Number Two: The Jersey Devil
Some witnesses have said that the Jersey Devil that haunts the Pine Barrens in southeastern New Jersey is a cross between a goat and a dog with cloven hoofs and the head of a collie. Others swear that it has a horse’s head with the body of a kangaroo. Most of the people who have sighted the creature also mention a long tail, and nearly all of the witnesses agree that the thing has wings.
People have been spotting the Jersey Devil in the rural area around southern New Jersey since 1735, which, according to local legend, is the year that it was born.
For well over 200 years, generations of terrified witnesses have claimed they have encountered the Jersey Devil. Although eye-witness accounts are reported every year, the most famous series of sightings occurred in January 1909, when hundreds of men and women claimed to have seen or heard the frightening creature. So many people refused to leave the safety of their homes that local mills were forced to shut down for lack of workers.
Number Three: Nessie-Type, Long-Necked Lake Monsters
Nessie, most often described as a long-necked monster resembling an aquatic dinosaur, has been seen in and near Loch Ness since St. Columba made the first recorded sighting in 565 C.E. Today, nearly two million tourists come to Scotland each year to see if they might obtain a glimpse and a photograph of the elusive beast.
Although Nessie is by far the most famous of all monsters inhabiting inland bodies of water, there are reports of equally large, equally strange aquatic creatures in lakes all over the world. In the United States and Canada, there are such familiar lake monsters as “Ogopogo” in the Okanogan Lake, British Columbia; “Champ” in Lake Champlain, New York; and “Memphre” in Lake Memphremagog, Vermont.
Number Four: Chupacabras
Named for its seeming penchant for attacking goats and sucking their blood, the chupacabras (“goat sucker”) both terrified and fascinated the public at large when it first burst upon the scene in Puerto Rico in the summer of 1995. From August 1995 to the present day, the monster has been credited with the deaths of thousands of animals, ranging from goats, rabbits, and birds to horses, cattle, and deer. While some argue that the creature is a new monster, others point out that such vampiric entities have always existed and been reported by farmers and villagers in Puerto Rico and Central and South America.
Number Five: Werewolves/Shapeshifters
Native American tribes tell of bear-people, wolf-people, fox-people, and so forth, and state that in the beginning of human history, people were like animals andanimals were more human-like. Stories of women who gave birth to were-creatures are common among the North American tribal myths.
Early cultures throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa formed totem clans and often worshipped minor deities that were half-human, half-animal. Norse legends tell about hairy, human-like beings that live in underworld caves and come out at night to feast on the flesh of unfortunate surface dwellers.
The prefix were in Old English means “man,” so coupled with wolf it designates a creature that can alter its appearance from human to beast and become a “man wolf.” In French, the werewolf is known as loup garou; in Spanish, hombre lobo; Italian, lupo manaro; Portuguese, lobizon or lobo home; Polish, wilkolak; Russian, olkolka or volkulaku; and in Greek, brukolakas.
In the Middle Ages, large bands of beggars and brigands roamed the European countryside at night, often dressing in wolf skins and howling like a pack of wolves on the hunt. In the rural areas of France, Germany, Lower Hungary, Estonia, and other countries, these nocturnal thieves were called, “werewolves.” The old Norwegian counterpart to werewolf is vargulf, literally translated as “rogue wolf,” referring to an outlaw who separates himself from society.
Psychologists recognize a werewolf psychosis (lycanthropy or lupinomanis) in which persons so afflicted may believe that they change into a wolf when there is a full moon. Those so disturbed may actually “feel” their fur growing, their fingernails becoming claws, their jaws lengthening, their canine teeth elongating.
Number Six: Thunderbirds
The thunderbird figures prominently in the tribal traditions of many Native American tribes. To the Lakota of the American prairies, the thunderbird is an embodiment of the Great Mystery, the Supreme Being that created all things on Earth. While scholars over the centuries have attributed the Native American myths of the thunderbird to the reverence for the eagle, the largest of indigenous birds in North America, many people have claimed to have seen for themselves a great bird, far larger than the eagle, flying overhead. In fact, even in the nineteenth century, some witnesses claimed to have seen flying monsters that resembled pterodactyls, the winged reptiles that became extinct 65 million years ago.
Number Seven: Springheeled Jack
About the middle of November 1837, the lanes and commons of Middlesex, England, suddenly became places of dread. An eerie figure said to be possessed of supernatural powers was stalking the frightened villagers by night and effortlessly avoiding capture by the police. Because of this creature’s ability to leap over tall hedges and walls from a standing jump. He was given the name “Springheeled Jack.”
Close witnesses who encountered Jack face-to-face described him as being tall, thin, and powerful. A prominent nose stuck out of his pinched physiognomy and his ears were pointed like those of an animal. His long, bony fingers resembled claws.
Number Eight: Living Dinosaurs, Such as Mokele-Mbembe
For at least 200 years, stories have emerged from the swamps, rivers, and lakes of African jungles that there is a brownish-gray, elephant-sized creature with a reptilian tail and a long, flexible neck. The native people call it mokele-mbembe (“the one who stops the flow of rivers”) or emela-ntuka (“the one who eats the tops of trees”). In 1980, Dr. Roy Mackal led an expedition into African swamps that are “Mokey’s” hangouts and stated later that the descriptions of the beast would fit that of a sauropod, the giant plant-eating reptile that supposedly became extinct about 65 million years ago.
Number Nine: Flatwoods Monster
Kathleen May described the alien being that she and seven other Flatwoods, West Virginia, residents saw on September 12, 1952, as looking more frightening than the Frankenstein monster. A group of boys were at a nearby playground when they sighted a flying saucer emitting an exhaust that looked like red balls of fire. According to the boys, the UFO landed on a hilltop in back of the May house.
Gene Lemon, a husky 17-year-old, found a flashlight and said that he was going to investigate. About half way up the hill, Lemon directed the beam of his flashlight on what he believed to be the green, glowing eyes of an animal. Instead, the beam spotlighted an immense, humanlike figure with blood-red face and greenish eyes that blinked from under a pointed hood. Behind the monster was a “glowing ball of fire as big as a house” that grew dimmer and brighter at intervals.
Number Ten: Dover Demon
Whatever it was that William Bartlett and two other teenagers sighted from April 21 to 23, 1977, in Dover, Massachusetts, was real. The “thing” that has become known as the
