong and they can very easily kill or seriously injure a person because - if it turns out to be an ape - this animal is scared, hungry, out of its element."

Gardiner said he's been back to the scene a couple of times, trying to get another crack at the possible ape. But wildlife officials said that's a bad idea because if it is an ape, it won't be cute or cuddly.

"It's going to be scared and it's going to be disoriented. Therefore, it's going to be potentially really, really dangerous. They can kill you very easily," Hughan said.

He added if it does turn out to be a chimp, it most likely was someone's illegal pet that either escaped or was dumped. His advice is to stay away from the area and head to the zoo if you're looking for that kind of nature experience.

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