Cryptids Origins

Cryptids Origins

In 1993, off-duty park ranger John Irwin was driving home from a date. He decided to take a shortcut through New Jersey’s Pine Barrens: seventeen hundred square miles of dense wilderness and marshes. Most drivers found the isolated road unsettling. Especially this late at night. But Irwin liked the isolation of the forest. Only, on this night, he wasn’t alone.

His headlights caught sight of an animal. It was moving from the tree line into the road. Irwin slowed to a stop. The animal turned and stared at him, blocking the road. And what even was it? He couldn’t process what he was seeing. The thing was terrifying. It had an elongated, horse-like face with eyes that glowed red in his headlights. It had the body of a deer, but was bipedal — it stood upright on its hind legs. Which were bone-thin, goat like, with hooves at the end. Its arms were smaller with claws as hands. And there was a long tail whipping back and forth on the paved highway, with a forked end.

Irwin was about to get out of his car to check it out - his park ranger instincts taking over. Then he saw the wings.

The creature unfurled large bat-like wings in a threatening move that horrified Irwin to his bones.

This was no animal ever seen on Earth.

He put his truck in gear and gunned it past the creature. The beast disappeared into the trees as he sped by. And he swore he heard it scream.

Irwin didn’t go home - he drove straight to the ranger station where his Supervisor was on duty. He told him what he saw. The Supervisor wasn’t disturbed at all - he knew exactly what it was. Irwin just came face to face with the New Jersey Devil.

The New Jersey Devil has stalked the Pine Barrens for three centuries. There have been countless sightings and reported livestock deaths. There’s even a hockey team named for it. And it all goes back to the year 1735. That’s when the Devil was born.

It started with Jane Leeds, the poor wife of a farmer in Southern New Jersey. The town already gave her the nickname “Mother”. Because she had twelve children — a lot, even for 1735. She struggled to feed them all. That’s when she got the bad news: she was pregnant again.

“Mother” Leeds made it no secret: she didn’t want the baby. According to legend, she screamed, “I am tired of children! Let it be a Devil!”

This turned out to be a mistake. Because her wish came true.

The night she went into labor, a group of women gathered around the bed to help.

At first everything looked normal. Mother Leeds gave birth to her 13th child, a beautiful baby boy. The women laid the baby on her chest so she could look into its eyes. Only they weren’t the eyes of a human.

The women watched in horror as the baby transformed. Its body elongated into a serpentine shape. Its feet were replaced with hooves. Its chubby face stretched into the long snout of a horse. Wings sprung from its shoulder blades. Finally, the newly born Devil stood on the bed shocking the women with its wings spread wide. Then the beast gave out a screech, beat the women with its forked tail, and flew through the window, disappearing in the dark forest.

For weeks after, the Jersey Devil returned to visit “Mother” Leeds. It would perch on the backyard fence. Mother Leeds prayed it would go away. She had Clergymen attempt to exorcize the demon. At first, it seemed like they succeeded. The Jersey Devil stayed away. But here’s the thing: the exorcism they performed was only intended to last one hundred years.

The Devil simply waited.

And when it did return, there was no Mother to visit. So it terrorized everyone in the Pine Barrens.

The Devil made its big comeback one horrifying week in 1909. Hundreds of people from across New Jersey reported encounters with the Devil. They called it a “kangaroo horse” or “flying death” or even “cow bird”. Panic gripped the region as newspapers published stories of strange, hoof-like tracks in the snow, mysterious attacks on animals, and terrifying encounters with the beast.

Schools were closed. Armed posses combed the forests in search of the creature.

If skeptics felt this was all imagined, they had trouble explaining one fact: the descriptions of the beast were very consistent.

A witness in Woodbury reported seeing a flying beast with glowing eyes.

Another saw a winged horse standing on its hind legs near the banks of the Delaware Canal.

A police officer in Bristol saw a winged beast hopping like a bird and heard its horrible scream. He tried to chase it down and took a shot at it. The creature soared up and out of site into the night.

A resident of Gloucester City saw it standing on his backyard shed at two in the morning. He watched it for ten harrowing minutes. He shared a detailed description from the encounter. He said it was “about three and a half feet high, with a head like a collie dog and a face like a horse. It had a long neck, wings about two feet long, and its back legs where like those of a crane, and it had horse’s hooves. It walked on its back legs and held up two short front legs with paws on them. Eventually it flew away.”

But despite all the sightings and armed mobs sent to hunt it, no one could capture the Devil.

Its rampage continued for a full week. Hoof prints were reported all over south Jersey. Witnesses reported seeing the Beast in yards, on bridges, and down side streets. The last sighting was in Salem, a small city in South Jersey. A resident heard his dog barking at something. He went to check just in time to watch his dog drive the Devil out of his yard. From there, it returned to hide in the Pine Barrens.

The stunning events of the week solidified the Jersey Devil legend for centuries to come. And the Beast continues to make appearances, wandering the Pine Barrens and terrorizing people to this day. What is it after? Turns out, it may just be looking for its mother.

While the Jersey Devil was born on a farm, another Cryptid came straight from the skies.

On September 12, 1952, locals in the mountains of Braxton County, West Virginia came face to face with the Flatwoods Monster. Researcher Mark Muncy calls it “one of the most documented encounters with a possible extraterrestrial being in history.”

Why is it considered extraterrestrial? Because kids playing football at Flatwood school playground saw it land from space.

That night, brothers Fred and Edward May saw a pear-shaped object fly over their heads. It was glowing red with a flaming tail. They assumed it was a meteor. Until it came to a dead stop and hovered above them. And then, just as sudden, it descended straight to the ground. It landed in the direction of a local farm.

The boys ran and got their Mother, who rounded up more people and their hunting dogs. They all went to see what this thing was.

As the group got closer to the farm where the brothers saw it land, the craft got easier to find. It was giving off a red and purple glow in the trees.

As they got closer, they were engulfed in a warm mist with a stench of sulfur. It made them queazy and burned their eyes. Then, one of the boys claimed he heard a strange high-pitched mechanical whine. The dogs growled at the noise and ran into the mist to attack. Almost instantly the dogs ran out of the mist, fast as they could, afraid of whatever was in there.

As the group stepped closer, Mrs. May heard the sound too. She described it as a strong sizzle like bacon frying.

Finally, they reached the craft. It was a large, metallic ball. It sat in a crater, glowing red in the night.

One of the boys was staring at something to the left of the craft, in the trees. He saw two glowing eyes. At first he thought it was a raccoon. Others in the group shined their flashlights where he was looking. That’s when everyone saw it.

Later they would tell newspapers it was a “metal monster” with a “reddish glow”. It was frightening. It stood ten feet tall, and it wore a helmet shaped like the Ace of Spades. It’s eyes glowed yellow.

The moment was disorientating for the group. Some thought they saw arms, others said it was a metal bullet shaped “body”. Mrs. May said the creature had a pleated lower half, like a metal skirt. She said there were antennae coming from its shoulders.

Then the group made a mistake - they got too close.

Suddenly the creature shocked everyone by launching an oily black substance at them. They turned and ran. The boys looked back long enough to see the creature disappear into the glowing round craft.

After they reached their homes, many witnesses experienced nausea and severe nasal and throat burns. The effect lasted days. The boys seemed to be getting sicker.

Mrs. May took them to the doctor. The diagnosis made no sense. The kids seemed like they were exposed to toxic mustard gas used in World War I. Nothing they’d find on a local farm would cause this kind of damage.

Local papers jumped on the story. “UFO lands in a local farm.” It was impossible to resist. They published witness accounts of the metal alien, which became the “Flatwoods Monster”. Mrs. May posed for a now famous photo next to an artist’s rendering of the creature.

But mainstream science wasn’t buying it. Debunkers claimed the kids saw a meteor. They said the glow must have been an airplane, maybe one that crashed. The monster? Probably a barn owl, which explains the glowing eyes at night.

And maybe the noxious gas was from a meteor. Maybe there was no monster. Except for one thing.

The next day, there was another sighting.

It happened in nearby Frametown. A couple were on a drive through the mountains when their car stalled mysteriously. It wouldn’t start up again. Then they smelled a putrid stench. They got out of the car expecting to find a dead animal. Instead, as they told reporters later, they saw a large creature standing ten feet tall before them. Its body was bullet-like with pleats of metal around the base. It was the Flatwoods Monster - with one change. The spade-shaped helmet was gone. They were looking at a reptilian head with yellow eyes. And the saw long, scaly arms. They described it like a “gray alligator”.

They escaped in their vehicle and this creature was never seen again.

The legend is now celebrated in Braxton County. The creature is known by tourists as “Braxxie”. Witness descriptions have been translated into iconic images on mugs and postcards.

Of course, if there was an actual UFO crash that day, you’d think the Air Force would have a record.

Turns out, they do.

The public didn’t know it at the time, but in 1952 UFO sightings were everywhere. They were so frequent, the U.S. Air Force formed Project Blue Book to look into them.

And the Air Force sent planes after them.

The goal was to capture one and get the technology before the Soviets had a chance.

But the Air Force was no match for whatever was visiting from space. Hidden from the public was the enormous amount of fatal air accidents during this time. More than six hundred freak accidents with fully experienced pilots were logged. The Air Force insists these had nothing to do with UFO’s. But researcher Major Donald Keyhoe suggests the government was covering up an attempt to hide reprisal attacks from UFO’s targeted by air force jets.

And it turns out, one of these “accidents” happened on September 12, 1952. The same night the Flatwoods Monster appeared from its crashed ship.

Two pilots were reported lost somewhere over the Gulf on what the Air Force called a “training mission”. But forty years later, the families were told the pilots had actually made it to Tampa but, after refueling, had relaunched. And it was on this second, secret mission they were lost. That same night, a civilian boat in Tampa Bay reported seeing a UFO. Some believe the two pilots relaunched to investigate this UFO, with the mission to shoot it down and recover its technology.

Researcher Frank Feschino thinks these pilots engaged the UFO and damaged it. He believes the damaged UFO continued due north and was, in fact, the fiery ball seen by the May Brothers on that legendary night in Flatwood.

Now, some may find it too far fetched to believe a creature from outer space appeared. But what is not so far fetched is a creature that we thought was extinct giving signs it’s still around.

In 1776, a French missionary was trekking through the unexplored Congo Basin of Africa. He came across tracks of an animal which he later wrote, “was not seen but which must have been monstrous.” According to the priest, “the marks of the claws were noted on the ground, and these formed a print three feet in circumference.” The native tribes had no doubt what creature made these marks. The priest noted the name in his book, a natural history of the region. This made it the first written record of the creature called “Mokele Mbembe”. That translates to “one who stops the flow of rivers.” Which is exactly what it did, simply by being enormous. Natives said it had the body of an elephant. But with a long, flexible neck on one end. And an equally long tail on the other. Stretched end to end, it easily became a dam stoping the river. There was no other known creature like it. At least, not since the dinosaurs.

And that became the popular theory: a living dinosaur was roaming the Congo.

In 1909, famed big game hunter and director of the Hamburg Zoo, Carl Hagenbeck got word of this creature from several sources. One fellow explorer said while visiting Lake Bangweulu in the upper basin of the Congo, natives reported a large hippo-killing creature living in the lake. They described it as half elephant, half dragon.

Another friend who was a naturalist told Hagenbeck he’d heard rumors of a kind of dinosaur living in Africa. He heard it was like a brontosaur. And the stories kept coming. In Hagenbeck’s own words:

“As the stories come from so many different sources, and all tend to substantiate each other, I am almost convinced that some such reptile must be still in existence. At great expense, therefore, I sent out an expedition to find the monster.”

Hagenbeck found enormous swamps, blood thirsty savages and severe fever. But he found no dinosaur. Still, his quest was widely publicized. And it lit up the imagination of generations of explorers. The hunt for Mokele Membe was on.

A year after Hagenbeck’s expedition, the German government sent explorers into the Congo again. The head of the new expedition confirmed locals were very familiar with Mokele Mbembe. They described the creature as “brownish-gray with smooth skin, size that of an elephant. It is said to have a long and flexible neck and only one tooth but a long one - some say it’s a horn. A few spoke about a long muscular tail like an alligator.” Natives said the creature lived in caves washed out by the river. They showed a path made by the creature, leading to plants it was said to eat. But this second expedition had no sightings of the creature.

During a 1920 Smithsonian Institution expedition, African guides found large, unexplained tracks along the bank of a river. Later the 32-man group heard mysterious roars from the caves along the banks. Rumor was, a tribe down river had seen the dinosaur. But tragically, during a train-ride over flooded area to get to the tribe, the locomotive derailed and turned over. Four team members were crushed to death and six more were injured. The expedition was cancelled. But the creature was feeling closer and closer to discovery.

In 1927, English explorer Alfred Smith reported hearing stories of a dragon-like river beast in Gabon - in the Western part of the Congo basin. And while traveling in Cameroon, he discovered lakes where entire populations of manatees had been wiped out by a huge animal with three-clawed footprints. Natives claimed it would come out of the water and devour people.

In 1932, Scottish explorer Ivan Sanderson was in Cameroon. He came across vast hippo-like tracks exactly where locals reported seeing the back of a large creature breaking the surface of the Mainyu River.

In 1937, Captain William Hichens published an article called “African Mystery Beasts”. He reported accounts of a “gigantic lizard with a neck like a giraffe”. Several hunters claimed to have tracked the beast.

But despite the growing evidence and consistent stories from natives, the creature itself was never seen - at least not by anyone who could document it for the Western world.

Until May of 1983.

When a zoologist from the Congo saw it first hand. He was a member of an expedition lead by Roy Mackal, an American researcher. It happened during a five day stay at Lake Tele, in the Northern part of the Republic of the Congo. And the zoologist wasn’t the only one to see it. His guides saw it too. Out on the lake. A strange animal with a wide back and long neck. According to the Zoologist’s own words: “the animal was 300 meters from the edge of the lake. The animal became aware of our presence and was looking around as if to determine the source of the noise. A villager was shouting in fear. The front part of the animal was brown while the neck appeared black and shone in the sunlight. It stayed partly submerged for twenty minutes and then submerged completely. It can be said with certainty that the animal we saw was Mokele-Mbembe, that it was quite alive, and furthermore, that it is known to many inhabitants of the Lake Tele region.”

Since this sighting, over 20 more expeditions have been launched, searching the swampland around Lake Tele.

Cryptozoologists are convinced the creature is a living dinosaur. Its description closely matches a sauropod. The only problem is, the sauropod has been extinct for 70 million years.

Still, the hunt goes on. Eyewitness descriptions are too consistent to be discounted.

In the words of big game hunter Carl Hagenbeck, who lit the flame on this hunt of all hunts:

“I have not relinquished the hope of being able to present science with indisputable evidence of the existence of the monster. And perhaps if I succeed, naturalists all the world over will be roused to hunt vigorously for other unknown animals. For if this dinosaur, which is supposed to have been extinct, be still in existence, what other wonders may not be brought to light?”

*** WRITERS NOTE - While the AI script describes the “Adair Beast”, the closest I could find was the “Beast of Land Between the Lakes” which is the same wolf-like creature and is near Adair County in Kentucky. So hopefully this works.***

Most Cryptids - creatures in legends but not yet proven to science - are not all that dangerous. The Flatwoods Monster sprayed some toxic oil, and the Jersey Devil caused real terror just making an appearance. But there was little physical harm done.

That’s not the case with the Beast of the Land Between the Lakes. Or “The Beast of the LBL”. This creature - said to be a bipedal wolf, standing seven feet tall - has dangerous claws, powerful jaws, and sharp teeth. And if witness accounts are true, the Beast is quick to put these natural weapons to use. Unlike Bigfoot, the Beast of LBL isn’t satisfied just being seen, walking through the woods. This Beast has killed.

* * *

The LBL, or Land Between the Lakes, is its home: a remote National Forest spanning Kentucky and Tennessee. Over 260 square miles of wilderness, perfect to hide the Beast.

It first made itself known when settlers entered the region centuries ago. French trappers in the area warned the forest was prowled by a massive half-man half-wolf beast. From day one the creature was known for its brutality. Mutilated carcasses of animals were found, livestock killed. Settlers claimed to see the wolf-like beast on two legs feasting on their cows, pigs, and horses. They heard it unleashing bloodcurdling howls in the night.

They would find young Bison slaughtered with the remaining herd clustered in a defensive circle. This was a sign the Bison knew there was a predator near. But the settlers were well aware Bison had no real predators out there. Aside from a hunter with a rifle. These Bison were clearly afraid of the Beast.

Sightings of the creature continue through the generations right up until today. Boy scouts have seen it, along with campers and fishermen and boaters using LBL for recreation. Hikers have heard its howls and reported sensing something stalking them on the trails. Hunters have discovered deer carcasses ripped open in a single swipe of a claw.

But what sets the Beast of LBL apart is when it comes face to face with its victims.

In one of the most famous encounters, two police officers had the unlucky task of witnessing the results of a Beast attack.

It was 1982, and the officers were called to assist with an incident in the LBL. They arrived at the scene to find a motor home parked on a camp site. The door was forced open, hanging on one hinge. The exterior of the home was splatted in blood and bloody hand prints. Around the nearby campfire, several bodies were lying with limbs ripped apart, throats clearly bitten by the creature — the carnage was devastating to the officers. They identified three bodies, a mother, father, and son. After more searching a fourth body was discovered. And the murder weapon? According to the coroner, the victims were torn apart in single, devastating attacks, using teeth and claws. And the size of the bites, the power of the claws — they weren’t consistent with a wolf or a mountain lion. This was something much bigger, and more brutal.

The investigators agreed not to mention these facts to the media. They wanted to avoid panic. Especially when DNA came back pointing to a creature related to a wolf.

Yet the authorities couldn’t hide it. There was a dangerous Beast out there, and it would attack again.

This time - just months later - another family arrived at LBL for a camping vacation. They had a motor home with a car in tow. Once they got settled at their campsite, the Mother and Daughter took a nap in the motor home. The father and son gathered firewood. The Daughter awoke to yelling and shouting outside. She looked out the window to see her Brother running to the driver side door of the camper. He quickly opened the door and grabbed the family shotgun and turned back around but it was too late.

His Father was lifted into the air by the horrifying wolf-creature, already bloody from a brutal attack. He fired the shotgun and hit the creature in the shoulder, forcing it to drop his father’s body. But he should have aimed for its head. Because in seconds, the Beast recovered from the shock of being hit and leaped onto the son, mauling him before he could protect himself.

By now the Daughter had grabbed a hunting rifle from inside the motor home. She hit the creature in the shoulder again. It let out a piercing howl and ran off behind the camper.

Later, when investigators arrived at the scene, the camper was completely destroyed. If the Daughter thought the Beast had run away, she was sadly mistaken. Something had clawed up to the back window and broken through. No one was left alive by the Beast.

The U.S. Forest Service Public Affairs office insists there is no credible evidence of this Beast’s existence. But the stories persist.

Where could such a Beast come from?

One theory suggests it was born from the trauma of history.

When the Land Between the Lakes was designated a National Park, families who lived on the land for generations were forced to move. And there were burial grounds for settlers and slaves and migrants from Centuries past turned into recreational land. Could the Beast that haunts the LBL be a manifestation of the anger caused by this forced change? Spirits combining into one terrifying creature, haunting whoever walks the land? Seems crazy. But folks who hike out there still check behind them just in case.

What is the truth behind these legends? Stories of the Jersey Devil, the Flatwoods Monster, Mokele-Mbembe and the Beast of the Land Between the Lakes are powerful in our imagination. But in every case, they remain superstitions with no scientific evidence behind them. In some cases the legends are centuries old. So much a part of our history they feel true.

In 1929, the Jersey Devil was declared the Official State Demon of New Jersey. The twice governor of New Jersey Walter Edge was quoted at the time saying, “When I was a boy, I was never threatened with the bogey man. We were threatened with the Jersey Devil, morning noon, and night.”

The Devil is born from our fears. Fears of raising a family in an uncertain frontier. Or in the case of the Flatwoods Monster, fears of aliens attacking. Or was that really a 1950’s fear of cold war and nuclear attack? Mokele-Mbembe taps into a fear we are just animals, and there might exist out there a bigger one we couldn’t tame. Could we survive in a world where dinosaurs existed?

Or where seven foot tall wolf-men waited to attack us in the woods?

Maybe these cryptids are symbols of our innermost fears, and maybe imagining them is our way of overcoming these fears.

Hard to imagine walking into the dark woods of Kentucky and not feel a little scared. Maybe that’s a good thing.