Recommendation: "Bernard Heuvelmans, Pity, and the Dictators of Science"
Bernard Heuvelmans, the "Father of Cryptozoology", is frequently portrayed as either a genius and prophet or an incompetent fool; in large part because the focus is always on the facticity of his claims rather than their cultural context. As a result Heuvelmans exists as little more than a caricature of himself in the contemporary cryptozoological literature. But who was he really?
Despite some claims to the contrary, cryptozoology is a multigenerational fascination. Far from being restricted to Gen Xers nostalgic for the days when Leonard Nimoy hosted In Search Of... (1977 - 1982), tales of the never ending hunt for Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster are just as compelling to elder Millennials (like myself, age 39) and the new Gen Z. Each and every generation gets to discover and rediscover these monsters and decide what the quixotic quest for their existence means to them.
At G-FEST XXXI this past summer, I finally had a chance to meet Colin "The Crypto Kid" Schneider (age 26) in person and asked him what was going on with the younger generation of cryptozoology researchers and enthusiasts, and if there was anybody I should take note of. Without any hesitation Colin told me to look up a young researcher from Pennsylvania named Lana J. Pratt who was proving herself to be something of a cryptozoological prodigy. As it turns out I had heard of Lana, from paleontologist Tyler Greenfield (age 27), the mastermind behind the Cryptozoological Reference Library, just a month prior.
The following month Lana reached out to me on Facebook. Lana (age 20) was formerly an intern for the Mediated Experiences (public programming team, on the floor education) and Malacology (shelled invertebrates) collections team at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA (yes, the one in the news that recently got shut down). Currently she works at a local nature center. When she reached out to me she was in the middle of a long term project chronicling the life of Bernard Heuvelmans (1916 – 2001), the self-styled "Father of Cryptozoology." Highly impressed by the work Lana had already done, which included translating multiple French language sources related to Heuvelmans without the aid of LLMs, I told her I was happy to assist in anyway I could.
Heuvelmans is an incredibly important but tremendously misunderstood figure in the history of cryptozoology, especially among anglophone researchers, few of which appear to have ever even bothered trying to read Heuvelmans' majority French language scholarship on the topic of "hidden animals." Which only makes Lana's prodigious efforts all the more exciting, and personally gives me hope that the younger generation of cryptozoology enthusiasts will build substantially on the efforts of those of us who have gone before them rather than simply repeating the same extant information ad nauseum.
Lana's essay on Heuvelmans - which stands as one of the most meticulous English-language biographies of the man ever assembled - is now on her website, Academic Cryptozoology, and comes highly recommended.
How to cite this entry
Justin Mullis. “Recommendation: "Bernard Heuvelmans, Pity, and the Dictators of Science".” Justin Mullis (blog), November 6, 2026. https://profjustinmullis.com/archive/recommendation-bernard-heuvelmans-pity-and-the-dictators-of-science/.