Death Worm 2009

… direct from the Avid.  A dead dog, and some people that will help tell the worm’s story.

Good night!

“Where’s the doco” you say? “Where’s the bloody doco!” Well, it’s coming - going through the rather drawn out process of translating everything word-for-word. And getting distracted by writing about what happened in Mongolia-land (the stuff that that wasn’t death-worm related. Read it here.

More doco news, as it comes.

Oh - while we’re on the topic of crypto - here in New Zealand myself and comedian/actor Rhys Darby have started a cryptozoologically-themed radio show, called The Cryptid Factor. Look, it’s even got its own fancy logo:

Darby is a big fan of this stuff, and we were both thrilled to meet each other: Basically just because we could both talk about “odd” stuf f with somebody else.. and not be judged for it!  And what better next step than to turn that talk into a radio show? It’s on every Saturday morning at 8am (NZ time) on George FM. It streams over at georgefm.co.nz. We’re into our 6th show this Saturday… join us!

Farrier out!

Here’s a fascinating read about the world’s giant worms - from Japan, to little old New Zealand (where we’re from).

There are so many fascinating bits, but here’s a sample:

There have long been tales of enormous earthworms surfacing from time to time in various areas of Japan. One of the hotspots for such accounts is Hyogo prefecture, on Honshu Island, which has many historical accounts of worms in excess of 1.5 meters (5 feet) long. One such account dates from the year 1712, in what was then known as Tamba province (now part of Hyogo prefecture). The account describes a huge landslide that occurred in a village, after which 2 giant earthworms were found in the debris. One of these worms measured 1.5 meters (5 feet) in length, while the other was larger still, at 3 meters (10 feet) long. Another landslide that occurred in the same general vicinity allegedly unearthed a 4.5 meter (15 feet) long worm. A more modern report from Mikata-gun, which is located in the mountains of Hyogo prefecture, dates from 1996 when a farmer uncovered an earthworm 1 meter (3.3 feet) long and 2cm (0.8 inches) thick while planting a tree on his rural property. It was the first time the surprised farmer had ever encountered such a large worm in all his years in the area.

…

Perhaps the largest overall known species is the giant Gippsland earthworm (Megascolides australis) ~ seen above, which is found only in the Bass River valley of South Gippsland in Victoria, Australia. These huge worms regularly reach sizes of 3 meters (10 feet), and the longest specimen on record was measured at 4 meters (14 feet) long. These rare earthworms are so large that it is possible to hear the gurgling sound of their movement through the earth when they are disturbed.

In neighboring New Zealand, there is another large worm known as the North Auckland worm (Spencerilla gigantean), which reaches a length of 1.4 meters (4.5 feet). These worms have the added surprising, some might even say creepy, feature of glowing in the dark. By some accounts, the light the worms emit is said to be bright enough to read by.

The United States has its own giant worm as well. The Palouse earthworm (Driloleirus americanus) of the northwest can reach lengths of up to 1 meter (around 1.3 feet) long, perhaps even more. These worms have a historic range throughout the Palouse Prairie, which stretches out over southeastern Washington state and northern Idaho, and is sometimes even considered to encompass parts of Oregon and northwestern Montana as well. The Palouse earthworm is a striking white color, and is said to be able to spit defensively at those that provoke it. These large worms were thought to be extinct in the late 1980s however in the spring of 2005 a University of Idaho graduate student located a specimen by accident during a dig. Several other specimens or parts of specimens have been reported since.

Europe also has its giant worms. The Black Forest region of Germany is home to a 2 foot long worm known as the Giant Badish earthworm (Lumbricus badensis). Sardinia, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, and southern France are home to a species of the earthworm family Hormogaster that can get as long as 75cm (2.5 feet)…

And here’s the rest of the article.

As we edit and edit this site is a bit quiet… so I’m just gonna keep posting up worm news. Here’s a good interview with British cryptozoologist Richard Freeman about his MDW expedition (he’s just gotten back from a more successful trip to spot Indonesia’s yeti… but that’s a whole other story!)

Did they take any practical steps to try and ensnare the Death Worm?

“On one occasion we did set traps using a series of sunken buckets connected by mesh above ground level. The idea is that the creature crawling along bumps into the mesh and cannot carry on forwards, so runs along the mesh until it comes to the bucket and drops in. After a night of thunderstorms and heavy rain, we checked the buckets in the morning but they were empty.”

Click here for more of the article / interview.

Well, we have about 10 hours of footage digitised (that’s off tape and in the trusty computer), and should be done by the weekend. Then we’ll then get stuck into the editing process. Talking about “We’s” I should mention a wonderful chap named Toby is onboard to cut this thing. Which is great news, as Toby’s a great editor and storyteller.

At around 2pm I got a call from the NZPA who did a lovely story before we went. This time, they wanted to know what had gone on. It was a tricky phone call to get actually, as I hadn’t given “post-Mongolia interviews” too much thought. Of course I want to talk about Mongolia, the Death Worm and what we experienced - but as I said in the last post - I don’t want to give too much away.

Anyway, this is what they ended up running (which has popped up in the likes of the Otago Daily Times):

THE DOCUMENTARY IS DEFINITE.

There may not actually be solid evidence of an acid-spitting, lightning-throwing Mongolian deathworm living in the Gobi Desert but there will definitely be a documentary about it.

Journalist David Farrier and cameraman Christie Douglas have returned from Mongolia, where they spent about two weeks trying to verify the deathworm’s existence.

Some Mongolians say the Allghoi Khorkhoi, or “intestine worm”, resembles a 1.5m-long creature that jumps out of the sand and kills people by spitting concentrated acid or shooting lightning from its rectum over long distances.

Farrier would not say if the pair discovered evidence of the fantastical creature as they were not revealing too much until the documentary was complete.

People were welcome to assume they didn’t find anything, he said, however: “As far as telling the story about the deathworm I’d say we were pretty successful in what we came back with and we have definitely got a doco on our hands.”

They recorded about 30 hours of footage and spoke to people who said they had seen the worm.

“Because the sightings peaked during the 1950s a lot of these witnesses won’t be around for much longer, so I felt pretty lucky to get to some of them before they are actually dead.

“The story of creature hasn’t been told yet in any kind of factual way. It’s always been crazy people out with flashlights on their heads looking for it, no one has got any facts down about it and that’s what this is going to do.”

Farrier is hoping to produce a 90 minute documentary by the middle of next year, which could be shown at film festivals.

He would try to get it shown in Mongolia because the locals there were keen to see the results of the trip.

In the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator no one had even heard of the deathworm.

However, as they headed south towards the Gobi Desert more and more locals were aware of it.

Farrier said the whole expedition was a fantastic experience, despite experiencing increasingly unpleasant conditions in the Gobi Desert.

They didn’t wash for two weeks, and at one stage it was so dry they blew their noses and blood would come out, Farrier said.

Farrier said he believed the deathworm did exist and another trip to Mongolia isn’t out of the question.

“There are more leads that can be chased up as far as the deathworm goes, and there is also the Almas, which is their version of the Yeti, which comes down from Russia occasionally, and other creatures are calling from Mongolia.”

NZPA

Right - so that’s that.

Finally, I should add that shooter Christie Douglas has been uploading some still photo to his twitter account. They really are quite stunning, especially where Mongolia’s on-mass creatures are involved. Here are a couple:

More can be found here at TwitPic.

-Farrier