Cryptid Spotlight: The Dogman

Although Bigfoot is much better, the Dogman is a commonly encountered cryptid, especially in the northern United States.

On the Trail of Florida’s Bigfoot - the Skunk Ape

 The Smithsonian joins the search for Florida's Bigfoot - the skunk ape.

The first time Dave Shealy saw a skunk ape, he says, he was ten years old. It was 1974, a few years after his father had come upon a set of footprints left by the creature—an Everglades version of Bigfoot named for its supposedly pungent odor. Dave was out deer hunting with his older brother, Jack, in the swamp behind his house, in what’s now Big Cypress National Preserve, when he encountered the ape incarnate.

“It was walking across the swamp, and my brother spotted it first. But I couldn’t see it over the grass—I wasn’t tall enough,” Shealy says. “My brother picked me up, and I saw it, about 100 yards away. We were just kids, but we’d heard about it, and knew for sure what we were looking at. It looked like a man, but completely covered with hair.” Read more

Scientists Hunt for Nessie DNA in Loch Ness

Scientists are hunting for Nessie’s DNA in Loch Ness.

THE Loch Ness Monster mystery could be finally solved once and for all thanks to a team of international scientists combing the world-famous Scottish loch for signs of Nessie’s DNA.

Myths and legends of giant monsters lurking in the murky water of Loch Ness date back more than 15 centuries.

But an academic from the University of Otago in New Zealand is ready to figure our whether there is any grain of truth to the legend of the Loch Ness Monster. Read more

Is This a Werewolf?

Wildlife experts are baffled by a bizarre wolf-like creature shot at US ranch.

A MYSTERIOUS wolf-like creature shot at a ranch in the US which has left experts stumped could be a real-life werewolf observers have claimed, with others suggesting it is a direwolf, a prehistoric beast featured in Game of Thrones.

The animal, which was shot and killed just outside Denton, Montana after getting too close to the rancher’s sheep, had long greyish fur, a large head and an extended snout, much like a wolf, but its ears were too large, its legs and body too short, and its fur an unusual colour and texture. Read more

Strange Encounters With Unicorns

Brent Swancer examines reports of strange encounters with unicorns.

Among the more bizarre of sightings reports of strange creatures and entities are those that seem to describe something from straight out of a fairy tale. It is something I have covered here on Mysterious Universe before, and such surreal cases never cease to baffle and amaze. Equally from fairy tales and just as seemingly out of sync with the real world, yet nevertheless often depicted as being real and with sightings, are those reports throughout history of real live unicorns. Far from being merely the product of myth and imagination, some strange accounts seem to suggest that there is more to these fantastical creatures than we may think. As bizarre as it may seem, here is a look at odd accounts both historical and more recent that point to unicorns as having perhaps existed in some form or other. Read more

Bizarre and Frightening Accounts of Bigfoot Attacks

 Brent Swancer shares some bizarre and frightening accounts of Bigfoot attacks.

One of the most well-known and widely discussed cryptids of all time are the mysterious hairy, ape-like giants of North America, which are variously called the Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Skunk Ape, Grassman, and other regional names. Seen all over the continent, they may differ in appearance or behavior, but one thing that is usually consistent is that for all of their size and strength they seem to be mostly peaceful and benevolent denizens of the forest, much more likely to run away or hide than to confront. Yet there have been many accounts from at least the 19th century all the way up to the present of a different side to these creatures, that of a fierce, ferocious beast fully willing and able to attack or even kill if it has to. Although not as common as reports of more benign or gentle Bigfoot, the accounts or violent or aggressive Bigfoot attacks are rather scary and shocking, and show that there is perhaps more to these enigmatic creatures than meets the eye. Read more

Beware the Wendigo: A Terrifying Beast With an Insatiable Hunger to Devour Mankind

As if Bigfoot weren't bad enough, the Wendigo is another creature roaming our forests.

The Wendigo (spelt also as Windigo and Windego) (the plural form being Wendigoag) is a creature that can be found in the legends of the Native Americans, most notably amongst the Algonquian peoples. These peoples are some of the most extensive and numerous of the Native American groups in North America, and they once lived all along the Atlantic Coast and the Great Lakes Region. However, Wendigo-like creatures are also found in the legends of other Native American tribes, including the neighbors of the Algonquians, the Iroquois. Amongst these peoples, a creature known as the Stonecoat bears some similarities to the Wendigo. Read more

Multiple Chupacabra Sightings Reported in Texas

Multiple chupacabra sightings have been reported in Texas.

A Texas man claims he’s seen an animal that he believes to be the legendary “chupacabra” running around in a gated community.

Resident Scott Black took photos of the animal in the back yard of his condominium in Houston’s Memorial neighborhood last Sunday. Black, who has seen the dog-like animal four separate times, believes it is a chupacabra, a mythical beast believed to feed on the blood of goats and other animals. Read more

Dogman Spotted by Wisconsin Motorist

Dogman is not nearly as well-known to the public as Bigfoot, but it is actually a widely reported cryptid. A motorist is Wisconsin recently spotted one.

David M., a Canadian businessman who provided a last name but requested to be kept anonymous, told Cryptozoology News on Monday that he was driving along Interstate 94 the night of Oct. 1 when he came upon the alleged creature.

“I was hoping to make it to the casino in the dells and stay there,” he says. “As I drove along, I noticed a figure moving towards the right side of the road.”

David described it as a black 6 to 7 feet tall creature and “fuzzy and shaggy in appearance”. Read more

Possible Upright Canine Sighting in Pennsylvania

Lon Strickler shares a reader report of a possible upright canine sighting in Mercer County, Pennsylvania.

The following report was submitted by Eric Altman of the Pennsylvania Cryptozoology Society...possibly an upright canine sighting. There is a history of upright canine sightings in Mercer County, PA: Read more

The Greatest Cryptozoology Hoaxes of All Time, Part 1

Searching for extinct, undiscovered, or mythical creatures is difficult enough, but it is complicated by hoaxers. These are some of the greatest cryptozoology hoaxes of all time.

Even as cryptozoology, the search for undiscovered, mythical, or long thought to be extinct species, strives for acceptance and legitimacy with ever more scientific approaches and efforts to provide solid evidence, there has long been a specter that has cast a shadow over the whole field; that of the hoax. Indeed the history of cryptozoology is littered with hoaxes, from the simple to the truly elaborate, which have been annoying at the best of times and severely damaging to the field’s credibility at the worst. There are many reasons for why some people desire to construct hoaxes in cryptozoology. For some, it’s for financial gain, charging money to get a peek at a real monster. In other cases it is to make a name for oneself, for who wouldn’t want the accolades given for being the first to find good evidence for the existence of a mystery monster, even if that means having to fake it? Still others simply want their 15 minutes of fame, regardless of how they acquire it, and some hoaxers have names that still resonate within the field regardless of their trickery. In other cases, hoaxes are simply childish pranks, or the result of a joke that simply got out of control and took on a life of its own. Misinformation can also be the culprit, misunderstandings that spin out of control without any intentional aim to create a hoax. Then there are those with more insidious agendas, who wish to destabilize the credibility of the field, make fools of those within it, or get revenge or vent anger at researchers within it. Read more

Has the Loch Ness Monster's Home Been Discovered?

A newly discovered trench in Loch Ness is just the right size for a monster.

Is this the home of the legendary Loch Ness Monster?

A boat captain in Scotland claims to have discovered a previously unknown trench at the bottom of Loch Ness that's more than 100 feet deeper than the loch's official depth. Read more

An Ancient Nessie? Long-Neck Dinos Once Prowled Scottish Lagoon

Researchers have discovered that a long-necked dinosaur prowled the Isle of Skye's rocky coast - an area that was a lagoon during the Jurassic/

Hundreds of dinosaur footprints and handprints dating to 170 million years ago adorn the shore on the Isle of Skye, making it the largest dinosaur site ever discovered in Scotland, a new study finds. Read more

On the Trail of Florida's Skunk Ape

Science takes a crack at exploring the mystery surrounding Florida's Bigfoot, the skunk ape.

The first time Dave Shealy saw a skunk ape, he says, he was ten years old. It was 1974, a few years after his father had come upon a set of footprints left by the creature—an Everglades version of Bigfoot named for its supposedly pungent odor. Dave was out deer hunting with his older brother, Jack, in the swamp behind his house, in what’s now Big Cypress National Preserve, when he encountered the ape incarnate. Read more

Bigfoot Hair Found in Ohio Cave

A man calling himself the Squatchmaster claims to have found Bigfoot hair in a cave.

A man says he has found a bunch of hair he believes belongs to a bipedal creature he encountered a few years ago.

YouTuber Squatchmaster, also known as Jeff, released on Saturday evening an 8-minute video showing his expedition leading to a cave in Ohio where he supposedly found what he called “Bigfoot evidence”.  He did not disclose an exact location. Read more

A Small "T-Rex" Reported in South Texas

Lon Strickler shares a reader account of a Tyrannosaurus Rex sighting in South Texas.

I received the following account a few days ago:

Hello - I noticed your article about small dinosaurs in Hebbronville, Texas. This witness was not exaggerating because I have seen an unknown animal in a field here in Hebbronville.

It was April 2011 and I was walking along W. David St. to my friend's house on Randada Rd. at about 5:45 PM. I had just gotten off work. On the side of the road where I was walking, I saw dust being kicked up into the air and moving along the field. Then the trail of dust was heading toward the road in front of me. I stopped walking not knowing what may be exiting at the road. Read more

The Mothman Eyeqitness Acounts

The Mothman sightings were some of the best-documented paranormal incidents in history. Lon Strickler offers some of the eyewitness accounts.

In celebration of author John Keel and the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, WV this weekend, I'm offering a few Mothman eyewitness accounts from the past:

Mothman Comes Home Read more

Mysterious Creature Rips Apart Cars in Oklahoma

Cars are being ripped apart at a car lot in Oklahoma, and it appears to have been done by a mysterious creature.

Is there a demented steel-jawed chupacabra with a taste for oil tearing apart automobiles at a car lot in Oklahoma? Before you scoff, local police are concerned enough that they’ve set traps to capture this motor vehicle monster that leaves behind piles of mangled parts and car bodies covered with bite marks, hair and blood. Read more

The Patterson Bigfoot Film: What Skeptics Still Can't Explain

So, the Patterson-Gimblin Bigfoot film has been totally debunked, right? Not really, says Taylor Leonard.

The most famous of all alleged “Bigfootage” ever produced, the Patterson-Gimlin film remains an iconic artifact of the unknown. Shot nearly five decades ago on Bluff Creek in California near the Oregon border, the minute-long scene recorded onto 16mm film by Roger Patterson accompanied by Bob Gimlin depicts a subject covered in brown hair walking upright away from the camera. Frame # 352 captures the subject in its most memorable and revealing pose relative to the camera, an image which has since become the face of Sasquatch-related pop culture around the world.

In the 40+ years since the release of this alleged Bigfoot documentation dozens of brains have picked over its every detail. Some such as the late Dr. Dmitri D. Donskoy, a leading expert on human biomechanics, believed the subject to be nonhuman. Others outright deemed it an easy-to-spot fraud, including the late “father of cryptozoology” zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans. Countless TV specials have aired the footage for the public to decide for themselves – oftentimes showing highly deteriorated copies of copies of copies. Numerous people have come forward over the years claiming to have either manufactured a suit for the film or having been a performer in a suit in the film, providing little evidence beyond their own word and the testimony of friends and family. Read more

Third Dog-Man Reported in Pennsyvania

Lon Strickler has received a third report of a "dog-man" sighting in Central Pennsyvania.

I received the following report on Monday...I contacted the witness by telephone shortly thereafter:

I am sending this to you in light of hearing about some other recent PA sightings so I wanted to share my experience.  Read more