For hundreds of years there have been strange stories told about creatures that looked like dinosaurs, living in central africa. One of the earliest records found on the subject comes from a book written in 1776. Abbe Proyhart described seeing giant, clawed animal footprints in West Central Africa, tracks that he claimed were three toed.
In 1913 a German experdition traveled to the Congo in Central Africa, they met up with a group of Pygmies who told them story about an animal they called Mokele-mbeme. (name means one who stops the rivers) The pygmies said the creature was the size of an elephant, with along flexible neck and a long tail. They said it would attack any body that came close to it, but they said it would not eat meat, because it was heabivorous. There have been many similar reports made though out central Africa describing what sound like a small sauropod dinosaur.
In 1980 and 1981 cryptozooologist Roy P Mackal headed a explorations into the Likouala and Lake Tele region of the congo looking for the Mokele-mbeme. Mackal documented a number of past witnesses accounts, one of the more interesting stories he recieved was about a Mokele-mbeme that was attacked and killed. Pascal Moteka told the story about how his people who lived near the Lake Tele,constructed a barrier of stakes across a river to keep the beast away from their fishing area. A Mokele-mbeme tryed to break through the barrier, the villagers managed to spear the creature to death. The villagers celebrated the killing by eating the Mokele-mbeme, but every one who ate the creature died soon afterwards.
A Congolese biologist Marcellin Agnagna who had accompanied Mackel on earlier expeditions, led his own search in 1983. Agnagna claimed to have sighted a Mokele-mbeme himself. He said it had a long neck but could not see the legs or the tail, which remained underwater. Agnagna had a movie camera but later reported that there was very little film and when he started filming he left the lens cap on. He reported watching the creature for about twenty minutes but had no photographic evidence.
A Japanese film crew which flew over Lake Tele in 1992 captured some of the best photographic evidence so far of a mokele-mbeme. They were flying over the area filming footge for a documentery when they noticed a large shape moving across the river and leaving a v shape wake behind its self. The camera man got about fifteen second of footage before it dived underwater. The footage is very jumpy and indistinct but it does show what looks like a long neck. At the end of the day the evidence is still very in still very weak.
The chances that the Mokele-mbeme really exsiting is remote but there is just enought evidence to keep crytozoologist interested and going back to the congo to search for it.
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