Recently I’ve been enjoying a new column Nick Redfern has been writing for Mania.com, and this week he focuses on theories as to whether Mammoths could still exist in remote parts of the world.

Nick describes how “In the late 19^th Century, for example, researcher Bengt Sjorgen learned that tales were both wildly and widely circulating in remote parts of Alaska about giant, hairy tusked creatures that lived deep under cover of the huge, ancient forests. Such reports of the ‘hairy elephants’ in question extended to equally wild parts of both Canada and Siberia.

“Similarly, in February 1888, the New Zealand-based Argus newspaper reported on the apparent discovery in Alaska of strange tracks that had been found by the Stick Indians in the vicinity of the White River.

“The newspaper stated: One of the Indians said that while hunting, he came across an immense track sunk several inches in the moss and larger around than a barrel. The Indian followed up the curious trail, and at last came in full view of his game.

“These Indians as a class are the bravest of hunters, but the immense proportions of this new kind of game filled the hunter with fear, and he took to swift and immediate flight. He described it as being larger than the post trader’s store, with great shining, yellowish tusks, and a mouth large enough to swallow him at a single gulp.”

Personally, reports of this kind have always intrigued me, and much like creatures which (perhaps in various stages of evolution) did or could have existed throughout history, might such animals like what Nick describes still exist also?