Page 32 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - Vol 24 No 2 - February 24 2015

9 Greatest Monsters in North America
The 9 Greatest Monsters
in North America
Cheryl Eddie
Frankly, we're a little weary of Bigfoot and
Nessie. What about those mysterious critters
that don't have dedicated reality shows ... but
are still integral, beloved, and/or feared parts of
the communities in which they're said to dwell?
Here are 9 wonderfully weird, staunchly local
cryptozoological creatures.
1. Bear Lake Monster, Idaho-Utah border
This big guy got some shine on the Bigfoot
network, aka Animal Planet, with a segment on
an episode of Lost Tapes (spoiler: same as
above). According to biologist Bryce Nielson, a
talking head on the program, initial sightings of
the beast described it as looking "like a walrus
without tusks, or an alligator that had a lot of
teeth" ... teeth that just might enjoy chomping
on human flesh. It's said to dwell in the fresh,
brilliantly blue waters of Bear Lake, which
enjoys a reputation as "the Caribbean of the
Rockies," and its history is tied to both the
American Indians and the early Mormon settlers
who populated the area in the mid-19th century.
According to an 1868 Deseret News article
quoted on the Bear Lake Chamber of
Commerce's website,
The Indians have a tradition concerning
a strange, serpent-like creature inhabiting the
waters of Bear Lake, which they say carried off
some of their braves many moons ago. Since
then, they will not sleep close to the lake.
Neither will they swim in it, nor let their squaws
and papooses bathe in it.
The article goes on to recount
contemporaneous sightings, which classed the
creature as "not less than 40 feet in length" and
traveling "a mile a minute." Years later, the man
who wrote the article admitted he'd made the
whole thing up ... but the tall tale had already
taken root. A boat-rental business owner
claimed to have seen the Bear Lake Monster in
2002, although whether that was a genuine
close encounter or a clever bid for business is
somewhat less of a mystery than the creature
itself. Image via Animal Planet.
2. The Beast of Bladenboro, North Carolina
Was it a vampire killer from hell, roaming the
early nights of 1954 with an insatiable thirst for
blood (in the form of pet dogs)? Was it "part
bear and part panther, three to four feet long, 20
inches high, weighing 150 pounds, [with] bushy
fur [and] runty ears with a long tail and a cat-
like face"? Or was it, um, a random bobcat
whose fearsomeness was just a wee bit inflated
by the town mayor, who also happened to own
the local movie theater and was apparently quite
the William Castle-esque showman?
Whatever the real story, the Beast lives
on in at the annual Beast of Bladenboro
Festival, which this year featured live music,
camel rides, collard sandwiches, a classic car
show, and more.
3. Dogman, Michigan
All you need to know is contained in the
following spoken-word-over-flute-music ditty,
which breaks down the best-known sightings of
the werewolf-like creature known as the
Michigan Dogman. It became an unexpected
local hit in 1987 for radio DJ Steve Cook, who
recorded it as an April Fool's prank.
In 2010, the creature gained more
notoriety as a subject on the History Channel's
MonsterQuest, a show that dramatically doles
out lie-detector tests to folks who've allegedly
seen the beast in question ("Are you lying about
seeing those hairy creatures?" [Pause.] "No.")
Someone also went to the trouble of making a
film documenting a sighting of the creature,
dubbed "The Gable Film," which was, alas, later
revealed to be a hoax.
4. Wampus Cat, American Southeast
This is the only cryptozoological creature on
this list that also serves as a mascot for multiple most enduring cryptozoological phenomenons.
sports teams (pictured at left, a version used at a The origin story involves an unwittingly
high school in Conway, Arkansas ... we
wouldn't want to tangle with that thing on a
football field, or anywhere for that matter). The
cougar-esque Wampus Cat has a wider
geographical range than most, but is closely tied
to Tennessee folklore, with stories dating back
to Native American legends.
It's been described as "half-woman,
half-cat, and all-terrorizing — the cat kills
animals, steals children and smells like a
mixture of skunk and wet dog." Um, yuck.
Naturally, the Wampus Cat has had its own
moment in the excessively popular monster-
hunting-TV realm, on an episode of Destination
America's Mountain Monsters.
5. Thetis Lake Monster, British Columbia,
Canada
This creature's classification is sorta a more
sinister spin on the Creature from the Black
Lagoon, described by American Monsters as "a
grisly aberration of natural selection with an
epidermis consisting solely of silver, fish-like
scales. This animal's horrifying visage is made
complete by the six, razor-sharp spikes said to
protrude from its amphibious skull."
His (?) alternate name is "Canadian
Lizard Man," and sightings began and ended in
1972, thanks to a party pooper who admitted his
pet Tegu lizard (four feet long and chock full o'
bad attidude) had slipped out and was probably
the strange critter that was freaking everybody
out around the lake. That was enough
explanation for local law enforcement to close
the case, though as the Crypted Wikia hopefully
points out, "many locals still believe that the
Thetis Lake Lizard Man is still alive in the
lake." Image via American Monsters; credited
to Chris Wisnia with Daniel Loxton for Skeptic
magazine.
6. Jersey Devil, New Jersey
No less an authority than seminal travel journal
Weird NJ will have you know that "without a
doubt, New Jersey's oldest, most enduring, and
important pieces of folklore is the tale of the
infamous Jersey Devil." The Devil has been
slinking around the state's Pine Barrens for
nearly 300 years, making it one of America's
wished-into-being devil baby, circa 1735, that
raged straight out of infancy into woods-
haunting creature; it was spotted here and there
in the 18th and 19th centuries, with a key
incident occuring in January 1909. Weird NJ
describes the panic that broke out when
residents found peculiar footprints in the
Delaware Valley snow:
Panic immediately began to spread, and
posses formed in more than one town. Fear and
intrigue grew even greater when it was reported
that bloodhounds refused to follow the
unidentified creature's trail in Hammonton.
Schools closed or suffered low attendance
throughout lower NJ and in Philadelphia. Mills
in the Pine Barrens were forced to close when
workers refused to leave their homes and travel
through the woods to get to their jobs.
Eyewitnesses spotted the beast in
Camden and in Bristol, Pennsylvania, and in
both cities police fired on it but did not manage
to bring it down. Firemen turned their hose
upon it, but it attacked them and then flew away.
The entire week people reported that their
livestock, particularly their chickens, were
being slaughtered.
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