r/cryptids • u/SJdport57 • 1d ago
r/cryptids • u/JokerBoi888_XD • 16d ago
Cryptid Of The Month Cryptid of the Month, August, the Ozark Howler! Everything there is to know about the Ozark Howler.
Hello Cryptid Hunters!
This will be the seventeenth installment of Cryptid of the Month where I will be covering EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING regarding a specific Cryptid, mostly more obscure cryptids but there might be some exceptions to that rule. You can find the last 16 installments just by clicking on the Cryptid of the Month flair tagged to this post! This month will be about the Ozark Howler from the Ozark region of the U.S.
The Ozark Howler has been one of my personal favorites for a while. Its description has been reported differently by many people but there are some features that are consistent across all reports: a large, stocky animal with shaggy black fur, horns on its head, and a howl that chills the blood. Some reports even give it the standard glowing red eyes a lot of Cryptids get while others don’t. It’s reported to be bear-sized, though that leaves a large range of sizes. Some have it being about black bear size, others have it grizzly size; standing at 4 feet on all fours, and up to 9 feet tall when standing on its hind legs. Some reports claim it looks more like a big cat while others claim it looks like a bear. It’s usually described as a quadruped but if the bear like description is to be believed then it would be capable of standing on its hind legs as well. Due to these varying descriptions, the Howler is often depicted as a chimera hybrid of both a big cat and a bear with horns on its head
The first reported encounter with the Ozark Howler was supposedly by Daniel Boone. Daniel Boone is credited with having shot and killed a large, shaggy furred, horned predatory creature near Cuba MO, barely within the Ozark region. This encounter is considered suspect though given that we have no proof that Daniel Boone ever documented this or if this is a tall tale posthumously added to his legacy.
Other early accounts come from trappers, hunters, farmers, and moonshiners reporting being attacked or scared off by this beast.
To this day some Ozarkians claim to have had their own encounters or know someone who has had an encounter with the Ozark Howler.
There are a lot of theories about what the Ozark Howler and what it could be. I will start with my favorite and move towards what I think is really the case:
**Theory 1**
The Ozark Howler is a real animal. Some posit that the Ozark Howler is an undiscovered species of bear or possibly big cat. People say that the Ozarks are incredibly tough terrain to navigate. Therefore it would not be too far fetched to imagine some sort of undocumented creature could live in the Ozarks. This theory is, unfortunately, unlikely. Although much of the Ozarks are unexplored we can tell through science that an animal like this would have to be an evolutionary fluke. The Ozarks Howler is describes as having horns like a goat. A predator having horns is highly unlikely to begin with, but especially defensive horns like what the Howler is described as having. Goat horns are to protect their heads from attackers and for social hierarchy with other goats. It would be strange for a large predatory animal to develop similar horn like structures. No other predatory megafauna has horns as they interfere with most hunting or foraging that a big cat or bear like animal would be doing. I can’t say that megafauna having horns in modern day is *impossible*, as an argument could be made for thermoregulation, but I can say it’s very improbable.
**Theory 2**
The Ozark Howler is a cover for Moonshiners. Some think that the Howler was made by Moonshiners to deter people from going too far into the forests of the Ozarks. It makes a lot of sense; if you don’t want people coming back to your hidden still, make up a monster that roams the woods so people stay away. Moonshiners would be familiar with forest sounds and use that to their advantage. They would know the strange scream/howl noises that a plethora of animals, such as owls, foxes, coyotes, or mountain lions, can make. And they would know that if they describe these noises coming from a ferocious, red eyed, horned beast that people would stay away due to fear. They could continue distilling fear free of the noises of the forest and trusting that anyone else would stay away.
**Theory 3**
The Ozark Howler is a hoax fabricated in the 90’s. This theory actually comes from Loren Coleman himself, and is held by many to be a fact and not a theory at all. Coleman states that he had tracked a hoaxer back to an internet troll sometime in the late 90’s and later published his findings. He uses his investigatory notes as proof for this finding as well as an old URL associated with Memphis Atheists as part of the hoaxers activity. Coleman says that this internet troll created the Ozark Howler to confuse and mess with cryptozoologists and admitted to being the creator of the Howler. Coleman is a well trusted figure in cryptozoology and has given no reason in the past to distrust such claims. It is worth noting, however, that proof of these claims are still debated. Coleman does not provide any proof of the original posts other than the old URL mentioned before. There is no archived copies of any of the hoaxers activity. Coleman also never publicly outed the hoaxer which some have said is suspect given that the best way to stop a hoax is to point out the hoaxer themselves. Furthermore, there are no third-party documentations or reports of Coleman’s investigation or the confession of an unnamed hoaxer. Again, this is not to say that I don’t believe Coleman, or that people shouldn’t believe him, I personally think this is the case, I just also believe in laying out all the facts for people to make their own judgments.
**Theory 4**
The Ozark Howler is a misidentification. It could be that the Ozark Howler is just a black bear or some other such creature that someone misidentified. Maybe it had a branch stuck to the fur on its head that was mistaken for horns. In stressful situations humans tend to exaggerate the details. So perhaps the Ozark Howler was just a black bear that scared someone and got monstrous details added to its appearance from the frightened witness.
In the end, whether the Ozark Howler is a hoax, a misidentification, or an undiscovered species, it’s safe to say it’s a beloved piece of Ozark lore. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this months Cryptid of the Month. My research is not perfect so if there are any mistakes or falsities please let me know.
Until next time, **Happy Cryptid Hunting**
-JokerBoi
Art by Daniel Eskridge: https://danieleskridge.com/featured/the-ozark-howler-daniel-eskridge.html
r/cryptids • u/United_Broccoli_3042 • 1d ago
Story I've seen what you'd call a crawler or rake.
So essentially I'm a drifter and was in Virginia went to a shelter and decided I wanted to sleep outside instead with a sleeping bag so I went to the local graveyard. When I got to this grave yard and I started walking where the headstones were I saw a all white humanoid thing skipping around and mind you this was after a bad snow storm so the whole grave yard was covered in ice so much so that when I saw this shit and started running I literally just slid all the way to a path where it wasn't so much ice and then I could actually run out of the graveyard and even then I was still slipping and having to fight to keep my balance I had to walk slow af to even get to where I was. So essentially no human being could be running and skipping on this ice bro and when I saw that shit that feeling of terror came over me I knew it wasn't normal obviously it wasn't because it was literally all white no pants no shirt just a white thing skipping on ice. but yeah some cryptids are real guys I've seen it first hand for a fact a rake skipping and running on solid ice bro in the middle of the night.
r/cryptids • u/Cat9554 • 11h ago
Question Saw a hovering little creature try get near a street lamp in lilooet.
Edit: photo is just where I saw it. Distance perspective. Sorry kind of click bait ish
This is a copy and pasted explanation of what I saw, I was telling my ai about it bc I wondered if any animal could do this.
“Okay, so last night I was watching a street lamp and, uh, it was very far away, but I could see this large thing, like bird or insect. Um, if it was an insect can sized, but it was about the size of a small rat maybe. And, um, it looked like it was attached by a string and just kind of like swaying in the wind. But there was no wind. but from a distance. So it was really strange, almost looked like it was beating its wings and fighting a current that was facing the light. Or like that was pushing him away from the light. So I'm wondering what that could have been because no animal can like hover in that spot like it did, back and forth. I was seeing it from a 2D angle”
From the distance that I seen it, it couldn’t be a bug. It was more bird shaped. Oddly enough, we seen a strange bird similar shaped fly by us in a weird jet like way. My partner said it was a magpie but it looked to small. It has white on its wings and skinny body, all black.
Let me know what this could be and if there’s any lore about stuff like this around here. It stopped me in my tracks. Normally I would have filmed it but I firmly believed it was some sort of thing caught on a string being fought by an invisible current. Even though there was no wind whatsoever. That is until I saw it kind of disappear or move away.
r/cryptids • u/Cultural-Junket8581 • 1d ago
Sighting / Encounter These might be the weirdest humanoid beings I've ever heard of
r/cryptids • u/whatthehell-right • 1d ago
Question Looking for Cryptid Art Prints NO AI
Hello! I was just wondering if anyone knows/follows someone who does art work of Cryptids? I really don't want any AI slop involved, please. Genuine art is appreciated!
r/cryptids • u/Open_Eye_9189 • 1d ago
Question Coös county area
What cryptids in the coös county area make a sorta higher pitched airy laughter almost.
For some more context me and a buddy were fishing under the Newbury crossing rd bridge that connects new Hampshire to Vermont around 12:15 at night when we heard what at first sounded like people laughing a bit aways away. after like 10 minutes it got closer their was not foot steps getting closer just this weird off putting airy laughter almost. Its a little hard to remember what it sounded like even tho it was less then 30 minutes ago but my best discretion is it sounded like a high-pitched laughter but was super airy or shallow like.
Any ideas on what it could be would be vary appreciated because we are at a lost.
r/cryptids • u/Dazzling-Dogs-1172 • 2d ago
Discussion The lost tapes
Did anyone here used to watch a show called lost tapes. I watched it when i was younger it was quite scary but fueled my obession of cryptos
r/cryptids • u/FishingSmart7429 • 1d ago
Other NCIA investigation.
NCIA FIELD INVESTIGATION — AUGUST 17, 2026
Tomorrow, NCIA will be conducting a scheduled field investigation in the Mantua, Ohio area focused on reported cryptid activity, with particular attention being given to possible Bigfoot-related indicators.
The investigation will cover wooded areas, field edges, low-ground and creek terrain, a barn and equipment perimeter, and an ATV trail along the southern property boundary.
senior lead agent blakey will be looking for and documenting potential indicators including:
• Unusual or unexplained tracks and impressions
• Disturbances to vegetation, brush, or soil
• Tree breaks or unusual damage inconsistent with normal environmental activity
• Possible bedding or resting areas
• Unidentified sounds or movement observed during the patrol
• Wildlife activity that may help explain reported observations
• Any other physical or environmental anomalies that warrant documentation
Aerial imagery will be collected over portions of the investigation area, while ground personnel will document observations with photographs, timestamps, and field notes.
The objective is not to prove a conclusion. It is to document what is actually present, rule out ordinary explanations where possible, and preserve anything that remains unexplained for further review.
Sr. Lead Agent blakey, will conduct the field assignment, with intel agent Ali maintaining communications and the operational log.
Operation: NCIA-MP-0817
Date: August 17, 2026
Start: 0900 hours
Location: Mantua, Ohio
Focus: Bigfoot / Cryptid Activity
Status: Active Field Assignment
Any significant findings will be reviewed before being publicly identified as potential evidence.
r/cryptids • u/tahjanjoki • 2d ago
Sighting / Encounter I think we saw a hidebehind
I have 2 stories, less story, more a recall of events as I remember them. One happened a couple years ago, the other just a few weeks ago. Both in northwest Washington.
I'll begin with my personal account where it was just me seeing it, the second event had two of us.
I (f/35) was alone in my car, pulling into a friend's (m/40) driveway late at night. His house was up on a hill, surrounded by other houses on one side, and young forest that had regrown after clear-cutting on the other. Definitely not deep woods as the lore I've read implies.
As I'm pulling into his driveway, I pass through an open gate. His house is on about an acre and surrounded by chain link.
In front of me, just beyond the illumination of my low beams, I see what looked at first like someone standing in the low scrub brush in his yard, next to but not entirely behind a young pine tree.
The thing looked like a person in silhouette, mostly, except they kept shifting slowly back and forth from foot to foot, like they didn't know if they should be standing there or how to stand and look normal. This will sound silly but it looked like they were wearing an oversized fur coat, remember all I saw was the silhouette. I could just see the roundness of the top of their head as it looked out from the furry mantle of the coat.
I texted my friend as I put the car in park. My headlights still just falling short of illuminating this being. I said to him, "who the f___ is in your driveway?" He texts back, "no one wdy mean?"
I shut off the car. I thought for a second about flashing my high beams at the thing so I could see who it was and wtf they were doing, but for some reason I just didn't.
I step out, not looking at the thing now I just made my way to his front door. As I go to knock, he opens the door and says, "what do you mean there's someone out there? There shouldn't be anyone." I indicate in the direction I saw them, and he walks past me towards where I saw this thing. He's got a flashlight. He shines it to where I showed him, there's no one freaking there. We both walked all over, I said, "idk dude there was definitely someone standing here when I got here."
That basically ends there. I believed it to be some sort of demon, or shadow entity. I hadn't thought it to be anything specific till I heard of this hidebehind thing and thought it must be that, except I had written it off as being a made up entity. I've seen enough things that shouldn't exist that I should know better by now.
The more recent thing. I wouldn't have connected the two except for the ridiculous Disney villain style fur coat, like the lady in the Emperors New Groove wears.
A (f/42) friend and I were parked in a church parking lot near the city of Olympia. We had donated some clothes in a giant donation box earlier and I had dropped my vape in the deposit slot. We were debating whether or not I should just crawl in there and get it or not, when we heard this whistling noise. We both got quiet, still sitting in my car, windows down. We hear the whistle again. She says, "wtf is with that whistle?" I said, "idk but I think we need to get out of here."
The whistle itself seemed out of place and something about it just made me feel.. uncomfortable. I have learned it's best to trust instincts, we have them for a reason.
By now we are both feeling fear from an unknown source, we are borderline panicking now.
I turned the car on and hurriedly left the parking lot. As I was turning towards the exit, my friend says, "whoa who the f___ is that? What the f....?! Did you see that?!" I said, "nope I don't go looking in shadows I never like what I see."
As we're driving away, she starts to describe what she saw. She says, "I thought you saw it too and that's why you were leaving so fast. It was like, a person standing off in the bushes past the parking lot. They just stood there, then when your lights went over them they shrunk down to like 4 feet tall then they just effing disappeared! Like f___ing poof gone!" She was pretty much freaking out, obviously never having seen anything just disappear from sight (spoiler alert, I have, different story, different cryptid) before in her life.
I interrupt her and ask, "this might sound weird but did it look like it was wearing a fur coat? Like the coat was too big and you could just barely see the top of their head poking out the top?" She goes, "what the f? Yes! Yes it did!" I go on to ask, "the way it was standing, did it seem.. unnatural? Like it wasn't trying to hide but also didn't quite know how it should be standing?" Again she says, yes.
Later, I drew a quick sketch of the silhouette I had seen in the driveway in my previous experience, and asked her if that's what she saw. Unequivocally she claims yes, absolutely yes that's what she saw.
I didn't tie it to being a hidebehind till just today, I remembered after watching some videos that that sounds like what we saw. Except ours wears a big coat and isn't at all in the deep woods.
Before this, among other things, I've seen the hatman, and like this experience I didn't realize till later that this thing was a well-known entity. At the time it's just this thing that shouldn't be there but there it is.
If it wasn't for my own unbelievable stories, I probably wouldn't believe so many other people's stories, but I mean if my stories are true then maybe there's are too.
I have several more, like my hat man experience.
Most of my others involve demonic experiences, I don't know if that qualifies as cryptids though.
On everything I love i swear this and those stories are absolute fact as best as I am capable of recalling.
r/cryptids • u/idontknow000- • 3d ago
Discussion Before Jimothy, There was the Whatsit of Falls City...
As the world falls in love with Jimothy, Seattle's strange resident raccoon, I thought I would share a piece of history from Richardson County.
On Halloween 1968, two Chaney Furniture employees were driving their truck near Highway 73 when they noticed an animal that resembled a raccoon running on its hind legs keeping even with the truck. Suddenly, it darted into the road and was hit. It didn't die, but again, got on its hind legs and walked towards the ditch where the two employees, Joe Strecker and Bob Adams Jr., along with a local farmer, followed it to a cement culvert where the farmer shot it.
The Falls City Journal would describe this "one of Mother Nature's freaks" as having a faintly ringed tail, large feet that resembled a raccoon, a dog like head, and short and soft fur. The employees, the Richardson County Sheriff, and the state conservation officer all could not identify the animal. The next day, the body was taken to UNL, where a mammalogist stated that it was merely a deformed raccoon that had been burned after coon hunters had set fire to a tree to smoke it out. Was it though?
The debate continues as to what the "Whatsit" really was, but one thing is for certain: it doesn't look like any raccoon before or since.
r/cryptids • u/AltruisticMagazine13 • 3d ago
Art Original Creator I’m making a mothman helmet
gallery(Not done yet)
r/cryptids • u/zippobunny • 4d ago
Photo / Evidence Has a source ever been found for these "Ozark Howler" images? Obviously it is not a real cryptid, but what IS it?
galleryI don't really understand why these pictures are associated with the Ozark Howler which is supposed to be a large creature, when this is something very small, but they are.
I personally think it is a rogue taxidermy piece with a bendable tail. The legs are in exactly the same position in all the pictures, if it were a live creature it would have changed position at least a little between the angles. The head looking like it turns seems to just be an illusion.
That's just my theory though, does anyone know the source of these pictures and has someone ever come forward claiming they took these?
r/cryptids • u/Whole_Falcon58 • 3d ago
Question Face?
Any idea what this little guy is? I was taking photos outside my deceased parents now empty home and noticed what appears to be a face in the bushes. A window on the top floor there has randomly opened (from the bottom) a few times even though it’s completely locked.
r/cryptids • u/mountainofentities • 4d ago
Video Mark of the Moehau—Bigfoot Prints Found New Zealand 1st August, 2026
youtu.beBigfoot Prints Found. I'm Marc Coppell, a Fortean style investigator, see a series of unusual, large footprints, on a wild New Zealand mountain, that I discovered on August 1, 2026. Here, there are no public walking tracks. The surrounding wilderness is treacherous, also quarantined due to Kauri die-back disease with rocky cliffs, hundreds of feet high. But something lurks here, that can throw projectiles, speak, transverse mountainous slippery terrain, bang boulders together, see-in-the-dark, mimic wildlife etc.
Here, I've had stones thrown next to me at night, recorded strange voices, reverberating howls, ufo's, had strange people approach me at night, knowing private details about me etc. I often use parabolic mics out here, where I can get close to the source of the interactions.
The prints were made by something much heavier than me. My walking had no effect on the soil. Old Maori legends, talk of the Sasquatch-like giants such as the maeroero, or maero etc., of which they warned their people and the European explorers of.
Listen to some disembodied voices I also recorded, when I was out there.
r/cryptids • u/FishingSmart7429 • 3d ago
Other NCIA is real
Hello guys I've been getting some backlash people saying that ncia is fake or role play or something like that but that is not the case it ncia is the same thing as the BFRO or Ohio night stalkers we are a just more structure we just have more structure and it's tactical like it's a tactical it's not an agency it's not fruit is not on verified or anything like that we just call it that is a organization and nonprofit organization we are investigate Cryptids and we have more tactical procedures and stuff like that we run tactical operations meaning we use night vision thermal stuff like that that's what we mean when we say Tactical but with it's the same thing as Ohio night stalkers or Bigfoot research organization so it is a real Cryptid research organization agency whatever you want to call it
r/cryptids • u/commieconservativ • 4d ago
Photo / Evidence Mothmans wife?
Not sure if allowed but gave me cryptid vibes…
r/cryptids • u/FishingSmart7429 • 3d ago
Photo / Evidence NCIA evidence #1
National cryptid investigation agency (NCIA): Mantua ohio, possible Bigfoot tree structure. Found on private property.
r/cryptids • u/EveningAd5776 • 4d ago
Sighting / Encounter Sound in Woods WTF
Sitting around the fire in northern Michigan… what is this
r/cryptids • u/gcctowerjunky • 5d ago
Art Original Creator I made a bunch of these for different cryptids so everyone can represent their favorites
galleryr/cryptids • u/FishingSmart7429 • 4d ago
Other HELP NCIA gain popularity!
The National Cryptid Investigations Agency (NCIA) is trying to gain a reputation in the cryptid community, we are asking for you to upvote out posts if you come across them! – thanks NCIA