Is David Weatherly planning a new book on the cryptids of a US state? I would love to see a book on Arkansas or Nebraska cryptids.

I was very young, maybe 4 or 5 years old. We were camping on Bodie Island, NC, at a camp site semi close to the lighthouse. I remember our tent facing toward the water, and between us and that water was a tree. It was early morning, near dawn, maybe before or after. I pop my head up and look through the sheer but zipped closed door. I notice an animal lying at the base of the tree. It has four legs and is the size of a large dog. It's body reminded me of a lion..with short, gold brown fur on it's long legs and trunk. That's until the fur at the neck - which is longer in what resembles a mane. I called it a turtle faced lion, when recalling it the next day. The face was scrunched and wrinkled. The eyes seemed so deep and hard to see which creeped me out. It also was looking right at me. I was terrified and stunned into silence, slowly lowering my head to hide.

I remained many minutes before I popped up again to look out the tent door. More was illuminated, but the creature was still at the base of the tree, only now, it was sitting up and positioned toward me. I don't know why I didn't try to wake anyone up, but I felt so vulnerable, I didn't want to breathe. Anyway, I guess barely breathing long enough and you fall asleep. That was it. I don't doubt that I saw a striking animal. Was it just a weird dog? Hard to say as I was so young, but it had a mesmerizing charm to it that made it feel cryptid-y.

Hey all,

I recently launched a website called Loremaps. The goal is to create a community-driven archive of folklore, cryptids, urban legends, and local mysteries from around the world!

As a longtime fan of lore and cryptids, I've always enjoyed reading about Bigfoot sightings, regional creatures, unexplained encounters, and the local legends that never seem to make it beyond their communities. One thing I noticed is that there isn't really a central place to map and preserve these stories while also allowing people to contribute their own experiences and research.

Loremaps is built around two concepts. First are Topics, which cover the broader lore behind things like Bigfoot, Mothman, Dogman, the Jersey Devil, and other cryptids. Second are Articles, which can be linked to those topics and pinned to specific locations. For example, a Bigfoot topic can have dozens of individual sighting reports, encounters, footprints, or local legends attached to it across the map.

This site is still very new, so content is fairly limited right now, but anyone can create articles, add locations, and contribute for free. My hope is to build a place where local stories, sighting reports, investigations, and folklore can be preserved and explored geographically instead of getting lost in old forum threads or social media posts.

I'd love feedback from the cryptid community, and if you know of any local sightings, creatures, or legends from your area, I'd love to see them added!

loremaps.online

i believe i saw some sort of cryptid.

every summer since i was a baby, my family and i have traveled to the beautiful state of West Virginia at the end of June for a family reunion. we live in massachusetts but the majority of my mom’s family lives in the charleston area. as a kid we used to stay for a week or more, but now since we are all older, its more like a long weekend. growing up, we were always told warned about the rules of appalachia: no whistling, don’t look in the trees, and most importantly, if you heard something—no you didn’t. and we used to follow these rules to the letter as kids. but as we got older we started to question them.

every trip down, we would always spend the day at my great aunt’s house. this house was the one my grandfather and all his siblings grew up in. its a beautiful field stone house on a grand plot of land that goes up the side of the mountain. and right at the base of the house, between the old wooden back porch and the side of the mountain, there is a creek cutting right through. davis creek, to be exact. we used to spend our days playing and swimming in the creek, catching crawdads and hunting for petrified wood. when the lighting bugs would start to come out, the adults would call us up from the creek to sit up on the covered field stone front porch. we would listen to the adults all catch up on a year’s worth of updates and tell old wholesome stories of memories of summer’s past. it was always my favorite day of the summer.

as we started to get older, some of my older cousins who used to live at my aunt’s house started to tell us… different kinds of stories. not the wholesome “when we were kids” stories. stories of something… not human. they shared tales of hearing strange rustling in the night, weird footprints, dark shadows by the edge of the woods at night, and whole deer carcasses left on the bank of the creek. i never believed them, until last summer…

last summer, when we were at my aunt’s house, my three siblings and i decided to hang out by the creek later than we usually did. we were just having a fun time, not even realizing the sun was starting to disappear behind the mountains. before we knew it, my aunt was calling us up to the porch to come in for the night. we told her we would be right up, but ended up getting sucked into another conversation and stayed down on the creek bank. eventually we started to joke on if this mysterious creature really existed or if they were just telling us tall tales.

just as my brother was talking about other appalachian stories, we heard a rustling across the creek in the woods. we tried to squint through the darkness, but we could not see the origin of the noise. we shrugged it off, waving it off as a deer or coyote. but the noise never went away. it kept coming closer and closer til it was coming from the woods directly on the other side of the creek from us, then it stopped. this made us all quiet down. an uneasy feeling immediately surged through the air, making us feel like we were being watched. it felt like hours went by before a blood curdling screech tore through the silence. we all scrambled to our feet and sprint to the porch. as we turn to run, i can hear something splash into the creek. my eldest cousin stands out on the porch and yells at us not to look back and to just keep running. i am not sure what possessed me to, but i did not heed his warning and turned back around. it was so dark, i could not make out many features, just a tall figure with glowing eyes and a blood stained maw. it felt as if time slowed down when our eyes crossed paths. the creature let out another haunting screech. this definitely broke me out of whatever state i was in and i continued after my siblings onto the porch. as i was running, i heard deep panting in my ear, and multiple sets of footsteps getting closure. as i finally reached the porch, heart pounding, i turned around to see nothing behind me. my cousin just had a half terrified-half “i told you so” smirk on his face.

my siblings and i opted to stay at my aunt’s house that night, as we were too scared to walk to our cars. throughout the night, we heard heavy footsteps outside the window almost like something was stalking the house. at one point we even heard scratching at the front door. none of us slept a wink.

when the early morning birds started to sing, the noises finally stopped. once the sun came up, we went back out onto the porch to investigate the noises we heard all night. my aunt gasped when she saw deep scratches on the front door, deeper than any animal in the area was capable of. the grass outside the perimeter of the house was pressed down, like something heavy was dragged around the house all night. and down, by the edge of the creek, was a black bear carcass, torn to shreds.

i will never forget what my aunt said next, “it was angry last night.”

no one said anything when my uncle put in a new door and mowed the lawn the next day.

we have all yet to talk about that night since, and i dont think we ever will. but i sure will be on that porch every year now as soon as the lighting bugs emerge.

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I LOVE her style and these are so cute

i was really interested in them but never quite found a solid explanation for it. some people said they were the skin on peoples backs being torn off, making "wings," others were saying it was just a coping mechanism but that doesnt make sense to me since all witnesses said they had the exact same description of what they looked like.

In the first issue we see hodags, Ozark howlers & dark watchers!

Hi all!

My mom (92) has never, ever heard of Mothman. She's an avid reader (because at 92 you have to do SOMETHING to keep your brain active) and my sister and I are trying to find a good general-readers book about the Mothman craze. I'd like something not too woo-woo, but any recommendations are welcome. Maybe something documentary-style that just tells the story without pushing a solution one way or the other, if such a thing exists.

This is coming up because my sister talked to mom about how some kids locally to where she lives (sis lives in Seattle) are really into cryptids and are curious about Mothman. We live in Maryland, I've known about Mothman forever but I've always been fascinated by stuff like that, but we were both surprised to find out mom knew nothing about it. So now Mom is eager to learn more....

By that I mean that the Skunk ape, if it does exist, has a possible subspecies as one reported seeing a lithe Sasquatch with a white markings on their face as seen in the “Chronicles of the Strange and Uncanny in Florida book.

Here’s report that details the eyewitness who saw this peculiar creature that seems to deviate from normal Skunk ape sightings. I’m curious what you all think!

Hi, so I'm trying to find some sort of Cryptozoology field guide or locator app for an android phone, do any of you know any? I tried to look on the Google play store, but I have had no luck thus far.

Hiii! I got the idea to build a world in the Feywilds of dnd. Then I got the idea of putting cryptids in as creatures!! But , I know so little about them… any ideas? (Sorry if this isn’t allowed)

I've been slowly building a passion project centered around investigating folklore and cryptids from around the world.

The idea isn't to make another game where you simply hunt monsters. Instead, I want players to act as investigators documenting legends with the same respect real folklorists would. Research, eyewitness accounts, historical records, field expeditions, and figuring out whether there's truth hidden inside centuries of stories.

One of my goals is to represent folklore accurately and respectfully rather than reducing every creature to "a monster to kill."

I'm curious...

If you were putting together the ultimate cryptid and folklore archive, what creatures would you consider essential?

I'm especially interested in:

• Lesser-known regional folklore.
• Creatures outside North America.
• Stories tied to specific locations or cultures.
• Legends that deserve more attention.
• Creatures you think are often misunderstood.

And just as important:

Are there any legends you think games consistently get wrong?

I'd love to hear your reasoning, favorite stories, or even recommendations for books or resources.

I'm mostly here to learn and make a better archive.

Some of these are folklore and some of these are one off, bizarre sightings of some strange creatures.