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                                  Mike & Greg Warner

Will Elliott, Photo Enhancements, 315 & 317

On the 3rd of June we received an email from Will Elliott of Watford, Hertfordshire (UK). Will has been doing some of his own research (photographic) on the now famous photos from our Warner Amazon Expedition last year. He, and others like him, are the reason we chose to publish our data extensively on our web site.

Will Elliott has found an eye on photo 317. Given that we already knew we had a photo of Yacumama (Black boa/Minhocão) it doesn't surprise us but it might change the opinions of a few sceptics still out there.

The eye, its shape, size and position on the head beneath the postocular ridge are all in proportion and in keeping with the contemporaneous data we have compiled e.g. 'Eyes as big as saucers' or 'search lights' (think Amazon boat).

We estimate the size of the eye to be between 8 & 10 inches in diameter on a head that is c. 6 feet wide above water.

Let’s be clear; we don't know Will and have never communicated before today.

Will's correspondence to us and the description of his methods are at the bottom of this page with a commentaries from Professor Ian Montgomery & Professor Paul Le Blond.

Thanks for your work and support Will!

Photo 317 Enhanced

Below - Will Elliott's Reconstructions

Underwater - with Minhocao-like 'Tentacles' (we favour this interpretation)

Below - Anaconda for Comparison to Photo 317

A snake prefers not to be seen both for safety against prey/threats (in this case man) or in concealment to ambush prey.

Photo 317 is consistent with a snake concealed in water with just

enough of the head exposed to see & breath.

Will's Reconstruction Video Tentacles

Photo 317 shows what looks like a tentacle as described in many sighting of this monster. They are sometimes also described as "ears", "horns" or "antennae" and evidence suggests that they are retractable back into the ridges that appear on the head. This would make sense as this snake is a burrower. See Dr Shuker's comments below:

Below - Photo 317 - Wide View (taken from Cessna Float Plane, c.400ft alt.)

This area is the flooded Amazon jungle adjacent to the the Napo/Amazon confluence in the wet season. The water is 30-50ft deep and the jungle is flooded for several miles beyond. This jungle is flooded completely, even under the trees you can see in this picture. The larger trees are 90ft tall and the ones adjacent to the snake are c. 50ft. This is not a river or a lake, there are no river banks, not even on the Amazon 0.5 miles away from this photo. There is no 'mud' there are no 'sandbanks' anywhere. Look at all the pictures (and video of the area) again and what you are looking at is the legendary 'giant anaconda' or Yacumama and it is enormous.

What Will Elliott has to say:

(As always it is our policy to publish without editing or exclusions.)

Email 2

Hi Greg

My reply is an even bigger WOW.

I can comfirm i have not altered the images in no other way, all i have done to create the image effect, i highlighted that particular area on image (*WSB001) duplicated it, used it as a layer and enhanced it with various methods ontop of the original, and therefore given us these images.
No air-brush, no editing, nothing of such, you have my word on that.
Just various highlights and image sharpening was used.

I will post the original image i used in the next email it is a very large file (size is 9mb).

Yes i couldnt be more be gratefull if you posted them on your site, id be delighted on that, and yes you may quote my email. Much appreciated indeed!

Greg, what more can i say but a big thank you!

All the best!

Will

Email 1

Hello Greg.

Please allow me to introduce myself, my name is Will and im from Watford, Hertfordshire.

I come across your "Bigsnakes" site whilst i was browsing away on youtube, i was info searching any material regarding the "Mokele-mbembe" or "He who stops the flow of the river". It is one of my greatest interests of life, and ive been inspired about this mythical creature ever since i was kid, not sure if you might of seen an old eighties film called "Baby: Secret of the lost legend", that be the film that caught my eye.
 

I know this film was based upon actual jungle rumours of a possible living dinosaur in the remote parts of the congo, a living "Sauropod" has been speculated. And then i came across the Big Snakes and from there on, ive been indulging with lots of info from your site!


Anyway, here i am writing this email to you Greg and also to your father, if i may ask how is he doing the old fella and how is yourself?

I was thoroughly glued to my LCD when i was watching the videos on your website and listening to your father speak about his storys and discoveries, highly interesting indeed, i see your also preparing for another hit to the amazon this year at some point? On behalf of that, well we dont know each other but still, i would like to wish you and the hole team good luck on the mission. I look forward to an update of your expidition.

Now please let me get to the point of this email, i was browsing around your site and i came across your "Photo 317", now i'm just as intrigued as i am skeptical, i hope you understand that, but i do believe in very big snakes. So, what did i do, i hope you dont mind but this is absolutely between me and you and you have my strict confidence on this.

I by my own personal research have enhanced "Photo 317" in a various manner of ways and what i found im sure you may not have seen this yourself before, so therefore i have uploaded a few of them for you to see. I have also added my own interpretation of the some what dimensions we are looking at (image12).

I have a few more 317 pictures (15 edited all together) i also have enhanced. The strange thing is, i can see a almost perfect outline of what actually appears to me as a "Viper" head, now i only say this because of the ridges i see above the eyes and also thanks to (image1 & image2) weird, but you can actually see the slit eye a snake has and its almost yellow and looks like its looking at you.

Now my first impression when i looked @ Photo 317 was that of a slide of mud, trust me i bet a lot of people have said the same thing, it doesnt surprise me. I have looked very close at Images 315 & 317, and yes the terrain or snake as we call it has yes seemed to of moved, there seems to be more of the snakes head above the surface of the water then what it does in image 315. I am a bit skeptical i hope you understand that, but this is something like a legendary old fairy tail coming true. Also i want you to understand that i am just theorizing upon the images i see.

Editing those images helps to make very open choice about what i see. my research will carry on with cryptids, the congo is one i desire to explore as when i have will such funds to do such a thing and that could take a long time. So meanwhile i get to explore everyones else experiences in this field and im am very gratefull to have come across your site, its good to see people who share a same interest as me!

I hope you appreciate the editing of your images as i have enjoyed viewing your vids, you have my word that these images are on my Pc and are viewed and edited only by myself and nobody else has access to them, and you are the first person other then me to see them.

Let me know if you receive this email, that way i will send you all the images ive edited, youl find them to be very interesting, i hope we can may exchange emails in future, this is a very interesting subject.

All the best Greg and thank you for reading.

Kind regards
Will Elliott
 

What Professor Ian Montgomery has to say:

Dear Greg

I think my position on the photograph has not changed.  If you are looking for evidence of orbital ridges and eyes it is possible to interpret the enhanced photograph consistently with this expectation.  However without these preconceptions you might still say it’s a photograph of a curiously shaped mudbank. You need hard evidence collected and recorded properly under field conditions. There is no substitute for material that can be scrutinized by scientists. That requires carefully planned and managed fieldwork with a clear idea what should be collected given the opportunity and how the material should be handled, recorded, stored and processed and by whom.  I still believe there is something unexplained going on that is worth investigating systematically.

Best wishes

Ian

What Professor Paul LeBlond has to say:

What the Warners have to say:

1. We think this is a photograph of Yacumama (the mother of the waters). Yacumama is also known by other names throughout the Amazon; The Black Boa, Sachamama (mother of the earth/jungle), Sucuriju Gigante, Matadora translated ‘the bull killer’, Dormadera translated ‘the sleeper, the Minhocão.

2. We think Will Elliott has managed to reveal an eye in photo 317.

3. We believe that all the evidence suggests that this is not a giant anaconda but a species unknown to science.

4. We know where they live, have studied their behaviour and have a plan to obtain live footage and good DNA samples for scientific analysis and classification.

5. We agree with the Professors and think it's time to finish the job and prove the existence of this mysterious giant scientifically through our ground expedition this year in the dry season.

Wish us luck everyone and thanks for all your support and kind emails!