Fabulous beings often compounded of elements from various human or animal forms.
Monsters are found in a gray area between zoology and folklore, sometimes called
“cryptozoology” (the science of hidden animals), a term coined by the Belgian zoologist
Bernard Heuvelmans. Author of key books on the subject, Heuvelmans spent a lifetime
collecting and analyzing reports of these creatures that may or may not exist.
Another approach to the subject of monsters is “Fortean,” a word coined from the
name of the American writer Charles Hoy Fort (1874–1932), who collected and
circulated accounts of strange phenomena and experiences, curiosities, mysteries,
prodigies, and portents. Just about anything is subject to Fortean investigation: showers
of frogs, toenail painters, wild kangaroos in Wisconsin, appearances of the Virgin Mary,
crop circles, feral children, and so on. The key element of the Fortean approach is openmindedness: Strange phenomena are neither uncritically embraced nor automatically
dismissed.
In North America, as in the rest of the world, the two basic types of monsters are
terrestrial and aquatic. There are dozens of land-based creatures, including the Skunk Ape
of the Everglades and Momo the Missouri Monster. A few of them are said to have the
ability to fly. In New Jersey, for example, we find periodic reports of the Jersey Devil, an
unusual creature with large bat-like wings. And scattered reports from such disparate
places as Washington, Texas, and West Virginia have described Mothman, a strange gray
winged creature.
Though the idea is regarded with skepticism by the scientific community, some
monsters are said to be extraterrestrial visitors. Ever since the 1950s, there have been
persistent reports of “little green men” from outer space. Also associated with
unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are stories of alleged encounters with men in black,
who wear black suits, black hats, and sunglasses.
Of all of the terrestrial monsters, few have had as many reported sightings as the
Sasquach, or Bigfoot. The creature has been described as a humanoid about 6 feet tall,
almost 3 feet wide, and weighing about 300 pounds. It is said to be covered from head to
foot with dark-brown, silver-tipped hair. It was sighted in the early 20th century in
Alberta and British Columbia, but more recently it has been spotted south of the
Canadian border in Washington, Oregon, and northern California.
Many North American aquatic monsters have affectionate nicknames: Ogopogo, the
lake monster of Okanagan Lake in New York; Igopogo of Lake Simcoe near Toronto;
Manipogo of Lake Manitoba; Chessie, the Chesapeake Bay sea serpent; Slimy Slim or
Sharlie of Payette Lake in Idaho; and Whitey, the White River Monster of Arkansas.
Perhaps the most celebrated aquatic creature is Champ, the monster of Lake
Champlain, a lake 125 miles long and 435 square miles in area, between eastern New
York State and western Vermont. Most of the reports describe a creature that emerges
briefly from the water with several humps on its back and a long snake-like neck
supporting a small head. In some ways, Lake Champlain is an excellent piace for an unknown animal because of its large size. It is also strikingly deep, reaching 400 feet at
its greatest depth. Worldwide, most freshwater-monster reports tend to come from deep,
cold-water lakes like this one.
The spirit of open-mindedness governs the International Society of Cryptozoology
(ISC), an organization dedicated to the investigation of “all matters related to animals of
unexpected form or size, or unexpected occurrence in time or space.” Because of the
board of the ICS is made up of Ph.D. biologists from respectable academic institutions,
their work cannot be readily dismissed. Their goal, quite reasonably, is to attempt to
make the inventory of the world’s fauna as complete as possible.
Predictably, cryptozoologists have come under heavy criticism from the scientificrationalistic camp. They have been criticized for straining to find plausible justification
for hundreds of would-be animals. Much of the debate centers upon evaluating reports of
firsthand sightings. The critics claim that the believers have a tendency to modify
supernatural encounters with demons into secular sightings of undis-covered animals.
Sorting out the competing claims in this complicated material is difficult and challenging.
Angus Kress Gillespie
References
Cohen, Daniel. 1982. The Encyclopedia of Monsters. New York: Dorset.
Dorson, Richard M. 1982. Man and Beast in American Comic Legend. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Fort, Charles. 1975. The Complete Books of Charles Fort. Mineola, NY: Dover.
Heuvelmans, Bernard. 1958. On the Track of Unknown Animals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Meurger, Michel, with Claude Gagnon. 1988. Lake Monster Traditions: A Cross-Cultural Analysis.
London: Fortean Tomes.
Schultz, Ted, ed. 1989. The Fringes of Reason: A Field Guide to New Age Frontiers, Unusual
Beliefs, and Eccentric Sciences. New York: Harmony.