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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Ganime

Ganime

Region of origin: Sergio Island, south Pacific ocean

After the space amoeba known as Bemular or alternatively Yog, a member of a Lovecraftian race of shapeless conquerors, hitched a ride to Earth via an unmanned rocket sent to Jupiter, he crash-landed near the remote Sergio Island and began forming an army of giant creatures to attack the planet, mutating local fauna including cuttlefish, turtles and a rubble crab (also known as a horrid elbow crab). A group of scientists and resort planners who had convened on Sergio for their own purposes dealt with the monsters after discovering Yog, Ganime and the other monsters were hurt and disoriented by extremely high-pitched noises such as the echolocation of the colony of bats that have nested on the island, and were also weak to high temperatures such as being pushed into a volcano.

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The Stiff-Legged Bear

The Stiff-Legged Bear

Region of origin: Various northern indigenous tribes of North America

Also known as Gici Awas to the Abenaki, Nyah-Gwaheh to the Seneca and Iroquois, and a host of other names among several other tribes, details of stories involving the Stiff-Legged or Naked Bear may change between groups but all share a description of a type of massive, hairless bear with a larger-than-normal head, large sharp teeth and the stiff-jointed legs from which it takes its name. They are often depicted as especially aggressive man-eaters. An Iroquois legend in particular identifies it as the bear associated with the Big Dipper constellation, who is hunted through the sky and slain causing its dripping blood to stain the leaves red each autumn, only for the beast to rise again from the dead each year and repeat the cycle. There is some belief the common description may originate from a corruption of descriptions of mammoths remembered through ancestral stories, or arisen as an explanation after the discovery of mammoth skulls or fossils.

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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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Mothman

Mothman

Region of origin: Point Pleasant, West Virginia

Starting in November of 1966 in the area near Point Pleasant, there were numerous reported sightings of a large creature, black or dark brown in color with large glowing red eyes, with descriptions ranging from humanoid to a massive bird to something in-between. Most were just sightings but one couple said it chased their car down the road, keeping pace with them even as they reached speeds of 100 mile per hour. These sightings carried on for thirteen months, accompanied by phenomena like illness in witnesses, animal mutilation, technological malfunctions. One of the most widely-corroborated cryptid sightings, in all there were over one hundred people who had claimed they had seen the creature or otherwise experienced strange anomalous incidents that would get tied into the investigation. The sightings continued but slowed, and largely stopped around the same time as the collapse of the Silver Bridge into the Ohio River in December 1967, a tragic event that resulted in 46 deaths, for which many believe the presence of the strange creature had functioned as a omen or warning, and has since led to claims of similar creatures showing up in the time preceding other large disasters. Origins attributed to the creature range from the demonic to the extraterrestrial, or that West Virginia itself may just be a supernatural hotspot where reality is thin and extra-dimensional creatures like a Mothman may more easily slip through. Alternatively, many also write off the sightings as large bird such as a sandhill crane or maybe a giant owl obscured by the darkness, and connecting all the events leading up to the bridge’s collapse being a form of mass hysteria and apophenia fueled by Mothman coverage in the local papers. Imagined or not, Mothman remains a popular celebrity for Point Pleasant, receiving a statue and an annual festival in the city in 2002. Based on my research, I’m pretty sure everyone on the internet wants to date him.

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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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Timingila Fish

Timingila Fish

Region of origin: India

Literally “to swallow a whale,” the timingila was known as an aquatic creature supposedly large enough to do just that in a single gulp. It was never specifically decsibed but was mentioned in the Mahabharata and several other Sanskrit texts, and has since been compared to a shark- or whale-like creature which dwarfed any known species, similar to stories of the leviathan.

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Keresh

Keresh

Region of origin: Bei Ila’i

An enormous deer- or unicorn-like creature discussed in the Talmud, the keresh was one of two animals mentioned to inhabit the mythical forest of Bei Ila’i, the other being a massive lion known as the tigris. The Babylonian Talmud compares the keresh to the tachash, a desert animal whose parts were used to construct the Tabernacle that functioned as the earthly dwelling place of God during the Biblical Exodus, while other versions may refer to the two synonymously. It is thought accounts of the keresh may have been based on living animals such as the giraffe, oryx or rhinoceros or their megafauna ancestors.

Orthrus

Orthrus

Region of origin: Greece

A two-headed hound belonging to the demigod Eurytion, both Orthrus and his master were charged with guarding the herd of red cattle owned by the giant Geryon. As part of his tenth labor, Heracles was required to fetch Geryon’s herd for King Eurystheus, and upon arriving on the island of Erytheia where they were kept, clashed with Orthrus and Eurytion, killing them both. Orthrus was one of the monstrous children of Echidna and Typhon, which included his more famous polycephalic canine brother Cerberus, and would himself help carry on the lineage of Greek monsters as the father of the sphinx and the Nemean lion.

Originally posted on Tumblr on October 4, 2016