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I’m probably not the first person you’d choose to send off round the world looking for monsters. There’s the credibility problem to start with. I’m best-known for dressing up in silly costumes and playing practical jokes on people on TV. What if I actually came across one of these beasts and announced the fact to the world? I don’t think I would make the most believable of witnesses.
Nevertheless, I did spend a lot of the past year doing just this. I was Dom Joly, Monster Hunter, and I printed off a business card to prove it. First I had to decide on my destinations. Some were obvious: the Himalayas, for the Yeti, a hairy beast who wanders their upper slopes, 1)harassing mountain climbers and Tintin. And Loch Ness, for our very own Nessie, who lures tourists into much purchasing of tat.
As I’m married to a Canadian I had heard of that country’s own monster—Ogopogo, a Nessietype creature that lives in Lake Okanagan in British Columbia. The lake is bordered by 2)vineyards and peach orchards and was a most pleasant place in which to go monster-hunting.
I discovered another couple online. Explorers have written for several centuries about mokele m’bembe (blocker of rivers) a dinosaur-type creature said to live in Lake Tele, in the north of the Congo. This was by far the most difficult of my trips, with days in a canoe and trekking through forest before meeting a particularly tricky tribe whose permission I needed to get to the lake. Things went 3)pearshaped as everyone got drunk on “4)jungle gin”and spears and 5)machetes suddenly made a very unwelcome appearance.
The second was in Japan. I’d read about the hibagon that roamed the hills around Hiroshima and was reputed to be a man who had been 6)irradiated by the atomic bomb. This seemed unlikely but my dad, who was in the Fleet Air Arm, flew over Hiroshima the day after the bomb had been dropped, and I had always been fascinated by the place.
Then of course, there was Bigfoot, rumoured to roam the coast from California to British Columbia, with hundreds of sightings a year. Bigfoot was the main reason I got interested in monsters in the first place.
I can still remember the excitement of seeing the Patterson-Gimlin footage for the first time. This was a shaky 16mm film taken in a place called Bluff Creek, northern California, in 1967. The footage shows a large ape-like creature, walking on two legs in a jerky manner and staring back at the cameraman. Some hail this as conclusive proof; others claim it is a fake. There is a Bigfoot museum in Willow Creek, Humboldt County—“Ground Zero” for Bigfoot hunters—and that was where I decided to head. I love northern California: as soon as you drive over the Golden Gate Bridge and up Highway One, you are in a very special place. First you hit 7)Hitchcock country: Bodega Bay is where he filmed The Birds, and there were some particularly large and scary looking seagulls hovering above my car.
Then I headed inland, through various areas of 8)intoxication. First the 9)wineries of Napa and Sonoma, then the Microbrewery Belt, and finally Weed Country. It may be a coincidence that Bigfoot territory is slap-bang in the middle of this last area…
Moss-covered coastal oaks give way to huge forests of redwood trees. If you’ve never seen a redwood, it’s difficult to describe their power. I’m not normally awed by nature, but the redwood brings out my inner hippy. I have a huge urge to hug them, except it would take about 20 of me. On a lovely stretch called Avenue of the Giants I drove through some of the most impressive of these woody 10)behemoths, wishing I’d rented a 11)convertible so I could really appreciate my insignificance.
I stopped to try to photograph some of the trees (it’s almost impossible) and got into an 12)altercation with a pick-up truck full of lady rednecks. It ended up like a scene from Deliverance(not that scene). Suffice to say I hot-footed it out of there and ended up in the wonderfully named city of Eureka, which boasts a couple of extraordinary mock-Gothic Victorian buildings, including the Carson Mansion, that are said to have inspired some of the weirder parts of Disneyland.
From there it was just an hour to Willow Creek—a one-street town much frequented in summer by fishermen and white-water rafters, drawn by the beautiful 13)Trinity River. I stayed for a couple of nights, checking out the Bigfoot Museum and talking to Twin-Peaks-esque locals before heading off into the great unknown.
It’s only when you do this that you realise just how possible it might be for something like Bigfoot to remain largely undiscovered. The vegetation is thick and 14)impenetrable and covers a vast area. I found this out to my cost when I crashed my car in snow 18 miles up an empty road. With no mobile signal I had no option but to walk out (breaking the Ray Mears rule of always staying by your vehicle). It was very cold, and there are mountain lions, bears, paranoid, armed weed farmers and Bigfoot roaming the area …
In a movie this would have been where I blacked out and woke up in Bigfoot’s nest with the creature breastfeeding me. Fortunately a lovely man called Peter, who was out mushroom picking, saved me at the seven-mile mark. Peter’s parents run Marble Ranch, a “dude ranch”—the sort of place where cissy east coasters can come to learn to ride, shoot and survive in the wilderness (à la City Slickers). As Peter drove me off the mountain I couldn’t help thinking that this was exactly the sort of trip I needed to take before my next adventure. That night, safe in a log cabin straight out of Elle Décor, I ate a steak the size of Texas and slept the sleep of kings. After all my trips I’m still not sure whether monsters exist. I did catch something on film in the Okanagan. I’m sure it’s possible for things to exist without discovery in places like the Congo and the Himalayas, and there are just too many people who’ve seen something in Bigfoot territory for there to be nothing at all. Maybe you should go find out yourself. Just print a business card saying you’re a monster hunter and head off into the unknown.
如果你想找个人满世界替你寻觅怪兽，想必我不会是你的第一人选。首要问题就是可信度。我最为人所知的形象就是在电视节目中穿着可笑的服装并用惯用的伎俩戏弄人。假设我真的遇见了怪兽，并向全世界宣告这一发现，那会是怎样的情形？我打赌我不是最有说服力的见证者。
但不管怎样，去年的大部分时间我确确实实是在做着这件事。我叫杜姆·乔利，是一名“怪兽猎人”，我的自制名片可以证明这一点。首先我必须选定我的目的地。有些地方是比较明确的：喜马拉雅山，雪人——一类游荡在高处山坡，骚扰登山者和丁丁（《丁丁历险记》主人翁）的多毛怪兽。还有尼斯湖，我们亲爱的尼斯湖水怪，它诱惑着大批游客购买各种劣质纪念品。
因为我的妻子是加拿大人，所以我也听说了她们那里的怪兽——欧肯纳根水怪，不列颠哥伦比亚省欧肯纳根湖中一种类似尼斯湖水怪的生物。湖旁边有大片的葡萄庄园和桃树果园，还有比这儿更舒服的怪兽猎场吗？
我还在网上查到了其他一些地方。探险家们对“河霸龙”（意为“阻碍河水的流动”）的描写已有数世纪，据说是生活在刚果共和国北部泰尔湖中的一种类似恐龙的生物。这是我迄今为止最艰难的一次旅程，先是几天水上伐独木舟和森林中的艰难跋涉，去向一个相当棘手的部落寻求许可让我们进湖。而当大家被“丛林果酒”搞得晕头转向时，倏地出现的长矛、弯刀和一张不怎么和善的面孔，让整个旅程变得有些艰难。
接着来到日本。我曾在书上读到过关于比婆怪兽在广岛附近的山林中徘徊的故事，并被认为是人类受到原子弹辐射后产生的变种。这听起来不太可信，但我曾效力于海军航空部队的父亲，在原子弹投射到广岛的第二日曾飞过那片领域，让我对那片土地充满向往。
当然还有不能不提的大脚怪，传闻大脚怪常在加州至不列颠哥伦比亚省一带的海滨游荡，并且每年都有数百起目击事件。大脚怪是我一开始对怪兽感兴趣的主要原因。
我仍记得第一次看帕特森–吉姆林短片的那股子兴奋劲儿。这段画面一直摇摇晃晃的16毫米胶片短片拍摄于1976年，地点是北加利福尼亚州一个叫做布拉夫溪地的地方。短片中出现了一个巨型的类似猿的生物，用双脚直立行走，还回头盯了摄像师一阵。有些人把这奉为确凿的证据，而另一些人则认为这是人为造假的。洪堡郡的威路溪地有一座大脚怪博物馆——大脚怪追踪者们的起点，也是我的目的地之一。
我爱北加州这个地方：一旦你驶过金门大桥上了第一高速路，就来到了一个特别神奇的地方。首先引入眼帘的是希区柯克的国度：波地加湾，他拍摄《群鸟》的地方，确实会有些特别大的、长相可怖的海鸥盘旋在我的汽车上方。
我朝着内陆驶进，路过无数诱人的区域。首先是纳帕谷和索诺玛谷的葡萄酒厂，接着是手工微酿啤酒厂区，最后来到著名的烟草区。而大脚怪恰恰选了这最后一个地区的中心做栖息地，不知是否是某种巧合。
渐渐地，被藓苔覆盖着的海滨橡树被巨大的红杉树林代替。如果你从来没有看过红杉树，我很难向你描述它们那种力量感。我通常不易对大自然的力量感到敬畏，但是红杉激发了我内心自由奔放的一面，使我有一种强烈的冲动想要去环抱它们，但这要有20个我才能办到。我驾车经过一段十分有趣的被称作“巨人大道”的路，沿途是各种让你难以忘怀的庞然大物——红杉树景观，多希望我租的是一辆敞篷车，这样我就能一路感受自我的渺小。
我停下车，试图拍下这些树的影像（几乎不可能成功），之后还卷入一场与一辆满载乡下妇女的小货车的争吵中，并以电影《激流四勇士》中的场景告终（不是那个场景）。我几乎是仓忙逃离争执现场，最后来到有着美妙名字的尤里卡。那里有着大片杰出的仿维多利亚时期哥特式的建筑，比如卡森豪宅，据说迪士尼乐园中的一些怪异的设计正是受到这些建筑的激发。
距离尤里卡仅仅一小时车程的威路溪地是一座只有一条街道的小镇，每到夏日，镇里美丽的特里尼蒂河吸引众多渔夫和激流漂流者，整个地方变得熙熙攘攘。我在那儿呆了几晚，仔细逛了逛大脚怪博物馆，和像电视剧《双峰》里人物那样的当地居民交谈，之后又踏上了未知之地。
往往只有当你亲身经历你才会发现像大脚怪这样的庞然大物要藏匿起来还是挺有可能的。植被又浓又密，难以穿行，覆盖了广袤的区域。我得出这个结论的代价是我开上一条空旷的公路18英里后，汽车在雪地上坏了。因为手机没有信号，我只能下车步行（违背了雷·米尔斯的“待在车内”的准则）。外面特别冷，而且还有可能碰到美洲狮、熊、疯子、带武器种大麻的农民，以及可能游荡在这附近的大脚怪……
如果这是在演电影，这时我将晕过去并会在大脚怪的巢中醒来，一个未知的生物正要给我喂奶。幸运地是，一个叫彼得的好心人外出采蘑菇，在7英里标牌处救了我。彼得的父母经营了一家“大理石农场”，也可以叫“硬汉农场”——可供那些东海岸的娘娘腔来学习骑马、射击以及荒野生存的技巧（对，就是那些城市滑头们）。彼得把我送下了山，我不禁想到这正是我开启另一段冒险前所需要经历的难忘旅程。那晚，舒适地呆在一家仿佛从《ELLE家装设计》杂志中出来的小木屋中，我吃下了德州那么大一块的牛排，舒舒服服地睡了一觉。 整个旅行结束后，我还是不能确定这世上到底有没有怪兽存在。在欧肯纳根湖，我确实拍下了一些影像。我能确定的是像在刚果共和国和喜马拉雅山脉那样的地方确有可能存在着我们未知的事物，而相反在大脚怪地区人们见到的诸多东西或许并不是真正意义上存在。也许你可以自己去找找看。只需带上一张署名“怪兽猎人”的名片，向未知世界出发吧！
News Link:
Wanted: Bigfoot hair samples for European study
LONDON (AP) — European researchers are planning to use new techniques to analyze DNA that could help crack the mystery of whether Bigfoot exists.
In a project announced this week, Oxford University and Lausanne Museum of Zoology（洛桑动物学博物馆）scientists appealed to museums, scientists and Yeti aficionados（狂热爱好者）to share hair samples thought to be from the mythical ape-like creature. New genetic tests will be done on just a few strands（一丝，一缕）of hair and should be completed within weeks. Even if the sample is judged to come from an unknown species, scientists should be able to tell how closely it is related to other species, including apes or humans.
Bryan Sykes of Oxford University said the group had already received many offers of samples to test, including blood, hair, and items supposedly chewed by Bigfoot. Sykes and colleagues plan to sift（详细审查）through the samples for the next few months before deciding which specimens to test. They will then publish their results in a peer-reviewed journal（同行评审期刊）.
Nevertheless, I did spend a lot of the past year doing just this. I was Dom Joly, Monster Hunter, and I printed off a business card to prove it. First I had to decide on my destinations. Some were obvious: the Himalayas, for the Yeti, a hairy beast who wanders their upper slopes, 1)harassing mountain climbers and Tintin. And Loch Ness, for our very own Nessie, who lures tourists into much purchasing of tat.
As I’m married to a Canadian I had heard of that country’s own monster—Ogopogo, a Nessietype creature that lives in Lake Okanagan in British Columbia. The lake is bordered by 2)vineyards and peach orchards and was a most pleasant place in which to go monster-hunting.
I discovered another couple online. Explorers have written for several centuries about mokele m’bembe (blocker of rivers) a dinosaur-type creature said to live in Lake Tele, in the north of the Congo. This was by far the most difficult of my trips, with days in a canoe and trekking through forest before meeting a particularly tricky tribe whose permission I needed to get to the lake. Things went 3)pearshaped as everyone got drunk on “4)jungle gin”and spears and 5)machetes suddenly made a very unwelcome appearance.
The second was in Japan. I’d read about the hibagon that roamed the hills around Hiroshima and was reputed to be a man who had been 6)irradiated by the atomic bomb. This seemed unlikely but my dad, who was in the Fleet Air Arm, flew over Hiroshima the day after the bomb had been dropped, and I had always been fascinated by the place.
Then of course, there was Bigfoot, rumoured to roam the coast from California to British Columbia, with hundreds of sightings a year. Bigfoot was the main reason I got interested in monsters in the first place.
I can still remember the excitement of seeing the Patterson-Gimlin footage for the first time. This was a shaky 16mm film taken in a place called Bluff Creek, northern California, in 1967. The footage shows a large ape-like creature, walking on two legs in a jerky manner and staring back at the cameraman. Some hail this as conclusive proof; others claim it is a fake. There is a Bigfoot museum in Willow Creek, Humboldt County—“Ground Zero” for Bigfoot hunters—and that was where I decided to head. I love northern California: as soon as you drive over the Golden Gate Bridge and up Highway One, you are in a very special place. First you hit 7)Hitchcock country: Bodega Bay is where he filmed The Birds, and there were some particularly large and scary looking seagulls hovering above my car.
Then I headed inland, through various areas of 8)intoxication. First the 9)wineries of Napa and Sonoma, then the Microbrewery Belt, and finally Weed Country. It may be a coincidence that Bigfoot territory is slap-bang in the middle of this last area…
Moss-covered coastal oaks give way to huge forests of redwood trees. If you’ve never seen a redwood, it’s difficult to describe their power. I’m not normally awed by nature, but the redwood brings out my inner hippy. I have a huge urge to hug them, except it would take about 20 of me. On a lovely stretch called Avenue of the Giants I drove through some of the most impressive of these woody 10)behemoths, wishing I’d rented a 11)convertible so I could really appreciate my insignificance.
I stopped to try to photograph some of the trees (it’s almost impossible) and got into an 12)altercation with a pick-up truck full of lady rednecks. It ended up like a scene from Deliverance(not that scene). Suffice to say I hot-footed it out of there and ended up in the wonderfully named city of Eureka, which boasts a couple of extraordinary mock-Gothic Victorian buildings, including the Carson Mansion, that are said to have inspired some of the weirder parts of Disneyland.
From there it was just an hour to Willow Creek—a one-street town much frequented in summer by fishermen and white-water rafters, drawn by the beautiful 13)Trinity River. I stayed for a couple of nights, checking out the Bigfoot Museum and talking to Twin-Peaks-esque locals before heading off into the great unknown.
It’s only when you do this that you realise just how possible it might be for something like Bigfoot to remain largely undiscovered. The vegetation is thick and 14)impenetrable and covers a vast area. I found this out to my cost when I crashed my car in snow 18 miles up an empty road. With no mobile signal I had no option but to walk out (breaking the Ray Mears rule of always staying by your vehicle). It was very cold, and there are mountain lions, bears, paranoid, armed weed farmers and Bigfoot roaming the area …
In a movie this would have been where I blacked out and woke up in Bigfoot’s nest with the creature breastfeeding me. Fortunately a lovely man called Peter, who was out mushroom picking, saved me at the seven-mile mark. Peter’s parents run Marble Ranch, a “dude ranch”—the sort of place where cissy east coasters can come to learn to ride, shoot and survive in the wilderness (à la City Slickers). As Peter drove me off the mountain I couldn’t help thinking that this was exactly the sort of trip I needed to take before my next adventure. That night, safe in a log cabin straight out of Elle Décor, I ate a steak the size of Texas and slept the sleep of kings. After all my trips I’m still not sure whether monsters exist. I did catch something on film in the Okanagan. I’m sure it’s possible for things to exist without discovery in places like the Congo and the Himalayas, and there are just too many people who’ve seen something in Bigfoot territory for there to be nothing at all. Maybe you should go find out yourself. Just print a business card saying you’re a monster hunter and head off into the unknown.
如果你想找个人满世界替你寻觅怪兽，想必我不会是你的第一人选。首要问题就是可信度。我最为人所知的形象就是在电视节目中穿着可笑的服装并用惯用的伎俩戏弄人。假设我真的遇见了怪兽，并向全世界宣告这一发现，那会是怎样的情形？我打赌我不是最有说服力的见证者。
但不管怎样，去年的大部分时间我确确实实是在做着这件事。我叫杜姆·乔利，是一名“怪兽猎人”，我的自制名片可以证明这一点。首先我必须选定我的目的地。有些地方是比较明确的：喜马拉雅山，雪人——一类游荡在高处山坡，骚扰登山者和丁丁（《丁丁历险记》主人翁）的多毛怪兽。还有尼斯湖，我们亲爱的尼斯湖水怪，它诱惑着大批游客购买各种劣质纪念品。
因为我的妻子是加拿大人，所以我也听说了她们那里的怪兽——欧肯纳根水怪，不列颠哥伦比亚省欧肯纳根湖中一种类似尼斯湖水怪的生物。湖旁边有大片的葡萄庄园和桃树果园，还有比这儿更舒服的怪兽猎场吗？
我还在网上查到了其他一些地方。探险家们对“河霸龙”（意为“阻碍河水的流动”）的描写已有数世纪，据说是生活在刚果共和国北部泰尔湖中的一种类似恐龙的生物。这是我迄今为止最艰难的一次旅程，先是几天水上伐独木舟和森林中的艰难跋涉，去向一个相当棘手的部落寻求许可让我们进湖。而当大家被“丛林果酒”搞得晕头转向时，倏地出现的长矛、弯刀和一张不怎么和善的面孔，让整个旅程变得有些艰难。
接着来到日本。我曾在书上读到过关于比婆怪兽在广岛附近的山林中徘徊的故事，并被认为是人类受到原子弹辐射后产生的变种。这听起来不太可信，但我曾效力于海军航空部队的父亲，在原子弹投射到广岛的第二日曾飞过那片领域，让我对那片土地充满向往。
当然还有不能不提的大脚怪，传闻大脚怪常在加州至不列颠哥伦比亚省一带的海滨游荡，并且每年都有数百起目击事件。大脚怪是我一开始对怪兽感兴趣的主要原因。
我仍记得第一次看帕特森–吉姆林短片的那股子兴奋劲儿。这段画面一直摇摇晃晃的16毫米胶片短片拍摄于1976年，地点是北加利福尼亚州一个叫做布拉夫溪地的地方。短片中出现了一个巨型的类似猿的生物，用双脚直立行走，还回头盯了摄像师一阵。有些人把这奉为确凿的证据，而另一些人则认为这是人为造假的。洪堡郡的威路溪地有一座大脚怪博物馆——大脚怪追踪者们的起点，也是我的目的地之一。
我爱北加州这个地方：一旦你驶过金门大桥上了第一高速路，就来到了一个特别神奇的地方。首先引入眼帘的是希区柯克的国度：波地加湾，他拍摄《群鸟》的地方，确实会有些特别大的、长相可怖的海鸥盘旋在我的汽车上方。
我朝着内陆驶进，路过无数诱人的区域。首先是纳帕谷和索诺玛谷的葡萄酒厂，接着是手工微酿啤酒厂区，最后来到著名的烟草区。而大脚怪恰恰选了这最后一个地区的中心做栖息地，不知是否是某种巧合。
渐渐地，被藓苔覆盖着的海滨橡树被巨大的红杉树林代替。如果你从来没有看过红杉树，我很难向你描述它们那种力量感。我通常不易对大自然的力量感到敬畏，但是红杉激发了我内心自由奔放的一面，使我有一种强烈的冲动想要去环抱它们，但这要有20个我才能办到。我驾车经过一段十分有趣的被称作“巨人大道”的路，沿途是各种让你难以忘怀的庞然大物——红杉树景观，多希望我租的是一辆敞篷车，这样我就能一路感受自我的渺小。
我停下车，试图拍下这些树的影像（几乎不可能成功），之后还卷入一场与一辆满载乡下妇女的小货车的争吵中，并以电影《激流四勇士》中的场景告终（不是那个场景）。我几乎是仓忙逃离争执现场，最后来到有着美妙名字的尤里卡。那里有着大片杰出的仿维多利亚时期哥特式的建筑，比如卡森豪宅，据说迪士尼乐园中的一些怪异的设计正是受到这些建筑的激发。
距离尤里卡仅仅一小时车程的威路溪地是一座只有一条街道的小镇，每到夏日，镇里美丽的特里尼蒂河吸引众多渔夫和激流漂流者，整个地方变得熙熙攘攘。我在那儿呆了几晚，仔细逛了逛大脚怪博物馆，和像电视剧《双峰》里人物那样的当地居民交谈，之后又踏上了未知之地。
往往只有当你亲身经历你才会发现像大脚怪这样的庞然大物要藏匿起来还是挺有可能的。植被又浓又密，难以穿行，覆盖了广袤的区域。我得出这个结论的代价是我开上一条空旷的公路18英里后，汽车在雪地上坏了。因为手机没有信号，我只能下车步行（违背了雷·米尔斯的“待在车内”的准则）。外面特别冷，而且还有可能碰到美洲狮、熊、疯子、带武器种大麻的农民，以及可能游荡在这附近的大脚怪……
如果这是在演电影，这时我将晕过去并会在大脚怪的巢中醒来，一个未知的生物正要给我喂奶。幸运地是，一个叫彼得的好心人外出采蘑菇，在7英里标牌处救了我。彼得的父母经营了一家“大理石农场”，也可以叫“硬汉农场”——可供那些东海岸的娘娘腔来学习骑马、射击以及荒野生存的技巧（对，就是那些城市滑头们）。彼得把我送下了山，我不禁想到这正是我开启另一段冒险前所需要经历的难忘旅程。那晚，舒适地呆在一家仿佛从《ELLE家装设计》杂志中出来的小木屋中，我吃下了德州那么大一块的牛排，舒舒服服地睡了一觉。 整个旅行结束后，我还是不能确定这世上到底有没有怪兽存在。在欧肯纳根湖，我确实拍下了一些影像。我能确定的是像在刚果共和国和喜马拉雅山脉那样的地方确有可能存在着我们未知的事物，而相反在大脚怪地区人们见到的诸多东西或许并不是真正意义上存在。也许你可以自己去找找看。只需带上一张署名“怪兽猎人”的名片，向未知世界出发吧！
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Wanted: Bigfoot hair samples for European study
LONDON (AP) — European researchers are planning to use new techniques to analyze DNA that could help crack the mystery of whether Bigfoot exists.
In a project announced this week, Oxford University and Lausanne Museum of Zoology（洛桑动物学博物馆）scientists appealed to museums, scientists and Yeti aficionados（狂热爱好者）to share hair samples thought to be from the mythical ape-like creature. New genetic tests will be done on just a few strands（一丝，一缕）of hair and should be completed within weeks. Even if the sample is judged to come from an unknown species, scientists should be able to tell how closely it is related to other species, including apes or humans.
Bryan Sykes of Oxford University said the group had already received many offers of samples to test, including blood, hair, and items supposedly chewed by Bigfoot. Sykes and colleagues plan to sift（详细审查）through the samples for the next few months before deciding which specimens to test. They will then publish their results in a peer-reviewed journal（同行评审期刊）.