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Cryptid

Unidentified creatures reported by witnesses but unrecognized by mainstream zoology: bigfoot, lake monsters, and their kin.

Results · 19 mysteries

of 282

Haute-Loire, France
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Beast of Gévaudan
Between 1764 and 1767, a wolf-like animal killed close to a hundred people across the rural Margeride mountains, provoked a royal hunting campaign under Louis XV, and left behind a small pilgrim town so thoroughly built around the legend that you can walk the actual attack territory on marked trails today.
California, United States
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Bigfoot / Sasquatch
In August 1958, bulldozer operator Jerry Crew found 16-inch footprints at a Humboldt County logging site, and the local paper's story put "Bigfoot" in front of a national audience. On October 20, 1967, Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin shot 59.5 seconds of 16mm film at Bluff Creek.
Vermont, United States
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Champ
A creature reported from Lake Champlain for long enough that three governments have passed measures protecting it. The 1609 Samuel de Champlain sighting that anchors the whole legend was invented by a magazine in 1970.
Scotland, United Kingdom
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Loch Ness
A biography of St. Columba written around 700 puts a water beast in the River Ness. The modern legend began with an Inverness Courier report on May 2, 1933. Two of the men behind the 1934 Surgeon's Photograph later said it was a toy submarine fitted with a plastic-wood neck and head. Environmental DNA sampled in 2018 turned up no reptile, shark, catfish, or sturgeon, and a great deal of eel.
Ohio, United States
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Loveland Frogman
On March 27, 1972, the Cincinnati Post reported that two Loveland patrolmen had seen a scaly, two- to three-foot animal beside the Little Miami River, and that one had fired at it. That officer, Mark Mathews, said within weeks that it was probably an iguana. In 2016, he said he had shot it and kept the body in his trunk, although in 1972 he said it fell into the river and washed away.
Quebec, Canada
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Memphre
A Magog diver spent 28 years collecting sightings on Lake Memphremagog and would only enter one in his file if the witness signed a declaration or recorded it on tape. He logged thousands of dives in the same water, more than 6,000 by his society's count, and never saw the animal himself.
West Virginia, United States
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Mothman Museum
On November 15, 1966, two Point Pleasant couples said a winged, red-eyed creature chased their car at up to 105 mph near the old TNT Area. The Silver Bridge fell 13 months to the day later, and the federal investigation traced the collapse to a flawed eyebar. The museum, opened in 2006, displays the eyewitnesses' handwritten police depositions.
British Columbia, Canada
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Ogopogo
The Syilx called it N'ha-a-itk and left an animal in the water as payment before crossing. The English name comes from a music hall song performed in Vernon in 1924. In 2021, the City of Vernon, which had held the trademark for decades, voted to hand it to the Okanagan Nation Alliance for one dollar.
Jambi, Indonesia
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Orang Pendek
A short, upright, ground-living ape reported from the forests of west Sumatra for more than a century. The conservationist who spent fifteen years looking for it says she has seen it three times and has never photographed it.

Results · 19 mysteries

Beast of Gévaudan

Bigfoot / Sasquatch

Champ

Loch Ness

Loveland Frogman

Memphre

Mothman Museum

Ogopogo

Orang Pendek