The "Capsizing Monster" of the Zambezi River: How an Englishman Wrote About It in 1923

At the junction of Zambia, Congo, and Angola, there is a large swamp, and beside it is a river. Locals say that a strange thing often comes out of the river, called "Kongamato". The word means "the boat-capsizing fellow".

According to local descriptions, it is a flying thing, with wings spanning one to two meters when spread, no feathers, smooth skin, reddish color, a very long beak, and sharp teeth. It flies out of the swamp, specifically attacking small boats on the river, ramming them to capsize, and biting the people on board. Locals say that whoever sees it will die. They dare not go to that swamp, nor dare to row boats on the river there.

In 1923, an Englishman named Meland published a book called Africa Bound by Witchcraft. He had served as an official in northwestern Zambia for many years, and the book wrote down what he had heard from locals. He said that the thing described by locals was very similar to a pterosaur. He also said that he showed locals a pterosaur picture from a book; after seeing it, the locals changed color, pointed and said: That's it, that's Kongamato.

The story later grew and grew, becoming one of the pieces of evidence for "survivors of the dinosaur era still living in Africa", and appearing in many adventure novels and documentaries.

But if we look at it calmly, there are places in this story that don't make sense. Meland himself never saw the animal with his own eyes; he wrote down hearsay. What locals saw might be a mix of several known animals, such as very large bats, or large birds like the saddle-billed stork, whose wings spread wide and have long, red beaks; and to this day, no one has found any matching bone or fossil in that place.

In the following decades, some people took cameras to that swamp to look for it, but returned empty-handed.

The locals' attitude, however, has never changed. Even today, some people are still unwilling to enter that swamp.

#Paranormal #网络转载 #未解动物