The Top 10 Most Mysterious Creatures of All Times

2) Living Dinosaurs

We were all awestruck by the incredibly realistic digital effects of the Jurassic Park movies, and tantalized by the possibility that cloning of long-extinct dinosaurs might one day be possible.

But what if dinosaurs are still alive? What if some dinosaurs have somehow survived extinction to coexist with us today? Some people believe they actually might have. Living dinosaurs!

For over 200 years, rare but fascinating reports have filtered out of the dense isolated rain forests of Africa and South America that native tribes - some of which live very much as they have for thousands of years - were familiar with large creatures that can only be described as resembling sauropods, like the apatosaurus.

The tribes had names for them, such as jago-nini ("giant diver"), dingonek, ol-umaina, and chipekwe. In 1913, Captain Freiheer von Stein zu Lausnitz, a German explorer, was told by Pygmies of a fearsome creature they called mok'ele-mbembe ("stopper of rivers"). This is the description of mok'ele-mbembe provided by the natives:

• smooth brownish gray skin
• approximately the size of an elephant; at least that of a hippopotamus; possibly about 30 feet long
• a long, flexible neck
• a vegetarian diet, but would kill humans if they came too close

During an expedition to search for mok'ele-mbembe in 1980, cryptozoologist Roy Mackel and herpetologist James Powell allegedly showed pictures of local animals to the natives, all of which they correctly identified. When they showed them an illustration of a large sauropod, they identified it as mok'ele-mbembe.

Aside from the testimony of these tribespeople (which some skeptics have written off as making fools of the white man), the evidence for living dinosaurs is scant. Supposedly, a few explorers have found extraordinarily large footprints (as large as a Frisbee), and in 1992, a Japanese expedition is said to have about 15 seconds of film footage taken from an airplane that shows some large shape moving in water, leaving a V-shaped wake. Unfortunately, it could not be identified.

Recent expeditions in search of mok'ele-mbembe have taken place. They explored the Likoula region of the Congo for four weeks with the official mission objective of a "scientific investigation and analysis of reports of a living dinosaur." Unfortunately, again, they returned empty-handed. New expeditions will undoubtedly continue to search for living dinosaurs. The prospect of actually documenting a find is just too tempting.

Read more ...

The Top 10 Most Mysterious Creatures of All Times

3. The Loveland Lizard

In 1972, a police officer was driving at night along Riverside Road, when he saw what looked like a dog on the icy road. He pulled over, and shone his headlights on it. It suddenly stood up, jumped over the guardrail, and fled down the embankment into the Miami River. The officer described the creature as being 3 or 4 feet tall, with leathery skin, and a frog or lizard-like face. He returned to the police station and got another officer to go back with him to check out the spot later that night, where they saw scrape marks on the hill going down to the river.

The second sighting occurred two weeks later. Another police officer was driving into Loveland, when he saw an animal in the road. Thinking that it was an animal hit by a car, he stopped to move it. It suddenly stood up, but in a crouched position, then hobbled over to the side of the road, stepped over the guardrail, while keeping his eyes on the officer. The officer was so shocked at the creature he saw that he pulled out his gun and shot at it. His bullets missed and it escaped but his description matched that of the first officer.

Neither of the officers filed an official report of the thing, but word of their sightings leaked to the media, and the legend of the Loveland Frog was born. Investigators began to speculate about the possibility of a secret race of lizard men inhabiting Ohio’s rivers.

Read more ...

The Top 10 Most Mysterious Creatures of All Times

4. The Dover Demon

Dover, Massachusetts was the location of the sighting of a bizarre creature for a few days beginning on April 21, 1977. Although the creature, which became known as "the Dover Demon," was only seen by a few people in this short period of time, it is considered one of the most mysterious creatures of modern times.

The first sighting was made by 17-year-old Bill Bartlett as he and three friends were driving north near the small New England town at around 10:30 at night. Through the darkness, Bartlett claimed to have seen an unusual creature creeping along a low stone wall on the side of the road - something he had never seen before and could not identify. The other boys did not see it, but it was obvious to them that Bartlett was shaken by the experience. When he arrived home, he told his father about his experience and sketched a drawing of the creature.

Just a few hours after Bartlett's sighting, at 12:30 a.m., John Baxter swore that he saw the same creature while walking home from his girlfriend's house. The 15-year-old boy saw it with its arms wrapped around the trunk of a tree, and his description of the thing matched Bartlett's exactly.

The final sighting was reported the next day by another 15-year-old, Abby Brabham, a friend of one of Bill Bartlett's friends, who said it appeared briefly in the car's headlights while she and her friend were driving. Again, the description was consistent. This is the creature they allegedly saw:

• about four feet tall on two legs
• hairless body with rough-textured skin
• long, spindly peach-colored limbs
• a large watermelon-shaped head, nearly as big as its body large glowing orange eyes.

Subsequent investigations into this unusual case turned up no hard evidence for the reality of the creature, but neither was there evidence of a hoax nor a motive for perpetrating one. Skeptics suggested that what the teenagers saw was a young moose, while UFOlogists who looked into the case wondered if there was an extraterrestrial connection.

Read more ...

The Top 10 Most Mysterious Creatures of All Times

5) Elves and Fairies

There aren't many people who take seriously the existence of elves and fairies in today's society. Yet there are people who will swear on the heads of their grandchildren that they have seen them with their own eyes - just as plainly as others have seen ghosts, Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster.

The stories of elusive little people are as ancient as civilization itself and can be found in virtually every culture on Earth. Most familiar to us are the legends of elves, dwarfs, leprechauns and trolls from Europe and Scandinavia. They have been the subject of dozens of children's fairy tales, books, myths and inebriated tales. William Shakespeare made them central characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

• Generally, fairies were described as tiny ephemeral beings with wings who resided in forests.
• Elves, dwarfs and leprechauns were likewise residents of the forest. Unlike fairies, however, they were quite human in appearance - except for their diminutive size. They were often pictured as having their own miniature civilization, hidden away from the human world.

On a summer night in 1919, 13-year-old Harry Anderson claimed to have seen a column of 20 little men marching in single file, made visible by the bright moonlight. He noted they were dressed in leather knee pants with suspenders. The men were shirtless, bald and had pale white skin. They ignored young Harry as they passed, mumbling something unintelligible all the while.

In Stowmarket, England in 1842, a man claimed this encounter with "faries" when walking through a meadow on his journey home: "There might be a dozen of them, the biggest about three feet high, and small ones like dolls. They were moving around hand in hand in a ring; no noise came from them. They seemed light and shadowy, not like solid bodies. I... could see them as plain as I do you. I ran home and called three women to come back with me and see them. But when we got to the place, they were all gone. I was quite sober at the time."

Elves and fairies were considered quite real in past cultures, and were a familiar part of their rich folklore. In today's technological society, perhaps, we've simply replaced them in our imaginations with little gray aliens.

Read more ...

The Top 10 Most Mysterious Creatures of All Times

6). Mothman

For about 13 months beginning in November, 1966, a series of bizarre sightings took place around the area of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Aside from a spate of UFO reports and claimed poltergeist activity, several witnesses came forward with descriptions of an astonishing creature that may have been the focal point of all the weird goings-on. As detailed in John Keel's classic book, The Mothman Prophecies, hundreds of witnesses allegedly saw a large, winged humanoid being.

Here is how they described it:

• approximately seven feet tall
• a wingspan over 10 feet wide
• gray, scaly skin
• large, red, glowing and hypnotic eyes
• able to take off straight up in flight, traveling up to 100 miles an hour
• liked to mutilate or eat large dogs
• screeched or squealed like a rodent or electric motor
• caused radio and television interference
• had some mind control powers.
• 

Dubbed Mothman by a localnewspaperman, the creature seemed to have a peculiar affect on those with whom it came into contact: they began to "channel" information from what Keel called "ultra-terrestrial" entities. Keel himself was affected in this way, receiving "prophecies" from some unknown origin that were, more often than not, oddly less than accurate.

Weird stuff indeed.

Read more ...

The Top 10 Most Mysterious Creatures of All Times

7). The Jersey Devil

There is a terrifying creature, they say, that haunts the dense pine barrens of New Jersey, and its frightening appearance earned it the name of The Jersey Devil. The legend of the Jersey Devil dates back to about the mid-1700s when it was considered an omen of disaster or war, but multiple sightings did not begin until the early 1900s. Some researchers claim that more than 2,000 witnesses have reported seeing the creature over the centuries. Although rare, sightings continue up to the present day.

Descriptions vary, but these are the most commonly cited attributes:

• about three-and-a-half feet high
• a head like a collie dog and a face like a horse
• a long neck
• wings about two feet long
• back legs like those of a crane
• horse's hooves
• walks on its back legs and holds up two short front legs with paws on them

It's interesting to note the similarities to Chupacabra!

Unexplained animal deaths and mutilations have been blamed on The Jersey Devil. Dozens of eyewitnesses claim to have been frightened out of their wits by it. What could this creature possibly be? The theories are similar to those cited for Chupacabra, but something scary definitely seems to be out there in the New Jersey woods.

Read more ...

The Top 10 Most Mysterious Creatures of All Times

8). Chupacabra

Even though some sightings date back to the 1970s, El Chupacabra - "the goat sucker" - is primarily a phenomenon of the 1990s, and its fame has largely been spread by the Internet. The sightings started in earnest in 1995 with reports coming out of Puerto Rico of a strange creature that was killing farmers' livestock - chickens, ducks, turkeys, rabbits and, of course, goats - sometimes hundreds of animals in one evening. The farmers, who were familiar with the killing practices of wild dogs and other predators, claimed that the methods of this unknown beast were different. It didn't try to eat the animals it killed, for example; nor did it drag them away to be devoured elsewhere. Instead, the creature killed by draining its victims of blood, usually through small incisions.

Then came the bizarre eyewitness descriptions:

• about the size of a chimpanzee
• hops about like a kangaroo
• large glowing red eyes
• grayish skin and hairy arms
• long snake-like tongue
• sharp fangs
• quills running along its spine that seem to open and close like a fan
• some believe it may even have wings

Toward the end of the '90s, the sightings of Chupacabra began to spread. The creature was blamed for animal killings in Mexico, southern Texas and several South American countries. In May and June of 2000, a rash of incidents took place in Chile, according to certain newspapers there. In fact, some of the most incredible claims yet came out of those sightings: that at least one of the creatures was caught alive by local authorities, then handed over to official agencies of the US government.

What is it? Theories abound, including: an unknown but natural species of predator; misidentified known predators; the result of genetic experimentation; an alien. Most serious researchers consider Chupacabra merely folklore, perpetuated by over-enthusiastic locals immersed in superstition or a penchant for telling tall, exaggerated tales.

Yet you can be sure that we haven't seen or heard the last of Chupacabra.

Read more ...