Names / Person

Jon Downes

Person 3 stories, 1979 to 2003

Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, Jon Downes turns up again and again where Britain's strange animals are hunted. January 2003. He led a team to Bolam Lake in Northumberland, with zoologist Richard Freeman, Graham Inglis and John Fuller, during a winter wave of man-beast reports. Earlier, in 1994, a tape of Japanese TV footage of the Lake Dakataua Migo reached him. Karl Shuker announced it that June. His data also fed Nick Redfern's retellings of the Beast of Brassknocker Hill.

Stories3

Pro early
The Beast of Brassknocker Hill
July 1979 · Brassknocker Hill, Monkton Combe, near Bath, Somerset, England
United Kingdom
Cryptid · Creature · 15 sources
22Thinly documented

Centre for Fortean Zoology, whose data Redfern cited

Pro early
The Lake Dakataua Migo: the 1994 Japanese TV footage
January 1994 · Lake Dakataua, Willaumez Peninsula, West New Britain Province
Papua New Guinea
Cryptid · Creature · 15 sources
20Thinly documented

Centre for Fortean Zoology; received a first-generation VHS copy of the footage

Pro early
The Bolam Lake Beast: the CFZ Expedition Sighting in Northumberland
January 18, 2003 · Bolam Lake Country Park, near Belsay, Northumberland, England
United Kingdom
Cryptid · Creature · 12 sources
14Thinly documented

Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, expedition leader and witness