A common thing I noticed in so many cryptid stories is that if a creature is spotted at night, it will have glowing eyes. To me, that says these creatures couldn't see a damn thing at night, being they have a source of light INSIDE the optics of the eyes.

Someone explain this.

A while ago I went camping with my cousins in the wisconsin forest. I went to take a whizz like 15-20 feet away from our camp site, it was pretty chilly and dark. Only thing that I had with me to light my passage was my phones flashlight. I found a spot and did my business, when I was gonna head back to our camp site I swear I heard a knocking on trees and felt as if watched, I told my cousins but they didn’t believe me and thought a branch probably broke off or fell.

Hey r/Cryptozoology! Long-time lurker, first-time poster here. I recently finished creating a comprehensive video about Philippine cryptids and mythological creatures using the iceberg format, and I wanted to share it with fellow cryptid enthusiasts!

As someone with Filipino heritage, I've always been fascinated by our rich folklore and supernatural creatures. We are new Youtube channel but we spent much time researching and compiling information to create this in-depth exploration of our cryptids, from the well-known monsters to some really obscure entities that even many Filipinos don't know about.

Link to video: https://youtu.be/vO4R_5YMcmE

I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback! Also, if you have any personal encounters or family stories about these creatures, please share them in the comments. I'm considering making this into a series if there's enough interest.

I'm not really asking for anything specific I just wanna know what your thoughts and opinions on this creature are because I happen to live about five miles east of Van Meter and it fascinates me.

Here's a good article on the visitor if you don't know what it is. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2015/07/01/van-meter-remembers-1903-visit-from-winged-monster/29583469/

The head looks cocrodile like but the tail isn’t https://youtu.be/8DyWwQsNteo?si=VtTdnkkWh9aSxXVk

For a better understanding of how this tier list works;

Highly Likely = Cryptids that I firmly believe exists (or have existed) and are bound to be discovered eventually.

Likely = Cryptids that I believe have a high chance of existing.

Plausible = Cryptids that I have a 50/50 opinion on whether they exist or not.

Unlikely = Cryptids that I believe do not particularly exist.

Highly Unlikely = Cryptids that I do not believe in whatsoever, and will never be discovered by science.

Misidentification = Cryptids that I believe are misidentifications of already existing animals or critters.

Edit3: 11/2/24 So yeah I have a degree in physics, math minor from an accredited private American university. I'm not some loonie tune, and this happened a few months ago. And Brian, my dad is a lifelong master rock climber back at where he first learned to climb. So here's the OG post and some more critical context notes at the bottom:

Here’s two accounts of what happened last week. Mine and my dad’s. I wrote mine the day of, my dad three days later. Photo and additional reading at the bottom. Sorry it’s kinda long, I bolded and italiced the detail.

8/25/24

Myself, my dad, and my uncle were motoring on my dad’s 20-foot craft on Lake George. We departed from Roger's Rock Campground's dock headed east, maybe 10-15mph. Time of day was roughly 2-3pm. I was standing in the center upfront manning the wheel, my dad standing upfront to my right, and my uncle seated in the back. My dad piloted the vehicle out of the dock area, handed me the reins to give me a session of driving time, and then he started chatting with my uncle. We were headed to check out Roger’s Rock.

I was driving the boat in the deeper waters with only my eyes on what was ahead of us for no more than a minute or so. And, with me not wanting to wreck my dad’s boat, I was in quite the vigilant state and totally sober. As a part of my extra alertness and just for my own sake really, I was softly reciting to myself any and all potential hazards that I can see and scanning widely. I was listing off to myself something like, “That boat's way over there, we're good. No buoys, okay…” And then dead center some 200 yards ahead my eyes caught what at first glance seemed to be some kind of formation of smooth black rocks like a reef. The "rocks" were broad and sticking at least a good foot above the surface. There was white-water commotion forming around them with an area of action 7-9 feet in diameter and a slow apparent bobbing motion. So the first glance guess is that waves must be lapping up on the rocks and it's a trick of the eye that causes the apparent motion of these rocks seemingly bobbing in and out of the surface. But, before I continued talking to myself, I looked a moment longer and I realized that there weren’t any waves lapping up on the black objects because of how still all the surrounding water was. No waves.

This phenomenon struck me as no trick of the eye at all, but I understood that there’s room for some rational explanation, so I finished listing out my self-talk by loudly exclaiming, "...and a sea monster dead ahead!" with a half-joking tone in my voice but still wanting to bring attention to this. Only my dad heard me and checked it out. He turned his head away from his conversation to glance to where I'm looking ahead. Then he had a shift in demeanor. He took maybe 4-5 seconds of peering intently before uttering, "Get out your [cell phone] camera." "I don't have my phone," I replied, neither of us taking our eyes off of the scene 12 o'clock dead ahead. And funnily enough, even after I'd been looking at this thing a good 7-8 seconds at that point, that thought of taking out a phone had not even occurred to me. I was so gobsmacked by whatever was unfolding before me, I wouldn't dream of tearing my eyes away for a single moment. This is is what I saw as we approached closer:

There was commotion with white-water spanning 7-9 feet. Amidst the commotion were two prominent masses. The masses were smooth black featureless humps 2-3 feet in size and a few feet apart stuck out of the water a good foot and a half. In the stir of white-water there was a clear undulation of two of these humps rising and falling out of the surface maybe for 3 cycles. The phenomenon was exactly reminiscent of a whale breaching in the way it slowly rose to the surface and settled back down, which both myself and my father have both witnessed firsthand before on a whale-watching boat in Newfoundland. And I gathered a sense of coordination from these black masses like they were coupled in some way, but I couldn't say for sure if they were. There were no boats in the vicinity at all. No wakes, no swimmers, no buoys. Nothing. My uncle seated in the back couldn't see anything and he couldn't hear my dad and I talking upfront so he missed it all. By the time my dad and I had exchanged our words, the commotion was rapidly waning and ultimately vanished as we kept our course charging straight at it.

My dad had totaled maybe 5-6 seconds of eyeball time on it and myself maybe 9-10. Neither of us had bothered to reach down and search for my dad's phone, which actually was with us somewhere in the front. There just wasn’t any time for it. We caught my uncle, who is a boat expert, up to speed on the situation getting his take on this whole thing, and I stopped the boat about where my dad and I sighted the disturbance. We sat on the water for 2-3 minutes scanning the vista looking for anything to surface again, but it was gone. Whatever it was in the world that had come up in front of our boat was gone without a trace. So after discussing and looking around and seeing nothing else remotely of the sort show up, we stoically started back up and I set off for our destination of Roger's Rock. It was sheerly unbelievable and it took a few minutes before the emotional giddiness crept up on me. I myself would not believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. And so I can’t expect anyone else to either. But I felt compelled to write down my account best I can in case anyone else sees something similar, or if someone can help to explain it because every explanation I can come up with is unsatisfactory. This is my eyewitness testimony of what happened that day, so help me God.

u/WinWaker, age 27

Written on Aug 28th 2024

On August 25th 2024 Conor (27yo) John (58yo) and Brian (62yo) departed from Camp Adirondack’s docks in Blair’s Bay and headed South past Brown’s Point staying along the Eastern shoreline past Gull’s Bay and down to Mallory Island. We were aboard the Eagle, a 1937 Lyman 20’ Runabout whose top speed approximated 15-20 miles an hour. From Mallory Island we crossed the lake on a heading toward the Western shore aiming for the town of Hague and cruised back North along the Lake following the shoreline around towards the Roger’s rock boat launch where we pulled in and tied to the dock for a short stop. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3pm on a mostly sunny day with some clouds interspersed. After about 15 minutes at the campground we departed the boat launch and headed North on the Lake with Conor taking the wheel just about as we were even with the cliff faces just a couple of hundred yards North of the trailer parking for the boat launch. This was Conor’s first time driving a boat and I had impressed on him the need to constantly scan ahead for other boats and look for any debris that may be floating in the water. Within a minute or two of Conor’s taking the wheel I heard Conor say something like “Sea monster ahead.” I hadn’t been looking and I raised my head to assess what he was looking at. I could see what looked like maybe a few human heads bobbing up and down on the water as we were headed straight for the area. I looked around for a ski boat thinking possibly they could be wanting to be picked up. From maybe a couple of hundred yards away it seemed like two or three heads. As we got closer I shifted my opinion that it may be a group of rocks poking up out of the water as whatever was showing above the water line was not moving. The water was lapping over the dark objects breaching the water. At that point we were possibly one hundred yards away and I could see two shapes clearing the water line by maybe a foot high and a foot across They may have been about six feet or more apart if my proportions were fair

And although the relationship between them was fixed like rocks would be, I began to dismiss the theory that these were rocks jutting up. As we approached even closer, I perceived movement of these objects and I believed they were connected under the surface. In an instant, I realized this was an animate thing and in a forward motion it rolled like a whale with the left side moving while the right side disappeared just as it slowly submerged going South under the Lake. On this realization that we were looking at something alive, I asked Conor to get a camera. He did not have a camera. I wanted one more breach to cement this firmly as a living creature but we never got a further glimpse. We reached the middle of the Lake where it had been and there was absolutely nothing. We stopped the boat and looked South on the Lake along the direction it had disappeared and nothing presented itself again.

Brian, Age 62

I’m filing a police report on Monday so feedback and clarification is much welcome.

Edit: Technically Bolton, NY I guess

Edit2: 11/2/24 Never ended up filing the report. My dad Brian btw is a master rock climber. And I’m a proficient musician on guitar, bass, drums, and especially vocals. And I moonlight as a keyboardist, so, you do the math. I’m only the one with a degree in physics. That monster chose us. We were too stupid to say anything else back that would make it stick around. The headstrong rush was not the play apparently. We chilled after for a bit, but everything was communicated between us apparently.

Preface too. I was on a boat stranded out and anchor in the exact same area for about 2 hours if memory serves on his craft. My dad was waiting for a repairman I believe. Mueller and Sons was the company, Rutkowski is his name from Vermont the guy is.

I was anchored out by the launch and there’s a protected swimming area with chainlink buoy things thing right there. And I couldn't use my phone or nothing because it would drain the battery and my old phone battery was so shit cuz I’d had it for 7 years at that point. So I was out on the open water for a couple hours hollering and talking to myself cuz it’s free and easy. And the boat would drift like crazy to every like 30-40 minutes I’d be in a new spot toward all the people and have to motor back around and set up anchor again. Looking back on it now in this very moment. I’m like, the monster definitely saw and mirrored the behavior of my boat through all this. It heard faint whimpers of my voice and recognized the craft, I'm sure of it. How it got into Lake George is still a mystery. But I do believe I saw Champ. Underground connected water is the best bet so far.

This is where shit got scary for me before ever seeing the monster. While my dad was away and I was on the boat out on the open water. The clouds got real dark that day. And I saw it off in the distance north of us all the electrical commotion too. And lighting did strike, if I timed it right and recall, like 6-8 miles away or something. Pretty frickin' scary. And I had no real choice but to stay in the boat anyway or swim to shore. And I said to myself, "I'm not swimming to that fucking shore til I see all these people in the protected swim area go in" And luckily nothing happened. I was desperately looking at clouds and wind motion and other people during this time in fear of my own life. It seemed safe to the herd of humans, the quorum, if you will. So we all stayed. All the humans and everyone else was happy I guess. That's my sworn testimony so help me God.

Edit5: I removed one word.

Looked just like this minus the netted texture detail

If some cryptids are enclave communities of long-diminished ancient animal population, or creatures with very niche and specific habitats, or definitionally small numbers - is the window closing on discovering live examples of these vulnerable populations?

Inspired by the discussion on the post for the most credible cryptid evidence, I'd like to take the discussion a bit further and ask, have there ever been any other captured cryptid specimens besides the Beast of Gévaudan? Even better, have any survived to be studied by zoologists?

I saw a dead seal corpse and it looks kinda odd if you a not familiar with seeing seals. Could this be the origin of the mermaid legend?

Hi all in the spirit of Halloween I was curious if there are any local Bay Area cryptids, lore/legends, or paranormal hauntings that you’re aware of or that it’s known for? WV has Mothman, NJ the Jersey devil, the Great Basin NM has skin walkers, Louisiana the Rougarou, and the PNW has Bigfoot but I’m not aware of any specific to the Bay. Share any creepy unexplained personal experiences whilst urban exploring abandoned places, hiking Bay Area trails etc. Happy Halloween!