TrueAuthority.com's "Quest for the Giant Sloth"

Image credit TrueAuthority.com

TrueAuthority.com is a hardcore creationist website, with an entire portion dedicated to trying (and failing) to debunk evolution. However, it also has a cryptozoology portion (the third and final topic is dinosaurs). One article in this section is about the Mapinguary.

The "Quest for the Giant Sloth" - allegedly funded by S.C.O.P.E (the Society for the Search for Cryptozoological Organisms and Physical Evidence), which a Google search will tell you does not exist outside of TrueAuthority.com - covers an expedition into the Amazon Rainforest to try and find the Mapinguary. The expedition's leader, John Lewis, apparently found a pile of dung during this excursion. Upon carrying out DNA testing, the DNA was allegedly found to be a match for a ground sloth (which genus it is is never said).

(I must apologise for doubting the authenticity of S.C.O.P.E.. It is apparently part of TrueAuthority.)

This was published in 2001. After that, the trail just stops cold, which is immensely surprising, and suspicious, given the topic. Apparently the team was planning on carrying out another search... again, in 2001. After the mention of the DNA, Mr. John Lewis apparently just ceased to exist, and there is no further information available online. Nobody knows about the (alleged) DNA evidence, which has presumably been lost.

Read more about the Mapinguary.