Cryptids of Illinois: A guide to the Prairie State's most famous creepy creatures

Yahoo

17-02-2025

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — Illinois may be famous for its deep dish pizza, Cheap Trick, the Willis Tower, and the sock monkey, but the Prairie State is also a hotbed for sightings of cryptozoological creatures that lurk at the fringes of reality.
According to Samantha Hochmann, the executive director of Tinker Swiss Cottage, which hosts its own paranormal tours, there have been multiple sightings of a large, winged humanoid creature known as the 'Mothman' in the Rockford area.
The Mothman is supposedly a harbinger of impending doom.
In fact, the Rockford Mothman was a subject of .
The most famous Mothman incident took place in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1967, heralding the collapse of the Silver Bridge suspension bridge which killed 46 people. According to lore, the Mothman was spotted on the bridge before the collapse. The event was dramatized in the movie '.'
According to the Netflix special, the Mothman was spotted in Rockford in June 2022.
Are there werewolves in northern Illinois? While the wolves have not been living in the state since 1860, there have been reported sightings of a 'massive wolflike creature' spotted 'standing upright' in 2010.
of the elusive beast have been reported since. Witnesses have described seeing a wolfen creature with glowing red eyes and a humanoid shape that attacks vehicles, similar to Wisconsin's legend of the Beast of Bray Road or Michigan's Dogman.
The Big Muddy Monster is Illinois' Bigfoot, its legend originating in Southern Illinois around the Big Muddy River in Murphysboro.
Originally reported in 1973, the town of Murphysboro from the original sighting on its website.
On June 25 and 26, 1973, police received reports of a tall, loud, white-haired and mud-caked creature appearing on the outskirts of town.
In the June 25th event, a couple parked near a boat dock heard a loud screaming sound in the woods and saw a 'large creature approximately 7 feet tall. The creature appeared to have light-colored hair matted with mud. The creature appeared to be walking on two legs and was proceeding toward his car.'
Authorities said they found tracks in the mud, 10-12 inches long and 3 inches wide. Officers also claimed to have heard another scream coming from the woods during their canvas of the area.
On June 26th, neighbors in the Westwood Hills subdivision all claimed they saw a similar creature in a nearby field, described as a 7-8 foot tall creature, weighing 300-350 lbs, with pale dirty white or cream colored hair, standing on two feet.
Another sighting came on July 7th, when carnival workers claimed a similar creature was disturbing the show ponies.
According to The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, Illinois ranks
A described as a three-legged creature, with a short body, short arms, and two pink eyes 'as big as flashlights' terrorized residents of the town of Enfield in 1973.
A man named Henry McDaniel reported being surprised by the creature at his house when he investigated scratching sounds at his front door.
McDaniel said he shot the creature, which ran away at a speed covering 50 feet in three jumps. Authorities later found footprints of a six-toed creature on his property.
He later reported seeing the creature again, two weeks later, near local railroad tracks. This second sighting was first featured on the WWKI radio station and then covered by outlets such as WGN and the Chicago Daily News.
In 1978, researchers from Western Illinois University investigated the incident and published a case study, in which they determined that the subsequent sightings of the Enfield Horror were attributed to a social contagion or mass hysteria.
In East Peoria, there lurks a legend of a Bigfoot-like creature known as the Cole Hollow Monster.
The creature was first spotted in 1972 by Randall Emert, 18, who spotted the creature near Cole Hollow Road near Pekin. Emert described seeing a being described as white, hairy, and standing 12 feet tall.
Police reported receiving more than 200 calls from witnesses who claimed to have seen the creature in May of that year, walking through the woods and through yards.
According to legend, the monster used abandoned coal mines to sneak through the area.
After Emert told a local radio station of his encounter, hundreds of people were drawn to the area to see if they could get a sighting of the creature.
According to , Emert later confessed that he had made the whole thing up.
That hasn't stopped people from trying to search for the creature over the years.
One of Illinois' dates back to 1673, when two French explorers, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet were traveling down the Mississippi River, near what is now Alton, Illinois, where they saw a Native American painting on the rocks. The image depicted a dragon-like creature with the body of a serpent and the head of a man.
The Illini tribe called the monster 'Piasa,' or 'the bird that devours men.'
According to legend, the creature would swoop down from the skies and carry off terrified villagers until a chief named Outatoga and his warriors went out in search of the creature, ambushing it near its layer and killing it with poisoned arrows as it flew out in search of its next meal.
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