"Cryptozoology" - Journal of the International Society of Cryptozoology (1982-1996)

One of the best known cryptozoological periodicals is "Cryptozoology", a journal published by the International Society of Cryptozoology (ISC) from 1982 until 1996.

The ISC's website (now defunct, but at least partially archived in the Wayback Machine Internet Archive) stated that the ISC:"wasn't set up to attempt to prove the existence of the supposed animals that fall within the parameters of cryptozoology. Rather, it was established to evaluate the evidence for such 'cryptids' in a calm, methodological, and objective way, and to present such findings to both the zoological community and interested laypersons in its publications, the refereed journal Cryptozoology and The ISC Newsletter. The Society has done this now for 22 years, publishing about 1.5 million words of scholarly information..."

Volume 12 of "Cryptozoology" includes an article by Aaron M Bauer and Anthony P Russell which begins with the following comments about cryptozoology:

"Cryptozoology as a science suffers from an image problem. Many critics (often uninformed) regard cryptozoology as the bailiwick of the fringe ele­ment, of credulous individuals with no real credentials as scientific research­ers. Certainly, the field does attract a disproportionate number of adherents whose interests tend to the bizarre, and even to the supernatural. However, as a glance through the pages of the journal Cryptozoology will reveal, pro­fessional zoologists, anthropologists, linguists, and folklorists, as well as dedicated amateurs, are also intrigued by the field, and have established a credible record of objectively analyzing data pertinent to unknown animals (e.g., LeBlond and Collins 1987, Winn 1991 ), or applying data from other fields to cryptozoology (e.g., Buffetaut 1983, Brussard 1986)".

The final "Acting President" of the ISC was Christine Janis. She kindly indicated to me that she had no objection to my uploading scans of "Cryptozoology". She wanted to stress that ICZ "tried to distance itself from the supernatural, and to focus only on the scientific side of cryptozoology". Christine also put me in touch with another member of the former Executive Board of the ISC, Angelo Capparella. Angelo also indicated that he had no objection to the uploading of this journal.

Since I was not clear on the precise relationship between the ISC and the subsequent International Cryptozoology Society (ICS) directed by Loren Coleman, I also contacted Loren Coleman about the potential uploading of scans of this journal. He kindly indicated that he guessed I didn't need his approval if Christine Janis had no objection to the upload (but in any event said that he would be happy to see "Cryptozoology" uploaded and appeared to be enthusiastic about the scanning project generally).  

The scans have, and is often the case, been helpfully done by the AFU in Sweden and I have uploaded them to the AFU's website.

This upload follows the recent uploading of Rip Hepple's Loch Ness "Nessletters" (with his kind permission) and will hopefully be followed shortly by many other cryptozoological periodicals - if I can obtain relevant permissions...