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Have you ever wondered about the origin of mythical creatures or if they even exsited at all?

I have a theory about it and I am sure I could very well be wrong but I think that a lot of them really did exist but not how we see them in pictures today. If you look at chernoble with all the radioactive material spilt and all the deformities that occured because of it, it really does show that some myths may have been real. In chernoble some of the babies were born with tails like a fish or snake and some kids were born with only one eye in the middle of their forhead or looking more like animals then humans. Now a days we can see these problems and the babies were aborted but way back when people didn't know about radioactive material and I would think it would be a bit more accessible then and with no one knowing what the baby was going to look like when it was born the uneducated would think they were being impregnated by the gods with these creatures. So we end up with tales of mermaids and the cyclops and who knows what other defects could have contributed to these myths.

I would love to hear everyone elses opinions on this one.

I like your analysis of mythical creatures, however, while this may explain some of the cases, I do not think it covers all of the cases of mythical creatures.

I agree with Doru. Those things happened because of a nuclear explosion. In ancient times and times before we had nuclear power plants etc what would cause people to have children who were deformed?

If any were born deformed that couldn't explain fae or imps as they are as small as a young girl's hand...

Mythical creatures all vary from epoch to epoch.

Interesting hypothesis. I recall changelings (elf babies switched for real ones) possibly being an "excuse" for a deformed child

Theres a difference between the two as I see it.
One is created by human disreguard. While mythical creatures are born from the human mind.

Two sides of the same coin - myths were interpretations of real events whether we engendered them or not

I also recall hearing a theory that certain myths might have come from discovering the remains of creatures that have long been extinct. Imagine what images would pop into your head if you stumbled across the remains of a dinosaur if you had no knowledge that such a creature even existed.

I b'lieve that Mythical creatures are extracted from the mind, mostly from children, they fantasize abou' creatures whom could either harm them or help them. Adults contr'bute t' these "Fables" as well, either 'n the caverns o' their dreams or from terror.

All myths have some truth to them. Most likely some may have been real while others were distorted [the truth of it].

There is no doubt 'n my mind that some o' them 'ave been proven true, I agree wit' that.

I saw on either the History Channel or the Discovery Channel...

That archeolgists now think that most of the Ancient Greek Mythical Monters, God, and creatures....

were created because of the remains of DINOSAURS and other extinct creatures!!!!

Evidently, The Ancient Greeks would find the fossilized remains of Dinosuars and extinct animals, and made up their own theories as to what they were and who they belonged to....

Ex: the skull of a Wooly Mammoth has a Huge opening where his nose would be, but the Greeks thought the opening was for it's eye.... hence the creation of the Cyclops!

Cool, huh?

Yes, I b'lieve that as well, an' people 'n England would find dinosaur bones an' their size an' instantly b'lieve that dragons ruled the earth an' terrorized villages an' such. Hense much o' the journeys told by Knights would include them fightin' off horrific monster 100 times their size t' impress ot'ers o' their bravery an' honor.

Yup, I think I saw that too. They were also speculating that if say pieces of raptor and a pterodactyl were fossilized together they might think that the raptor had wings and ta-da... a dragon myth was born.

Exactly. 'Owever, 'n the Orient area they b'lieve that the dragon 'as no wings an' is a sign of good luck, whereas, Europeans used t' b'lieve that dragons were overgrown fire-breathin' Iguanas used t' kill an' were only mindless eatin' machines.

Hawk2K - I have been reading and studing these for years. The Greeks and Romans refered to almost all ancient bones as Giant Bones, just as the chinese refered to them as Dragon Bones. Old Roman Museums have full mamoth skeletons that they have laid out in the shape of a human with titles of cyclopes. One man even tracked the possible origins of the mythical gryphon to the Valley of the Gryphon which is full of partially exposed Protocrytops Skeletons. Other possiblities would be the Old World Volture with its almost 50 ft wingspan being the origin of the Roc. They also have found skeletons of Dire Wolves which are almost 5 ft at the shoulder. And Komodo Dragons almost 100 ft in lenth.

Yes, t' this day there was an old Chinese man who owns a shop filled wit "Rare dragon bones" yet archeologist went t' look an' all they were were Dinosaur bones, yet they didn't 'ave the heart t' tell the old man the truth b'cause that's all he lived on, he 'ad nothin' else.

I dont believe they existed. there was no radioactive material back then to cause deformities.

I would think that mythical creatures sometimes can exist but it would be certain ones for me. But it depends on the person and there ideas of life and stuff like that.

In my opinion...when it comes to children and their "differences", for example say a person's ears are a little pointed and the mom/dad wanted her child to feel special...she told her a story about her coming from a special place of fairies or something along those lines. That could be a possibility.
There's some books with passages, religiously speaking, about how certain animals were formed. Some believe (or maybe it's proven?) that Unicorns were a mixed breed of a bull and a horse. Perhaps that kind of mixed breeding created animals to look a certain way etc. It's no secret really that you can explain why or how people or animals look a certain way. ^^

Ludia there has always been uranium which is a radioactive material that is found in the earth another naturally occuring radioactive material is radon which is found in nearly all soil samples. People exposed to high concentrations of these could have had the babies with deformities that could explain some of the mythical creatures but like many here I also don't think it explains them all, just some.

i believe they're all laying low and waiting for their day

i do beleive some mythical creatures at one piont did exist

I like the way you structured and completed your analasys about magical creatues, however I have to disagree with you.

The Chenobyl accident was in 1986, but different mythological creatures such as the mermaid and cyclops go back both 2000 and 3000 years, sometimes under different names and the describtion is a bit of at some point, but the overall pictures shows the same story.

i beleive that they might have existed but is there any proof that they did?

I believe that they existed and that it is possible that what you have said is very true.. we may not know if they truly existed but we know that in all myth's lie some fact

T' this day their are people still searchin' for these creatures, once again t' either upraise destruction or t' bless mankind, I b'lieve that at some time there were Mythical creatures that roamed the earth but were "demoted" t' anot'er world yet left b'hind some descendants 'n which they can still watch over the earth.

Great theory, yet my mind seems to ponder some of the mythical creatures of years pass, are they just, well to say random links of mortals or illness of the body we have made mockery into the creatures of today. illness and deformatary genes of mortals we have claimed as monsters.

there are many possible Theories as to how the Mythical creatures tales begun, and than again who is to say that there were / are actual creatures that we have yet to encounter ourselves? The Theories presented make sense to certain degrees as well so... this is a very interesting topic of discussion.

ive watched a documentary about a mythical creature living in the water under the golden gate bridge..

After reading the responses so far I think I would go along with OniKumo's answer.

One thing to remember perhaps is that from the time humans were living in caves, they had to have a way to teach their youngsters about the dangers that had to be faced.

Stories made more 'elaborate' were bound to come from those days....and play a part the the myths we have to this day.

A good theory but I can't see it reaching back far enough. While I try to keep an open mind I find it hard to believe there is any truth to some of these creatures. Depending on the culture and needs of the people at the time, their imaginations and thoughts on solutions are what I think make up some of these ideals.

It is very possible that some myths did develop from birth defects, but I have never heard of a child being bron with animal like parts due to the DNA is very much differant. I think some stories may have been just that, creative stories and that some did have some truth to them.

I would go with the theory of dinosaur bones being a good possibility of mythical creatures. Even possibly putting the bones together wrong and making a whole different species, out of bones they found.

Mikhail

Some of the mythical creatures that have existed throughout the ages may have been created for fictional storytelling. Some have other explanations as noted below from wikipedia:

"Often mythical creatures are chimeras, a combination of two or more animals. For example, a centaur is a combination of a man and horse, a minotaur of a man and bull, and the mermaid, half woman and half fish. These were not always intended to be understood as literal juxtapositions of parts from disparate species. Lacking a common morphological vocabulary, classical and medieval scholars and travelers would attempt to describe unusual animals by comparing them point-for-point with familiar: the giraffe, for example, was called cameleopard, and thought of as a creature half-camel, and half-leopard. The leopard itself was so named as it was historically believed to be a half-lion (Latin: "leo") and half-panther (Latin: "pardus"). This etymology has been kept until the present day, despite its zoological inaccuracies.

Many legendary creatures appear prominently in fantasy fiction. These creatures are often claimed to have supernatural powers or knowledge or to guard some object of great value, which becomes critical to the plot of the story in which it is found. Dragons, for instance, are commonly depicted as perched on a gleaming hoard of gold which becomes the target of adventurers."

An excerpt from: wikipedia

Theories abound and many presented here are good possibilities.I think,however, I might suggest something that is a bit more mundane.One being something that an individual accomplishes..something that would be considered so out of the norm, that it might lead to the belief that that indivdual has a power of somekind,or wings, as in the example I present in this video.I mean,who could say that Pegasus didnt touch Earth that day?

But to address the theory directly BB,yes,that one has been discussed alot,and I dont see why it couldnt be a possibility...Take for instance the whole thing about the mountains of Rajmahal, and the supposed nuclear explosin that happened there eons ago.. that would mean radiation, and of course ,some kind of mutaions.

I actually read about children who were born wit' their legs morphed together lookin' like a fin b'cause their feet point outwards, an' if you think abou' it people from anot'er time period would 'ave thought that they were born from mermaids/mermen. T'day, 'owever, they can be surgically separated.

The bones thing brought about a lot of them. I read a theory once about the origin of the cyclops from the Greeks. The idea was that they may have stumbled across the skull of an elephant. Once the trunk rots away on an elephant's corpse, the naval cavity is basically a huge hole right in the middle and slightly at the bottom of their forehead. This along with the two large tusks may have brought about the cyclops legend. The nasal cavity would have looked a lot like an eye socket to them.

There is some many to name I do bvelieve in one point in time weather it was Bc and way beyond that was these creatures that you speak of. Dragons, elevies, goblins, emps, unicorns, faeirys ect...Yes I do believe that they did exist.

wow there are quite a lot of theories and I have really liked reading about them all. I am not saying that my theory is right I just figured it was a good possibility since way back before modern power plants they would not have known not to touch the warm metal they may have found because they would not have known of radiation in it.

I have a few thoughts. Wine and late night partying to name a few. Just kidding. Perhaps dreams or visions of other worlds. It has happened.

HawkK2K beat me to it regarding the show on the History Channel...It explained a lot on how the ancients could have mistaken fossils of dinosaurs and extinct mammals as being of divine or mythological origin.

consider how the brain interprets what we see. it uses memory to draw comparisons. if someone travels to a far off land and sees completely new animals - sometimes briefly or from a distance, they wil try to comare it to what they know. this will taint how they remember seeing it, and when they describe what they have seen to another person, the beast becomes distorted further.

It seems most mythological creatures spring from a common ground of truth. In the past , there was not as much information as today. People comunicated by ways that took a very long time. Stories were told and retold , and we all know what happens then things sometimes are exagerated.

For example:

Not hard to believe the basis of a dragon , was the bones of a dinosaur. After saying that , imagin some people having a run in with the real life giant lizard , the Komono Dragon. Then as the story got told and retold....it is quite possible the lizard got bigger and bigger.

The mermaid , could have simply been a manatee.


A true seamonster is the tale of the giant squid , now while I am not 100 % sure these animals can pull down a large ship. They can be imposing if one were to see one and you were in a smaller boat.
But the chances that you would see one on the surface would suggest it may not be in the best of health. Since they are deep sea dwelling animalas.
These ARE real sea creatures. They ARE a food source of the sperm whale - giants themselves at up to 20 metres in length.
The largest known recorded specimen is 18 meters , around 59 pus feet. Also , these animals are known to have the largest eyes on earth reaching the size of a dinner plate.

It's like when people take some old IQ tests where you 'ave t' look at the "Ink Blots" an' say what you see-many people percieve pictures/stories diff'rently than ot'ers.

I believe dragons did and still do exist today, just in a different realm. Who's to say they did or did not.

Thats a very well thought out analysis of what could have happend. I could belive that. Or it could be that they exsited and then were killed off.

The one mythical creature I cannot get around is the Wyverns, their story/legend is awesome an' b'lievable but only t' a certain extent.

I believe that some mythical creaters are just left over animals from ages before man became top of the food chain. Think about dragons and look at creatures who walked the earth before us. I think we just thought they were all killed and that may not have been true.

I am sure that radiation existed back in the day maybe not as bad as it does now that we can fuck with the natural order of things but it existed. It can affect birthing with very little amounts at the right time.

Radiation is just unstable atoms so it could happen in nature.

Pehaps the radiation woke up some hidden message in the DNA chain?

MorbidAngel15 -

There are thousands of things not yet discovered in rain forests as they're too vast to have everything accounted for. Same with the Oceans and such.

Ooo Who wants t' go on a exploration trip?!

I think most mythical creatures were creatures we know now, just evolved. Who knows, maybe a horse had a horn once.

The thing with this question is that based on someone's belief system, certain creatures are false and certain are true. Some evil, some good and so on. If you ask a Catholic Priest about Dragons, he would probably recite the actions of St. Valentine slaying the evil dragon....*cough*...

Ask someone following the Olympian Deities about the Dragon, you may instead hear the story of how Heracles defeated the Hydra.

I find that it really all depends on where you're from and what you believe.

Mythical creatures are folklore creatures. almost all of them are reapeating depending on the culture... many of them have the same properties. but are called different, and look a bit different. all the creatures came from the need for people to believe in something... and to explain the things they couldn't understand.

As said earlier, all myths are based on truths. Or at least half truths.

Very interesting theory on mythical creatures. I am not sure about how it actually came about.

i agree with them and i beleve they still exsist just not with their own bodies

I believe mythycal creatures must have some existance.
How else would humans come up with such vivid images and stories.

vamp345 - If they don't exist in their own bodies, where do they exist?

I believe that they may exist, probably mostly on the Astral realms...

I think that maybe a few of them could actually exist, but other's were merely created as an explanation for some other animal that they had previously not know about, after a while the description of the animal was added to and embellished a bit and thus some story about mythical beast was created. Maybe the majority of these stories were created because of a lack of understanding about the world and the creatures that inhabit it. (ofcourse I was speaking about medieval times...)

I think most mythical creatures come from folklore through the years

ok like just the other day i saw on the news where in italy a deer was born with one horn.prime example how something like that could come out as a unicorn.Just way back then people didnt have the mind set that we have today.