Okay, LOL Can you provide the source that says that Seraphim in the bible are indeed Dragons, also notating
the specific area it does? All I find is fiery flying serpent. This in no way, says they were four-legged intelligent,
magical, flying beasts.

I would also like to see a reference where it says tiamat was the same as above...



Regards,
Tom

OOOHHH, you want those sources, Im afraid that those sources are very hard to come by....and very much in demand......*closes trench-coat and reaches down to pick up briefcase* *fiddles with the combination, and whistles an annoyingly happy tune*


*opens case partially, a golden glow comes from inside* You have no idea what i and my men have been through to get those sources....well maybe you do...maybe you saw the film.....



OK enough of that....There are NONE.....

.....well none that are easy to get *looks shifty* or cheap.......*shuffles feet*


To be honest i just mentioned in the other thread that there is only one instance that I know of, which comes from one of the obscure translations of the bible from the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Unfortunately my interest in it was not sufficient to note the cave number etc. that it was found in.

These are relatively late in date...Post Hellenistic....and as such are influenced by the mythologies that came into contact with the area....egypt, greek, persian etc. So its really not surprising that the word 'drakon' is used at least once.

I dont believe that it can in anyway be used to claim that it was a dominant and faithful perception at the time....more like a loony fringe.

The matter is compounded by 'our' perception of the word....and our perceptions of the various representations of composite beasties from the egypt, the levant, mesopotamia and persia.


now in reference to your question DC would go...."Exactly....fiery flying serpents....thats' what i said, dragons." And in a sense he has a case....just not one that proves a single universal source for the phenomenon. He would go on to say...." the words serpent and dragon have been interchangeable, so serpent in this case does not mean it didnt have legs."

Its a rather circular logic.

I believe he misreads and misinterprets the Jewish Encyclopedia....through the filter of his dragon mask....

The seraphim in the desert who bit the israelites, were in my opinion, snakes....like the horned viper.
One passage from the bible comes to mind....(no refs but i can find it again if you really want) about trampling an adder underfoot .... in the next line it is called a dragon.

So i can see how in this case it could equate, but with the adder as the signified.....the burning in this case relating to the burning sensation of the wound.
The seraph helecopter (dc used to mention so much) has another designation...the adder. (its an apache gunship used by the Israelis)

The brazen serpent was a snake-on-a-pole, which either had wings.....(its origin being in Egyptian medicine-already and evolved symbol) or acquired wings at a later stage of the development of the cult.

I dont want to say too much at this stage, but ive come across a reasonably satisfactory theory which im checking out. PM me for more, ill not post about it again until an as yet undisclosed date.
*looks shifty*

Isaiah itself describes the creatures with wings and feet. Obviously they are intelligent as well becasue they sing, with words. In some cases they are translated as serpents, and in others as drakons, but NEVER are they described as humanoid, swan winged Christmas Card angels.

More proof that this is a true, winged and limbed dragon comes when the name of the brazen seraph is changed to the NahashaTAN. TANnyn is the word for a dragon that is not identified as a heavenly creature like the throne guarding seraphim.

Actually there is no description of Tiamat with wings or feet that I am aware of. She is simply a Chaos serpent, sometimes with seven heads but not depicted like the 'good' Mushushu dragons with limbs and wings.

Actually undead, what makes the most sense is that you just read it wrong. Tuataras are the ONLY reptile WITHOUT a penis.

You are right that the penis does not eject urine, just sperm. But reptiles do pee. Sometimes it is solid uric acid and sometimes it is normal urine, and sometimes both simultaneously.

Yea I used to have a beared dragon, and he would do exactly that.

That can't be right! That cannot be...

*Rereads book with increasingly worried looking face*

...Um. Well then, I owe you an apology DC, the tuatara is the only reptile which lacks a penis. You were totally right.

Even a blind man throwing darts will hit the board once in a while.

Harsh dude, harsh.

Just asking, how did we get from dragons to the presence of a penis on certain reptiles?

Every conversation with me ends up on reptile penises, how could it not?

I'm just going to slowly back away from this thread.

ok lets change the subject here back to dragons...

I personally think that Dragons at one point in time did exsist, DC seems to think they exsist today, now im not saying your wrong, but dont you think we'd have found them by now? if they lived today that is

I was watching this show on youtube and apparantly there has been a number of modern day dragon sightings in Mongolia

I'd be tempted to call some of the ravens I see in Kingston dragons... ain;t never seen birds that big fight on the ground like that, haha.

I highly doubt that people in Mongolia would, for the most part, be educated enough to identify what they saw exactly. Dragon = large flying thing or large reptile when it comes to modern sightings in my mind. Can you find a link regarding these sightings?

We have found them. If lake monsters and sea serpents are real, (and thousands of people have seen them, their voices have been recorded, their huge bodies picked up on sonor, and even video and photos (though from afar), the only satisfactory explanation is that the are intelligent dragons believe in for thousands of years, otherwise the could not escape the attempts to 'capture' them.

You start out by saying we have found them, but in the end the reason you state for not having actual proof for finding them is that they are too smart to be captured. That is some funny logic. It is good to be open minded but not so open minded that your brain falls out.

I think if you look at most examples of lake monster evidence you'll find that the vast majority of it is actually less than stellar; you also cannot use the alleged existence of one unknown creature to prove the existence of another, that is not a logical argument.

I'd like to see this, link?

Not funny logic at all. Thousands of people have seen long necked. seemingly reptilian 'monsters' for centuries, and they have been photographed, sonor detected, and voices recorded. That is a lot of solid evidence. But being intelligent, they have eluded serious attempts to capture them. Can you blame them?

Can you provide any links or examples of documentation detailing conclusive photographic, audio or sonar evidence for the existence of large reptilian animals living in lakes ? I'd be interested in seeing on what specifically you are basing this.

This has been gone over fairly extensively in specific "lake monster" threads, but a quick recap, the soundings of an unknown marine animal have been recorded in lake Champlain, home of one monster reptile going back to pre-columbian times. Many lake monsters, including Nessie have had some good sonor 'hits', but when the monster wasn't found, they were dismissed, becasue sometimes schools of fish give a similar reading.. As for photos and video, many examples have been proven NOT to be fake, but the creatures are so wary and elusive, that close footage is very rare. Of course, before cameras were commonplace, we have a wealth of very good sightings describing the creatures in great detail. But without photographs confirming these sightings, they are generally dismissed by sceptics, despite the reliability of the witnesses.

Assuming that the recording is genuine, even if it cannot be immediately identified we cannot jump to the conclusion that it therefore belongs to an undiscovered species of animal. The audio recording in question actually resembles the type of clicking sounds you might expect to hear from a dolphin or other similar animal, as far as I am aware there are no reptiles that use echolocation.

This is an argument against sonar evidence for the existence of large monsters, not in support of it. It demonstrates that sonar 'hits' cannot be considered reliable evidence of a large creature, even the people who are out looking for monsters have reached that conclusion.

I am not aware of any photographs or videos that have been accepted as conclusive evidence for the existence of lake monsters, can you provide any specific examples of such cases ?

Actually most sightings reports are very vague and the descriptions vary immensely from 'humps' in the water, to anomalous wakes, to long black bodies to long necks; a lot of these can be explained by debris, animals in the water, currents and so forth. In the case of Loch Ness quite a lot of sightings come down to people looking too hard to interpret anything they see in the water as being the monster.

I live very near to Loch Ness and it has been a subject of great interest to me for over twenty years, unfortunately i've never seen any evidence to date that has convinced me that a large unknown species of animal lives in the Loch.

You still cannot take all this evidence and turn it into Dragons DC. It's just illogical to assume these supposed lake monsters are linked to your belief in Dragons. There is not even any conclusive proof that these lake monsters even exist, and you know that. You're theories are seriously flawed, no matter how much you belittle people on here, it does not change the fact that there really is no conclusive proof for any of your claims.

When these creatures are described in up-close encounters (usually before cameras were common), the monsters are usually given dragon-like attributes. And since some of these accounts go back centuries, in lands where dragon legends are common, it is natural to assume these creatures being sighted are the same dragons recorded by out ancestors. And the inability of scientists to capture the creatures despite so many eyewitness reports, strongly suggests that the legends are true about the dragons being intelligent beasts, even possessing paranormal abilities.

I have not read any accounts describing these lake monsters anything like what you call a Dragon. (Why is that?)
I would be interested in reading some of these supposed accounts that our ancestors recorded, can you provide a
link?

What about the links Saruman asked for?

not really, what it seems to suggest is that either these people were grossly mistaken, or telling porkies.

That is by far the most likely out come.

It is possible that it's simply a native story to warn the children away from the lake at night or with no supervison

Agreed. There is no physical evidence that there is any large creature in Loch Ness, nor proof that if there is, that it is a large reptile. Even if both of those were true, that is still not proof of a dragon in the lake, nor proof that whatever it is, is intelligent because it cannot be captured.
I mean, scientists have been trying to track down giant squids for how long now? And just within the last couple of years got video evidence, and have still yet to catch a live specimen. Is this proof that these creatures are intelligent, and have been outsmarting scientists?? Much less, have paranormal abilities that allow them to keep from being found??? Hardly.

As to the sonor, there was a recent special article here on UM about a guy who has devoted his life to searching for Nessie, and making Nessie models on the side living in a nonfunctional bus. In this article he claimed he did get a good sonor reading of Nessie which has inspired him to keep searching.

As for the unidentified echolocation in Lake Champlian (which seems to be quite well established as authentic by the scientist who recordd it), why couldn't a dragon intelligent enough to master human speech (according to numerous accounts), also 'master' dolphin "speech/echolocation"? It would be a useful thing to know when resigned to a largely fish diet.

There are a number of accounts by seemingly reliable people seeing Nessie up close and describing it in great detail. Also several accounts of the creature out of water straddling roads, from the period when the road was first constructed around the loch, disturbing the creature.

The British Isles is filled with so-called dragon sightings. Some are obviously nonsense, like the dragonslaying farces, but many are not unlike modern cryptid sightings, large strange creatures stealing animals, etc. So we have thousands of years of sightings of these animals, and we have deep inaccesible lakes where these creatures may have retreated to. Dragons and Nessie have the same characteristic long serpentine neck attached to a larger body.

The Fiordland Moose, the Okapi, the Australian Marsupial cat, the Gorilla. All of these creatures, before their final discovery, were given supernatural power in legends. The Moose; a ghost, the Okapi; a phantom, the Marsupial Cat; a man eater and the gorilla was considered to have many incredible paranormal powers. All were discovered to be real, of varying intelligence, NOT trying to avoid humans and most importantly with NO supernatural abilities.

Another interesting point here is that all had evidence pointing towards their existence before they were found. Moose droppings, tusk and fur were found, fresh Okapi dung was found on at least one occasion as well as fresh dead remains from the animal, the Marsupial Cat had a skull found, and gorilla tracks, droppings, and decomposing remains were found.

I don't know of any cases of echolocation per se, Saruman, but crocodiles do communicate with each other underwater via low-frequency sound. By communicate I mean calls such as: "stay away", or mating calls and such. Crocodiles also have pressure-sensitive organs on their snouts, that allow them to gauge the distance and direction of prey in opaque water. So, maybe some of the marine reptiles of old had some sort of echolocation.

As for dragons, who knows what such a creature could or could not do?

This is Steve Feltham, who gave up everything to pursue his passion for hunting for the creature.

The sonar hit comment was this:

Source: The Guardian.

He didn't say he got a good sonar reading of Nessie, he said he got some contacts but he had no idea what they were and admitted that there was no way to tell. Also remember that schools of fish and debris can produce sonar hits that appear to be of a large animal.


This is flawed logic, because of a single unexplained recording of echolocation sounds in a lake you have assigned echolocation capabilities to dragons in order to make them fit the bill. The correct way to look at this would be to consider what else is capable of producing these sounds and determine what is most likely to be causing them.


Unfortunately witness testimonies are never enough on their own, remember people can be mistaken. As I mentioned in my previous post there are a lot of things out in the water that can look like the trademark monster, even animals crossing the road can be mistaken for something monster-like depending on the circumstances. Witness reports are helpful, but alone they don't constitute sufficient evidence of an unknown creature.

Incidently have you looked in to providing any examples of proven videos or photographs yet for us ?


It's possible, however the recording in lake Champlain sounds more like the 'clicks' of dolphins or whales as oppose to the low frequency sound of crocodiles. It's a possibility that early aquatic reptiles used something similar to this.

Assigning echolocation to 'dragons' is not such a stretch if they are an intelligent creature. Is it not just as much of a stretch that there could still be an 'unidiscovered' freshwater whale? And this is NOT how the 'monster' is described by native americans and early europeans who saw it. There are a number of accounts of sea monsters and dragons with manes of hair, suggesting they may even be mammals, one speculation being long necked seals, though there would be difficulty identifiying world-wide dragon legends with a seal, though there are rare instances of mammals with an impressive array of overlapping scales on their bodies.

While there is quite a bit of photographic evidence that has no trace of being forged, admittedly none of it is conclusive proof because it is taken at such a great disntance away.

So why is it harder to see them now, than earlier? The best Nessie sightings were immediately after the new road around the loch was made and the creatures normal lifestyle was disrupted. And at this time there was no conscious effort to make the Loch a tourist attraction. The same can be said of other locations. In places where crocodiles are hunted they are extremely wary and escape into the water long before people are close enough to shoot them. And with these lake monsters we see the same thing. With the exception of fluke, surpise encounters by boaters, it is almost impossible to get close up views of their movements. They are usually only seen from great distances when humans may not have been seen or scented.

Well it is a stretch actually. For a start echolocation is nothing to do with intelligence. Secondly we know fresh water cetaceans exist, there is nothing to suggest dragons do so it is a much larger stretch to get to dragon.

Nessie has far more parsimonious explanations than dragons. Seals, otters, sturgeon, logs and the lochs currents. Take into account that most people are useless at wildlife identification and it becomes more and more clear that the likelihood is that there is nothing there.

I didn't suggest that there was a whale in Lake Champlain, my personal opinion is that the sounds recorded are either a hoax or man made; one discussion I read regarding this suggested the use of special fishing lures that send out pulses in the water to attract fish.

Assigning echolocation to dragons and claiming they are behind the recording is pure speculation with no basis in fact, also as Matt said above echolocation is not an ability akin to intelligence.


Since the most famous Loch Ness Monster photograph, the surgeon's photo, was revealed to be a hoax there has been a greater degree of skepticism in general towards the concept of there being a creature in the Loch; with recent television documentaries debunking the legend and with a constant lack of evidence being provided despite improving technology, belief in the existence of the creature is wavering. Back in the 1930's a single report of a monster at Loch Ness would shock, awe and surprise readers worldwide - these days it's a very different story.

It's not harder to see things in the Loch nowadays, it's just that people are less likely to report any anomalous thing they spot in the water as being a monster and any reports that are submitted are not sensationalised to anywhere near the same extent as they once would have been.

To be totally honest, Nessy is not real. I'm not talking about dragons or intelligent giant flying reptiles, I'm talking about Nessie. A Sea Serpent/Plesiosaur/Eel monster, as ALL the sightings vaguely identify it as. None mention anything dragon-like other than big reptiles. And none of them seem to be real when all the factors Mattshark bought up are considered.

lol i agree

I'm guessing you don't believe in dragons then?

lol all depends to some extent

? Elaborate?

You must be thinking of the Pholidota (AKA Scaly Anteaters).

7 species, the smallest is about 1.2kg (2 1/2lb) and the largest about 35kg (80lb)

Will that be big enough for your dragons.......

No, but it proves mammals could could be covered in scales.

You make a good point there DC

So Dragons are mammalian?

Possibly, and thats about it. Saying anything else would be speculation.

The "scales" are nothing but........HAIR

If not anteaters then what mammals were you referring to?