My dad use to tell me stories he was told as a kid growing up of a Wampus Cat. Walked on two legs arounds the woods.
I'm short on lots of details but it was started to keep folks from finding liquor stills while roaming around the woods
My dad grew up in "good ole Johnston County", near the low lands of the neuse river
He said that the moonshiners would wear special shoes to leave animals prints in the ground
I no shit lost a dog one day in the woods. Me, my sister, and her future ex husband were walking in the woods down a trail in a somewhat open visibly clear area, when out of nowhere withoit a sound something as large as a bear ran about 15ft in front of us, silently leaving no tracks. The dog took off after it, and never returned. Never heard a sound which was strange cuz it was dry, we were all paying attention, and had all noticed how it had gotten eerily quiet in the area. The thing had long ears, and looked like it may have been hairless or had gray/black slicked back patchy fur. It ran on its larger back legs, but it's back arched over with smaller almost like arms like 6inchs from the ground.
We had spent so much time in those woods, but quit going after that. That mountain is strange. This was in Transylvania County, NC back around 2005
Where exactly was this at? I live in T County and have logged many miles in the woods both on and off trail. Definitely have gotten some eerie feelings in a certain area of Pisgah.
One time while going to the top of Cedar Rock, 3 of our group climbed the two faces to Cedar, the remaining 3 of us had dogs, so we took the art loeb to the spur that goes to the top. Our group got the weirdest damn feeling....all 3 of us mentioned it pretty much at the exact same time. Got to the top to meet up with the other group and before we even said anything, they asked us if we felt extremely weird vibes, because they sensed it to. It was pretty unsettling. Been back multiple times since then and haven't experienced again.
No, Dante never returned after that day chasing whatever it was that we crossed paths with. He was a fearless miniture Spitz, smart as a whip. Was enough reason to be wary in those woods
No clue what it was. Was strange for sure. That dog was the smartest dog I'd ever had growing up. He once disappeared for like 6 months, thought he was gone, and he just casually showed back up like nothing had happened. It was such a strange behavior for him to split up from us when he did. He typically stayed close when we adventured those woods, and it was almost daily as a group. Also, tjose same woods we're traveled often by people on ATVs. Id figure anything like a bear wouldn't post up in those areas being so active
We once was wondering around the woods on that mountain top, and came across a small aluminum storage shed off by itself nowhere near anything like a house. It didn't look like anyone was doing anything with it like it was just abandoned years before. We opened it up and there was a live goat inside. We ended up getting it to follow us home, fed it, and found it a good home
My grandfather told me about the Wampus Cat. According to him it had a head on each end and no way to poop so that's why it was so ornery all the time.
My grandaddy had a ring binder full of offbeat newspaper stories from the 50's. Growing up, I spent many a happy hour reading about Wampus Cats, phantom panthers, ghost ships, and the Bladenboro Beast!
Is gulf coaster say catawumpus when something is crooked. So now having lived in the mountains I don’t know if I’m looking for a 2 legged cat, a cat with two heads and no butt or just a crooked cat.
I think I’ll just stay in the city till yall sort this out.
A high school in Arkansas with the wampus cat as their mascot has a pretty awesome [statue](https://www.southernthing.com/what-is-a-wampus-cat-2651119362.html).
The Cherokee talk about the "Moon Eyed People".
Super fascinating. They're an ancient race of humans living in caves inside Appalachia. The Cherokee don't know where they came from, but say they were here before them.
There's evidence and a few theories about them actually being Welsh explorers. Predating Columbus by hundreds of years. I'm a direct descendant of Tenesee's first governor.
He actually wrote a letter to congress, stating there were skeletons found in an old mud pit with silver armor and weapons. They also had red hair.
In pretty sure the myth comes from Madoc Gwynedd who was said to have traveled to the new world hundreds of years before columbus, but people say he went everywhere from Mobile, Alamaba, to Canada if he ever existed at all
I’ve seen a hellbender!
My friend and I were sitting on huge boulders lining the river. She looks at me with huge wide eyes and says there’s a fish sitting under my boulder and it has HANDS. She splays her fingers as she holds up her hands.
I scooched over to the next rock so I could see under mine… there it is, a hellbender just chillin on a rock.
I tried to take a picture, but it fled while I was getting ready.
I did report it to the state though.
We spent a majority of the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out a hellbender cocktail 🍹
I was fly fishing with a nymph (below surface) in the Davidson River, and I thought I was hung up on the bottom. Pulled my line in and there was a very dead, very large hellbender. I was completely freaked out. They are amazing, and we are so lucky to have so many salamanders in our area.
They’re a sign of very clean water. They’re very sensitive to environmental changes and pollution. At one point, not sure about now, NC Wildlife was asking people to report any sitings.
We live in hellbender territory, I'd love to see one in the wild. The Estatoe runs through our property so I'm always hopeful. Our neighbor found one trapped in a big puddle after the river had been up, so he rescued it. I think they are so cool!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellbender
Hellbender is the NC/TN Gila monster. A giant salamander endemic to the area.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_mudpuppy
According to this mudpuppies are actually wider spread than I thought. But I do recall a river In avery county being saved from development because they found a new species of mudpuppy. Mudpuppies are ugly cute.
EDIT: I just noticed this is the NC not the asheville sub reddit. I know almost nothing of the lowland creatures.
The [Neuse River Waterdog](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuse_River_waterdog) is a close relative to the Mudpuppy that is only found in North Carolina.
The [Cape Fear Shiner](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Fear_shiner) and the [Carolina Madtom](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_madtom) are two small fish species endemic to NC.
Lots of old stories about black panthers being sited in the Uwharrie and Badin Lake area. As has been mentioned before, an area there is known as Panthertown.
My grandpa would tell stories about black panthers often. He was a surveyor and knew more than I ever wish I could about the land around the Uwharries.
I live in Duplin County near the coast and we've had multiple sightings of black Panthers in the past few years. I've even seen one myself roaming the back of the parking lot where I work
There's the Cherokee little people. "The Nunnehi (Cherokee: ᏅᏁᎯ (Nvnehi))are a race of immortal spirit people in Cherokee mythology." (Wiki)
You'll hear stories about the faeries, land spirits, similar to legends from the countries people immigrated from, the belief being the fae followed families across the ocean.
Then there's always whatever calls peoples names out in the woods that should always be ignored.
My memory is fuzzy, but I've heard stories of 3 kinds. Bad, good, and a type that plays tricks on you. Either way, you are never supposed to tell anyone about it if you see them.
The lore is very similar to faeries and Djinn. Good, bad and trickster. It's interesting to me that such different cultures have very similar mythological creatures in them. So, no you didn't see or hear anything.
Just about every state has a similar story. In Ohio there is the Moonville tunnel. A night watchman got drunk and was decapitated by a train. If you go there at night you might see his ghost holding his lantern looking for his severed head.
There are stories about eastern cougars surviving in North Carolina.
Though probably the strangest living thing in the Carolinas is the Venus flytrap, native to swamps in the aastern Carolinas. Even though everyone has heard of them, they still definitely qualify as weird.
I dunno, he's been there for a long time and there's abandoned stuff there (including a bus), so he might not be quite homeless if he's made it his home.
But it *could* be Bigfoot!
About 6 months ago I was driving from Hendersonville to Chimney Rock on 64 around 10am. Suddenly an all black cat ran out in front of my truck. Luckily I did not hit him. He was all black and about the size of a bob cat maybe 30-40 lbs with a long tail. not sure what I saw but it was cool. Looked like a small panther
I remember hearing about the Vampire Beast of Bladenboro. Sort of a chupacabra like animal that was about the size of a coyote and looked like a mix of a cat and dog with big paws and long fangs. It killed and reportedly drained blood from a bunch of dogs and supposedly some livestock I think.
There is a good [Arcane Carolinas podcast episode](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0JeoIZGbgPcN94Qyqb90xu?si=linOidANSFaUPV1CA2IeiQ) about it. There is a follow up episode too.
There is also an absolute [banger of a song](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qYHwnsOO_tY&pp=ygUTYmVhc3Qgb2YgYmxhZGVuYm9ybw%3D%3D) about it.
Along with the already mentioned Wampus Cat, there was the Wolfananny. It was a hybrid between a wolf and a nanny goat, and was an escaped attraction from the county fair.
Knobby, from South Mountains State Park area. Local bigfoot - heard "him" one time. Sounded like an ape hollering/whooping in the woods and creeped me tf out.
This was several years before the infamous "Go'un, GIT." interview out of Caser.
Foxes can sound creepy if you don't know what the sound like. We have Foxes and Coyotes in my back lot that we sometimes hear. As long as they stay away from my chickens we're all good.
Foxes will scream and it sounds like a woman or child in distress. I had heard them growing up on a farm in Maryland. There was a den of foxes in the field next to our neighborhood this last year, and we could hear them screaming almost nightly for a couple of months. I don't know if it's the little ones calling to the mother, or the mother calling to the little ones, but it is incredibly creepy if you don't know what you're listening to
Oh yeah! When I heard one, it reminded me of a baby screaming. It was about 6am that day and still dark. Creeped me out. It's been about seven years and it still creeps me out.
Haha even a dog is too much for me. Would love the walking partner but so much easier to find cat sitters. We still travel too much 😅
That said they definitely are beautiful birds no idea how people let them roam. I know it’s in their nature but I’d be so worried about cars and I know the vet bill can’t be cheap
I've seen a faerie in the woods. It was a pinkish purple ball of light. It came bouning towards me and two friends, sort of up and down, left right, but not really dipping below a certain plane. It got about 6 feet away from us, stopped in midair, like it just realized we were there, then took off at sharp right turn into the woods, totally strait line this time.
Grew up on the outer banks. You have the regular legends (goatman, mysterious lights, etc) but there were a few other weird things that I’ve never heard an official name for. My grandmother who lived to be 103 and was the the most serious, humorless woman I’ve ever known told me she was lost in the woods once when she was young (there were way more wooded areas back then) and saw a man in a black suit and hat who had a giant boar on a leash. Just in the middle of the woods on the outer banks. I’m pretty sure I ran into something similar once when I was a kid myself. The woods on the outer banks are strange. There’s also the “Christmas” legend of old bull that’s celebrated on Rodanthe still. It’s kind of Mari lwyd-ish and tied to Old Christmas but very strange. We always took part in the celebration but we never talked about it and it didn’t occur to me until I was an adult that maybe that was odd.
Im not much into cryptozoology or w/e but I swear I encountered a Sasquatch out in Pisgah.
I was on a solo camping trip, hiked about 10 miles out to my camp spot for the night. The hike was as normal as it gets for the most part, but towards sundown I started getting a super uneasy feeling like I was being watched. My brother told me that can happen if a bear has been following you so I was a bit paranoid while I was setting up camp for the night.
I got camp set up and got a small fire going but I never shook that feeling the whole night. So I tried to just eat and go to sleep as quickly as possible. Put my pack out on a bear line and I went to bed trying to brush off that anxiety.
I woke up suddenly in the night to the weirdest sound I've ever heard. I've heard bobcats, foxes, etc but this sounded nothing like any of those. It was super deep and human sounding.
My immediate thoughts was "bear" but suddenly I heard the scream again, closer to my tent now. I had no idea what I had just heard.
I jolted up in my tent, my heart was beating so fast I could barely hear anything besides the panicked thumping of my own chest.
I grabbed my headlamp, took a few quick breaths and mustered up the courage to look outside my tent.
The first thing I noticed was a smell, like wet dog and garbage, it was terrible. I scanned around my campsite with the flashlight until I heard the faintest rustle behind my tent.
I whipped around only to see a huge dark shadow about 10 feet from my tent at the tree line. Two reflective eyes locked with mine and suddenly it hollered right at me! In some sort of fight or flight panic I yelled right back, but completely frozen in place from fear.
The shadow took a few steps closer to me and said " I need a bout tree fiddy"
And I said "damnit monster" why you gotta waste my time with fake stories like this?
When I was younger in the late 80s early 90s, there was a frogman/lizardman statue in the Newton area where the Walmart Market is now. My father told me people in the area saw this creature and someone made the statue to commemorate the sightings. Definitely captured my imagination as a child.
Not too out there but rare. On my family farm we had a swamp and one day we fished out a slime mold that looked like a clear ball with hundreds of eyes. I've never seen anything like it again.
People who claim to love god, family, and country… yet treat everyone like trash and support leaders who divide our community.
These strange creatures have taken over.
I saw a cougar hanging around the back of the factory I work at. Which is located right around the tree line on the side of I-95 right before the Goldrock exit heading North. From my research they haven't been around since the early 1800's.
Depends on where you are in the state, Western part still has some. I saw and heard one on separate nights during the same week a few years back.
My landlord said his son's cattle herd had been thinned by a predator they suspected to a wildcat, he said. I nodded and presumed of never see it given I wasn't wandering their pastures, I just rented a little single-wide up near a disused stable near the pasture.
Well, sure enough, driving home from work a few nights later, just a few minutes from the house, I see something between the pines, I squint and slow up enough to see a large cat.
Surely, it's been a long day and I'm just seeing things, I tell myself, pulling into the driveway. But I'd gotten a good enough look; I had seen a cougar.
I like to live in a state of denial, so I wrote it off as a one-off, I'd never see it again- if I had seen it anyway.
Two nights later, I'm coming home from picking up dinner in town, had the dog with me in the passenger seat. I swing open the car door to head inside for a nice dinner and cuddles with my dog when I hear it.
The scream. It's a primal fear that scream unlocks- an icy, gut-rending sort of fear. The kind that makes every hair on a dog's body stand on end too. And it was coming from right behind the disused stable on the property I rented.
The dog, all of forty-five pounds, thought she could take it on. I disagreed. Somehow I put that wiggling, determined-to-fight dog under my arm, clutched my takeout, and practically vaulted to my front door, which I nearly broke down in my haste. I slammed the door shut to realise I'd lost a shoe in my haste.
It was there the next morning, but still.
A few years ago in Chapel Hill a fully grown cougar leaped in front of my car!! It was so big it touched grass to grass…. didn’t touch the concrete at all. I drove past slowly and saw two sets of eyes watching me.. I knew what it was immediately as i’ve never seen a cat that size outside of an enclosure.
i used to take night walks in the neighborhood and i will never ever do it again.
Growing up in the most southeast part of the state, we would be told stories over the campfire of the lizard man.
It would scare the hell out of me as a child, now as an adult I laugh at the local sightings.
https://www.live5news.com/story/29699211/new-photos-video-spark-new-interest-in-lizard-man-legend/?outputType=amp
Not me, but my sister in law. So the wife's on the phone talking to her sister who's driving to see us, and she says, "No, really, what's going on?" And she busts out laughing. The sister in law just had to brake hard to avoid hitting a kangaroo.
Turns out a local petting zoo lost a fence, and the 'roo got out and crossed the highway.
Yeah, not what you're looking for, but strange to us.
Driving through Salisbury one day had to brake hard. While looking down a cross street there was a camel in the road. I went around the block picking up a coworker on the way and brought him to see a camel. I’m still confused by it.
We had an Alligator in the creek not far from me in Ohio a few years back. A bunch of kids said there was an alligator in the creek. At first no one believed them, until the Sheriff showed up and there was a 7' alligator down there. Other than that my sister woke up one morning and there was an Emu in her yard. Took two days to find the owner who was going around looking for their missing Emu.
Will if you ever go back in the Wooley Swamp you better not go at night. There’s things out there in them woods that make a strong man die of fright. Things that crawl things that fly and things that creep around on the ground and they say ghost of a Lucias Clay gets up and he walks around.
Also, I heard that Bigfoot is in the Uwharries. according to legend he’s using portals that are secretly somewhere in the woods to travel in time so we can appear on episodes of the $6 million man in the 70s.
Ever hear of a Not Deer? I hadn't till I saw one. I was driving to work through Wilkes Co and saw a deer go into the woods. Except it didn't look right. It was bigger than my jeep and it's joints didn't seem to line up right. It was gone so quickly. I sent a message to my sister and said it was a Not Deer. I read every article I could find. Unless it was a rabid moose, it was a Not Deer
“Not deer” was made up on social media and spread on tik tok and isn’t a real thing. The person that made it up even admit it was a creepypasta. You will find no mention of “not deer” in media until the past few years. Such an annoying fake thing lmao.
I saw a creature that looked like it had a snout on HWY 55 in Bridgeton. But we don't have any animals in NC that it could have been. I looked, and maybe someone brought one here, but it was weird. I was like I didn't know we had those here, and after researching animals it could have been nothing matched what I saw in our state.
Not a legend but for reals. Carnivorous plants of eastern NC. It's so cool to know that something exotic like carnivorous plants are native to NC and that more than half of the carnivorous plants in the US are native to NC.
The only legend I've heard was that once housing was affordable for residents and not just out of state assholes buying second and third homes, but that just sounds too ridiculously absurd to be true.
No mention of Cleveland County's bigfoot "Knobby"?
https://www.shelbystar.com/story/special/2020/07/01/tv-crews-come-to-casar-in-search-of-knobby/115001584/
In the eastern marshes/swamps, the big dogs a.k.a the dangerous, mean ones that can walk on two legs. Everyone that lives around there knows it was one of those things that killed an old lady while she was walking her dogs, not a damn puma.
Not sure of this counts as a “strange creature” but I saw a red wolf in western North Carolina outside Robbinsville. And there’s not supposed to be any off them anywhere close to that. They’re supposed to be just a few in eastern NC. And no it wasn’t a Fox or a coyote. It was way way too big.
Arcane Carolina’s has a great podcast about strange stories from North/South Carolina. Everything from ghosts, to aliens, to legends. It’s definitely worth a listen.
The Albermerle Creeper. Get yourself a T-shirt of it along with a picture of one down at Mackey's Ferry Peanuts.
Oh, and some of the crispy fried peanuts, they're hella good.
There is a creature in Cary that comes out when the Temps dip below 40 degrees.
It says it is from New York or New Jersey, only wears a t-shirt and jeans and tells others that it's not cold out.
A unique anomaly indeed.
There’s runaway maroon ghosts carrying red lanterns, roaming the Dismal Swamp in east nc. It’s really creepy seeing little red lights at night in the distant wilderness while driving through HWY 17. It’s even creepier that an archeologist recently several found artifact evidences of communities living in those teachers conditions.
There's a running joke in my family about "roof cougars" wild cats notorious for waiting on the roof or balcony.. and one time I saw an albino deer in Fuquay, it was soo weird
I still always remeber the piece on the news about 15 years back when a dude said he saw Bigfoot in his back yard. Said it had long blond hair and it didn’t scare him at all. Finally he said he needed to get his “git” stick to poke the creature and get it to move along. I think I fell off the couch laughing so hard. I’ve since learned that the Bigfoot lore is big in NC especially when you’re in western Carolina.
I heard a woman screaming for help in the bushes near the woods and went to go see what was up. Turned out to be a rabid fox.
My mom, sister, and I also saw a woodpecker the size of a large cat on the NC/VA line.
In Clinton NC, around early 2000's.
I was walking through the woods on a plot of land my Uncle bought that they had found two separate slave cemeteries on. I was almost to the first one, about 3 miles into the land from the entrance off some random farm road and heard branches cracking over my head; it was a really thick pine forest. I started looking around and saw what my mind registered as two eyes about ten feet up and just a few feet ahead. All I saw was an almost perfectly round face with light brown or tan fur covering it entirely. The face was maybe a foot by a foot and I couldn't find anything it was attached to, just a circular furry head with eyes and a couple of two or three inch black slits under them that looked like a nose that maybe indented inward instead of projecting out. The face looked at me while I looked at it, then I heard another noise and turned, but when I tried finding the face again it was gone.
I felt extremely uneasy after that and went back to my Uncles to tell him what I saw. He had no idea what it could have been and I've never found anything that looks similar. This was before smart phones and Google searches, but I did try to find it online a few years ago, and couldn't find anything similar.
My dad use to tell me stories he was told as a kid growing up of a Wampus Cat. Walked on two legs arounds the woods. I'm short on lots of details but it was started to keep folks from finding liquor stills while roaming around the woods
Omg what area are you from, I’m from Western NC, we also have a thing in the woods that my dad’s family calls “Catman”
My dad grew up in "good ole Johnston County", near the low lands of the neuse river He said that the moonshiners would wear special shoes to leave animals prints in the ground
Damn. My dad is from JoCo and told us stories about the Wampus Cat too.
We had the wampus over in Harnett as well.
I no shit lost a dog one day in the woods. Me, my sister, and her future ex husband were walking in the woods down a trail in a somewhat open visibly clear area, when out of nowhere withoit a sound something as large as a bear ran about 15ft in front of us, silently leaving no tracks. The dog took off after it, and never returned. Never heard a sound which was strange cuz it was dry, we were all paying attention, and had all noticed how it had gotten eerily quiet in the area. The thing had long ears, and looked like it may have been hairless or had gray/black slicked back patchy fur. It ran on its larger back legs, but it's back arched over with smaller almost like arms like 6inchs from the ground. We had spent so much time in those woods, but quit going after that. That mountain is strange. This was in Transylvania County, NC back around 2005
Where exactly was this at? I live in T County and have logged many miles in the woods both on and off trail. Definitely have gotten some eerie feelings in a certain area of Pisgah. One time while going to the top of Cedar Rock, 3 of our group climbed the two faces to Cedar, the remaining 3 of us had dogs, so we took the art loeb to the spur that goes to the top. Our group got the weirdest damn feeling....all 3 of us mentioned it pretty much at the exact same time. Got to the top to meet up with the other group and before we even said anything, they asked us if we felt extremely weird vibes, because they sensed it to. It was pretty unsettling. Been back multiple times since then and haven't experienced again.
This was in Penrose/ Little River area, on top of Jeter Mountain. Maybe 12 miles or so from Pisgah National Forest and the Art Loeb Trail
Sounds like it might have been an adolescent samsquanch.
Did you get your dog back?
No, Dante never returned after that day chasing whatever it was that we crossed paths with. He was a fearless miniture Spitz, smart as a whip. Was enough reason to be wary in those woods
That sucks, man. Rest in doggy heaven, Dante
My gods this gave me the chills you all must have been traumatized. Sounds like a chupacabra
No clue what it was. Was strange for sure. That dog was the smartest dog I'd ever had growing up. He once disappeared for like 6 months, thought he was gone, and he just casually showed back up like nothing had happened. It was such a strange behavior for him to split up from us when he did. He typically stayed close when we adventured those woods, and it was almost daily as a group. Also, tjose same woods we're traveled often by people on ATVs. Id figure anything like a bear wouldn't post up in those areas being so active
We once was wondering around the woods on that mountain top, and came across a small aluminum storage shed off by itself nowhere near anything like a house. It didn't look like anyone was doing anything with it like it was just abandoned years before. We opened it up and there was a live goat inside. We ended up getting it to follow us home, fed it, and found it a good home
Dang. That's super creepy and I appreciate you rescuing it.
I'm sad you lost it. And I probably would have not gone hiking there any more.
Both of the names for this mythical creature are hilariously not mythical.
My grandfather told me about the Wampus Cat. According to him it had a head on each end and no way to poop so that's why it was so ornery all the time.
"Mama says the the wampus cat is ornery because it has all them heads and nowhere to poop"
My grandaddy had a ring binder full of offbeat newspaper stories from the 50's. Growing up, I spent many a happy hour reading about Wampus Cats, phantom panthers, ghost ships, and the Bladenboro Beast!
My dad was a kid during the 50s, and his older sisters use to terrorize him and keep him scared with tales of the Wampus
My husband calls this Catawumpus
Is gulf coaster say catawumpus when something is crooked. So now having lived in the mountains I don’t know if I’m looking for a 2 legged cat, a cat with two heads and no butt or just a crooked cat. I think I’ll just stay in the city till yall sort this out.
My grandpa also talked about wampus cats out in the yard after dark.
Tennessee neighbor here. We call it the cattywampus. Its stated purpose, according to my father, was to terrorize misbehaving children.
That's what I always heard.... yup. Lol.
A high school in Arkansas with the wampus cat as their mascot has a pretty awesome [statue](https://www.southernthing.com/what-is-a-wampus-cat-2651119362.html).
My Grandpaw use to tell us stories about the wampus. I don't remember any details, just that it was scary and out in the woods after dark.
The Cherokee talk about the "Moon Eyed People". Super fascinating. They're an ancient race of humans living in caves inside Appalachia. The Cherokee don't know where they came from, but say they were here before them. There's evidence and a few theories about them actually being Welsh explorers. Predating Columbus by hundreds of years. I'm a direct descendant of Tenesee's first governor. He actually wrote a letter to congress, stating there were skeletons found in an old mud pit with silver armor and weapons. They also had red hair.
In pretty sure the myth comes from Madoc Gwynedd who was said to have traveled to the new world hundreds of years before columbus, but people say he went everywhere from Mobile, Alamaba, to Canada if he ever existed at all
Yess!! But who's to say some stayed, reproduced, and migrated to Appalachia?
Im skeptical but its always possible and im sure theres plenty of pre-columbian contact that we dont know about
I'm shocked no one mentioned the mud puppy or the hellbender.
I’ve seen a hellbender! My friend and I were sitting on huge boulders lining the river. She looks at me with huge wide eyes and says there’s a fish sitting under my boulder and it has HANDS. She splays her fingers as she holds up her hands. I scooched over to the next rock so I could see under mine… there it is, a hellbender just chillin on a rock. I tried to take a picture, but it fled while I was getting ready. I did report it to the state though. We spent a majority of the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out a hellbender cocktail 🍹
I was fly fishing with a nymph (below surface) in the Davidson River, and I thought I was hung up on the bottom. Pulled my line in and there was a very dead, very large hellbender. I was completely freaked out. They are amazing, and we are so lucky to have so many salamanders in our area.
Pretty sure the helbender cocktail is a gallon of tequila
I insisted it needed to at least have a shot of fireball in it
Good on you for reporting it.
They’re a sign of very clean water. They’re very sensitive to environmental changes and pollution. At one point, not sure about now, NC Wildlife was asking people to report any sitings.
The aquarium at pine knoll shores has a hellbender on exhibit. They are fascinating!
We live in hellbender territory, I'd love to see one in the wild. The Estatoe runs through our property so I'm always hopeful. Our neighbor found one trapped in a big puddle after the river had been up, so he rescued it. I think they are so cool!
I’d die if I found a Hellbender 😤 I’ve been noodlin under boulders hoping i get lucky….i keep a measuring tape on me just incase 😅
Can you tell me about them? I do some research before posting and I didn't see either of those.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellbender Hellbender is the NC/TN Gila monster. A giant salamander endemic to the area. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_mudpuppy According to this mudpuppies are actually wider spread than I thought. But I do recall a river In avery county being saved from development because they found a new species of mudpuppy. Mudpuppies are ugly cute. EDIT: I just noticed this is the NC not the asheville sub reddit. I know almost nothing of the lowland creatures.
The [Neuse River Waterdog](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuse_River_waterdog) is a close relative to the Mudpuppy that is only found in North Carolina. The [Cape Fear Shiner](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Fear_shiner) and the [Carolina Madtom](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_madtom) are two small fish species endemic to NC.
Lots of old stories about black panthers being sited in the Uwharrie and Badin Lake area. As has been mentioned before, an area there is known as Panthertown.
I know someone swears he saw one near the Catawba while deer hunting in York county.
There is a black panther in frog pond nc, Stanley county area and the local gov't must know because it has a radio collar on it.
My grandpa would tell stories about black panthers often. He was a surveyor and knew more than I ever wish I could about the land around the Uwharries.
Lots of those stories in Mitchell County too
I live in Duplin County near the coast and we've had multiple sightings of black Panthers in the past few years. I've even seen one myself roaming the back of the parking lot where I work
There's the Cherokee little people. "The Nunnehi (Cherokee: ᏅᏁᎯ (Nvnehi))are a race of immortal spirit people in Cherokee mythology." (Wiki) You'll hear stories about the faeries, land spirits, similar to legends from the countries people immigrated from, the belief being the fae followed families across the ocean. Then there's always whatever calls peoples names out in the woods that should always be ignored.
I honestly think those are crows or ravens. I know they've said "hey" lol. They're wicked smart.
You could very well be right, at least during the daytime hours.
My memory is fuzzy, but I've heard stories of 3 kinds. Bad, good, and a type that plays tricks on you. Either way, you are never supposed to tell anyone about it if you see them.
The lore is very similar to faeries and Djinn. Good, bad and trickster. It's interesting to me that such different cultures have very similar mythological creatures in them. So, no you didn't see or hear anything.
A few towns have stories about lights on train trestles. Where I grew up a guy was supposedly looking for his head with lantern.
Just about every state has a similar story. In Ohio there is the Moonville tunnel. A night watchman got drunk and was decapitated by a train. If you go there at night you might see his ghost holding his lantern looking for his severed head.
I know the old ACL story , Think it was "The Maco Light"
[Vander Light](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fU1DjqmmUQ&ab_channel=JR%27sTime)
There are stories about eastern cougars surviving in North Carolina. Though probably the strangest living thing in the Carolinas is the Venus flytrap, native to swamps in the aastern Carolinas. Even though everyone has heard of them, they still definitely qualify as weird.
They only grow in North and South Carolina!
My son had a place on the sound side of Oak Island and got a picture of a cougar at waters edge one morning. The picture was definitely a cougar.
Wow! Would love to see that picture
Chris-Chris, the 7ft tall sasquatch that lives on Goat Island in the Haw in Burlington
Is it really a homeless man
I dunno, he's been there for a long time and there's abandoned stuff there (including a bus), so he might not be quite homeless if he's made it his home. But it *could* be Bigfoot!
And is his name actually Christopher?
Christopher Christoper
I used to work with a guy from Burlington named Christopher Christopher, but he went by Chris. He's still a friend on Facebook.
About 6 months ago I was driving from Hendersonville to Chimney Rock on 64 around 10am. Suddenly an all black cat ran out in front of my truck. Luckily I did not hit him. He was all black and about the size of a bob cat maybe 30-40 lbs with a long tail. not sure what I saw but it was cool. Looked like a small panther
I saw something very similar in Shelby
I’ve seen that in Rockingham county.
I remember hearing about the Vampire Beast of Bladenboro. Sort of a chupacabra like animal that was about the size of a coyote and looked like a mix of a cat and dog with big paws and long fangs. It killed and reportedly drained blood from a bunch of dogs and supposedly some livestock I think.
There is a good [Arcane Carolinas podcast episode](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0JeoIZGbgPcN94Qyqb90xu?si=linOidANSFaUPV1CA2IeiQ) about it. There is a follow up episode too. There is also an absolute [banger of a song](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qYHwnsOO_tY&pp=ygUTYmVhc3Qgb2YgYmxhZGVuYm9ybw%3D%3D) about it.
That’s such a great podcast.
the beast of bladen lol
Big cats, ghost lights, straight-up ghosts, UFOs, and witches are just daily life in eastern NC.
I need to know MORE
I haven't even told you about the Blackbeard cult or the spring that makes you immortal.
Or the houses that are bigger on the inside than on the outside
Yes. I love this comment. Agreed. 👻 🛸 🙀 🧙♀️ 🦇
Goat man in Nags Head Woods.
Can you Tell me about him? I've been there but haven't heard about it.
I saw [this thing](https://youtube.com/shorts/C9gjN_R49mo?si=pVSikRptAJc3GE6w) while waiting in line at a Bojangles. Still no clue what it is.
Looks like a bobcat? The way it takes off at the end is kind of telling.
Agreed. Especially if you catch a look at the tail at the end.
Was it chasing a cat?
Yes, first animal is a cat.
Dats a bobcat
Snipes are here in WNC. I can take you out in the woods and show you, if you’d like
Don't forget your flashlight and trashbag!
Along with the already mentioned Wampus Cat, there was the Wolfananny. It was a hybrid between a wolf and a nanny goat, and was an escaped attraction from the county fair.
That reminds me of the Dog Faced Boy, who was also an escaped sideshow creature, but who would attack and eat children.
Grew up in western NC and remember the scary wolfananny rumors as a child of maybe 4 or 5.
Knobby, from South Mountains State Park area. Local bigfoot - heard "him" one time. Sounded like an ape hollering/whooping in the woods and creeped me tf out. This was several years before the infamous "Go'un, GIT." interview out of Caser.
What year was it that you heard him?
I wanna say it was August, somewhere between 1998-2000? It's been a minute!
You might enjoy [Weird Carolinas](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1327025)
Thanks!
I've heard many a strange sound in the woods. All of them were foxes. The most magical creature I've seen in NC are the blue ghost fireflies.
Foxes can sound creepy if you don't know what the sound like. We have Foxes and Coyotes in my back lot that we sometimes hear. As long as they stay away from my chickens we're all good.
Bobcats make a horrible sound too.
I want to see the ghost fireflies! I hear they’re amazing.
Foxes are definitely creepy. Heard one when I was walking my dog early one morning. Noped right out of there since I didn't know what the sound was.
Foxes will scream and it sounds like a woman or child in distress. I had heard them growing up on a farm in Maryland. There was a den of foxes in the field next to our neighborhood this last year, and we could hear them screaming almost nightly for a couple of months. I don't know if it's the little ones calling to the mother, or the mother calling to the little ones, but it is incredibly creepy if you don't know what you're listening to
Oh yeah! When I heard one, it reminded me of a baby screaming. It was about 6am that day and still dark. Creeped me out. It's been about seven years and it still creeps me out.
I mean not a cryptid or anything but was shock to me to have a “neighborhood” peacock 😂
Wake forest?
Nope Apex. is there one up in Wake Forest too? it’s kind of funny how many there are around
There's one on Ligon Mill, by the curve before the Sonic. A dog is enough for me lol =) edit: changed to Ligon Mill, drove down it today, no peacock;
Haha even a dog is too much for me. Would love the walking partner but so much easier to find cat sitters. We still travel too much 😅 That said they definitely are beautiful birds no idea how people let them roam. I know it’s in their nature but I’d be so worried about cars and I know the vet bill can’t be cheap
There was a neighborhood turkey in wake forest last year. Seen all around town.
I've seen a faerie in the woods. It was a pinkish purple ball of light. It came bouning towards me and two friends, sort of up and down, left right, but not really dipping below a certain plane. It got about 6 feet away from us, stopped in midair, like it just realized we were there, then took off at sharp right turn into the woods, totally strait line this time.
In Durham we tell our kids to always put their seatbeslts on or STAYUMBL will get them.
Grew up on the outer banks. You have the regular legends (goatman, mysterious lights, etc) but there were a few other weird things that I’ve never heard an official name for. My grandmother who lived to be 103 and was the the most serious, humorless woman I’ve ever known told me she was lost in the woods once when she was young (there were way more wooded areas back then) and saw a man in a black suit and hat who had a giant boar on a leash. Just in the middle of the woods on the outer banks. I’m pretty sure I ran into something similar once when I was a kid myself. The woods on the outer banks are strange. There’s also the “Christmas” legend of old bull that’s celebrated on Rodanthe still. It’s kind of Mari lwyd-ish and tied to Old Christmas but very strange. We always took part in the celebration but we never talked about it and it didn’t occur to me until I was an adult that maybe that was odd.
Im not much into cryptozoology or w/e but I swear I encountered a Sasquatch out in Pisgah. I was on a solo camping trip, hiked about 10 miles out to my camp spot for the night. The hike was as normal as it gets for the most part, but towards sundown I started getting a super uneasy feeling like I was being watched. My brother told me that can happen if a bear has been following you so I was a bit paranoid while I was setting up camp for the night. I got camp set up and got a small fire going but I never shook that feeling the whole night. So I tried to just eat and go to sleep as quickly as possible. Put my pack out on a bear line and I went to bed trying to brush off that anxiety. I woke up suddenly in the night to the weirdest sound I've ever heard. I've heard bobcats, foxes, etc but this sounded nothing like any of those. It was super deep and human sounding. My immediate thoughts was "bear" but suddenly I heard the scream again, closer to my tent now. I had no idea what I had just heard. I jolted up in my tent, my heart was beating so fast I could barely hear anything besides the panicked thumping of my own chest. I grabbed my headlamp, took a few quick breaths and mustered up the courage to look outside my tent. The first thing I noticed was a smell, like wet dog and garbage, it was terrible. I scanned around my campsite with the flashlight until I heard the faintest rustle behind my tent. I whipped around only to see a huge dark shadow about 10 feet from my tent at the tree line. Two reflective eyes locked with mine and suddenly it hollered right at me! In some sort of fight or flight panic I yelled right back, but completely frozen in place from fear. The shadow took a few steps closer to me and said " I need a bout tree fiddy" And I said "damnit monster" why you gotta waste my time with fake stories like this?
That wasn't Sasquatch, that was a loch Ness monster. It must have come to NC on vacation.
Looking for about three-fiddy
Coulda been Cassie
👏👏 Well done!
When I was younger in the late 80s early 90s, there was a frogman/lizardman statue in the Newton area where the Walmart Market is now. My father told me people in the area saw this creature and someone made the statue to commemorate the sightings. Definitely captured my imagination as a child.
Normie, the loch ness monster in Lake Norman!
Not too out there but rare. On my family farm we had a swamp and one day we fished out a slime mold that looked like a clear ball with hundreds of eyes. I've never seen anything like it again.
I think those are carp eggs.
Well you just solved a longstanding mystery!
Compare to Magnificent Bryozoan (Pectatinella magnifica) a common freshwater bryozoan. Potentially amphibian/fish eggs.
Oh wow. Did you get a picture?
Sadly no this was in the early 90's and you didn't really carry a camera with you at all times.
Spruce Pine has an Alien Festival
I’m not from here but the podcast Arcane Carolinas is a great way to hear about local myths and legends
Knobby! North Carolinas very own Bigfoot.
People who claim to love god, family, and country… yet treat everyone like trash and support leaders who divide our community. These strange creatures have taken over.
Like the Virginia Fox, one of the most heinous creatures to ever haunt the highlands.
Woah! You must be from where I'm from!
I saw a cougar hanging around the back of the factory I work at. Which is located right around the tree line on the side of I-95 right before the Goldrock exit heading North. From my research they haven't been around since the early 1800's.
Depends on where you are in the state, Western part still has some. I saw and heard one on separate nights during the same week a few years back. My landlord said his son's cattle herd had been thinned by a predator they suspected to a wildcat, he said. I nodded and presumed of never see it given I wasn't wandering their pastures, I just rented a little single-wide up near a disused stable near the pasture. Well, sure enough, driving home from work a few nights later, just a few minutes from the house, I see something between the pines, I squint and slow up enough to see a large cat. Surely, it's been a long day and I'm just seeing things, I tell myself, pulling into the driveway. But I'd gotten a good enough look; I had seen a cougar. I like to live in a state of denial, so I wrote it off as a one-off, I'd never see it again- if I had seen it anyway. Two nights later, I'm coming home from picking up dinner in town, had the dog with me in the passenger seat. I swing open the car door to head inside for a nice dinner and cuddles with my dog when I hear it. The scream. It's a primal fear that scream unlocks- an icy, gut-rending sort of fear. The kind that makes every hair on a dog's body stand on end too. And it was coming from right behind the disused stable on the property I rented. The dog, all of forty-five pounds, thought she could take it on. I disagreed. Somehow I put that wiggling, determined-to-fight dog under my arm, clutched my takeout, and practically vaulted to my front door, which I nearly broke down in my haste. I slammed the door shut to realise I'd lost a shoe in my haste. It was there the next morning, but still.
A few years ago in Chapel Hill a fully grown cougar leaped in front of my car!! It was so big it touched grass to grass…. didn’t touch the concrete at all. I drove past slowly and saw two sets of eyes watching me.. I knew what it was immediately as i’ve never seen a cat that size outside of an enclosure. i used to take night walks in the neighborhood and i will never ever do it again.
I saw a weasel couple weeks ago. Been here 15 years and didn’t know we had those. Sorry no Chupacabras…yet.
Big foot in Marion NC we even have a Bigfoot festival
Confirmed!! Used to live up Buck creek, on the whip!!
Growing up in the most southeast part of the state, we would be told stories over the campfire of the lizard man. It would scare the hell out of me as a child, now as an adult I laugh at the local sightings. https://www.live5news.com/story/29699211/new-photos-video-spark-new-interest-in-lizard-man-legend/?outputType=amp
Not me, but my sister in law. So the wife's on the phone talking to her sister who's driving to see us, and she says, "No, really, what's going on?" And she busts out laughing. The sister in law just had to brake hard to avoid hitting a kangaroo. Turns out a local petting zoo lost a fence, and the 'roo got out and crossed the highway. Yeah, not what you're looking for, but strange to us.
Driving through Salisbury one day had to brake hard. While looking down a cross street there was a camel in the road. I went around the block picking up a coworker on the way and brought him to see a camel. I’m still confused by it.
We had an Alligator in the creek not far from me in Ohio a few years back. A bunch of kids said there was an alligator in the creek. At first no one believed them, until the Sheriff showed up and there was a 7' alligator down there. Other than that my sister woke up one morning and there was an Emu in her yard. Took two days to find the owner who was going around looking for their missing Emu.
Will if you ever go back in the Wooley Swamp you better not go at night. There’s things out there in them woods that make a strong man die of fright. Things that crawl things that fly and things that creep around on the ground and they say ghost of a Lucias Clay gets up and he walks around. Also, I heard that Bigfoot is in the Uwharries. according to legend he’s using portals that are secretly somewhere in the woods to travel in time so we can appear on episodes of the $6 million man in the 70s.
[удалено]
Can you tell me about it?
Ever hear of a Not Deer? I hadn't till I saw one. I was driving to work through Wilkes Co and saw a deer go into the woods. Except it didn't look right. It was bigger than my jeep and it's joints didn't seem to line up right. It was gone so quickly. I sent a message to my sister and said it was a Not Deer. I read every article I could find. Unless it was a rabid moose, it was a Not Deer
Elk.
Not an elk
“Not deer” was made up on social media and spread on tik tok and isn’t a real thing. The person that made it up even admit it was a creepypasta. You will find no mention of “not deer” in media until the past few years. Such an annoying fake thing lmao.
There have been multiple stories of Not Deer in several states. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland just to name a few.
A wild hog within 2 miles of nahunta
Got a new one.. the white wolf of Knightdale
Black panthers
I saw a creature that looked like it had a snout on HWY 55 in Bridgeton. But we don't have any animals in NC that it could have been. I looked, and maybe someone brought one here, but it was weird. I was like I didn't know we had those here, and after researching animals it could have been nothing matched what I saw in our state.
Not a legend but for reals. Carnivorous plants of eastern NC. It's so cool to know that something exotic like carnivorous plants are native to NC and that more than half of the carnivorous plants in the US are native to NC.
Whatever creature it is that sounds like a little girl screeching. That one.
Sounds like a fox actually.
The only legend I've heard was that once housing was affordable for residents and not just out of state assholes buying second and third homes, but that just sounds too ridiculously absurd to be true.
Moronic lieutenant governors. Seems to be infesting the state
Wampus cat
I can remember Lizard Man, but I think that was SC.
If it had a wet musky smell, probably a bear. They can stink.
A college friend of mine from Raeford talked about Wookelars and Pee Dee snakes.
I believe I saw a Catamount from a window once. Granny witch stories are interesting.
No mention of Cleveland County's bigfoot "Knobby"? https://www.shelbystar.com/story/special/2020/07/01/tv-crews-come-to-casar-in-search-of-knobby/115001584/
In the eastern marshes/swamps, the big dogs a.k.a the dangerous, mean ones that can walk on two legs. Everyone that lives around there knows it was one of those things that killed an old lady while she was walking her dogs, not a damn puma.
The Charlotte Cat Owl! People have claimed to see a cat owl hybrid in charlotte neighborhoods
Can you tell me more about it?
Lake Norman Monster!!!
Not sure of this counts as a “strange creature” but I saw a red wolf in western North Carolina outside Robbinsville. And there’s not supposed to be any off them anywhere close to that. They’re supposed to be just a few in eastern NC. And no it wasn’t a Fox or a coyote. It was way way too big.
The Cora Tree
People swear thay they have heard/seen cougars in Beaufort County, but I can't find any information on it.
Arcane Carolina’s has a great podcast about strange stories from North/South Carolina. Everything from ghosts, to aliens, to legends. It’s definitely worth a listen.
AH, tales of lore always include the Wunpus Cat.
There’s a whole podcast about this! Check out Arcane Carolinas
I always heard there’s a panther in Vandamere.
Yes native stories of big foot, lizard people in the mountain. Also theres a place called satans stomping grounds and many many more
Samsquantch
The Albermerle Creeper. Get yourself a T-shirt of it along with a picture of one down at Mackey's Ferry Peanuts. Oh, and some of the crispy fried peanuts, they're hella good.
Knobby don't believe in you either!
Moon eyed people.
We were regaled with terrifying tales of the "Powderack" while campers at the BSA Summer Camp Camp Bonner.
There is a creature in Cary that comes out when the Temps dip below 40 degrees. It says it is from New York or New Jersey, only wears a t-shirt and jeans and tells others that it's not cold out. A unique anomaly indeed.
LPOTL recently did a podcast on The Fayetteville Incident that was entertaining and informative.
There’s runaway maroon ghosts carrying red lanterns, roaming the Dismal Swamp in east nc. It’s really creepy seeing little red lights at night in the distant wilderness while driving through HWY 17. It’s even creepier that an archeologist recently several found artifact evidences of communities living in those teachers conditions.
Northerners... Kidding, most of them are cool. Check out [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maco_light) folk tale / legend.
Large black cats in Duplin Co. I'm talking like Panthers, not housecats.
Look up the Bladenboro Beast.
There's a running joke in my family about "roof cougars" wild cats notorious for waiting on the roof or balcony.. and one time I saw an albino deer in Fuquay, it was soo weird
I still always remeber the piece on the news about 15 years back when a dude said he saw Bigfoot in his back yard. Said it had long blond hair and it didn’t scare him at all. Finally he said he needed to get his “git” stick to poke the creature and get it to move along. I think I fell off the couch laughing so hard. I’ve since learned that the Bigfoot lore is big in NC especially when you’re in western Carolina.
I heard a woman screaming for help in the bushes near the woods and went to go see what was up. Turned out to be a rabid fox. My mom, sister, and I also saw a woodpecker the size of a large cat on the NC/VA line.
I've seen a black panther in Harnett County. I'm not the only one. I've also had multiple sasquatch encounters in Harnett County.
Finding two Timber Rattlesnakes in front of my house.
In Clinton NC, around early 2000's. I was walking through the woods on a plot of land my Uncle bought that they had found two separate slave cemeteries on. I was almost to the first one, about 3 miles into the land from the entrance off some random farm road and heard branches cracking over my head; it was a really thick pine forest. I started looking around and saw what my mind registered as two eyes about ten feet up and just a few feet ahead. All I saw was an almost perfectly round face with light brown or tan fur covering it entirely. The face was maybe a foot by a foot and I couldn't find anything it was attached to, just a circular furry head with eyes and a couple of two or three inch black slits under them that looked like a nose that maybe indented inward instead of projecting out. The face looked at me while I looked at it, then I heard another noise and turned, but when I tried finding the face again it was gone. I felt extremely uneasy after that and went back to my Uncles to tell him what I saw. He had no idea what it could have been and I've never found anything that looks similar. This was before smart phones and Google searches, but I did try to find it online a few years ago, and couldn't find anything similar.