Historian answers questions about the origins and meanings of mysterious creatures
A historian/folklorist answers questions posed to Reddit and Quora regarding monsters and myths – worth a look!
Category Archives: Culture
The crazy mixed-up meaning of Mothman
From its origins in 1966, Mothman has been viewed as a cryptid, an alien, a spirit, an angel and a demon. Mothman has since continued to evolve in popular culture and lore.
Cryptid town festivals still going strong
Family-friendly, small town cryptid festivals are a growing trend with new events appearing every year across the US.
Mothman Festival organizers say it was the biggest crowd yet
The 2025 Mothman Festival is the template for modern cryptid festivals, this year drawing possibly 15,000 visitors.
The Haunted story un-Smurled
What really happened with the Smurl haunting.
Not a mystery beast, just a dog
Recent examples of people who see a monster when it’s really just a dog.
Pop Cryptid Spectator 3
In this edition: Green Eyes and the explosion of cryptid festivals, Appalachian folk horror, Cryptid Media – Folk horror, Resurgence/British Cryptids, Pop Cryptid – Jackalope or nope?
Pop Cryptid Spectator 2
In this edition: News: Two deaths dubiously linked to Bigfoot hunting,
Cryptid Media See This – Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal, Cryptid Media Skip This – Lost Monster Files,
Update on naming taboo cryptids,
AI cryptid carnival, Google Earth cryptids, Hood cryptids meme
Freaky Friday newsblips for 19 July 2024
Weird news and info: Square crop circle, a bad cuppa tea, MTG might be a reptilian, free lessons from Dr. Ken Feder
Zoological melodrama – Hutton on dragons
Professor Ronald Hutton gives a fantastic and entertaining lecture on why we have dragons worldwide.
Location and imagination equals ‘cryptid’
Cryptids have increasingly become associated with location and entertainment and less connected to the failed scientific endeavor of cryptozoology. Long live the cryptids!
Vatican releases Supernatural Standard Operating Procedures
The Vatican issued revised standard operating procedures regarding claims of religious supernatural phenomena. It includes an out for them to declare an event as supernatural.
Uh oh, earthquakes add to these Strange Times
The earthquakes in New Jersey were unexpected and frightening. The events added to the general nervousness from the population prone to catastrophe thinking.
Eclipse Anxiety 2024
Amidst misinformation surrounding the April 8 solar eclipse, many in the US succumb to unfounded fears. While eclipses are natural, predictable phenomena, rumors of catastrophes, like earthquakes and power outages, persist. Authorities prepare for human, not celestial, issues as crowds gather to view the event. Though there isn’t a connection between such natural events and disasters, superstitions and doomsday predictions thrive, exploiting public misunderstanding and religious sentiments.
News blips: Prattle and hum
New research on “the hum”. Facebook fakes take a very weird turn. Scammers are everywhere online.
Mysterious Schuylkill notes saga continues
Called “Schuylkill Notes”, the mystery of weird notes appearing in random places and packaging in Pennsylvania continues to garner attention. Who is doing this and how?
What’s with these latest opinion polls on ghosts and cryptids?
Two sets of survey results asking about the reality of questionable entities show high rates of belief in ghosts, Bigfoot, and other cryptids.
Mysterious notes hidden in food boxes continue to be found in Pennsylvania
For nearly four years now, someone has been inserting nearly indecipherable, strange messages inside food or medicine boxes around Pennsylvania warning of evil conspiracies.
TikTok generates multiple scare lore stories about flagged cars
Always keen to hear about the latest “weird news”, I noticed a trend in 2020 where young women (typically) were reporting that their cars were moderately vandalized in busy parking lots. On the video social media app TikTok, they interpreted these events as a signal that they were being targeted for abduction by sex traffickers… Read More »
The Mysterious Monster Mash of the Mid 1970s: Bigfoot hits prime time TV
Bigfoots and their other monstrous cohorts were presented to U.S. audience in a serious television documentary for the first time in 1974. The outing was so successful that it still is notable today. This documentary, its remixes, and a few other pieces of media gold from that decade paved the way for ideas of Bigfoot/Sasquatch… Read More »