Rare Monsters

 Wisconsin is known for many cryptid sightings. Most famously the beast of Bray Road, one of the most famous dogman sightings. Although Wisconsin is also home to bigfoot, lake monsters, and even dragons, the latter I have covered in this blog before. Two other monsters which are occasionally sighted in Wisconsin are lizard men, which are far more famous from the Scape Ore swamp of South Carolina, and giant bat human hybrids, the most famous being Batsquatch of Washington state. While these cryptids may be more commonly associated to other places, Wisconsin still has their share of them. And unique to Wisconsin is what appears to be a hybrid of the two, a winged lizard man.  Medford Flying Lizard Man  In 1997, sometime at night, a warden for the DNR was driving along highway 13, south of Medford. There he saw a reptilian humanoid standing right in the middle of the road. The creature was as tall as an above average human, had no clothing, scaly skin and slitted reptilian e...

  The Ninki Nanka is a river monster from west Africa, especially Gambia. It’s an important figure in the Mandinka people’s mythology. The Ninki Nanka has varying appearances from place to place. Sometimes it’s snake like with a horse’s head, other times it had legs but is completely reptilian and dragon like. One variation that, which has become how the Ninki Nanka is mainly known by outsiders, is that of a horse headed, giraffe necked reptile with an unusual arrangement of horns on its head and a mane done its neck. The exact arrangement of horns varies, but its usually drawn with two horns on the back of its head and a unicorn like horn on the front. The Ninki Nanka has colourful and reflective scales that allow this massive creature camouflage and hide easily. The Ninki Nanka is said to live in bodies of water, whether that be rivers, swamps or mangroves, and is most active during the rainy season. Much like the basilisk, the Ninki Nanka is said to have a deadly gaze, anyo...

  The Mississippi monster is one of those old time cryptid stories that appeared in 19 th century news papers. And like many of these stories it pushes the limits of what can be believed. Although I find this monster in particular pushes those limits more than most. Stories like the Swan Valley monster had a bizarre creature that defies biology, but only a small number of witnesses and ultimately the creature didn’t do very much. The Ape Canyon attack has lots of action and damage, which should leave a paper trail of police reports and insurance claims that can be verified if someone where to look deep enough, but involves big foot, one of the more reasonable cryptids to exist. The Mississippi monster involves both a confounding monster that is like nothing else alive, and over the top damage, which should be able to be verified by its own paper trail. However the story takes place long enough ago that such things like insurance claims and repair reports of company owned ships wo...

  Guissepe Zitella and his family were on an outing together in Pettorano sul Gizio, Itally. It was June 20 th , 1993. Mr Zitella was there with his wife Concetta, and his brother and his family. Mr Zitella was a retired air force officer. One article says he was a marshal, while another says he was a non-commissioned officer, so who know what his rank actually was. They were sitting at a restaurant patio when the brother’s wife saw something fly by, about 100 meters away, over some short trees. She pointed it out to the rest of the family. To Mr. Zitella, it looked like a balloon, a large one that would usually be won at a carnival. Mr Zitella decided to chase after the balloon and capture it for his nephew. He followed it out towards the edge of town. As he ran he noticed it had two long structures hanging down from the main body. On the edge of town he saw it hovering over a field, just skimming the tops of the wheat. It appeared to be in the middle of the field. Mr Zitella ra...

 The Alzada anomalies are one of the most bizarre and over the top cases of high strangeness. It happened during the month of July, 1974, in the unincorporated community of Alzada, Montana. A man and a woman, their relation not specified, were hunting for some caved used by ancient Native Americans. They were search for artifacts, although their intent for the artifacts and the legality of their hunt was never specified. The report was originally submitted to MUFON, but languished in obscurity. Alzada itself could barely be considered a community. In modern times it’s home to less than 30 people, with only slight more in the seventies when this took place. The landscape itself is semiarid ranch land and bad lands, filled with rough terrain and canyons. The two of them were staying in a rented cabin while they were on their search in Alzada. The strangeness started as they returned to the cabin after a fruitful days search around the caves. The first signs of something wron...

  Cryptozoologist Chad Arment wrote about a mystery animal from Honduras in his Biofortean Notes, Volume 5 While attending a cryptozoology conference Chad heard second hand stories about a missionary working in Honduras who had seen a strange creature. After extensive searching he was able to track her down. The woman didn’t want to be identified, and is only known by her initials LS in the report. She had no interest in anything fortean or paranormal. As well, she had only told people about the encounter a few times shortly after it happened in 2001, and then moved on with her life. She has never tried to profit off the encounter or tried to widely publicize it. These qualities together convinced Chad Arment that she was a reliable witness. The sighting happened on the mission’s farmland in Cort é s Department, Honduras. The landscape was along a mountain river, with cleared pasture on one side and jungle on the other. The time was between late morning and noon. LS was d...

  Ogopogo is the most famous lake monster in Cananda. It’s found in Lake Okanagan in British Columbia It’s said to live in an underwater cave somewhere near Rattlesnake Island. The name Ogopogo comes from a 1920’s folk song The Ogo-pogo funny foxtrot , which was a satirical song making fun of local monster sightings. The name stuck. Ogopogo is described as being 30 to 50 feet long and serpentine in shape. It often travels with an undulating up and down motion, which creates humps on the surface of the water. Ogopogo has two small horns that are similar to a giraffe’s ossicones. Ogopogo is dark green to black in colour. Other details are less consistent. It’s described as having either a horse or sheep like head. Sometimes it has a hairy mane down its neck. Sometimes it has sturgeon like scales down its back and sometimes it had either a fish’s or whale’s tail. Long before settlers came to the area Ogopogo was known to the Syilx people as N’ha-a-ikt. They saw Ogopogo as ...

  The sheepsquatch is a cryptid from various wilderness locations around West Virginia, mostly in Boone county, but also the famed TNT area, and even in neighbouring states. It’s rather poorly named, as it has little to do with sheep and nothing to do with sasquatch. What sheepsquatch is not, is a ram horned, humanoid, goatman. Although there’s plenty of confusion on this subject, resulting in sheepsquatching being depicted as such in media. The sheepsquatch is a white hairy beast of some variety. Because of this, sheepsquatch has often been categorized with other white, hairy cryptids of the Appalachians, such as the white things, devil dogs, and even the white bigfoots of southern Pennsylvania, which is likely how sheepsquatch ended up with squatch in its name. Adding to the confusion, goatmen have also been seen in similar parts of West Virginia, although they’re usually brown or black in colour. Likely the source of the misconception about sheepsquatch’s appearance, aside...

  Ponik is an aquatic reptile that allegedly lives in Lake Pohenagamook, in eastern Quebec, near the border with Maine. It’s a very active cryptid with over 1000 sightings since the 1800’s. Although its activity comes in waves, with some decades having many more sightings than others. The 50s where the peak of Ponik sightings. The monster’s appearance varies quite a bit from different reports. The most consistent thing is that it has two or three humps on its back and a saw tooth ridge down its back. It’s said to be anywhere from 35 to 60 feet long. Some people have reported that Ponik is a giant fish, the saw tooth ridge on its back being the diamond shaped scales of a sturgeon. However sturgeons don’t live in Lake Pohenagamook, and even if they did this would be a record breaking size for a sturgeon. Other people report a serpentine shaped monster, while others still a more reptilian body with either four legs or four flippers. Those who’ve seen its head describe...

  The moha moha is a cryptid from Australia, spotted on June 8 th , 1890. It was seen my Selena Lovell, a school teacher and amateur naturalist, as well as a group of people accompanying her, while they were on an outing to Great Sandy Island. The creature was well known to the natives, who called it the moha moha, or danger turtle, as it was known for attacking their fishing camps and grabbing their legs in the water. With all the other strange Australian wildlife discovered Ms Lovell didn’t question the creature’s odd appearance and wrote up a report on it. This report was then used by Willian Saville-Kent to publish a formal description of the creature in Land And Water and give it the name Chelosauria lovelli. Little did either of them know that this creature would only ever be seen once, and become the topic of controversy. The moha moha had a rounded head that was more like that of a lizard or other reptiles than a standard turtle. Ms Lovell didn’t see any nostrils and...

  Pale cralers are a type of cryptid that is reportedly seen by people all over the world. They have an overall humanoid appearance. They are very light in colour, with pale, white, pink or grey skin, almost like a corpse. Pale crawlers are very skinny, to the point of looking emaciated, often with twig like limbs and the outline of bones visible under their skin. Crawlers are always hairless all over, having no body hair, head hair, or even eyebrows. Their eyes are extremely sunken in, giving them a skull like appearance. They can have jet black eyes, or glassy cataract like eyes, or eyes that shine in dim light like an animal’s. Pale crawlers are rarely reported with ears, any that have them are small and vestigial. Pale crawlers sometimes have animal like claws, other times they have more human like nails. The fingers are always long and skinny, regardless of what they’re tipped with. Pale crawlers stand very tail when fully upright, somewhere between eight to ten feet tall. M...

  What follows is the least modern of the modern dragon sightings I’ve researched, although it’s far from the medieval era where dragons belong. On October 5 th of 1877 a farm boy named Johnny Smith witnessed an epic battle between one of his bulls, and reportedly, a real dragon. All of this happened outside Saint Louis, about seven miles away from the ruins of the ancient city of Cahokia. In the farming community surrounding Saint Louis the Smith family was well known for being honest. Lead by their father Jabez, he was a pillar of truthfulness and practicality, never giving into any form of exaggeration or flights of fancy, to the point where he was known as truthful Jabez. Under his strict discipline his sons followed suit. So when his son Johnny reported seeing a monster fight their bull, and came home with a badly injured bull, people believed him, no matter how fanciful the events sounded. Around 4pm that day Johnny Smith had been sent out to collect one of t...