The Discussion: Cryptids!
First off, there won't be a new episode of TRAPPO posted this week, since we're going bi-weekly for the month of March due to some behind-the-scenes setbacks, but we'll be back with a brand-new installment for your listening pleasure next Friday, so don't despair.
In the meantime, we've got an assignment for you, dear listeners: CRYPTIDS! What do you think about them? Have you ever had a close encounter with the Loveland Frog on a lonely road? Have you ever smelled the particular stink of the fabled Skunk Ape on the breeze? Maybe your local goat farm has been plagued by the hungry Chupacabra? If so, tell us all about it! We desperately want to hear your exciting cryptid stories, dear listeners! Did the Michigan Dogman eat your grandpa's drinking buddies during an ill-fated fishing trip? Did you catch that pesky Mothman digging through your garbage cans one night, and did you shoot that winged menace down, and is its desiccated corpse currently wrapped in an old bedsheet, lying in your attic? Tell TRAPPO your story! And if you have photographic proof, send that along, too!
Leave a comment below, detailing your encounters with any legendary monsters you may have stumbled across in your travels. And if your story is too lengthy for a comment, feel free to send us an email, which we would greatly appreciate. We'll be accepting your startling stories until Friday, March 31st, when we'll convene to record a special cryptid-themed episode of the show, and you'll be able to hear that episode in all its glory sometime in April!
We can't wait to hear what you've got to say on this exciting topic, and we've got a few sordid tales of our own to tell, so it's going to be an all-out cryptid extravaganza! What are you waiting for? Get your butts down in the comments without delay!
Thanks for sharing your stories!
I grew up in a hole in the wall town called Hay Springs in northern Nebraska, and my friends and I used to go fishing for panfish at nearby Walgren Lake when we were growing up. There was a local legend of a beast that haunted the lake, a great monster that according to many accounts resembled a massive, horned alligator around forty feet long. The Lake Walgren Monster isn't very well known outside of our community, but that hasn't stopped local people from trying to capitalize on their homegrown "Nessie", but most attempts haven't added up to much.
ReplyDeleteThe first "official" documented sighting was in 1921, and various accounts have described the beast as resembling a giant catfish or even a small whale, but the story of a local named Johnson in 1923 cemented the popular image of the horned alligator in the public consciousness. Stories of this horrible creature spread around the world for a brief period of time, and the truth of the matter is they were spread by a man named John Maher, who, among other things, was a successful Nebraska businessman and newspaper owner who had a penchant for making up extravagant stories to draw attention (and money) to his endeavors. Stories of the Lake Walgren Monster were traced back to Maher by investigative journalists in the 1950's, and the game was essentially up by that point. YOU guys should look up Maher sometime. His list of bizarre hoaxes is actually quite impressive, and one day somebody is going to write an amazing book about this snake oil salesman.
So The Lake Walgren Monster is a just a hoax. That hasn't stopped local people from seeing it in the waters of Lake Walgren from time to time for the past century. Some farmers have claimed the beast has snacked on their livestock. Some claim it has supernatural powers, that it can summon an impenetrable green mist in which those trapped become disoriented, and that when they finally emerge from this fog, they may be miles away from their point of origin, if they ever do emerge at all.
When I was a kid, out fishing on the lake one overcast autumn morning with my friends in an old wooden canoe we borrowed from a neighbor, a fog rolled in and settled over the water, obscuring the shore. We couldn't figure out where we were. Against our better judgment, we started to get scared. Something began moving in the still water around our canoe. A large splash suddenly soaked us to the bone, and I swear to God we all saw something large and scaly breach the surface of the water just a few feet away. The shape was larger than our canoe, that was for sure. In that moment, I was sure I would never see my family, or even the shoreline again. We all thought we were going to be eaten by the Lake Walgren Monster that day. Luckily, the fog quickly dissipated almost as soon as it arrived, and we rowed for the shore as fast as we could. Back on dry land, we all laughed the experience off, because the fog can play tricks on you. But we never really forgot what we saw out there on the water.
Of course there is no Lake Walgren Monster. But we saw something out there. And I never went fishing on Lake Walgren again.
In North Dakota, the winters can be brutal and long. All sorts of things can happen during the endless snowstorms that frequent the region. Sometimes, people disappear. Without a trace. It's like the snow just swallows them up, consuming them whole. My grandparents told me that it wasn't the snow that swallows people up. It's what's IN the snow. A predator of predators that dwells in snowdrifts, a creature that resembles a great wolf without legs, propelling itself through the snow, consuming any unwary soul they may find lost in the storm. The Wasset has a ravenous appetite, and powerful jaws that can crush stones, latching onto their prey and dragging them to their frostbitten doom.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen the Wasset myself, but my grandpa swears he caught a glimpse of the beast when he was hunting during the heart of winter, when he witnessed a full-grown buck struggle in a snowdrift. The buck bellowed as it tried to free itself, but instead it kept slipping further down, like it was caught in quicksand. Suddenly, the buck lurched downward, like something immensely powerful underneath the snow was pulling it down. There was an explosion of fresh powder, then everything was still, with no sign of the struggling buck or whatever had taken it. He swears he glimpsed something that resembled the head of a wolf, but larger than any wolf he had ever seen, briefly emerge from the snow, its jaws attached to the buck's hind leg, with shining fur whiter than the snow that clung to it.
Grandpa never hunted alone after that, and he never hunted in deep snow again. He believed the Wasset was real until the day he died. I may or may not believe in the Wasset myself, but I always stay out of the deep snow. And I never go anywhere alone during a snowstorm.
Why take chances?
I saw a monster dump in the break room toilet this morning. The beast that wouldn’t flush. Talk about that, you losers.
ReplyDelete(Blogger has decided not to publish yet another comment here, this time from "a concerned citizen", so I'm re-posting the comment in full below with full apologies to the original poster, and a hearty "fuck you" to our host for this continued nuisance. -D)
ReplyDeletePeople make jokes about the chupacabra, and I used to be one of them, but some of the stuff I’ve seen has made me change my tune. I spent three years working on a big ranch in southern New Mexico, outside of Deming and close to the Mexican border. The placed raised beef cattle and dairy goats, and most of my job was working security. That usually entailed shooting coyotes who got too close to the grazing cattle, mending fences, and escorting the occasional stray back to the herd.
I’d heard stories of cattle in nearby ranches to the east turning up dead, looking like mummies with all their blood drained out, but I always assumed there was a dozen rational explanations for that stuff. There’s no such thing as the chupacabra. Then the goats at our ranch started turning up dead. One. Then two. Three. Four.They each had their throats torn out, they looked dried up, desiccated, and there was almost no blood in the dirt around their bodies. This wasn’t coyotes. Nothing set off the motion detectors. We patrolled all night, finding nothing, and often a goat would still turn up dead in the morning. It was driving us all insane.
Then one night while on patrol, I saw something. I was alone in the dark, wearing a big expensive pair of night vision goggles my boss had paid for, crouching in the brush near the perimeter fence. Something darted over that five-foot high fence, fast as lightning, and it was on top of a young calf before I could react. I fired my rifle twice in the air and shouted, and this thing stood up. It had to be five feet tall, long-limbed and too thin, and it looked like a living shadow. Its eyes gleamed like headlights in my goggles, and I stood there like a mannequin, just frozen in disbelief. This moment felt like it lasted a lifetime, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Then the thing just disappeared into the night, like it melted away in the darkness.
The calf had a small bleeding gash on its throat, and it was scared as hell, but it survived. The other hands had come running when they heard the shots, and I told them everything. I think they actually believed me.
The thing never came back to our ranch, at least not while I was working there. No more animals died, either. But stories of dead cattle in the west started up soon after. I think that creature was just passing through our neck of the woods, and my encounter just caused it to move on a little earlier than it had planned.
What I saw was real. And it was terrifying. I’ll never forget those burning eyes for as long as I live.
I'm not sure how exciting this story is, but I think I saw Bigfoot once. I mean, probably not, but maybe.
ReplyDeleteI was camping with a couple friends near Mt. Rainier ten years ago, and it was a beautiful summer afternoon. Warm, but not hot, with a light breeze. Sunlight filtered through swaying tree branches. We were sitting around a campfire, drinking beers and cooking hot dogs on sticks. Roughing it, as it were. Suddenly, we all were shocked right out of our seats by a blood-curdling roar, followed by what sounded like a damn tree falling down right behind us. We had a hunting rifle with us, not because we were hunting anything, but in case we stumbled across a black bear and needed to scare them off. I had that rifle in my hands and was staring down its sights into the woods before I realized I had even picked it up.
After thirty seconds of silence, more snapping branches and a menacing growl, this time directly behind us. We spun around to see trees and brush twisting in the wake of something passing through, but we still didn't see what was causing the disturbance. Then more motion to the left. This thing was circling us in the woods, just out of sight, checking us out, and I got the distinct feeling that it was trying to intimidate us. We were shouting and making a bunch of noise, trying to make ourselves look big and scare this thing off. I finally fired the rifle, aiming at a nearby tree close to where we had last heard movement, and a shape, a fucking huge shape, rose out of the gloom in front of us and slowly retreated deeper into the woods, and out of sight.
Now the light was getting dim, so none of us could say for sure what it was we had seen, and of course it could have been a bear. Our eyes can play tricks on us, and in the failing light and with our heightened fear, we could have convinced ourselves that Elvis fucking Pressley was hunting us in those woods. And black bears can stand up to 7 feet high on their hind legs. But this shape walked away on its hind legs, and it took its sweet time, seemingly unbothered. We packed our shit up and extinguished that fire as quickly as we could and fucked all the way off out of those woods and back to our car in the dark. We were just too rattled to stay out there. No way in hell could we spend another night out there.
I still can't believe I actually have a "Bigfoot story". I make fun of these idiots. But now I'm one of them, and I hate it. I have a Bigfoot story. And now you've heard it. Maybe he wanted to eat our hot dogs. We left those behind, so I hope he enjoyed them.
I think I saw the moth man once. I used to drive a north-bound delivery route from Tulsa 3 times a week, and there was a spot about 90 miles north of the city where I spotted something in the sky in the late afternoon light. A black shape I thought might have been a huge bird. On my way back that night, at the same spot I saw something in the sky, only I swear I noticed big red eyes gleaming in the dark.
ReplyDeleteThree days later, I was laid out with the flu and had somebody cover my route. I saw on the news that evening that there was a massive pile-up on the highway, ant the same spot where I saw SOMETHING, and ten people died. The driver who covered for me had been delayed a few minutes because he had to stop and use a rest stop bathroom. If he hadn’t stopped, he would have been in the middle of that mess, and he might have died. If I hadn’t called in sick. I might have died.
Stories say the moth man appears as a portent of disaster and doom. I think that’s what I saw. There’s stuff going on in this world that we just don’t understand. And we may never understand. It’s not a good feeling. But I’m still alive.
I'm not sure if this is technically a cryptid, but my grandpa used to tell me about a creature called "The Braid".
ReplyDeleteWhen he was growing up in rural Tennessee, in a house without running water or electricity, he heard tales of a beast that lurked in the deep woods, a beast they only ever referred to as "The Braid". This beast was composed of branches and roots of fallen trees, and the blood that pumped through its veins was rancid sap. From a distance, it resembled an alluring woman with impossibly long hair, and it would lure unsuspecting young men through the mists with a sweet song and whispered promises of ecstasy. When the foolish souls ventured too close, the creature's "hair" would wind into a noose of choking vines, constricting around their neck, and they would be dragged kicking and screaming into the depths of the forest, never to be seen again.
The story goes that The Braid used to be a woman. A jilted lover, left pregnant and alone by a married butcher who refused to leave his hateful wife because her daddy had money and land that he stood to inherit as soon as the old man met his maker. When the lover threatened to reveal the affair to the man's wife, she was stabbed in the gut with his skinning knife and abandoned in the deep woods, food for the coyotes. Broken, dying and burning with rage, the lover's blood mingled with the roots of the gnarled old beech trees, and her body was consumed by nature. Reborn as a vengeful spirit composed of the very trees that were fed by her blood, The Braid wanders the woods, eternally searching for the hideous man who stole everything from her. Blinded by her rage, she sees every man she finds as the one who betrayed her and killed her unborn child, and she destroys them all without hesitation, without mercy.
Grandpa would swear up and down for the rest of his life that when he was seven years old, he saw his older brother embraced by The Braid's vile hair, disappearing into the dark woods behind the family home on one sweltering summer night. He told this story to his parents, and to the local police, and nobody believed him. His brother did disappear that night, and he was never seen again. That was true. He wasn't happy at home and felt trapped by his circumstances. That was true. Was he looking for a way out? Sixteen years old and desperate to escape what he perceived as a dead-end existence. Did he run away? Maybe he started over somewhere far away. Maybe he drowned himself in one of the fishing holes he used to frequent in the area. A few of those places were always rumored to be bottomless. Easy to disappear down one of those holes. Fill your pockets with rocks and jump in, you might never be found.
So what really happened? My grandpa said it was The Braid that took his brother on that fateful night. His conviction never wavered. Whatever he saw that night left a wound in his soul that never healed. The old man was visibly haunted when he told me the story, with tears in his eyes. He told me to stay out of the woods. Again and again, he told me never to follow a sweet song carried on the breeze. He made me promise him to keep out of the deep woods at all costs. If you see The Braid, it's already too late. So stay away if you value your life, if you value your soul. I took his words to heart. I don't want to cross paths with The Braid. I don't want to end up like my Great Uncle.
So do I believe my grandpa's story? I'm a rational man. A skeptic. I've never felt the presence of a ghost. Never seen a UFO. I don't believe in God. But I believe in The Braid.
My uncle swears he shot Bigfoot when he was out hunting with his boys before I was born. He’s also an alcoholic and was absolutely ripped on that hunting trip, so it was probably just a squirrel. But he believes it was Bigfoot, and nobody cares.
ReplyDelete