Do giants still roam Britain? A leading cryptozoologist has controversially claimed that the record amounts of human waste flooding the UK’s rivers is proof of the existence of gigantic human beings in the British Isles. “How else can you explain this phenomenon other than by assuming that the huge turds deposited by these giants are being washed into rivers, or that they are taking dumps directly into the rivers?” asks Trevor ‘Prof’ Sheets in the latest issue of Cryptid Quarterly. “The sheer volume of the stuff that is clogging up the rivers is testament to the size of the creatures – there is no way that regular-sized human beings could be produce that much crap!” Sheets also believes that these giants could have contributed to recent instances of flooding in the UK, with the vast amounts of urine they produce causing rivers to overflow. “Victims of these floods have often noted how filthy and acrid smelling the flood waters are,” he observes. “If the giants are pissing in our rivers, it would also explain the number of dead fish that turn up in them these days – those quantities of urine are likely to be toxic to most aquatic life!” Forty two year old former bank teller Sheets has gained notoriety for his studies into various ‘cyptid’ which have focused upon their toilet habits, claiming that his fascination with monster crap dates back to childhood viewings of old creature features. “I remember watching War of the Colossal Beast as a ten year old and wondering why, after they capture the fifty foot man and chain him up in a hanger, there wasn’t a huge toilet bowl in the corner,” he recalls. “Or why they didn’t show teams of soldiers in gas masks taking out his shit using steam shovels and dump trucks. Quite literally dump trucks, I suppose.”

This lack of realism extended, for the young Sheets, to other monster films. “Surely the likes of Godzilla would, in reality, be leaving huge piles of dung behind them, I reasoned. Probably radioactive dung that glows in the dark,” says Sheets. “For that matter, my younger self wondered, why wasn’t King Kong flinging his own crap at the planes when he was at the top of the Empire State Building?” Consequently, he decided to devote his life to tracking the various fabulous beasts which reportedly still stalked the earth via their spoor, earning the nickname of the Craptozoologist’. His approach, however, has all too often resulted in disappointment, with an early expedition to Loch Ness proving frustrating. “It seemed obvious that f the Loch Ness Monster was real then Loch Ness itself would be awash with huge turds and, bearing in mind that some of the alleged sightings of this creature have been ashore, the area around the loch should also be littered with steaming great stonkers,” he explains. “Yet there was nothing to be found – not a single floater on the water or giant jobbie in the Glen.” Working on the assumption that any monster defecations in the Loch itself would most likely sink, Sheets arranged a series of dives into Loch Ness, but still found nothing. Even a submersible, camera equipped drone couldn’t find any evidence of submerged dung. “We even carried out an extensive sonar survey, but still nothing,” he sighs. “Unless it had been severely constipated for several years, it seemed that Nessie simply didn’t exist.”

The frustration continued with an expedition to Tibet in search of the Yeti. “Why aren’t the Himalayas covered in Yeti dung?” Sheets had mused before the trip. “Moreover, if, like King Kong, the Yeti are some kind of ape-like creature, why aren’t they throwing their dung at explorers?” Could it be, he reasoned, that this lack of fecal activity was an indication that the Yeti was actually not a simple ape, but some kind of advanced humanoid that had developed toilet technology? But again, his search turned up a blank, uncovering no evidence of a Himalyan sewage system, let alone any Yeti dung, or even Yetis themselves. “There was just nothing,” he concedes. “Not even a whiff of pungent smelling Yeti shit.” Plans for a similar expedition to Canada in search of Sasquatch shit were subsequently abandoned. “After studying the available material, it was apparent that while people seem to keep ‘finding’ lots of footprints, there are never any Sasquatch turds,” he says. “Which, I suppose is why they call it ‘Bigfoot’ and not ‘Big Turd’. Not even the video evidence helps. If that alleged footage of Bigfoot walking around instead showed him squatting down taking a crap, I might be more inclined to believe in its authenticity.”

Despondent over his growing reputation as the man who was rapidly disproving the existence of some of the world’s most famous cryptids through his search for their shit, Sheets decided to make one last attempt to do the opposite. “This time, I stuck close to home and tried searching for the spoor of those mysterious big cats that people claim to see roaming the UK’s countryside,” he says. “but, once again, all I discovered was a lack of big cat droppings around the UK countryside. Sure, I know that some other cryptozoologists have suggested that they might be digging holes to crap in, then covering it up, such behaviour is characteristic of smaller cats rather than things like lions and tigers, which proudly crap in the open for all to see.” At this point Sheets was ready to give up and return to his previous career in banking. “Then this business of the giant waterborne human turds came up,” he exclaims. “At last, actual physical evidence of the existence of a cryptid – and one whose existence in modern times had hitherto never suspected!” Fellow cryptozoologists, while happy that Sheets has apparently finally been able to detect a cryptid via its droppings, also feel that he has been too hard on himself. “The truth is that many of the cryptids that he has investigated aren’t actual physical beings,” says Ron Welter, famous for his search for the Greenock hippo. “But rather some kind of ethereal spirit projections and therefore wouldn’t leave physical traces behind them. Not even monster turds.”

Other commentators have been less kind. “I’m really not sure what he has been trying to prove with his faecal obsession,” opines Dr Tim Turrel, professor of zoology at Clerkenwell Technical College. “I mean, the absence of monster turds is hardly the most obvious evidence for the non-existence of these so called cryptids. I mean, just look at these alleged British big cats – I’d say that the lack of missing cattle or half-eaten cow carcasses is far more conclusive evidence that they don’t actually exist than a lack of lion shit.” He believes that Sheets’ attempts to prove the existence of giants on the basis of the amount of crap currently floating in Britain’s rivers is equally futile. “Everybody knows that this is down to the water companies being allowed, post-Brexit, to discharge huge amounts of sewage into the rivers and the sea,” he claims. “Look, if there really were giants roaming around, they wouldn’t just be crapping in the rivers – it seems obvious that, without access to a shovel, that they’d have to be taking huge dumps in the open and leaving them uncovered. Let’s face it, the stench and massive swarms of flies would surely be enough to give away their existence.” Nevertheless, Sheets is sticking to his guns and is currently preparing an expedition to the Peak District – sponsored by several water utility companies – where he believes that fracking could have awakened sleeping giants from their subterranean slumbers. “It could well be that they’ve been going into caves to take a crap undetected” he says. “So we’re hoping to discover any caves up there big enough for a giant to get into to perform such a function.”