G’day, everybody! Byron the Quokka here, on what is sure to be forever remembered as an historic occasion!
Because on this day, a new science is born. Brand-new! In fact, if you want to earn a degree in it, the only place in the whole world where you can do that is right here at Quokka University! Because we have a monopoly on the new science of…
Cryptogeography!
Even as Cryptozoology is the study of animals that have to be found before they can be studied, because they may or may not exist, so is cryptogeography the study of places that may or may not exist. [Note to Board of Sages: we owe Phoebe S. an honorary doctorate in Cryptogeography, for coining the name.]
Did you ever try to go someplace and never get there–and you thought it was because you just got lost somehow? Well! Maybe the place was really there… and maybe it wasn’t. I mean, really, blimey, how do you get to Brigadoon, or Gondor, or the Seven Cities of Gold? Poor Coronado wandered all over the map and never found the place that he was looking for. How many times have you been told, “Just keep on going down Route Whatsit, and you can’t miss it”? And then you do miss it, because it isn’t there! But maybe, just maybe, it was there yesterday.
What makes lost cities lost? How do they get found again?
You can see the world’s been needing a science of Cryptogeography for quite a long time.
And as we say here at Q.U.–Ipso loquitur mannimota!
A few years ago, I drove to where Denver used to be, and found it had been replaced by a much different place, where recreational marijuana was legal. I don’t know what this place was called, but it sure isn’t the Denver I once knew and loved.
Maybe Byron & Co. can help me find my old hometown.
And while he’s at it, maybe he can find the Bronx I grew up in but doesn’t seem to exist any more. 🙁
My own home town got lost while I was still living in it.
Will the cryptogeographers be studying Ophir? 😉
Well don Phoebe.
This is great news!! 👍