Loren Coleman: “It’s taken six years, but as of November 1, 2009, the International Cryptozoology Museum will publicly open in a permanent space in downtown Portland, Maine. The three year lease is signed, the fund-raising can begin in earnest, …and the doors are happily being flung open to a new dawn for the world’s only fully public cryptozoology museum…

After first being established in August 2003 via my modest home-based cabinet-of-curiosities in the Libbytown section of the Pine Tree State’s largest city, the International Cryptozoology Museum will have its grand public opening right after Halloween 2009, in downtown Portland, Maine.The museum has found a public home at 661 Congress Street, in the Arts District, just down the street from the world-famous Portland Museum of Art, the Children’s Museum, and the State Theater, next to a local landmark, Joe’s Smoke Shop. Also, it will sit right across from The Fun Box Monster Emporium. What a wonderful neighborhood for a cryptozoology museum!” (Cryptomundo)

‘U.S. scientists in the Gulf of Mexico unexpectedly netted a 19.5-foot (5.9-meter) giant squid off the coast of Louisiana, the Interior Department said on Monday, showing how little is known about life in the deep waters of the Gulf.

Not since 1954, when a giant squid was found floating dead off the Mississippi Delta, has the rare species been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico.

Giant squid, which can be 40 feet long, are usually found in deep-water fisheries, such as off Spain and New Zealand.

“This is the first time one has actually been captured during scientific research in the Gulf of Mexico,” he said.’ (Reuters)

Don’t mess with them: “Is there any doubt that the scariest animal in the world is the giant squid? Just its name paralyzes my heart with fear in a way that “killer whale” or “jumbo shrimp” do not. Most of us first caught a glimpse of this denizen of the deep trying to kill Kirk Douglas in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and we all had the same question: How angry do you have to be to try to kill the recipient of an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement? The answer was instantly branded onto all of our brains: as angry as a giant squid.

The giant squid is an “eat the crew, ask questions later” kind of cephalopod, and motion pictures have rightly depicted it as a very angry animal that’s not given to conversation. To see a giant squid is to be attacked by a giant squid, the saying goes. But, like Tom Cruise between movies, the giant squid is camera-shy. And, just like the diminutive actor, Architeuthis dux spends long periods lurking out of sight, surely up to no good, before bursting forth, tentacles flailing, and exercising its alternate belief system. In Mr. Cruise’s case, the alternate belief system is Scientology. In the giant squid’s case, the alternate belief system is a desire to wrap you in its horrible tentacles and poke you to death with its poisonous beak. There are similarities. Leave giant squid alone.” — Grady Hendrix (Slate)

“A mile and a half (two and a half kilometers) underwater, a remote control submersible’s camera has captured an eerie surprise: an alien-like, long-armed, and—strangest of all—”elbowed” Magnapinna squid.”