Cryptozoology

History

Cryptozoology, subtitled Interdisciplinary Journal of the International Society of Cryptozoology, was the peer-reviewed annual journal of the ISC from 1982 to 1996. The archive holds twelve volumes covering the full publication run, ending with Volume 12 which consolidated the 1993 to 1996 papers into a single closing compendium. The Society itself was founded in 1982 with Bernard Heuvelmans, the Belgian-French zoologist whose On the Track of Unknown Animals (1958) had introduced the term cryptozoology into the scientific literature, serving as its first president, and Roy P. Mackal at the University of Chicago serving in the senior scientific advisory role.

The journal's inaugural Volume 1 (Winter 1982) opens with Heuvelmans's article "What is Cryptozoology?", translated from the French by Ron Westrum of Eastern Michigan University's sociology department. The piece functions as the founding manifesto of the field, framing cryptozoology not as the study of mythical or fantastical creatures but as the systematic application of zoological methodology to the question of whether reports of large, undocumented animal species in regions where the inventory of mammals remains incomplete warrant formal investigation. Heuvelmans's three categories of zoological evidence (autoptical, testimonial, and circumstantial) became the working framework subsequent volumes returned to.