Everybody loves monsters. There are a myriad of programs on television and numerous websites that pertain to everything from Bigfoot to vampires. While it is probably true that children love monsters even more than we do, many of us have this intense interest in them. Monsters of all different types have been reported all over the world. Some monsters seem to be the same ones, only with different names. An example of this is Bigfoot. It is also called the Yeti or Abominable Snowman or Sasquash, depending on where you find it. Bigfoot is certainly not alone in the monster hall of fame. There are two kinds of monsters, those that are completely fiction and those that are believed to possibly exist. Some of the filmland monsters have managed to get a certain following that believes that somehow Hollywood, while calling them fictional monsters, was actually talking about real monsters. I personally don't get this, but this is what some people believe.

There are a group of people that believe that vampires actually exist. They base this belief upon many old legends and some strange things that have been found. Ancient bodies have been found from time to time with wooden stakes driven through their hearts and sometimes they also had their heads cut off. What prompted ancient people to do this, probably had nothing at all to do with vampires, but more to do with denying the afterlife to people. Some people believed that your body had to be intact to get to the afterlife, because you needed it to get around. What better way to take revenge on one's enemies than to deny them this? The true legend of Dracula was not that of a vampire, but of a brutal prince and soldier who used to impale his enemies by the thousands in front of his castle. He definitely was blood thirsty, but did not drink blood. Some people are convinced that they are vampires and there are these sorts of clubs that they belong to. They are not vampires in the traditional sense, but people that drink blood. This is a very disgusting thought indeed.

There are those that believe that some sort of dinosaur still exists and inhibit some of the world's lakes. We are all familiar with the Loch Ness Monster, I am sure. There is another supposed monster in Lake Champlain called Champ. Selma is a Swedish lake monster that supposedly lives in Lake Seljord. Another monster is said to live in Canada in Turtle Lake. Newfoundland has Cressie, a so-called monster that lives in Crescent Lake. The Lake Memphremagog monster in Vermont has been spotted several times as has the Lake Tianchi monster in China. I could go on and on as there are enough lake monsters to fill a library. So what do some people think that these lake monsters really are? Most believe that they are plesiosaurs, creatures that were dinosaurs that lived in the water. If this is ever proved, the find may be invaluable in the study of evolution. Would these creatures be exactly like their ancestors that lived hundreds of millions of years ago, or would they have changed? That is the million dollar question.

Dragon

Another popular monster is the dragon. You will find references to it in many different cultures, both western and eastern. Some say that dragons really existed at one time. Scientists believe that fossils of dinosaurs were often found by ancient people who really didn't know what they were. They theorized that these people believed that the bones were from creatures that lived in their time and when they came across these giant bones, they thought them to be those of recently dead dragons. Some of this was disproved however, when it applied to the ancient Greeks. There is now clear evidence that they knew that the bones were fossils of animals that lived way before their existence and even put some on display. If the ancient Greeks understood this, then the ancient Chinese most likely did also and maybe even many of the other nations that had reached near the level of the Greeks and Chinese. The interesting thing here is that the dragons pictured by the Chinese and the west, look different. The Chinese one is more snake-like.

Some monsters are said to be space aliens. There are several stories of people in different places of the world chasing and even capturing or killing these types of space monsters. A fact that I would also like to add is that quite a few people swear that they saw a Bigfoot coming out of a ufo. I can see you chuckling at that last statement, but I only mention it in passing to illustrate what some people claim that they saw. One supposedly small monster looking space alien was chased by an angry crowd of people in a South American country. The story goes that it was killed and that the Americans came along in vehicles and took the body away. There are also some stories that state that there was other incidences of space monsters and some were captured alive. Now I don't know about you, but I sure would hate to land on another planet and be taken for some kind of monster and chased by the locals and then beaten and taken away or killed. If this ever turns out to be true, then it is no wonder that if ufos exist, the beings in them don't want to make contact.

There have been quite a few monster sightings lately that have made the news. Chupacabras have been reported in Texas and Puerto Rico. A Chupacabra is what is commonly known as a goat sucker and has been reported in many South American countries, Central American countries, Mexico, Puerto Rico and now in Texas. The sightings seem to be working their way north. Then there is the Montauk Monster. Something was found on a beach in Montauk, Long Island, New York. No one could identify this strange looking creature, which became known as the Montauk Monster. Along with this was a claim that a couple of men had evidence for Bigfoot, they had a body. They posted a photo, but the entire thing turned out to be a hoax, as so many other Bigfoot cases. Will we ever confirm that any of these monsters exist? Could any of them be evolutionary throwbacks? I still have my money on some of those lake monsters. There have been so many sightings by reputable people, that I would hope that someday we will discover that they are real, but who knows, we can only wait and see.