Field Guide: Complete Reference

The Albatwitch has been stealing apples and making a nuisance of itself around Chickies Rock since before anyone thought to keep records, and it hasn't shown any sign of stopping.

Lean, patchy-furred livestock killer working the fence lines. Leaves puncture wounds and no blood. Clears six-foot fences like they're not there.

An impossibly large owl, anywhere from the height of a large dog up to the size of a man in a feather coat, with a wingspan compared to a small airplane. Favors ambush-style observation and silent nocturnal hunting.

A huge black dog, larger than any known breed, that patrols a fixed section of mountain pass at sunset. Impervious to gunfire and physical attacks, it appears to be a guardian spirit watching over its master's grave.

The Booger Bear is a massive, bear-like predator reported across central Appalachia that doesn't match any cataloged species in the region. Witnesses describe an animal with bearish bulk but a shortened, flat face more like a cat or bulldog, elongated forelimbs, and a preference for traveling on hind legs. It raids livestock with a regularity that distinguishes it from opportunistic black bear predation. A specimen was shot and recovered in Kentucky in 1967. The Bureau considers the file active.

The Boojum has been haunting the hollers around Haywood County for as long as anybody's kept track, and what it wants hasn't changed: pretty stones and female company. Not necessarily in that order.

The Devil Monkey got its name on a back road outside Saltville in 1959, and the name stuck because nothing better came along. The Boyd family was driving through the mountains after dark when something came out of the trees and hit their car. Not a glancing blow, not a deer strike—a deliberate impact, hard enough to rock the vehicle. They didn't stop. When they got home and looked, there were scratches down the door panel. Deep. Parallel. The kind that don't come from branches.

Seven-foot bipedal canid that paces vehicles and watches from tree lines. Doesn't flee when spotted. Evaluates, then decides whether to stay or go.

Ten feet tall with a spade-shaped head and glowing eyes. Appeared on a West Virginia hillside in 1952, hissed at witnesses, then became a seventy-year mystery.

Seven to ten feet of hair, muscle, and poor decisions. Lives in Boggy Creek, raids chicken coops, reaches through windows. Loud, territorial, and smells terrible.

Eight feet of pale, headless confusion. Eyes and mouth set in the torso. Moves quieter than anything that size should. Forty-one sightings, zero attacks.

Oversized black dogs with glowing eyes that don't bark, don't chase, just watch. Show up before accidents and deaths. Then they're gone.

A tall, apelike figure roughly 6 to 8 feet in height, covered in dark brown to black hair. Cleveland County's wildman mascot, known for bothering dogs, moving through yards, and watching homes from the woods.

Large serpentine subject in North Carolina's biggest man-made lake. Sightings since the 1970s. Surfaces briefly, submerges fast. The lake was created by flooding a town.

Seven feet of green scales and bad intentions. Jumped on Christopher Davis's car in 1988 and left claw marks in the sheet metal. Still active around Scape Ore Swamp.

A giant lizard in the 12- to 15-foot range, low-slung and long-tailed like an oversized monitor, with a body striped in black and white bands dotted by quarter-sized speckles. Known for its huge, bulging frog-like eyes and foot-long forked tongue.

A half-man, half-fish entity surfacing from the brown water in brief, unnerving bursts. The upper body appears roughly human while the lower half flows into a powerful, scaled tail built for pushing against strong current.

Large winged figure shaped like a man with moth features documented in and around Point Pleasant, West Virginia, across a concentrated thirteen-month period from late 1966 through December 1967. Distinguished by luminous red eyes, reported wingspans exceeding ten feet, and an association with structural failure, electrical interference, and unresolved loss. Sightings ceased abruptly after the collapse of the Silver Bridge.

The Not Deer is exactly what the name says it isn't. A creature wearing a deer's shape the way a coat fits wrong; close enough at fifty yards, deeply incorrect at twenty. Reports describe front-facing eyes, joints bending backward, and a stillness that has nothing to do with prey behavior. The Bureau has cataloged encounters across every Appalachian state, and the pattern holds: witnesses know something is wrong before they can say what.

The Ogua has been in the Monongahela longer than West Virginia has been a state. The first account the Bureau can pin down comes from 1745, near Hoult. A young man fishing the bank. The water moved wrong. He went in and didn't come out—not the way he went in, anyway. What they found downstream didn't match a drowning. The river had help. Since then, the reports have kept coming from the same stretch of water. A wake that moves against the current. A shell-back breaking the surface, broad and ridged, gone before anyone gets a count. The churn of something big turning just beneath the waterline. The Monongahela is a slow river, dammed and locked, full of deep pockets and shadow water where something large could spend a lifetime without surfacing more than it wanted to. The Ogua seems to like it that way. It shows itself just enough to keep the file open. Then it goes back down, and the river closes over it like it was never there. Folks who've lived along the Mon their whole lives don't talk about the Ogua the way they talk about catfish stories or river legends. They talk about it the way they talk about current and weather—something you respect because it doesn't care whether you believe in it or not.

A hulking, outsized black bear with a twisted or missing hind leg. Leaves distinctive uneven tracks and is notorious for outwitting hunters, raiding hog pens, and surviving against all odds.

Goat-man hybrid on a 90-foot railroad trestle. Uses voice mimicry to lure victims onto active tracks. High danger rating because the legend has a body count.

Cherokee witch-class entity that removes hearts from the dying without leaving marks. Adds stolen years to its own life. Appears as withered humans or fiery shapes in flight.

A stocky, white-furred creature the size of a black bear with ram-like horns, a canine snout full of teeth, and legs that end in something closer to hands than paws. Sheepsquatch has been reported across the coal counties of southwestern West Virginia since at least the 1920s, with sightings surging in the mid-1990s. It moves on all fours but stands upright when startled.

Florida's answer to Bigfoot. Bipedal ape-like creature covered in reddish-brown hair. Named for its powerful, sulfurous odor that announces its presence from hundreds of feet away.

Large, black wolf-like shapes with glowing red eyes that seem to swim in and out of the dark rather than simply run through it. At a distance they resemble oversized timber wolves; up close they blur at the edges, as if fur and smoke are having an argument.

Beaked, winged cryptid from Mid-Atlantic and Appalachian lore, described as part dragon, part bird.

U'tlun'ta. The one with the sharp finger. An old woman made of stone who walks the mountain passes and knows your name before you give it. She's kind. She's friendly. She offers to carry your burden or walk with your child. And then someone doesn't come back, and the body—if there is one—is missing something it needed.

Small, cat-like creature with yellow eyes and a distinctive long tail. Legend tells of its relentless pursuit to reclaim its severed tail. Known for its haunting cry: 'Tailypo, tailypo.'

The Tennessee Wildman is described as a large, upright, humanlike creature with a heavy, muscular build and a full covering of dark hair ranging from black to deep brown.

A 7-foot-tall entity built out of plant matter rather than flesh—green stalks, vines, and fibrous tissue. Known for telepathic communication and using thorned suction cups to draw blood. A one-time visitor who never returned.

Six-legged feline creature of Cherokee legend. Known for supernatural speed and yellowish-green eyes that glow in darkness. Extremely territorial and aggressive when threatened.

Wanderlight appears as one or more floating lights, usually white, pale blue, or yellow, moving without an obvious source.

Ghostly white creature that produces bloodcurdling screams echoing through mountain valleys. Rarely seen, more often heard. Witnesses describe a deer-like form shrouded in mist.

A large, hair-covered humanoid standing around 7 to 8 feet tall, broad-shouldered and thick through the chest. This is Appalachia's classic wildman, known for raiding coolers and standing at the treeline watching campers.