MUTO

MUTO

Region of origin: The Philippines

Taking its name from the acronym given to the broader classification it belongs to (Massive Unidentified Terretrial Organism), the MUTO were ancient proto-insectoid creatures that parasitized the other giant creatures that occupied the primordial earth, the young MUTO spending the early stages of their life in the bodies of their hosts, feeding off the residual radiation these other creatures consumed. Having consumed enough energy, the MUTO would eventually enter a chrysalis stage, from which they would emerge and carve their way out of the host body. Two of these chrysalises would survive undisturbed for millions of years in a cavern deep beneath the Philippines before human excavations disturbed them, leading to the creatures waking up and seeking out new sources of energy to consume and a location to reproduce, their instincts driving them on a path of destruction through the modern world before a similarly awakened giant creature was able to stop them. You know the one. The MUTO are sexually dimorphic, with the males being much smaller than the female and possessing midlegs that have developed into flat, glider-like structures that can function as wings.

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Mahamba

Mahamba

Region of origin: Likouala swamplands, central Africa

The Bobangi and other nearby Central African tribes have mentioned a massive reptilian creature described as being some fifty feet in length inhabiting the larger bodies of water of the swamps around Likouala, comparing it to a massive crocodile or to other local lake monsters of cryptozoological fame such as the nguma-monene or mokèlé-mbèmbé, the latter said to inhabit Lake Tele also in the Likouala region. Some cryptozoologists assume it may be a giant crocodile, or an extant member of one of their prehistoric ancestors such as the deinosuchus, however descriptions which say it is similar to but distinct from a crocodile have led some to propose it may actually be a unidentified species related to the mosasaur that has adapted to living in fresh water.

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Swift Peter

Swift Peter

Region of origin: Mississippi

Rarely offering witnesses a clear sighting due to the speed that gave it its name, physical descriptions of Swift Peter have ranged from a red wolf to a half-fish beast to a winged mothman-like figure, but regardless of form the creature is associated with the particular habit of brutally attacking dogs and other pets in the region, carrying them off to feed or leaving them badly wounded or dead before taking back off into the brush when pursued. Peter has been a folk tale through the twentieth century, but sightings have persisted into the present day, with a reported sighting and supposed tracks found in 2013.

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Bighoot

Bighoot

Region of origin: West Virginia

A name coined by investigator and cryptozoologist Mark A. Hall, “Bighoot” is a term for a species or several species of large owls thought to have been encountered in the woods of West Virginia and across the Ohio River valley, in addition to sightings in the American southwest and the Caribbean islands. Some theories state they are surviving members of the species Ornimegalonyx oteroi, an extinct owl species that was indigenous to Cuba that reached heights of three-to-five feet to tall, while more fantastical versions describe Bighoots that are large enough to pick up and fly away with a person, and may have some human-like features (not unlike the Bahamas’ Chickcharney). Owls have often been put forward as possible explanations for cryptid and extraterrestial encounters, and the Bighoot is no exception, being proposed as the possible cryptid behind the cryptid of some of West Virginia’s various paranormal residents, including thunderbirds, the sasquatch-like yayhos and maybe even being at the core of one of the state’s more publicized incidents.

And if I may be indulgent for a moment, if weird owls are your thing, please check out my friend’s animated series, Obsidian National Forest.

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Minhocão

Minhocão 

Region of origin: Brazil

Described as a giant earthworm with shiny black, segmented skin or scales, sightings of the the minhocão place the creature at somewhere between 80-150 feet long. It is amphibious, being at home in lakes and rivers of the Amazon as well as being able to burrow quickly through the ground, leaving massive trenches in its wake. It is usually said to have a large mouth with sharp teeth and two tentacle-like appendages on the sides, features it shares with some (much smaller) snake-like amphibians known as caecilians, leading some researchers to suggest the minhocão may be a particularly massive species or individual. Meaning “big earthworm,” the minhocão shares its name with a large elevated highway in São Paulo.

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Waitoreke

Waitoreke

Region of origin: New Zealand

Modern sightings, from the 19th century forward, of the waitoreke contain varied and conflicting descriptions of a heretofore unconfirmed amphibious mammal, including elements of otters, beavers, platypuses and more but all rooted in rumors of an animal native to the area, which is at odds with the held belief that New Zealand has had no indigenous land mammals since it broke off during continental drift. If it is a population of some extant animal, many researchers believe it may be an Asian small-clawed otter or some close relation, but it’s speculated the recorded sightings might simply be some foreign animal brought over by European colonization or possibly a misidentified seal.

Con Rit

Con Rit

Region of origin: Vietnam

Vietnamese for “Centipede,” the Con Rit was a name given to a massive multi-segmented sea cryptid sighted several times through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including eyewitnesses to carcasses that had washed ashore in the 1830′s and 1880′s. Most theories point to it being one form of surviving prehistoric arthropod or another, or one of their unknown relations, up from the unexplored depths. The Vietnamese sightings described the Con Rit as being about 60 feet long on average, but there was a report from a British naval vessel during the same time period of a similar creature encountered off the coast of Algeria that they estimated to be over 130 feet in length.

Originally posted on Tumblr on August 27, 2016

Papuan Devil-Pig

Papuan Devil-Pig

Region of origin: Papua New Guinea

More commonly known as Monckton’s Gazeka, the animal was written about in scientific journals as early as 1875 but most famously reported in 1906 by a local army private who belonged to a party formed by C.A.W. Monckton, an explorer from New Zealand whose work was primarily focused in Papua New Guinea. The private, Ogi, while out looking another man from the party, Oina, would instead find “pig-like” animals which they described as having a tapir’s snout and “a devil’s face”. Ogi panicked and fired upon one of the animals, which took two bullets to the shoulder and fled. Oina would then be the one to find Ogi, left in a state of shock and bring him back from the jungle where he recounted his sighting to Monckton, who confirmed there had been reports of similar animals and strange tracks and leavings on nearby Mount Scratchley. Hearing the description of the animal, later naturalists and cryptozoologists would propose it may have been a surviving parlorchestidae, an otherwise extinct family of marsupials.

The name “Gazeka” actually comes from a British production of the play Les P’tites Michu, which described a fictional animal imagined by a drunken explorer and was applied to Monckton’s devil-pig as a way of mocking these tales of a presumably fantastical creature.

Originally posted on Tumblr on August 11, 2016

The Ghost Mammoth

The Ghost Mammoth

Region of origin: Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska, United States

While shooting the mountainous vistas of the national park, photographer Jill O’Brien heard the sounds of animal behind her. Fearing it was a bear, she turned around slowly found herself facing a small, presumably juvenile, woolly mammoth. Before she could react, the mammoth ran past her and became “enveloped by a black cloud” which retreated into itself, vanishing along with the atavistic entity. Some approach the story as a ghost still haunting its old territory, while others suggest it was a living animal caught in some kind of temporal disturbance.

Originally posted on Tumblr on July 31, 2016

Masbate Monster

Masbate Monster

Region of origin: Claveria, Masbate Province, The Philippines

The agreed upon details of the Masbate Monster cryptid are the decomposing body of a strange creature washed ashore and was taken by the man who discovered it and sold to a butcher before it could be properly identified. Beyond that, details are murky or contradictory; witnesses gave its size ranging from twenty to forty feet long, and it was alternatively described as cow- or calf-like, a giant eel, a plesiosaur-like animal or a shell-less turtle. Though they were never able to observe the carcass directly, some experts suggest it, like many large globsters, may have been an orca or basking shark, deformed or too badly decomposed to be recognizable.

Originally posted on Tumblr on July 29, 2016