International Society for Cryptozoology

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The International Society of Cryptozoology (ISC) was founded in 1982 to serve as a scholarly center for documenting and evaluating evidence of unverified animals; that is, animal species or forms which have been reported in some manner but which have not been scientifically proven to exist. The study of such animals is known as cryptozoology. Loren Coleman, John Green, Roy Mackal, and several other prominent cryptozoologists were either Life Members, Honorary Members, or Board Members.

The official emblem of the society was the okapi, chosen because, while well known to the native human population in the area where it lives, it was unknown to the scientific world until its discovery in 1901.

The organization is now defunct. The end of ISC began with the destabilization of the organization's funding, and continued with the death of its president, Bernard Heuvelmans, after the turn of the century, and the death of its secretary, Richard Greenwell, late in 2005.

[edit] Web Resources

Web researchers interested in the history of the society will find about a thousand Google.com links containing the phrase International Society of Cryptozoology. Note the use of the preposition of — not for — in the name. But a researcher may have trouble locating source material from the society’s website.

A search of Google.com, Archive.org and the "Whois" domain lookup engine at NetworkSolutions.com indicates a website existed for the society. The site name internationalsocietyofcryptozoology.org is registered to the International Society of Cryptozoology in Tucson, Arizona, with administrative contact listed as Richard Greenwell. Domain name was created on "19-Mar-2004", with expiration date of "19-Mar-2007".

As of this writing (November 19, 2006), a user attempting to access the site is stymied by an ISP placeholder page. Luckily, archived pages are available at Archive.org through this Internet Archive link. Only two entries in the archive are relevant: the first entry on July 30, 2004 and the September 29, 2004 update entry. All other entries are duplicates or consist of the placeholder page. The last entry containing society content is listed as November 30, 2005, with the placeholder page appearing as the next entry, dated December 10, 2005.

The copyright date on the archived pages is "2003-2004" and many of the links there are broken. Fortunately, links to the purpose of the society, members and honorary members are in the archive. The member listings should be a good source for further research into the history of the society.