I have read Mark A. Hall’s (and Loren Coleman and David Goudsward’s) posthumous Merbeings and… my god… even for someone deep into the #MarkAHalliverse one sentence had my jaw on the floor.

#Merbeings #Mermaids #Cryptozoology #Cryptids

I can never get enough irresponsible #Cryptozoology speculation. Here Mark A. Hall — creator of the #MarkAHalliverse — wonders if maybe, PERHAPS, eyewitnesses don’t ever exaggerate and there is a second even BIGGER Thunderbird #cryptid out there. How birders are missing 75’ / 22.8 m birds is a good question… or radar for that matter.

Harry Trumbore’s assignment to illustrate about 50 hairy hominids for Coleman and Huyghe’s “Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide” is unenviable — nevertheless he did great with the material he was given! This giant fella is part of the #MarkAHalliverse (not a co-author?!?!) and depicts an Am Fear Liath Mòr as a SUPER-supersized Gigantipithecus… in this canon these “True Giants” are convergently quite human-like.

#Cryptid #Cryptozoology #Bigfoot #AmFearLiathMòr

On this #SuperbOwlSunday what can be more superb than the giant speculative owl in the #MarkAHalliverse named #Bighoot ? It seems to be largely based on one eyewitness encounter where a 9-10 foot snag turned into an owl the size of a small airplane, in Ohio of course. Also — same as #Mothman !

And, as a capstone to this whole #MarkAHalliverse (20/?) thread enterprise, we have… #TrueGiants … the absolute zenith of Flesh-And-Blood #Cryptozoology

Oh and there are also Australopithecines roaming around North America in the #MarkAHalliverse (19/?). They’re the #Euhemerist explanation for any lore about magical little people but, sadly, Hall doesn’t have much to say about them. As a reminder — there are also mini-Merpeople wandering around… hmm, you know, this really might be straining my credulity somewhat.

Now some #Cryptozoologists have a #Bigfoot in the PNW and a #SkunkApe in the SE and regard them as possible different species (e.g. Heuvelmans) and wouldn’t you know, this is also the case in the #MarkAHalliverse (18/?)! Even more giant primates in North America! — this time Paranthropus and Dryopithecus. Why the *heck* is Dryopithecus still alive, in North America and apparently largely bipedal?

Oh the #MarkAHalliverse (17/?) is far from done: North America ALSO has #Homo_gardarensis which… is just a member of our species with acromegaly - but not to Hall! The “Taller Hominid” category combines these pathological remains with the Dorset Culture (DEFINITELY not actually Bigfoots), a #Euhemerist explanation for Trolls, and some vague reports. They can also wear clothes! Despite Hall regarding them as very close Homo sapiens-relatives, he draws them as extremely ape-like… weird.

The outrageously overstuffed North America of the #MarkAHalliverse (16/?) ALSO has Neanderthals who ALSO wear clothing, albeit scavenged. It’s weird Hall implies Neanderthals are not smart enough to manufacture clothing whereas Merbeings and #Homo_gardarensis are. Huh? Oh wait, maybe they steal from the other hominids! Are all of these hominids aware of each other or are they cryptids to each other too?

As if Giant Baboons wearing costumes wasn’t outlandish enough, in the #MarkAHalliverse (15/?) there are also Aquatic Apes in North America that wear swimming suits! Also the #DoverDemon is a pygmy Merbeing outside of its suit. ALSO also Loren Coleman has a posthumously collaborative book with Hall about Mermaids coming out… at some point? I’ll definitely be giving that a review.

In addition to hominids, the North America of the #MarkAHalliverse (14/?) is home to Giant Monkeys, inexplicably connected to the fossil “Simopithecus” (Theropithecus oswaldi). They sure don’t *look* like Geladas, they’re giant hopping pseudo-kangaroos! These monkeys are also disturbingly intelligent, able to imitate the sounds of other animals… oh and they can wear human clothes , including ceremonial antlers. So basically, this is a #Euhemerist take on #DogMan and similar reports.

The canonical phylogeny of #Hominids in the #MarkAHalliverse (13/?) is a bit… non-standard. Anyone into #Paleoanthropology may need to exercise caution, this phylogeny gets more perplexing the more I look at it…

In the #MarkAHalliverse (12/?), mystery primates abound! In fact, North America has about the same diversity of Great Apes as sub-Saharan Africa… that apparently scientists are just too darn lazy to find. The hyper-specious Hominogy is perhaps my favorite part of Hall’s work, it certainly has his most speculative and entertaining elements.

As if #Pseudoarcheology and #Cryptozoology weren’t enough #Pseudoscience ol’ Mark A. Hall also engaged in some #SpookyGeology . What can be more spooky than the last Ice Age being caused by North America actually moving to the North Pole? I don’t even… and he also ties this… this… to the presence of his various Bigfoot species (yes, multiple) worldwide! It’s all there in Wonders 4(2)*

* May result in psychic damage.

#MarkAHalliverse (10/?)

I’ve really buried the lede here by not mentioning Hall’s website and #MarkAHalliverse the remarkable art style therein. Any suggestions for how exactly to label this style?

Kudos to the @internetarchive for preserving this!

https://web.archive.org/web/20050204002723/http://home.att.net/~mhall.bigfoot/

#MarkAHalliverse (10/?)

selected a dinosaur from the end of the Late Cretaceous that fit the reported size and by having “bony studs” (which I don’t think is true?). Despite having “few clues” Hall invents a #SpeculativeZoology scenario where #Thescelosaurus survives the (asteroid-free, hmm…) Cretaceous and becomes a snorkel-bearing aquatic species primarily dwelling in the Gulf Stream and Bahamas, going to estuaries only to lay eggs. Oh, and the pink color is derived from carotenoids.

#MarkAHalliverse (9/?)

In Wonders 1(4), Hall posits that the ornithischian dinosaur #Thescelosaurus is alive and well in Jacksonville, Florida… albeit pink, aquatic and with snorkels. Compared to the Lake Michigan Mosasaur (Wonders 2(2)), he’s actually much more careful with the #PrehistoricSurvivorParadigm — he actually has a rough idea of what this animal looks like. Hall took the adjectival use of “dinosaur” by the eyewitnesses* completely literally and…

* From a newspaper, of course

#MarkAHalliverse (8/?)

If anyone was wondering what this beast could *possibly* be, Hall identifies it as “relative of #Clidastes “ — a #Mosasaur living in Lake Michigan in the modern day. The utter dissimilarity of appearance is unexplained in-text; evidently Hall relied on a verbal description from David Peters (?!?!). Hall apparently fails to recognize the #LakeMonster was seen off Chicago and regards an 1867 newspaper as entirely reliable and not prone to any exaggeration or falsification.

#MarkAHalliverse (7/?)

Hall goes back and forth with Capparella in a later issue, but I won’t get into that drama here. I need to further descend into the MarkAHalliverse — there’s even a logo of sorts! I cannot help but notice “psychic web” and “unseen forces” on this… this… but Hall simply attributes the existence of #cryptids to nothing more mystical than the “complacency and laziness of biologists.” I THINK, this stuff is hard to read.

#MarkAHalliverse (6/?)

Capparella’s review, hilariously, uses the kid-gloves with Hall’s book because — and I say this as a Mark A. Hall fan — it is an *extremely* poor and unconvincing piece of work.

#MarkAHalliverse (5/?)