Cryptids have always fascinated me, and I think it's because I grew up in south Florida near Swamp Ape territory. Recently, I saw several accounts on Quora and Reddit from people who claim they've encountered cryptids in their lives, and their stories are pretty spooky.
1. "I was night fishing on a lake with my back to a wooded area. I was in a chair with a small lantern beside me with a full moon. I heard a noise and turned to my right to see what was coming out of the woods. I'm thinking it was a raccoon or possum. I saw a humanoid that looked like it was running on all fours with its rump up in the air, running to the water! I froze and slowing pulled my bowie knife out from beside my left leg and had it ready to use if it came near me. This thing was a beige color in the moonlight, naked, and hairless. It was moving fast, went into the water with hardly any noise. It disappeared underwater and didn't come up for air or surface. No idea what it was, and since I was catching fish, I didn't leave until the sun came up two to three hours later. Anyone have a suggestion what that was?"
2. "I was sitting on my front porch talking to my best friend. We were lost in conversation, and we both heard someone running through my house. We talked about whether the back door was locked because we were sitting right beside the front door, and there were no side doors. We talked about whether it could have been just the floor shifting that made it sound like someone just ran through the house. We went inside, and no one was inside the house. Later on, we were back on the front porch talking, and there was this thick, black fog shadow thing that we both saw. It was like a large weird-shaped ball of just jet black color. Like a shadow that light could not pass through. It stayed for a few minutes at the roof part of the porch and then disappeared. Neither of us know if we were simply tired and both imagined it or if it actually did happen, but we both saw it and could not see the roof of the porch or around this shadow. It never happened again."
3. "So, when I was 9, we were staying with my aunt, and for only two nights, I was fucked with by something, so I only ever saw it in the corner of my eye. I felt it crawl on me, scratch me, and latch onto me, but every time I grabbed for it or looked at it, it would suddenly be on another part of me. I thought going to my aunt, dad, and uncle would make it stop, but it didn't. For the entirety of both those nights (not the day), I was attacked over and over and over. It never left a mark, but it hurt when it would scratch.
"Description of entity or creature from the corner of my eye: It was about the size of an average adult women's hand. It was light tan-ish yellow and looked to be skinned. It had knuckle-like joints on its five or six legs, and no face, mouth, or eyes, but it had a front for sure. The shape wasn't perfectly symmetrical, so yeah. I never again was fucked with. My dad remembers the two nights and never saw a thing. ... If anyone can give insight to what it is, cool. I haven't found anything on the creature in years of checking back on it. I only think about it, like, every couple years, but the memories are vivid."
4. "I've encountered a brown Yeti during a camping trip one summer in California. My friend and I were camping in Strawberry Pass with our dogs for three days. Late at night, we heard loud footsteps and a bellowing roar. We decided to douse the fire when the dogs growled. The sounds came from across the river, and we noticed the growling stopped. The next night, we lit a fire again, and the roars returned. The dogs went berserk, and my friend and I saw a huge, brown creature about 7.5 feet tall. It leapt across the river and landed on a tree, swinging around like the tree was a pole. It roared at us again and kicked at the fire, sending fire, wood, and stone flying into the river. It punched the fire pit and picked up one large stone with its black hand and threw that into the river, too. It then walked away out of sight.
"We changed our underwear, grabbed our chihuahua and Weiner dog, packed up and left. Now, I know that Yeti eyes are sensitive to fire, and that their size doesn't count for their agility level! They can move weightlessly regardless of their size and strength."
5. "My grandma told me I can see what doesn’t want to be seen. It was eight years ago, and my mom had just moved in to a new home up in Bakersfield, California. When she moved, a few things, including a large rug, were left outside. Unfortunately, it was during the rainy season, so those items were all ruined. A few days after it stopped raining, my sister and I started cleaning up the backyard. We knew the rug was pretty heavy, especially since it was still wet. We both picked it up, and right under it, there was this creature. My sister and I panicked and screamed, so we startled the creature and made it panic and scream. We dropped the carpet on top of it, but we both saw it dive into the ground! We quickly lifted the rug, but the creature was gone.
"We didn't see it run out anywhere. We both saw how it dove into the ground, and we looked but never found a hole. The best way to described it: It looked like a little water fairy from Oz. It was about 10” tall, orange-y brown, big round eyes, big mouth, tail, no fur, and I don’t remember, but I don’t think it had wings."
6. "I used to work in landscaping. I was watering some trees in kind of a remote area with only a freeway nearby. I turn around, and this HUGE black dog was staring at me. Like, this thing was the size of a wolf. I also noticed I couldn’t really see its face, like it was shrouded in black mist. It looks at me for what feels like a minute, then turns around and disappears into the forest. I ran over to see where it was going, and it wasn’t there. I couldn’t see any tracks or paw prints, and I didn’t hear any leaves rustling. It was the middle of the day, too. I remember I didn’t feel scared; I felt more comfortable with the creature standing there, then I felt alone. Definitely a weird day."
7. "My dad and I found a spot pretty deep in the brush to set up camp, and when night fell, we decided to sleep in our sleeping bags outside to watch the stars. My dad fell asleep pretty quickly, but it was a bit harder for me. I remember trying extremely hard to fall asleep that night, but to be honest, even though by that time I had been on plenty of camping trips with my dad already, I was still pretty freaked out by the forest at night. This fear kept me awake all through the night. I remember that at a certain point, when I was just starting to finally drift to sleep, I heard something come out of the trees and snapping twigs loudly as it walked on toward us.
"My dad still was fast asleep, and now, I was basically pissing my pants. I thought some strange person was walking on toward our campsite, but as I squinted my eyes open a bit, I could see that only about 10 feet away from me was an enormous, hairy creature that stood and walked on two legs like a human would. Obviously, I wanted to scream out in fear, but I tried my best to pretend I was asleep in hopes that it would just eventually move along. I think the creature, which I now believe to be a Bigfoot, was attracted to the smell of the meat my dad had been cooking before. And strangely, it didn’t seem the least bit interested in us. It seemed more interested in just slowly walking around our campsite, presumably looking for some of the food it must’ve thought we had. But I have to tell you that not only was I scared at the sight of the giant hairy man, but I was also sickened by the pungent and overwhelming odor that the beast was emitting. Eventually, the Bigfoot seemed to get bored and disappeared into the darkness. I remember trembling in my sleeping bag and not being able to sleep the rest of the night. I didn’t tell my father about it until he woke up the next morning because I was afraid if I tried to wake him up during the night, then the creature might see us awake, or even hear us, and I was not willing to find out how it would react when it did. When I told my dad about it, he just told me it was probably a large bear walking around on its hind legs, but when I described to him that the creature was extremely human-like and walked like a person would, he chalked it up to me just either hallucinating from fear, or I was not aware that I was dreaming. To this day, I know exactly what I saw. It was about 9 feet tall with extremely long and matted brown hair all over its body, including the face. To me, it seemed to look very human-like in a primitive sort of way. I still remember the horrible stench that made me want to vomit. That was probably the longest and most terrifying night of my life. Afterwards, I’ve come to honor the experience, because I would come to realize that the creature was undoubtedly a Bigfoot, and I was one of the few people who got the chance to see it extremely up close."
8. "When I was 14 or so in 2003, I saw what looked like an orangutan/lemur hybrid watching me from the trees. When it realized I was looking at it, it took off into the trees and disappeared. This was in western North Carolina, and nothing like that should have been around here. For a few years, I looked for articles about someone’s escaped exotic pet, but never found anything. Eventually, I just wrote it off. Years later, I heard a Lore episode about the Pukwudgie, and I immediately got chills because the description matched what I saw. I’m still not sure what happened. A few months ago, I was dumb enough to wander into the same patch of woods. I got nailed by a rock, and when I looked up, I saw a small outline ducking around like it was watching my reaction. Again, when it recognized I was looking at it, it took off. I don’t know what happened, but I also don’t really plan on going back."
9. "One night, I was driving home at around 2 a.m., and this tiny, tiny white creature (probably as tall as a Pringles can, though maybe a bit smaller) walked across the road in front of my car. I couldn't believe what I saw, so I called my then-boyfriend and frantically described the creature. He told me that it sounded like the Fresno Nightcrawler, and when I got home and looked it up, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE. I had never heard about them before. I do not live in California, not even close. I still have no clue what it was. Some more details about what I saw because I hadn't thought about this in a while, but now it's coming back to me: The bottoms of its 'legs' ended in what looked like flowy bits or ribbons, and it was almost translucent. I could almost see the road THROUGH the creature. It walked at a kind of jaunty pace, just like a person might walk.
"The best way to describe it is like that super steppy walk that the dwarves sometimes do in Snow White, or Mickey Mouse does sometimes. I slowed my car down but was afraid to stop it completely, and the thing disappeared as my car went 'through' it. Honestly, it was so fucking cute that I wasn't even scared, but I was shaken up by having seen something like this."
10. "So, one night when there was a blood moon, I decided to try and get some decent pictures and went to a secluded spot just outside of town. Pulling into the area, I noticed a young-ish tree had fallen by a nearby creek (right by where you could park your car to shore fish in the creek). I started setting up the scope and camera, and I start to hear a lot of rustling in the brush, and since coyotes are common enough, I had my handgun on my hip, so I didn't pay it much mind. The rustling soon became more akin to something violently crashing through the woods. At this point, I stopped what I was doing and shined my flashlight around to try and see what it was (figured maybe a cow or something had gotten loose) and couldn't see anything. I was off-put by the sounds, so I started to pack in my stuff to leave when I heard some splashing followed by the sound of a very large crack.
"I turned and drew my gun while pointing my light at the fallen tree, and there it stood. ... Everything went slow motion. This 6-foot (ish) tall thing with what seemed to me at the time was the face of a wolf, but much too large to be a wolf or coyote (it was roughly as tall as I am at 6 feet). As the light hit it, it paused, looked at me, growled, and charged at me. I fired eight shots in quick succession before it barreled into me, knocking me flat. Rather than follow through on the attack, it kept trucking and disappeared into the cornfield. I got up and left the rest of my stuff, came back the next day to find a farmer, a couple sheriffs, and a game warden. The farmer had sheep, and a couple had been killed the night before, so he had been driving around setting up trail cams and stumbled upon my stuff, the weird trail of smashed corn, as well as some strange prints in the mud, and had called the game warden. ... I told them about what I saw and was told it was probably a bear, but the tracks were distinctly not bear tracks, so I don't believe it."
11. "About 18 years ago, my wife and I were looking out at Brickell Bay in Miami, Florida, when we saw a humanoid-looking creature wearing what looked like a black rubbery environmental suit just effortlessly gliding through the water waist-deep. I shouted, 'Do you see it!? There!' pointing at it so my wife would see it about 50 feet in front of us on a bright, sunny afternoon. It looked at us and then started submerging as it quickly headed for the bank. It went under the bank and out of view. It looked like it was wearing all black futuristic high-tech equipment, and the really strange part was the bay was over 10 feet deep at the bank. Somehow, it could glide through the water with its upper body above the surface. Afterwards, we were both in shock, and our hearts were beating out of our chests. It had big, black eyes and a small nose and mouth. We called it 'the creature from the black lagoon.'"
12. "Walking through the woods for fun, I walked through a field where there were tiny, fluorescent, jellyfish-like things floating through the air, maybe half an inch to two inches in size. I initially thought it was some kind of plant spore or something moving in the wind, but when I looked at them closer, they were actually moving independently. That was in about 2006. I spent months going through those woods and that field over and over again with a camera trying to find them, but I've never seen them since."
13. Finally, "I was on a ferry for a school softball trip off Kodiak Island, Alaska in 2014. I was 18. It was 11 p.m. in May in Alaska, so the sun was thinking about setting, but it was still pretty bright outside. We noticed a pod of orcas swimming with the ferry’s wake, which is very cool but not, like, unusual. If you’re familiar with the dimensions of an orca fin, you know they’re about 4 to 6 feet in height and look like big black spikes coming out of the water. They travel and hunt in pods of anywhere between 15-40 whales. Apex predators. The beautiful demon murderers of the sea. Total assholes. Top of the food chain. So, we saw a pod of orcas, counted 'em to be around 10-15 with some babies scattered in there. It was very fun to watch, and it took 'em a good 30 minutes to all go by. We tried to get pictures, but it was just dark enough that our shitty phone cameras weren't much good.
"Another 30 or 40 minutes go by, it’s about to get dark, we’re cold and sleepy and about ready to go in. No more orcas, haven’t seen one for, like, half an hour, and then, one of my JV girls spots another one. So, we all turn and look...but one dorsal fin is immediately followed by another, and another, and another, and then two more, and then two more after that, in two separate rows, and they’re taller, by a LOT, and jagged, like some have whole chunks torn out of them, and they’re all 8-10 feet high. They’re all attached to ONE creature, and we can just barely see its back slicing through the water, covered in these rows of spikes, and it Just. Keeps. Coming. This thing is, like, 20 or 30 feet from the ferry, running parallel to it, and we are all transfixed. There’s, like, 9 or 10 of us, and no one is saying a word because we’ve all turned to look at a whale, and we are all now watching something that is, like, horrifically, terrifyingly, obviously NOT a whale. Someone tries to take a picture, but it’s too dark at this point, and the only reason we can see this thing is the light cast from ferry portholes. It's a tale as old as time when it comes to things that you REALLY fucking wish you had a picture of. But we all stand there completely scared fuckin' stiff and in awe. We watch this thing just KEEP surfacing for a good six or seven minutes, which means that whatever it was was LONG. Like 60 or 70 feet long. Or longer. And covered in enormous spikes. Spikes that looked like they’d won thousands of battles with god-knows-what. It took what felt like an eternity for any of us to say anything after the last of it disappeared back into the strait. I mean, if you and, like, eight of your friends had just all seen something that all science had DEFINITELY pointed to not existing, and you had all seen the same exact thing, AND it was very OBVIOUSLY trailing, nay, HUNTING, not one but 15-something APEX FUCKIN' PREDATORS, what do you even say to break that silence? That’s the thing that eats me about the whole thing is it was hunting. It was following them. It was literally hunting about 60 tons of toothy, angry, intelligent apex predators. Every once in a while, one of us will hit another one of us up and check in, like, 'Do remember this? Was I hallucinating? Did we all see the same insane, worldview-melting, terrifying thing that night?' And the reason I KNOW we did is because none of us talked about it after that, not during the trip, not after, not to any of our friends, because how the fuck do you even tell someone about something like that. Now, we have almost 10 years between us and that night; I assume some of them have probably told people. I know and tell people because I’ve seen a LOT of shit like that in Alaska and I’m That Bitch. Also, there’s a very rich history among native Alaskans of a Something that lives and hunts in the waters around Kodiak, and it’s important to tell its story because someday, it’s gonna eat a little too much plastic, and no one will ever watch it hunt a pod of orcas from a boat ever again."
OK, here we go. If you have a story where you swear you've encountered a cryptid or unexplained creature, please tell us in the comments below or share your story 100% anonymously using this Google form.
Note: Responses have been edited for length and clarity.