What's the First Cryptid Sighting of 2011? Cryptomundo

Loren Coleman is searching for the first widely reported sighting of an unknown animal in the new year. Here he revisits some past "firsts" among cryptid sightings, starting with the sighting made by a durian farmer January 2, 2000, who was tipped to the presence of two "ape-like animals" by a strong odor. Part of the mystery of that year's first cryptid sighting may well be how a man who farmed the famously foul-smelling durian could smell anything, strongly odored or not, but we digress. The sighting by the Malaysian fruit farmer was just a prelude for later sightings that would come in the years to follow, sparking several expeditions in search of the creature. Coleman lists some other cryptid sightings that led off various years, preparing readers for the first sighting of 2011. With images. Elsewhere, creatures much smaller than the ape-like creatures spotted in Malaya occupy a tale dredged up by the ever-watchful Dr. Beachcombing in his search for bizarre history. And the history he finds this time occurred around 1815 in Yorkshire, England, possibly marking the end of an era in English folk beliefs, as revealed in Fairy Death in Ikley. Did William Butterfield encounter fairies on a midsummer morning?