Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

Dinosaurs in today’s world have completely sold out. Instead of gutting each other in magnificent toothy battles, they do boring things like chase after their Jeff Goldbloom-kidnapped babies. It’s enough to convince you they’ve all been neutered.

Now don’t fret, any dinosaurs that are reading this. Your reptilian-equivalent of testosterone can be restored in our eyes if you ravage a rhino or something.

You know, like this…

Normally when we talk about giant reptiles in this column they’re in the form of lizard-men who jump all over people’s cars, and drag human women into caves where they’re forced to lay eggs, and then bury them on a beach close, but not too close, to the ocean.

Today, however, our story is 100% based on actual science and guaranteed non-fiction!

That or just some random guy’s unverifiable account. It’s from 1932, and Wikipedia spills it:

“In 1932 John Johnson (sometimes spelled Johanson), a Swedish plantation owner, was traveling with a servant in the Kasai valley, in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). They encountered a Rhinoceros, and, while attempting to pass it without detection, were surprised by a large creature rushing out of the undergrowth and attacking the rhinoceros. The servant ran away and Johnson fainted. He awoke to see that the creature was eating the rhinoceros. “It was reddish in color, with blackish-colored stripes,” he said later. “It had a long snout and numerous teeth.” He decided that the creature, 13 m (43 ft) long, was a Tyrannosaurus. He also said “The legs were thick; it reminded me of a lion, built for speed”.”

The dino was called Kasai Rex for this reason or that. As for whether or not said servant ever corroborated the story is unknown. We have a feeling that he definitely did though.

Believe it or not this isn’t the only time a T-rex has been spotted in Africa. A very similar story was told in a magazine that same year (1932). What’s more – in both stories pictures are said to have been taken. The one accompanying this article is from one of those encounters, but we’re not sure which.

Obviously that picture looks like a still from King Kong or something, but since we’re pretty sure the giant ape film was a documentary, that really doesn’t diminish from the pic’s authenticity.

And there you have it. As of 1932 at least one T-rex was still roaming the African wilds, so next time you’re on safari you might consider covering yourself in urine. After all, that’s how the kid survived so long in Jurassic Park 3.

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Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

If hecklerspray ever had to fight a crocodile, we’d start out by giving it our famous one-two punch, follow up with our world renowned triple-round-house kick, and then we’d force its tail into its own mouth making it chew until it was nothing more than a little scaly donut.

Don’t try that at home, kids. We’ve had training.

If we ever had to fight Mahamba, on the other hand, we’d probably do all the same things except with construction cranes instead of our hands. That’s because Mahamba is reported to be a 50′ long croc. It’s been sighted in the Congo, and some say it’s a remnant from a very ancient age.

We have a strange quote for you today – strange because we can only read it ourselves through Google’s Translator tool. It gives the account of a man who encountered Mahamba in the wilds of the Congo. He’d gone to hunt ducks, but saw this alligator/crocodile thing he estimated to be 15 metres long.

He only had a wussy gun with him as he came to hunt tiny little ducks, but he had a better weapon in his vehicle. He sent a kid to get his bigger gun. The is where Google translator kicks in. The original text is in German, and is found on Kryptozoologie-online.de:

“After the boy after a long time came, [the hunter] decided to brave because of the apathy of the crocodile which it had apparently not noticed, a little closer in his direction to crawl. Unfortunately, [the croc was] alerted by the ducks, which immediately aufflogen him, given his scant stock to a rapid, led untargeted shot. It was like it had come, because the giant crocodile-like flight left just before him like the ducks down the sand bank into safe water and disappeared into the murky waters.”

Probably the most coherent thing ever to appear on this website, right? Did you catch the part where the great white hunter was actually crawling towards this thing? Yeah, we did too. The story goes on:

“Hardly two or three days later ran the adventurers on a sand bank. After just one meter of scarce water under the keel of the boat was, waggled it unusually fierce and would not be the low water level would have assumed he almost rammed a river horse to have. Suddenly ran an approximately twelve meter-long crocodile, apparently uncomfortable by his boat taken quickly into deeper water. The animal had them after the Belgians later thought, already heard and escaped going to be in the direction in which her boat on the sandbank auflief. At the collision the animal had a speed of 64 Kmh added.”

As we understand it, a few days later the same crew got beached on a sand bar. One of these huge alligators freaked, shook their boat a bit, and then swam off. It’s kind of a tough read. Now for some plain English quotations. This is off of the website AmericanMonsters.com:

“Probably hailing from the Lake Likouala swamp region, this animal may, in fact, be a completely new species of heretofore undiscovered large, central African crocodile. That having been said, rumors of this animal’s prehistoric origins still persist, convincing some investigators that the animal might be a freshwater variety of the presumed extinct, aquatic reptile known as mosasaurs.”

Other than what we’ve already told you, there doesn’t seem to be a lot known about the Mahamba – by the western world, anyway. The natives could probably expound on the subject quite a bit.

When they get more internet savvy, we’ll update you all.