Nigerian Fire Spitter

 

The Nigerian Fire Spitter was a small cryptid which emerged from a uranium mine in Arlit, Nigeria in 1984. The creature was some sort of dragon like reptile. It had a crocodilian head, long neck. It had a dog like body and stood on erect legs which ended in clawed, reptilian feet. It had a long lizard like tail. There was also a row of spines running down its back. The fire spitter was small, being comparable to a dog in size. The small size made people at the time assume it was only a juvenile. The fire spitter gains its name from its ability to shoot flames from its mouth, much like a flame thrower.

Cryptozoologists like to assume that the creature was some sort of relic spinosaurid, even the original email about the creature makes this assumption. However the spines on its back were horn like spikes, and did not have any flesh fin or muscular hump surrounding them. Also there's the whole fire breathing part. But as you will see by the end of this article, there was a reason for this assumption.

The fire spitter was first seen shortly after an earthquake. The first people to encounter the creature were workers who were sent to inspect the mine for damage. Inside the mine the fire spitter leapt out of a darkened tunnel and tried to snap at the workers. The workers, afraid of how aggressive the creature was, tried to push it away with a metal pole. It was at this the creature started spraying fire from its mouth. The workers ran in fear and the creature chased them all the way to the entrance of the mine. Outside, still on mine property, the workers yelled for help. Yet the on site firefighters could not find any sign of the creature or the fires it had started.

Later that day the creature made its way to the nearby town of Arlit where it first attacked livestock and then people. Soldiers dispatched from the local base shot and killed the creature (the military covered police work in Nigeria at the time).

After the creature was killed locals were still afraid for the safety of their livestock and workers refused to go back to the mine. In response the military put the dead creature on display in the prefecture building (similar to a town hall) to prove to the locals that the creature was dead. During the fire spitter's display in the prefecture building people from across Nigeria came to see it and many photographs were taken. Even some French scientists examined and photographed the creature. Because of the creature's small size the army assumed it was just a baby and a month long search was conducted to find the mother, but no other creatures similar to it were ever found. After this point the body was taken to Niamey and everything returned to normal in Arlit.

While I personally prefer to give fortean stories the benefit of the doubt and believe them until given a reason otherwise, there is good reason to believe the Nigerian fire spitter is a hoax.

All information about the creature and the events surrounding it came from one single email written more than a decade after the incident in 2002. The email itself was sent by Philip Abuja, an engineer working at the mine, who had not seen the creature himself or was even working at the mine in 1984. Instead he was told the story by one of the other mine workers, who had seen the creature first hand. So this is a second hand story. Also no further interviews or statements had been made by the mine worker himself. Mr. Abuja's reasoning for this is that the mine worker is illiterate and wouldn't be able to write his own statement.

Furthermore, neither the body of the creature or any of the photographs are currently available. In fact the only evidence of the creature is Mr. Abuja's email. While the loss of evidence could be excused by the political turmoil Nigeria has gone through over the years, what about the photographs taken by the French scientists who visited to see the creature? Who even were these scientists, and how did they find out about the fire spitter?

Philip Abuja also had motive to invent a story about a fire breathing dragon-dinosaur. He admits in the email that he holds young Earth and creationist beliefs. To quote from the email:

"As an engineer and a Christian, I always thought that a lot of what they taught us in school does not make sense, specifically regarding geology, evolution and time scales."

After this quote, he then goes on to retell a story about how he learned of the fire spitter in the first place. Mr. Abuja thought dinosaurs were impossible as he had never seen one personally, and so showed a picture of a sauropod to one of his workers, who to his surprise had seen a dinosaur and told him of the fire spitter. Mr. Abuja then finished the email as such:

"Needless to say, a live dinosaur that forgot to go extinct some millions of years ago is something that would not quite fit with Mr. Darwin's own religion?"

The idea that fire breathing dragons are actuality dinosaurs has been put forward by creationists in the United States as well, who believe the hollow crest of parasaurolophus was used to mix fire producing chemicals that could be sprayed out its nose.  

Even the authenticity of the email is in question. While it has been repeated across multiple cryptid sites, exactly who the email was sent to, and how a personal email was obtained and shown to the rest of the internet is unknown.

So as much as I want to believe in miniature dragons lurking in mines, this cryptid is particularly doubtful.