A FIFTH TRUNKO IMAGE EMERGES, ALMOST 100 YEARS AFTER TRUNKO ITSELF DID!

Larger-resolution close-up
model of the fifth Trunko {photograph} to be made recognized to cryptozoologists (©
proprietor unknown, however picture dates from early Nineteen Twenties, so now prone to be in public
area – reproduced right here on a strictly non-commercial Truthful Use foundation for
academic/evaluation functions solely)

As ShukerNature readers will little doubt
already know, Trunko is the identify that inside my 1996 e book The Unexplained I light-heartedly coined (however which to my nice
shock duly turned globally accepted) for the hitherto anonymous but very
enigmatic ‘sea monster’ carcase washed ashore on a seaside on the coastal city of
Margate, in what’s now Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, throughout November 1924 (or 1922, in line with sure doubtful claims), and
characterised by its coating of snow-white ‘fur’ plus an extended elephantine
trunk-like projection.

Sadly, no tissue samples have been taken from
this unusual specimen for formal scientific evaluation earlier than it was washed again
out to sea and misplaced endlessly; nor, seemingly, have been any pictures snapped of
it. Consequently, Trunko appeared destined to stay perpetually unidentified,
eternally unexplained, however nonetheless inspiring all method of extremely
imaginative however typically extraordinarily eyecatching creative representations of what it
might have seemed like in life – weird furry marine pachyderms bearing no
resemblance to something ever recognized to have existed on Earth.

William Asmussen’s vibrant illustration of a residing Trunko
battling two killer whales, impressed by varied eyewitness claims again in 1922
(© William Asmussen)

Nearly 90 years later, nevertheless, in
September 2010, German cryptozoological co-researcher Markus Hemmler and I have been
very startled however delighted to find no fewer than three Trunko photographs,
which had been snapped by a Mr A.Ok. Jones whereas this curious carcase had lain
ashore.

One was featured on the Margate Enterprise
Affiliation (MBA) web site, the opposite two had been printed in a Broad World Journal article method again in
August 1925 (click on right here
and right here to
learn my two world-exclusive ShukerNature articles that documented these
extraordinary discoveries instantly after that they had been made).

A.Ok. Jones’s Trunko {photograph} that had appeared on the MBA
web site (initially © A.Ok. Jones, however picture
dates from 1922, so now prone to be in public area – reproduced right here on a strictly non-commercial Truthful Use
foundation for academic/evaluation functions solely)

But till now, all three had remained
fully unknown to the cryptozoological neighborhood.

Furthermore, these photographs have been of sufficiently
good high quality for me to have the ability to recognise that this entity was a globster,
i.e. a decomposed whale carcase from which the skeletal contents have fallen
away, forsaking a thick gelatinous matrix of collagen protein, nonetheless
encased contained in the whale’s pores and skin sac of rotting blubber, with the carcase’s
well-known ‘trunk’ most probably an enclosed rib coated in fibrous tissue, and the
carcase’s white ‘fur’ being uncovered connective tissue fibres.

A.Ok. Jones’s two Trunko {photograph} that had appeared on the Broad World Journal article of August
1925 (initially © A.Ok. Jones, however picture
dates from 1922, so now prone to be in public area – reproduced right here
on a strictly non-commercial Truthful Use foundation for academic/evaluation functions
solely)

After greater than 80 years, the thriller of
Trunko had lastly been solved (for full particulars, see my intensive Might 2011 Fortean Instances article – probably the most
complete protection of Trunko’s convoluted historical past ever printed, and
subsequently republished in ShukerNature E book 1).
However that was not all.

In March 2011, I learnt from Markus {that a}
fourth Trunko {photograph} had been found, by Margate-based South African
artist and Trunko researcher Bianca Baldi, within the archives of Margate Museum,
which confirmed an amorphous blob that once more confirmed Trunko’s identification as a
globster (click on right here to
learn my ShukerNature account of this dramatic discover).

The fourth Trunko {photograph} (© proprietor unknown, however picture dates from 1922, so now prone to be in
public area – reproduced right here on a strictly non-commercial Truthful Use foundation for
academic/evaluation functions solely)

And now, most not too long ago of all, on 19 April
2022 and courtesy but once more of the indefatigable Markus, I used to be made conscious of a
fifth Trunko picture. As with the earlier quartet, it had been hiding in plain public
sight for fairly some time.

Markus had found that on 4 March 2015,
Margate businessman Lencel Celliers had posted in a Fb group entitled
‘MARGATE, Natal, South Africa – NOSTALGIA’, a clickable hyperlink to a then-online
album of classic Margate-based pictures on the web site of a South African
information/Info channel referred to as eHowzit that included two Trunko pictures.
One in all these is the Jones picture that had appeared on the MBA web site, however the
different is fully new to cryptozoologists.

Decrease-resolution full model
of the fifth Trunko {photograph} to be made recognized to cryptozoologists (© proprietor
unknown, however picture dates from early Nineteen Twenties, so now prone to be in public area
– reproduced right here on a strictly non-commercial Truthful Use foundation for
academic/evaluation functions solely)

The album offered no particulars regarding
who had snapped this latter picture (it’s reproduced right here, on the opening to
this current ShukerNature article, on a strictly non-commercial Truthful Use foundation
for academic/evaluation functions solely). As may be seen, it depicts the by-now
acquainted Trunko type of an enormous white globster, however, curiously, it reveals a
giant fan-shaped projection from the carcase that was not seen in earlier
Trunko photographs however which can clarify varied previously-mystifying claims by
some authentic Trunko eyewitnesses that the carcase had possessed a lobster-like
‘tail’ (lobster tails are certainly fan-shaped). As well as, the particular
location depicted on this picture, the place Trunko was stranded, is revealed to have
been the principal Margate seaside at Tragedy Bay.

Markus subsequently contacted Mr Celliers
on FB for extra data concerning this extremely important picture, and
Celliers replied that he had obtained each of them from the Margate Museum
“when it was nonetheless in existence in 2000”. (He additionally offered a hyperlink to
a Margate-themed YouTube video produced by him and uploaded on 21 July 2012
that features these identical two Trunko footage – click on right here
to view it.) Presently unable to establish with certainty which
institution Celliers was alluding to, nevertheless, Markus speculates that it could
in reality be the Margate Artwork Museum, but when so, it’s nonetheless in existence in the present day.

Consequently, Markus has now contacted this
museum within the hope that it’s certainly the right one and might due to this fact present
some data regarding this fifth Trunko picture.

My honest thanks as at all times to Markus
Hemmler for therefore kindly bringing this newest unearthed Trunko picture to my
consideration and for sharing with me his data regarding it.