10 UNSETTLING ENCOUNTERS WITH THE WORLD’S CRYPTIDS

10 Unsettling Encounters with the World’s Cryptids
By Debra Kelly, Urban Ghosts Media, 15 October 2014.

Cryptozoology has always been something of a questionable scientific field. People are more than happy to scoff at the idea of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, but it’s also worth noting that there have been a number of creatures that have made the jump from cryptozoology to scientific, accepted fact. The giant squid, the okapi and the gorilla have all been questioned and proven real, so we’re left wondering…how many of these other people are telling the truth, too?

10. The Orkney Islands’ Sea Serpents (Stronsay Beast)

Image: Sir Alexander Gibson, public domain.

In 1808, what appeared to be the body of a mysterious, unidentified sea monster washed up on the shores of Stronsay, one of Scotland’s Orkney Islands. First sighted off the coast by locals John Peace and George Sherar, the remains of the creature had washed up on rocks; the fishermen who saw it couldn’t get close to it, but several days later the ocean waves moved the creature to the beach. It was described as 55 feet long, with a 10 foot long neck, massive eyes, and velvety skin that was the colour of beef starting to go bad. There were six appendages and a long tail; the men who discovered the corpse documented their findings in sketches, which still look like nothing we’re familiar with today. Some suggest that it was the remains of a basking shark, but if that’s the case, it was the biggest basking shark ever.

A few decades later, a similar creature is seen by a young boy sitting on a rock on the shore of Orphir. According to Alec Groundwater, the water before him began to churn and bubble; the creature that surfaced and tried to grab him had the same size and long mane that the dead creature found by the fisherman had. He described a flat head and sharp teeth, and once again, the creature is described as glaring at its prospective prey in an unsettling, humanoid manner. The boy climbed higher on the rock, out of reach, until the creature gave him one last, angry glance and gave up in its attempts to grab him.

Sightings don’t stop there.

Image: Sir Alexander Gibson, public domain.

Almost a century later, fishermen swear they not only see a massive, mysterious sea monster in the waters off the islands, but that they get an incredibly good look at it. The size of a horse, they describe the creature as having spotted scales and eyes as big as bowls…eyes that made very distinct contact with the men before the creature disappeared beneath the waves.

By 1919, there were so many sightings of the creatures that it was suspected that there wasn’t just a few of them, but that there was an entire colony living somewhere beneath the Orkney Islands. Fishermen from Hoy describe a creature that had a long, thick neck and a relatively small head; and in 1936, a farmer and his son were in one of their oceanfront fields when they saw a shadowy shape in the water. The creature had a series of fins running down its back, and remained near the surface for about half an hour before disappearing into the depths.

And in 1937, proclaimed sceptic John R. Brown told the local newspaper that his mind had been changed when he saw a similar long, massive neck and head rising out of the water.

9. A’nasa, the African Unicorn

Image: University of Houston Libraries, public domain; image not representative of A’nasa.

Today, we tend to think of the unicorn as a white horse with a horn. That’s not the only version of the unicorn that people have claimed to be real, and some are pretty wild.

In 1847, Baron J. W. von Muller was traveling through Africa on one of several scientific expeditions when he recorded several conversations with people who separately verified the same story of the same creature, and one claimed to have eaten it.

The first man, whom von Muller had dealt with before in his quest to find and document birds and animals native and unique to Africa, asked him if he was interested in seeing an a’nasa. The creature, von Muller was told, was about the size of a small donkey, and had a single horn on its head. Most of the time, the horn hung limp from its head but when the a’nasa felt threatened, the horn would stiffen to allow it to be used as a weapon. The animal was said to be heavyset but had thin, brittle bones, and it was often hunted for its skin, which would be used for covering shields.

Almost a month later, he came across a man who told a similar story of a similar creature. This man claimed not only to have seen the creature, but to have eaten it, too - and it was tasty.

8. Zana - Almasty or Neanderthal?

Image: Tim Evanson, cc-sa-4.0; illustrative purposes only, image does not represent Zana.

The story of Zana is an incredible one. Sometime in the middle of the 19th century in the remote forests of Abkhazia, Russia, villagers imprisoned a woman completely unlike anyone they had ever seen before. She was described as very large and very strong, with brown hair covering her entire body. Zana couldn’t speak and was referred to as being rather feral; obviously used to being on her own and fending for herself, it was specifically noted that the cold seemed to have no effect on her.

According to some, she was an Almasty, which is the Russian equivalent of Bigfoot. Others guessed that she - along with some skulls found in the same area - were proof that Neanderthals had survived well beyond their supposed extinction, and were living not too far from us.

Zana herself wasn’t answering any questions - she never learned how to speak, although she was kept in the village until the day she died. In a sad, chilling addition to the story, she bore four children who survived into adulthood, something that’s chalked up to her fondness for alcohol and heart-breaking tendency to drink herself unconscious. Her last son, Khwit, died in 1954, and by all accounts her children looked like perfectly normal homo sapiens.

That’s because they - perhaps unsurprisingly - were exactly that. DNA testing on Khwit’s teeth and the six descendents from the next generation have revealed that her ancestry can be traced back to sub-Saharan Africa. Those that conducted the DNA testing weren’t surprised - slavery was legal in the area until about 20 years before Zana’s capture, making it likely that she was little more than a young girl when the Russian government abolished slavery in the region she had called home. While it’s doubtful it’ll ever be known what happened to the poor girl, it’s likely that she had been left behind by her family - or her former owners - and had been living on her own in the forest before she was captured.

7. The Massachusetts Sea Serpent

Image: Mgiganteus, public domain.

On August 6, 1819, James Prince wrote a letter to the judge of Nahant, Massachusetts in order to clear up some things. He had read in the paper that his name had been mentioned in conjunction with the sighting of a sea serpent, and as he’d never spoken to anyone, he wanted to make it clear exactly what he’d seen, in his own words.

Basically, it was huge.

Prince had gone on a short holiday with his family, and when they got to Nahant Beach, they found something that they absolutely weren’t expecting. People were milling around on the beach, talking excitedly. And off the coast swam the creature. Prince says that he counted 13 humps on the fish-like beast’s back, although his wife said there were 15. Prince reported that the creature swam back and forth through the waters of the bay, so quickly that the foam and spray churned up from his movement made it impossible for him to tell how big the creature was. A head kept appearing above the water, briefly, as if it was breathing the air and then retreating beneath the surface. Boats were in the water with the creature, and Prince assumes from its avoidance of the craft that it’s a shy, non-aggressive animal.

Samuel Cabot supports the claims that there was a long, serpentine creature swimming in the Massachusetts bay. He adds that he has nothing really to add to the story, because previous descriptions have been so accurate in describing what he saw for himself. The serpent stayed within sight for several hours before disappearing.

6. The Australasian Ri

Image: Destination Truth Wiki, cc-sa-3.0.

According to the folklore of New Ireland, one of the islands of Papua New Guinea, at the waters off their coast, is home to strange creatures with long, fish-like tails and an upper body that bears a striking resemblance to humans. The Ri is their version of a mermaid, and many of the people who live on the island insist that they’re real.

In the early 1980s, a zoologist and an anthropologist set out to find out once and for all if there was any truth to the stories of strange creatures that could be found frolicking off the New Ireland coast. According to them, it’s absolutely true.

Unfortunately, photos brought back from the expedition are fuzzy and inconclusive; there’s no real, actual proof of what the two men claim to have seen, but their article in the annual journal of the International Society of Crypotzoology makes it clear that they’re absolutely sure of what they saw. It states that they actually got fairly close to the Ri - within 50 feet - but the notoriously shy creature ran from their boat…but not before they watched it break the surface of the water again and again over the course of about 15 minutes. While they couldn’t get close enough to get a really good, clear look at it, the scientists stress that the way the creature could bend and move was unlike any other animal they were familiar with.

The photos that they did bring back show some kind of shape in the water, but exactly what it is remains inconclusive, and, if the scientists are correct and it’s a strong survival instinct that’s keeping the creatures from making themselves known, perhaps that’s for the best.

5. The Fouke Monster

Still from the film The Legend of Boggy Creek, via The Fouke Monster.

It’s one thing to run into a strange, bizarre creature when you’re on vacation or wandering through the woods, but when you’re attacked in your own home…that’s something completely different.

In 1971, Fouke, Arkansas became the scene of a terrifying legend. It began with Bobby Ford, who described a 7-foot-tall creature that was ridiculously fast and covered with long, brown hair - very similar to the sightings of Bigfoot that have been reported across the United States. But this one was up close and personal. It was a Wednesday when Bobby’s wife and sister-in-law reported hearing someone walking along the porch of the home they’d recently moved into. Everything came to a head on that Saturday when Bobby and his brother were out hunting…until they were summoned back to their house by screams.

According to Elizabeth Ford, the creature had reached for her through the front window. Massive and hairy with glowing red eyes, she said it made no sound except for heavy breathing. When her husband got there, it grabbed him as he walked up onto the porch. It tackled him to the ground, and then was gone.

Tracks were left behind by the creature - three-toed footprints that matched the deep, three-fingered scratches that were made in the wood of the front porch. Over the coming days, there were more and more sightings of the creature, and those who did see it swore that it wasn’t a bear or a mountain lion, as some law enforcement officials had guessed. Other sightings indicate that it may have been a much smaller, 4-foot-tall monkey of some sort, but those who saw it weren’t impressed by that theory, either.

Sightings of the creature that attacked the Ford family have been traced back to the 1940s, and they’re thought to go back even farther than that. And in 1972, the film The Legend of Boggy Creek raised the incident to national popularity. Sightings have since continued on and off throughout the area.

And as for the Ford family? Their terror was real - after Bobby was released from the hospital where he’d been being treated for minor wounds and shock, they moved out of the house they’d been in for only a week.

4. The Bunyip

Image: State Library of Victoria, public domain.

According to the mythos of the Australian Aborigines, the Bunyip was a bloodthirsty creature that lived in the area’s waters and would devour anyone foolish enough to camp near its home. There’s a pretty wide variety of descriptions for the Bunyip, a cryptid that largely fell out of fashion by the middle of the 20th century. One thing that’s always agreed upon, though, is that the creature with the deceptively silly name had a taste for human flesh and a blood-curdling scream that could be heard for miles and miles.

In the early 1800s, there were several eerie reports of encounters with a bunyip. According to an E.S. Hall, who reported his sighting to the local newspaper in New South Wales, the creature that he saw made a sound like a dolphin, but looked vaguely like a seal with the head of a bulldog. A few years before, a man named Hamilton Hume claimed to have found some mysterious animal bones in the area, relating it to something as large as a hippo…but that clearly wasn’t.

The term “bunyip” wasn’t even used until almost two decades later, with the discovery of more strange animal bones near Geelong. The Geelong Advertiser stated that the bones were shown to a native, who easily identified it as a bunyip. He then drew the creature for the paper - as he’d not only seen it, but been attacked by it, as evidenced by the scars that he showed. According to the local, the creature was something like an emu, with the head and bill of a crocodile. Unlike the emu, though, the bunyip had massively powerful front legs that were used to crush its prey to death.

On the heels of that 1845 description, the Australian Museum was said to have acquired a bunyip skull. It was on display for a short time, during which others came forward with their stories of seeing a bunyip. Not long after, there was a small episode of bunyip fever when one was supposedly sighted sunning itself near Melbourne’s Customs House. Immediately, intrepid hunters set off to capture the beast, which was later identified as a platypus.

3. The Living Dinosaur of Papua New Guinea

Image: Peter Montgomery, cc-nc-sa-4.0.

The on-going debate between the schools of thought that believe in Evolution and the ones that believe in Creationism is a bee’s nest of differing opinions, but we’re pretty sure that anyone who’s ever seen Jurassic Park would be awestruck by the sight of a living dinosaur. That’s exactly what’s been said to live on Ambungi Island in Papua New Guinea, and some of the locals have some pretty amazing stories to tell about their sauropod neighbours.

Alphonse Likky says that he was swimming in one of the island’s reef when he saw the creature for the first time. It was heading for a series of underwater caves beneath the island, and he described the creature as he saw it from about 15 feet away. It was dark brown, with webbed feet, a snake’s head at the end of a long neck, and a frilled ridge along its back and tail. The rear legs were longer than the front legs, and it moved slowly through the water.

Another reported encounter with the creature suggests that it’s as comfortable on land as it is in the water. Alice Pasington saw one in her garden; it was similar to the same creature that Likky had seen, but smaller, lighter in colour, and lacking a fully developed ridge. It was suggested that the creature she saw was a young member of whatever species it was; she says that in spite of seeing it wander through her garden, she knew that it was just as adept at manoeuvring through the water as she watched it until it jumped into the ocean.

Later, others would report seeing the same creature sunning itself on the rocks off the coast of their islands, though no one would be able to get a close look at the beast and no pictures were ever taken of it.

According to those that live there, the islands of Papua New Guinea are a virtual hotbed for prehistoric cryptid activity and in addition to sightings, there have also been a number of massive tracks found throughout the islands. Locals who have been shown dinosaur handbooks have identified likely suspects for just what’s sharing their island, including the Herrerasaurus.

2. Malawi’s Terror Beast

Image: Thomas Pennant, public domain.

In 2003, a deadly beast stalked several villages in the landlocked African nation of Malawi. The official report was that the creature was a rabid hyena, but those who’d had a first-hand look at the creature thought very, very differently.

By the beginning of March, three people were dead and another 16 suffered some pretty horrible injuries in what seemed to be a vicious animal attack. Injuries included missing hands and feet, while others sustained permanently disfiguring facial injuries - one woman was admitted to the hospital missing her nose and her mouth. The three victims who died after their attacks - two elderly women and a baby - had their skulls crushed and their organs devoured. The Parks and Wildlife division of law enforcement’s insistence that the beast was nothing more than a rabid hyena was a bit hindered by their lack of success in catching the creature, and at the height of the panic, 4,000 people fled their homes to seek safety in the shelter of numbers.

According to those who survived seeing it, however, the creature has much longer legs than a normal hyena. This is also on the heels of attacks that had happened a year prior, when a vicious animal stalked and killed among the villages before. In that instance, too, Parks and Wildlife said that it was a rabid hyena that was responsible for five deaths and 20 injuries before it was killed…but locals didn’t buy it. Instead, there were claims of the supernatural, and victims that insisted the unnatural creature was the monster from the year before, back from the dead and exacting its revenge.

1. The Grey Man of Ben Macdhui

Image: biggreyman.co.uk.

Ben Macdhui is one of Scotland’s highest mountains, and it’s long been a favourite for climbers and hikers alike. While countless people climb the mountain and hike the trails unmolested, many others say that there’s something living in the mountain…and it doesn’t like people trespassing into its territory.

The creature is said to be at least 20 feet tall - one eye-witness to the creature’s presence, a respected professor and mountain climber named Norman Collie, said that he was first aware of something following him when he heard the footsteps behind him. But they weren’t like human footsteps, and the delay suggested that he was being followed by someone much, much taller than he was. The Grey Man has been described as being vaguely human-shaped, brown in colour and shrouded in a grey mist, likened to a mountain version of Bigfoot.

Most terrifying is the feeling that Collie also described as overwhelming him when he realized he was being followed. He described a fear unlike anything he had ever felt, pushing him ahead of himself, giving him no choice but to flee in terror. In 1945, a similar thing happened to a mountain climber named Peter Densham who also found himself fleeing in terror, and in 1958, The Scots Magazine wrote of a similar account from naturalist Alexander Tewnion. Tewinion was armed at the time, firing his weapon at the great, misty figure that terrified him. There was nothing there, though, at least, nothing that he hit.

There’s been a number of explanations put forward for the Grey Man, including that he’s simply the result of a rare weather phenomenon that plays tricks with shadows and the documented “Mountain Panic,” an episode where a person finds themselves all but overwhelmed by a wild, natural, untamed place that they begin to suffer from irrational panics and fears.

We’re kind of hoping that it’s the Grey Man.

Top image: The Bunyip. Credit: National Library of Australia, public domain.

[Source: Urban Ghosts Media. Edited. Some links added.]