Cryptozoology

Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly creatures popular in folklore such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti, the chupacabra, the Jersey Devil and the mokele-mbembe, which cryptozoologists call cryptids, a term the subculture itself coined. Because it does not follow the scientific method, mainstream science regards cryptozoology as a pseudoscience belonging to neither zoology nor folklore studies; it was founded in the 1950s by the zoologists Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson.