Beware the Mongolian Death Worm!

Have you ever seen the movie Tremors (or its repetitive sequels)? I’m definitely no fan, but my husband loves those movies. It turns out that some scientists believe that those giant flesh-eating worms really do exist—and they call them Mongolian Death Worms.

The worm has reportedly been sighted in the Gobi Desert. Said to “kill in one strike with a sharp sprout of acidic venom to the face,” they don’t sound like the friendliest of creatures. Locals swear up and down that the monster is there, just waiting for an unsuspecting victim to step one foot in his sand.

Supposedly two to five feet in length, the giant red worm has been compared with the intestines of a cow—sounds like something you’d really like to bring to show and tell. The thing is also supposed to spew acid-like yellow saliva, as well as distribute electrical shocks.

Professor Roy Chapman Andrews—the man Indiana Jones is supposed to be based on— first wrote about the Mongolian Death Worm in his 1926 book On the Trail of Ancient Man when told about the legend my locals. “None of those present ever had seen the creature, but they all firmly believed in its existence and described it minutely,” he admitted in the book.

OK, so this creature isn’t like Big Foot, Nessie and a slew of other reports of cryptozoology awesomeness. There are no eyewitnesses! So why the hell do these people continue to support its existence if they’ve never even seen the thing?

As recently as 2005, cryptozoologists are continuing to support this creature’s existence based on what locals—who still haven’t seen the thing!—say. No one can verify that they’ve seen the worm themselves—I suppose it’s always the brother-in-law or his second cousin’s first wife’s nephew who had the glory of witnessing the squirmy acid-shooting intestine in person.

As much a cryptozoology fan as I am—and I really, really am one; if I had no other obligations in the world and whatever resources I’d need at my disposal, I would totally be a cryptozoologist—this is one case where I am completely skeptical. Without eyewitness reports, actual evidence, or any shred of anything on Earth relating to this big worm, what have we got to go on? I never rule anything out, but if I did, this one would be at the top of my list. How about you?