# 100 yr old dragon found in a jar



## bugmankeith (Sep 20, 2008)

A pickled "dragon" that looks as if it might once have flown around Harry Potter's Hogwarts has been found in a garage in Oxfordshire, England.

The baby dragon, in a sealed jar, was discovered with a metal tin containing paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s.

Allistair Mitchell, who was asked to investigate the dragon by a friend, David Hart, who discovered it in his garage, speculates that German scientists may have attempted to use the dragon to hoax their English counterparts at the end of the 19th century, when rivalry between the countries was intense.

"At the time, scientists were the equivalent of today's pop stars. It would have been a great propaganda coup for the Germans if it had come off," Mr Mitchell said.

"I've shown the photos to someone from Oxford University and he thought it was amazing. Obviously he could not say if it was real and wanted to do a biopsy."

The documents suggest that the Natural History Museum turned the dragon away, possibly because they suspected it was a trick, and sent it to be destroyed. But it appears a porter intercepted the jar and took it home. The papers suggest the porter may have been Frederick Hart - David Hart's grandfather.

Mr Mitchell said: "The dragon is flawless, from the tiny teeth to the umbilical cord. It could be made from indiarubber, because Germany was the world's leading manufacturer of it at the time, or it could be made of wax. It has to be fake. No one has ever proved scientifically that dragons exist. But everyone who sees it immediately asks, 'Is it real?"'

Some scientists believe that dragons, though the product of imagination, were inspired by the extraordinary creatures that once roamed the Earth.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/28/1075088090949.html


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## hardlucktattoo (Sep 20, 2008)

I want one.................Daddy I want a dragon and I want it now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! insert voice of faruka from willy wonka


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## Krazy Kat (Sep 20, 2008)

hardlucktattoo said:


> I want one.................Daddy I want a dragon and I want it now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! insert voice of faruka from willy wonka


That funny That would be way to cool if it was real.


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## pitbulllady (Sep 20, 2008)

This has already been proved a hoax, like, over a year ago.  Amazing what someone with a little knowledge of Photoshop, combined with too much time on their hands, too little scruples, and a working knowledge of P.T. Barnum's famous quote can accomplish, isn't it?

pitbulllady


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## Tim Benzedrine (Sep 20, 2008)

But really, how could anybody have considered it anything BUT a hoax? I guess Barnum was right.


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## K-TRAIN (Sep 20, 2008)

well, the only thing real about it i can think of is that they could of used real bones to make a structure which they put the materials around, but thats it. 

dragons are awsome.... too bad they arent real lol


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## Aurelia (Sep 20, 2008)

pitbulllady said:


> This has already been proved a hoax, like, over a year ago.  Amazing what someone with a little knowledge of Photoshop, combined with too much time on their hands, too little scruples, and a working knowledge of P.T. Barnum's famous quote can accomplish, isn't it?
> 
> pitbulllady


It's not photoshopped.  It's a latex sculpture.


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## crpy (Sep 20, 2008)

Aurelia said:


> It's not photoshopped.  It's a latex sculpture.


yeah, I think its cool, I love dragons  

I carved one out of yellow pine....never do that again sorry for the sucky pic


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## halfwaynowhere (Sep 20, 2008)

it would be fun to have various mythological creature fetuses in jars, arranged on a shelf somewhere. Wish I had the talent to pull something like that off.


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## Krazy Kat (Sep 20, 2008)

halfwaynowhere said:


> it would be fun to have various mythological creature fetuses in jars, arranged on a shelf somewhere. Wish I had the talent to pull something like that off.


yeah really.Me as well!!


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## -Exotic (Sep 21, 2008)

hmm about proving te dragon part I was watching discovery channel and theres a group of scientist found  a preserved dragon in ice in the Himalayas. The dragon was in a room and which they couldnt get in due to the ice so the put this robotic camera and put it through a hole and they got the footage of the dragons body with 2 soildres. All that i noe is that the truth is out there waiting for us to discover unimaginable stuff.


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## Aurelia (Sep 21, 2008)

Are you talking about a show called Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real?   If you are then that one was fake too....


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## Krazy Kat (Sep 21, 2008)

That show is on now on science channel...


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## xBurntBytheSunx (Sep 21, 2008)

i think in the book of job (or one of the books near it) it describes lizards or beasts that breath smoke.  whether or not you believe in "god" i find it interesting a text that old talks about smoke breathing beast


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## K-TRAIN (Sep 21, 2008)

xBurntBytheSunx said:


> i think in the book of job (or one of the books near it) it describes lizards or beasts that breath smoke.  whether or not you believe in "god" i find it interesting a text that old talks about smoke breathing beast


you know, your right. and now that i think about it, the "burning bush" mentioned was proven real, as a plant that somehow can set itself on fire. (i think through oil on its leaves)

so maybe at one point there was a species of animal that breathed what past humans would consider smoke or fire.


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## Aurelia (Sep 21, 2008)

There are many ancient mythologies that talk about strange creatures. Man had as much imagination then as he does now.


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## arachyd (Sep 21, 2008)

Why not? There are beetles that shoot burning chemicals at enemies (I can't think of the name), horned toads/lizards that squirt blood from their eyes, snakes that shoot venom at the eyes of enemies, venomous lizards, birds with spurs on their wings or legs and the platypus with not only spurs but poison glands . There are so many truly odd ways animals can defend themselves it isn't much of a stretch to imagine something like dragons may have been real. Some animals use chemical combinations that you might think would kill the animal using them but along with that they've also got delivery methods that protect them. Why wouldn't it be possible for an animal to have a defensive/offensive chemical combination that smokes and flames?


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## Drachenjager (Sep 21, 2008)

well lots of methane in cow burps, so lets just say a big lizard like thing had that same problem and burped near a flaming creosote bush... fire breathing dragon. 
But people come on really. What were called dragons may very well have existed with humans. too many similar tales of the same things in cultures far removed. so I believe that there were something akin to dinosaurs living with man at one time in history. They were not far from extinction however, and who knows maybe somewhere a Sasquatch has a pet Velociraptor...


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## Aurelia (Sep 21, 2008)

That's like saying that the Earth was created by a group of gods because so many cultures have that myth.  Cultures weren't isolated from one another, they had contact, and they shared things. 

Where is the physical evidence that dragons existed?  I think it's very likely that the ancients came across dinosaur bones and made things up about them.  The same thing happened with unicorns and the rhinoceros.


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## arachyd (Sep 21, 2008)

"That's like saying that the Earth was created by a group of gods because so many cultures have that myth. "

I don't get the connection. If you make that argument it is more like saying the earth was created by the gods because there are fossil records of god-like beings of many types and many variations of god-like beings currently in evidence living on the planet which can be studied, which there are not. That is not what is being said, but rather speculation that some sort of dragon could be possible based upon past and current evidence of the types of variations creatures possess.


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## Aurelia (Sep 21, 2008)

No, I made the comparison because Drach said "too many similar tales of the same things in cultures far removed."  There are similar tales of a group of gods creating the Earth in cultures far-removed too, that doesn't make them true.


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## Hedorah99 (Sep 21, 2008)

Their was actually a mock-documentary a few years ago on Animal PLanet about the discovery of a dragon and they went through the biology of the species.

"Dragons" had a specialized bacteria in their digestive system that produced hyrdogen gas. They stored this gas in two specialized sacs in their back just behind the lungs. This produced a hydrogen store that was used to make them lighter which allowed flight, and also gave them the ability expel it through their mouths. Apparently "Dragons" also lived in areas where there were platinum deposits in the soil. They would grind the soil into their mouths where it was stuck in specialized teeth behind the molars. When the hydrogen gas hit the platinum, it created a spark and turned the dragon into an organic flamethrower, at the cost of its flight. At the back of the throat, a lid would shut the lungs preventing the flames from backing down the trachea. 

All in all it was a really interesting show and I was really surprised by the depths they went throught o create feasible biology for a mythic creature.


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## K-TRAIN (Sep 21, 2008)

Hedorah99 said:


> Their was actually a mock-documentary a few years ago on Animal PLanet about the discovery of a dragon and they went through the biology of the species.
> 
> "Dragons" had a specialized bacteria in their digestive system that produced hyrdogen gas. They stored this gas in two specialized sacs in their back just behind the lungs. This produced a hydrogen store that was used to make them lighter which allowed flight, and also gave them the ability expel it through their mouths. Apparently "Dragons" also lived in areas where there were platinum deposits in the soil. They would grind the soil into their mouths where it was stuck in specialized teeth behind the molars. When the hydrogen gas hit the platinum, it created a spark and turned the dragon into an organic flamethrower, at the cost of its flight. At the back of the throat, a lid would shut the lungs preventing the flames from backing down the trachea.
> 
> All in all it was a really interesting show and I was really surprised by the depths they went throught o create feasible biology for a mythic creature.


ironically i was watching that last night.


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## CrawlingKing (Oct 18, 2008)

to bad its fake.

update- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/3576987.stm

Book deal for dragon hoax author
Allistair Mitchell with the baby dragon in a jar
Mitchell staged the hoax in order to launch his writing career
An author who was so desperate to get his book published that he staged a hoax involving a baby dragon has won a lucrative publishing contract.

After numerous rejections Allistair Mitchell concocted a tale that a dragon had been found in a garage last year.

He said: "I created the hoax in order to attract potential readers."

Mr Mitchell, based in Oxford, has now signed an book deal with Waterstone's for his book Unearthly History, a thriller featuring a dragon.

Writing under the pen name PR Moredun, Mr Mitchell concocted the tall tale which emerged in the media in January.

It was claimed that German scientists created the specimen in the 1890s and sent it to the Natural History Museum in order to dupe their British counterparts.

But, the story went, the museum had dismissed it as a hoax and it had been spirited away by a museum porter.

In fact the dragon was created by Crawley Creatures, the model makers behind TV's Walking with Dinosaurs, and the jar was made by a specialist glass blowing studio in the Isle of Wight.

A Waterstone's spokesman said: "This is a very refreshing approach to book publishing.

"My bet is that it is going to be a big seller - because of the hoax but also because it is a great book and people will recommend it on."


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