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...

Tsukumogami are a type of yokai from Japan. These are ordinary objects that have gained souls through some means. Usually this happened because the object was very old. It was believed that after a 100 years an object would receive a soul, making it conscious and giving it the ability to transform into a being who could interact with the world. Usually these objects would continue to behave themselves and not show off these abilities if they continued to be used and cherished by their owners. It was very old objects that were thrown away or abandoned that would start turning into creatures and misbehaving. They could do anything from pulling silly and annoying pranks to being actual threats. When an old object was broken and had to be discarded a small ceremony was held by the household to appease its spirit, and old objects in working order were not thrown away if it could be avoided. Cherishing old objects was part of the concept of mottainai, the desire to not be wasteful. Anoth...

  Here are three unicorns from China that feel oddly western. They lack the scales and other traits that make the qilin seam more exotic. The bo is a hybrid creature and the least unicorn like of the three. The bo looks like a unicorn with the paws and fangs of a tiger. It has a white body and black tail. The bo is entirely carnivorous, and hunts leopards and tigers. It primarily lives on Mount Winding Centre where jade and metals are plentiful, according to The Classic Of Mountains and Seas. It was also said to live on the steppes of Mongolia and some isolated islands in the North Sea. It was said the bo could be tamed with some difficulty and doing so would protect you against harm during times of war. The bo was said to be a just and honourable animal. It’s call is the sound of rolling drums. Out of the three the boma has the least information available. Like the bo, it also comes from The Classic Of Mountains And Seas . The boma has a white coat, and ox’s tail and a si...

 While dragons vary greatly around the world they can generally be placed into to broad categories, the eastern and western dragons. You would expect that if dragons are being seen in modern times that each type of dragon would be witnessed in their respective regions, eastern dragons being seen in Asia and western dragons being seen in Europe and North America. So far this has held true with the cases I’ve showcased in this blog, with western style dragons and wyverns appearing in America. However I’ve found two incidents that go against this trend, where each kind of dragon is found far outside their respective lands. In 2001 cryptozoologist Karl Shuker received a report from a group of scientists from the British Naturalists Association. They were adamant about keeping their anonymity, as any admission of a paranormal event happening to them would be career ending. In March of that year this group of scientists had been out at a quarry in Powys, Wales. There they saw a cre...

Even in comparison to the states I’ve covered so far, New Jersey has a lot of dragon sightings. Unfortunately they’re not as widely published as the other states, with so far only Lon Strickler compiling them. Another thing to consider is New Jersey has a lot of other flying cryptids which dragons could be mistaken for, or those cryptids mistaken for dragons, beings like the Jersey devil, thunderbirds and pterosaurs. Still, some of the dragon sightings are compelling, and I’ve recounted some of the best one bellow.  In this first story, the year was not given, but Lon Strickler said it was recent. A couple was driving home in the early morning after visiting a friend’s house. It was around 1:30 to 2:00 am and took place in Saleme County NJ. The witness was the wife of the duo, and she was driving home because her husband had a few drinks that evening. She was driving along back country roads while passing through a wooded area. It was then a huge creature flew over the vehicle,...

  Yet another unlikely place dragons have shown up in the modern world is the eastern side of Iowa. Just like the River Dinos, this is another one of those frustrating cryptids that have multiple sightings, but there’s very little information in each account. The description of these dragons varies with each encounter, but generally they’re winged snakes, with shiny scales and horned heads. No legs are ever reported. Sometimes their heads are more sea horse like or crocodile like. All the dragons are reported to be larger than any native bird, with wingspans up to 15 feet. They also flying by slithering or twisting through the air, so we have another cryptid who doesn’t flap its wings. The earliest sighting was written about in the Burlington Times on August 11, 1887. A farmer named Lee Quarter saw a giant serpent flying over his corn fields. He said it had a forked tongue, serpent like body and scales that glistened in the sun. It flew with a writhing and twisting motio...

  The cadejos are ghostly black dogs from Central American legend. They are similar to the black dog legends from England, except there are two different cadejos, one is black and evil, and the other is white and good. The cadejo’s appearance varies greatly from region to region. However most of the time they have hooves like a goat on both feet. Sometimes they have goat horns as well. The black one is sometimes said to drag a chain behind it too. The white cadejo has blue eyes and the black cadejo has fiery red eyes. Cadejos are very large for dogs, being comparable to the size of a cow. Legend has it that God sent the white cadejo to protect people who were out at night, people travelling along country roads, drunks and people down on their luck. The devil saw this and was so angered by it he created the black cadejo to attack those same people. The cadejos most often interact with people in the country side, especially farmers who live near volcanoes. It’s said before...

This entry is going to indulge in some original research. Something I’ve noticed among dogman encounters is the occasional mention of horned dogmen. The cryptid community is usually pretty thorough in classifying subtypes of cryptids. For instance there’s standard, hyena and rottweiler types of dogmen, based on their head and muzzle shape. Yet I haven’t seen anyone else in the cryptid community discuss horned dogmen as a category, just scattered unrelated stories. It’s possible that’s because these creatures aren’t always considered dogmen, but demons, or goatment who happen to have a canine head, although I would think that quality is important enough to change what sort of cryptid they’re classified as. So I’ve gathered here all the horned dogmen stories I could find.  Caldwell’s beasts This first encounter happened to Roger Caldwell in October of 2005. He was on a hiking trip along the Appalachian Trail through North Carolina at the time. Mr Caldwell was an experienced hiker who...