Legends Around the World
We list 10 places in the United States linked to cryptids, legends and mysteries, and 10 related encyclopedia entries.
Please note Trespassing on private property or restricted areas is prohibited by law. Please be considerate of local residents.
Positions on the map are a rough guide to the area where a legend or sighting is set. Most pins are placed at representative points of a municipality or prefecture (outside Japan, a city position rounded to about 10 km, or the country), not at the exact place.
Municipality points: Geolonia address data (CC BY 4.0), based on the Address Base Registry (Digital Agency of Japan) / Country points: Natural Earth
The 1947 incident in which the American businessman Kenneth Arnold saw nine high-speed flying objects near Mount Rainier from his private plane. It gave rise to the term "flying saucer" and is the starting point of modern UFO history.
A monster of the New Jersey forests with a horse-like head and bat wings. The legend dates back to the 18th century, and a wave of sightings swept the region in 1909.
A plesiosaur-like cryptid said to live in Lake Champlain, which straddles the border of the United States and Canada. A photo taken in 1977 is famous, and it is called "America's Nessie."
A small humanoid creature with a large head and glowing eyes seen by young people in Dover, Massachusetts, in 1977. It was sighted for only two days, and its identity remains a mystery.
A hairy, ape-like cryptid two to three meters tall said to live in the forests of North America. The name spread with news of giant footprints in 1958, and it became world-famous with film footage in 1967.
A monster about 3 meters tall seen in 1952 in the town of Flatwoods, West Virginia. It is said to have appeared just after a glowing object fell from the sky, and is known in Japan as "the 3-meter alien."
A humanoid cryptid with glowing red eyes and large wings, sighted in West Virginia in 1966. It is said by some to have foretold a bridge collapse the following year. One explanation is a large bird.
The carcass of a strange animal with a beak-like mouth that washed up on a beach in Montauk, New York, in 2008. Its photo spread online, but it is thought to have been a decomposed raccoon.
A 1947 incident in New Mexico in which the US military announced it had recovered a "flying disc" from debris found on a ranch. It became synonymous with UFO crash theories.
A 15th-century manuscript filled with writing no one can read and strange illustrations of plants that do not exist and naked women. Discovered by the book dealer Wilfrid Voynich in 1912, it remains undeciphered despite theories of a cipher, an artificial language or a hoax.
