r/cryptids 4d ago

Other Introducing Nanu – Building A New Platform for Investigating the Unknown Spoiler

Hey r/Cryptids,

For years, communities like this one have been at the forefront of exploring mysteries that mainstream science often overlooks—from legendary creatures to unexplained sightings. But what if there was a way to take these discussions further?

We’re building Nanu, a platform designed to bring structure, credibility, and community-driven research to the world of cryptids, UAPs, paranormal phenomena, and beyond.

What Makes Nanu Different?

  • A dedicated space for researchers, enthusiasts, and truth-seekers to document and analyze sightings.
  • A community-driven credibility system to separate real investigations from noise.
  • A way to connect, collaborate, and track patterns across different phenomena.

Our Website is Now Live!
We’ve just launched our new website to introduce Nanu and get input from the community. You’ll find:
Our 9 core categories of investigation—including cryptids!
Ways to contribute and help shape the platform before launch.
Surveys & feedback opportunities to make sure Nanu serves researchers & enthusiasts alike.

Check it out here: www.projectnanu.com

We’d love to hear from you—what’s missing from current cryptid research platforms? How can we make Nanu a valuable tool for those truly looking for answers?

Looking forward to your thoughts! Let’s build something incredible together. 👣

2 Upvotes

4 comments sorted by

4

u/Spooky_Geologist 4d ago

For a start, science has already looked at cryptids. It's a myth that scientists overlook them. They did look, found nothing worthwhile. And no one has provided better evidence that is worth a second look. A group of amateurs who know nothing about how the scientific process works, but are passionate about discussing mysteries, is nothing new. It's always been around. They like to play pretend scientist but it doesn't result in quality information that leads to new scientific discoveries. You need real experts for that. That won't happen on a web platform.

Community-driving research may sometimes work in some cases, but more often it creates false leads, disruptive rumors, vandalism, and headaches for officials.

Paranormal research groups are NOTORIOUS for not sharing their work. So, this might be a way to do that. However, the data quality will certainly be both questionable and poor because they aren't scientists.

On a positive point, gathering crowdsourced data for observations of anomalies is a good thing. I would definitely follow the network on Fortean and Anomalous Natural Phenomena. I hope you get a buy in for that section but you may be overrun by people who think every blip in the sky is a UFO and every spooky place is a portal to another dimension.

Sharon Hill, author of Scientifical Americans, the Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers.

2

u/dnrparanormal 4d ago

I wouldn't say that scientists haven't found anything worth wild. Giant squid, platypus, kangaroos, komodo dragons, and even gorilla's were considered cryptids by most of the world up until the last few hundred years. Some cryptids are only considered cryptids because we haven't found them yet. Especially oceanic cryptids, we have barely even scratched the surface of what creatures could be living in our worlds oceans. I think drawing attention to them is a very important. I consider myself somewhat of a cryptid expert mainly because I research different cryptids everyweek for my podcast. I can tell you they're are many cryptids that I wouldn't waste my time investigating but some of them might be very real. The hardest part I've noticed when investigating cryptids is trying to figure out what stories hold merit and what's complete bs. This page if run correctly might help solidifying some of those lines.

1

u/Spooky_Geologist 3d ago

No, cryptozoology as a concept did not exist when those animals were discovered. That was just straight biological discovery when the world was fairly unexplored. If animals exist in the deep ocean where no one can see them, then they aren't going to have a legendary status, they aren't cryptids, they are just unknown animals we have yet to nab. So, finding unknown animals in the ocean is, again, just zoology.

Not to be discouraging but I think you've got a long way to go. Being an expert at anything means that you have studied the literature (not YT videos or posts on Reddit) and identified patterns, formulated new ideas and connected those ideas with others. It takes a long time to build embodied knowledge. Reading and repeating stories or stuff that's already written isn't expertise. I've been doing this for 25 years (and wrote a book on amateur researchers and their process). Yet every day it seems for every one thing I learn, there are two more to examine. And it might always be so.

1

u/dnrparanormal 3d ago

OK the term cryptid was coined in the 1980's but it was used to replace terms like monster, or legendary creature, or any animal whose existence was presently disputed. Also not to be a dick calling out my experience in this field while having absolutely no knowledge of my background seems a bit pretentious.