Chattering in the Woods

Cryptoctober Day 28: Xwoxwá:ya During an interview in the 1960s, a Skwah man named Albert Louie told an anthropologist about the existence of a strange and dangerous venomous animal larger than his hand. They were crab-like and larger than a man's hand.

Cryptids & Creatures of Folklore Drawtober Day 7 — Skin Fin

Lake Powell in Arizona, USA is said to be home to rather unique lake monster. It's known as Skin Fin and it is described as having a long neck with a sauropod-like head, a thick, elephant-like body, black, smooth skin like an eel, a round tail like a manatee, and a huge dorsal fin on its back.

Skin Fin is also said to have a bad attitude on occasion, such as the time in 1958 when it chased a young many named Eric Padgett while he was water skiing on the lake. Eric's father—who was driving the boat—noticed the creature coming up out of the water behind his son and steered the boat between Eric and the monster and quickly pulled his son out of the water. Skin Fin dove below the boat and left a large wave in its wake.

However, there seems to be some confusion about which Lake Powell this story actually took place on. While it is usually attributed to the Lake Powell in Arizona, other sources say Eric and his father were actually on a Lake Powell in Florida.

Cryptids & Creatures of Folklore Drawtober Day 8 — Namibian Flying Snake

The Nama people have long told stories of a fierce flying snake said to live in the Namib desert region. Eyewitnesses describe it as are large snake, anywhere from 9 to 25 feet in length, yellow or brown in color with darker mottling that camouflages it well, large horns over its eyes that point backwards, an extra large head with a bright white glowing light between its eyes, and true to its name, wings near its head that it uses to not just glide but also fly. The wings are sometimes described as more like fins while others say they are more like bat-wings.

Cryptids & Creatures of Folklore Drawtober Day 9 — Arica Monster

The Atacama Desert in Chile is said to be home to large, mysterious bipedal creatures. They lurk around the remote Route 5 road that runs through the desert and connects the cities of Arica and Iquique.

First reported in 1980, descriptions of these beasts vary but most witnesses agree that they are around six feet tall, run on two legs, can reach speeds of up to 60 mph, and leave behind three-toed tracks. Some say they look like large kangaroos, others say they are more bird-like, while others say they are more similar to theropod dinosaurs. One witness said they looked identical to the velociraptors from the Jurassic Park movies.

Cryptids & Creatures of Folklore Drawtober Day 10 — Crazy Critter of Bald Mountain

In November of 1974, residents of Lewis County, Washington reported seeing a fiery object shoot across the sky and crash down near Bald Mountain.

Just a few days after these sightings, two separate groups of witnesses reported seeing a remarkably strange creature not far from Bald Mountain.

Cryptids & Creatures of Folklore Drawtober Day 11 — Gef the Talking Mongoose

In September 1931, the Irving family—consisting of James, Margaret, and their teenage daughter Voirrey—began to experience mysterious happenings on their remote farm near the hamlet of Dalby on the Isle of Man. Strange scratching and rustling sounds emitted from the wood panel walls of their old farmhouse day and night. The culprit soon made themselves known...by talking to the family in a shrill little voice.

The entity behind the voice said its name was Jack at first but it changed that before long, preferring to instead be called Gef. Gef claimed that he was "an extra special mongoose" originally from India where he was born 80 years before. However Gef also claimed to be a ghost or a wayward spirit. Gef told the family, "I am a freak. I have hands and I have feet, and if you saw me you'd faint, you'd be petrified, mummified, turned into stone or a pillar of salt!"

As time went on, the family would catch glimpses of Gef in their home and the land surrounding it. They claimed he was small, perhaps only nine inches long, was yellow-ish brown in color, and had a bushy tail. Gef also had very human-like hands with three fingers that the family would sometimes see poking through holes in the walls of the home.

Gef seemed to love the Irving family and would even kill rabbits for them to eat but he had a foul mouth and fouler temper and would sometimes threaten to kill the family if they angered him. He would go on to cause mischief for years, not just for the Irving family but for members of the neighboring community. He liked to spy on people and gossip but became very angry when anyone came to stay at the farmhouse and attempted to see him, though a few people outside the family did claim to catch glimpses of him over the years.

Cryptids & Creatures of Folklore Drawtober Day 12 — Bessie

Since at least the late 1700s, there have been reports of a large aquatic beastie lurking around Lake Erie. Descriptions vary but most agree that the creature is anywhere from 15 to 40 feet in length and is serpentine in its shape and movement.

Multiple sightings of Bessie were reported in 1817. Several boat crews claimed to have seen a snake-like creature in the waters of Lake Erie and two brothers said they saw a thirty-foot long monster writhing in the sand on a beach near Toledo, OH. They claimed it was sturgeon-like in appearance but it had arms. The brothers were so terrified by the creature that they fled the scene but returned later and found silver fish scales the size of silver dollars scattered around the disturbed sand on the beach.

Sightings of Bessie continued on through the 1990s and a local marina owner even offered a reward for anyone who could capture Bessie alive. The reward remains unclaimed.

Cryptids & Creatures of Folklore Drawtober Day 13 — Tahoe Tessie

There have been sightings of a creature lurking in the waters of Lake Tahoe reported since at least the 1800s. It is described as dark in color, serpentine in appearance, and very, very large.

One of the first recorded accounts was made by a socialite from San Francisco who claimed to see a massive six hundred foot long serpent with a fourteen foot wide head in the lake in 1865. In the 1950s two police officers claimed to have been chased by the creature which kept pace with their boat going over 60 mph.

There were multiple sightings recorded in the 1980s, including the account of two divers in the lake who claimed to have found a cave deep in the lake. As they approached the mouth of the cave, a huge creature shot out of the darkness past them. The creature left flipper-shaped tracks in the silt where it had been resting in the cave.

Cryptids & Creatures of Folklore Drawtober Day 14 — Flatwoods Monster

On the evening of September 12, 1952, in Braxton County, West Virginia, three boys — brothers Eric and Fred May and their friend Tommy Hyer — claimed to have witnessed a bright object shoot across the sky before it crashed down on land owned by a farmer named G. Bailey Fisher.

The boys decided to investigate the crash site, believing it might have been a meteorite that they wanted to try and find. They told their mother, Kathleen May, who accompanied them, along with her cousin Eugene Lemon, a West Virginia National Guardsman, and two other children.

The group spotted a red glowing light in the woods near the crash site. Eugene Lemon aimed his flashlight at the light and the group said they saw a "tall, man-like figure with a round, red face surrounded by a pointed, hood-like shape." The entity made a hissing sound and began to glide towards the shocked group. Lemon screamed, dropped his flashlight, and ran. Kathleen and the children were quick to follow his retreat but the creature did not pursue them.

Cryptids & Creatures of Folklore Drawtober Day 3 — The Pink Mess of Goose Creek Lagoon

Herbert Ravenel Sass, a well-known writer, naturalist, and historian of Charleston, South Carolina, had an encounter with a truly bizarre creature according to an article published by the St. Petersburg Times on December 7th, 1948.

According to the story, some twenty years earlier, Sass and his wife were using a flat-bottomed boat to traverse the floodwaters of the Goose Creek Lagoon near Charleston when Sass saw something strange moving in the water. He paddled closer, then used the paddle to try and lift the creature up from the water for a closer inspection. He was perplexed by what he saw.

The creature was large, bright pink in color, about as thick as a man’s thigh, and had legs like an alligator or salamander. No head or tail was visible during Sass’ encounter and his sighting is the only known encounter with this “amphibious mess.”

Cryptids & Creatures of Folklore Drawtober Day 4 — Ohio River Octo-Man

In January of 1959, a distraught man called the New Richmond, Ohio police department and reported seeing an "indescribable" entity emerging from the waters of the Ohio River. The police were skeptical of his story but it wasn't long before another caller, this one a trucker, reported seeing the same creature not far from the location of the first sighting. Shortly after this, all of the street lights on nearby road mysteriously shut off. Other witnesses came forward in the following days and their descriptions of this "indescribable" creature were truly bizarre.

It was bipedal like a man only much larger, grey in color, it had a large, bald head surrounded by rolls of fat, had hair on its skin, its chest was lopsided, and most strange, it had multiple, "ugly" tentacles sprouting from its body.

Cryptids & Creatures of Folklore Drawtober Day 5 — Ogua

There have been stories circulating for centuries of a monstrous creature living in the Monongahela River and surrounding waterways in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Most descriptions of the creature say it is around twenty feet in length and weighs around five hundred pounds. It is said to be reddish-brown in color, have four stubby legs, and a long tail that creates deep ruts in the mud when it crawls on land to chase down prey. Some believe it is an out of place alligator or perhaps a giant, monstrous alligator snapping turtle.

Cryptids & Creatures of Folklore Drawtober Day 6 — The Black Beast of Snake Mountain