Moai
Giant stone statues of human faces on Easter Island (Rapa Nui) in the South Pacific. About 900 exist, carved between around the 10th and 16th centuries. Thought to honor ancestors, how they were moved was long a mystery.
All Entries
Japanese yokai, cryptids, urban legends, UFOs, mythical beasts and ancient mysteries, translated into English.
Entries: 431
Kijimuna
A yokai or spirit said to live in old banyan and other great trees in Okinawa. It looks like a red-haired child and loves fish eyes. If you befriend it, it helps you fish and makes your house rich, but if you betray it, it brings a curse.
Komainu (Lion-Dogs)
Statues of guardian beasts placed in pairs along the approaches to shrines and in front of shrine buildings. They are usually a pair of "a" (open mouth) and "un" (closed mouth). Their origin is said to be the lion statues of the ancient Middle East, which reached Japan by way of Chinese lions.
Shisa
A guardian lion statue placed on roofs and gates and at village entrances in Okinawa to ward off evil. Its name comes from the Okinawan pronunciation of "shishi" (lion). Shisa are often set out in pairs, a male with an open mouth and a female with a closed mouth, and are believed to drive away misfortune.
Unicorn
A horse-like creature with a single long horn on its forehead. It appears in ancient Greek records, and in medieval Europe it was a holy beast that only a pure maiden could capture. Its horn was believed to neutralize poison and was traded at high prices.
Ananta
The king of serpents with countless heads in Indian mythology, also called Shesha. He serves as the bed on which the god Vishnu sleeps in the primordial ocean and is said to support the world. His name means "endless."
Dystopia
The opposite of utopia: a society in which people's freedom has been taken away by total control, surveillance and oppression. Known through novels such as Nineteen Eighty-Four, it is sometimes told like an urban legend, linked with real surveillance technology and conspiracy theories.
Illuminati Card Game
A card game about secret societies released by an American game company. Its card illustrations are rumored online to have "predicted" terrorist attacks, disasters and pandemics. Most of these are said to be after-the-fact interpretations.
Freemasonry
A fraternal organization with members around the world, said to have its roots in medieval stonemasons' guilds. The first Grand Lodge was founded in London in 1717. Because it has kept its rituals private, conspiracy theories arose claiming it is a secret society controlling the world from behind the scenes.
Stonehenge
A prehistoric megalithic monument on Salisbury Plain in southern England, built in stages from around 3000 BC. Its stones are aligned with the midsummer sunrise, and who built it and why remain largely a mystery.
Vritra
A giant serpent (dragon) in the Rigveda, the sacred text of ancient India. It dammed up the world's waters and brought drought, but was struck down by the thunder god Indra with his vajra. Its name is said to mean "the one who covers."
Ouroboros
The image of a serpent (or dragon) that forms a circle by biting its own tail. Originating in ancient Egypt, it was handed down in alchemy and Gnosticism. Having no beginning and no end, it symbolizes infinity, eternity, and death and rebirth.
Korpokkur
Little people of Ainu folklore, whose name is said to mean "people under the butterbur leaves" in the Ainu language. They once traded with the Ainu but are said to have left after being seen. It is one of the best-known legends of Hokkaido.
Homunculus
A small artificial human said to be created in a flask through alchemy. A book attributed to the 16th-century alchemist Paracelsus describes how to make one. It also appears in Goethe's Faust and has become a motif of many works.
Deep State
The idea that unelected bureaucrats, intelligence agencies, business leaders and others secretly run the state. It spread in the United States from 2016 and, combined with baseless conspiracy theories, spread around the world.
Yowie
A hairy hominid-type cryptid said to live in the mountains and forests of eastern Australia. It derives from Aboriginal folklore, and sightings have been reported since the 19th century. It is Australia's Bigfoot.
Selma
A serpent-like cryptid said to live in Lake Seljord in southern Norway. Sightings have been told since the 18th century, and international expeditions searched for it at the end of the 20th century.
Ogopogo
A serpent- or plesiosaur-like cryptid said to live in Okanagan Lake in British Columbia, Canada. It is based on a lake spirit in Indigenous folklore.
Champ
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."
Missouri Monster (Momo)
A hominid-type cryptid sighted repeatedly around the town of Louisiana, Missouri, in 1972, nicknamed "Momo." It was described as a hairy creature with a large head that gave off a powerful stench.