Actual photograph capturing the Abominable Snowman. Eyewitnesses Rudolph, Yukon Cornelius, and Hermes say he's not nearly as ferocious as he looks.

If things had gone differently, I think I would have become a cryptozoologist. It fascinates me to know there are things out there we can’t explain. There are creatures with no classification. They appear from behind a tree to stare down a hiker, suck the juice out of a goat, obscure the sky with their breathtaking wingspan, jump over houses, or make shrill, chilling screams in the night.

They can’t all be made up. I see no reason that a small population of plesiosaurs couldn’t have survived whatever killed the rest of the population by sheltering in underground caverns in what’s now called Loch Ness. Maybe that sounds like I’m a whacko, but I’m not talking magic here. It’s just science. Science we haven’t yet found answers for.

My favorite animal at the zoo is the okapi. Not all zoos have them, but when they do, I make sure to spend time with them. They’re kind of bizarre looking creatures with zebra stripes on their legs, but stretched necks like giraffes. We’ve only been aware of their existence for less than 100 years. Before that, they were legends. The fact that this animal eluded us for so long before being classified by scientists is fascinating to me. What else is out there?

The Bigfoot hunters have a community all their own. Lately, there’s been a lot of stink over who faked evidence, who may have accidentally killed one, who spoke out of turn when they didn’t yet have proof. It’s a soap opera. I have to admit, I don’t pay much attention to it, despite the updates in my inbox from the Phantoms and Monsters newsletter. Do I believe in Bigfoot? I guess. Like  with Nessie, I see no reason to believe it’s scientifically impossible.

With the ability to take video on our cellphones, technology has made it more and more difficult for mysteries to survive intact, but it’s also made it exceedingly simple to fake things and share them instantly with the world.

I like that balance. I like seeing videos that might be proof of something new and impossible. But I also like knowing that video in itself still isn’t really proof. Unless I see it in person with my own eyes, I can’t know for sure that it isn’t a hoax or an optical illusion. Even then, I know I’d second guess my own experience.

So what’s the point in my reading that stuff each day? I’m a writer, that’s the point. My stories are filled with chupacabras, skunk apes, and sea serpents. Sure, there are closet monsters, gargoyles, and leprechauns, too, but I like mixing the impossible with the possible and the real. I like to blur lines.

Who knows what’s really out there? Nobody, that’s who.

And that’s exactly how I like it.