STRANGE WEST VIRGINIA MONSTERS

Strange West Virginia Monsters, Michael Newton, Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., Atglen, PA, 2015, 192pp, $16.99.

West Virginia ranks 41^st out of 50 states in size, and 38^th in human population, which relates to an average of 77.1 people per square mile. Yet the state seems to rank much higher in its population of strange creatures. 

        Michael Newton does a fine job of cataloguing creatures heard, seen, captured or killed in the Appalachian Mountain state. Some tales date from before West Virginia became a state, and many are more recent, which gives cryptid-searchers hope if they’re brave enough to investigate. If you do visit, please share your stories and photos.

     Newton conveniently divides the book into nine chapters: large cats either “extinct” or foreign to North America; reptiles; werewolves, devil dogs and dogmen; flying cryptids; “white things” – believe it or not, creatures known as “Sheepsquatch”; swimming objects (including the occasional piranha), giant humanoids; hairy bipeds (Sasquatch walks on two legs, Sheepsquatch on four); and miscellaneous unnamed, unidentified creatures, or possible extraterrestrials.

     Sheepsquatch aside, what are you likely to find in West Virginia? A “large striped cat” (tiger?) was seen in Cass Scenic Railroad State Park in 1977. In 1983, Marion County fishermen reported seeing a monster “at least 20 feet long…[with] a serpent-like head and a mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth…” Primate-like (Bigfoot?) creatures were seen as late as 2013.

       In 2004, two young hunters saw “…a large [estimated at least seven feet tall] black-furred animal … [that had] a long bushy tail and pointed snout similar to a wolf … it had a foul odor … [it] stood up on its hind legs like a man … [and] walked…”

      I enjoyed reading about West Virginia’s strange monsters. Some stories were unnerving, to say the least, but what I found most unsettling is how the state’s Division of Natural Resources (DNR) can deny the existence of some of the creatures even after numerous reports and (what I’d consider) reasonable proof. In 1936, for example, even after a Smithsonian staffer confirmed that prints found in Pocahontas County had been left by a cougar, the DNR insisted there were no cougars in the state. Evidence of these “extinct” cougars surfaced as late as 2008.

       Yes, there are hoaxes, but they seem few and far between. Newton lists so many cases that, even if half were hoaxes, there are still far too many to discount. One example of a hoax: the 1933, two fishermen claimed to have been attacked by a three-foot-long octopus. Detectives later announced that two men had stolen a barrel of fish from a local grocery store and provided the octopus to one of the fishermen for his prank. Three unexplained octopi were found in the Blackwater River in 1946 and another was found near Grafton in 1954; neither incident proved to be a hoax.

    Strange West Virginia Monsters is incredibly informative and entertaining. Adults will love it, and if you have young ones who don’t like to read, hand them this book and they’ll will be entertained for hours.

- Addy Clarke