- ♪
- MALE NARRATOR: Every state has one,
a bloodcurdling boogie man.
- He has hooves for his feet, large wings.
- He has hairy devilish hands.
- This is a four-legged monstrosity.
- NARRATOR: But which local legend brings
the biggest fright?
- Mothman. We're talking about a figure
that's seven feet tall, glowing red eyes.
- Light on it, he scared the hell out of me
my whole life.
- The black-eyed children, once you invite them in
all hell breaks loose.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: We're taking you from coast-to-coast
to meet the scariest monsters in the US.
- He's huge, um, and he's fast,
and he's dangerous.
- By all accounts, this creature should have
come out of Dr. Frankenstein's lab.
- NARRATOR: From a sinister sea creature...
- That's what's causing these drowning
- NARRATOR:...to a horrifying home invader.
- You would hear the sound of chains rattling
to the sound of knocks on the walls.
- NARRATOR: From a legendary swamp monster.
- ♪
- MALE: There you are.
- NARRATOR: To a cunning cannibal.
- It needs to eat, it needs to feed.
- NARRATOR: We've narrowed it down to 10.
But only one can reign supreme.
Will your state monster make the cut?
- It's the scariest, most terrifying,
deadliest monster I hope you never encounter.
- NARRATOR: Join us if you dare, as we count down
the most haunting, bloodthirsty,
and wicked monsters America has ever seen.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: The United States of America,
home to amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: But lurking in the shadows of this
picturesque landscape are the beasts of our
collective nightmares.
- Scary narratives kind of follow us around.
Accounts of ghosts, of monsters.
- There's new ones coming all the time.
Stories that we've not yet found the evidence for.
Maybe we never will.
- If we take these stories at their word, you know,
we're dealing with something much more bizarre
than we could ever imagine.
- NARRATOR: But which mysterious being sends the biggest shivers
down your spine?
Our journey to find the scariest monster starts along the
sprawling plains of the Lonestar state,
where we find number 10 on our list,
a four-legged vampire that's striking fear in the South.
It's the Texas chupacabra.
- The chupcabra's name means the goat sucker.
- The chupacabra does have an unsettling appearance,
almost as though it's a hybrid of an alligator and a wolf.
- It has very sharp teeth, really sharp point ears,
but at the same time, reptile-like feet.
- This is a four-legged monstrosity,
a wild animal trying to survive, out there devouring livestock,
draining the blood from them with two bites on its neck.
- I mean, it sucks your blood. That's typical vampire behavior.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: The first recorded sightings of this
ferocious beast were in the early 1990s when farmers began
noticing dead livestock and a strange creature roaming
closely nearby.
- FEMALE: You never expect something like this
to happen down here, but... - FEMALE: For Jeannie Torres,
it was a frightening discovery. 16 of her chickens found dead
inside their coop. At first she thought it might
have been a dog that managed to get to her birds,
but after examining them, she says she's convinced it was
the work of the chupacabra
You see, each chicken has a puncture wound.
And legend has it that's the trademark of the chupacabra.
- ♪
- The chupacabra is one of the more recent animals or monsters
in the field of the supernatural only dating back a few decades.
- The original description was something bipedal with
a large, kinda, elongated skull, more humanoid in appearance.
- Spikes running down its back, glowing red eyes, sharp teeth.
- Three to four feet tall and kinda large,
almond-shaped eyes. So more alien-like.
- I think most cryptids are based in our primal fears
and then they evolve and evolve with stories.
- A cryptid is basically an unhuman figure.
Of course, many of these cryptids can take human form
or can posses human in nature
But it's basically this idea of a monster.
And it has a narrative or a legend that attaches
itself to it.
- Like the Bible, a lot of these legends are told
as motif with lessons. Valuable life lessons,
whether ironic, humorous, or, frankly, quite frightening.
- Supernatural creatures give us a way to put a face,
and a body, and a name to things that go bump in the night,
things that make us feel afraid or, uh, make us
feel uncomfortable in ways that we can't quite put a finger on.
- NARRATOR: But those that have experienced the chupacabra
for themselves have come to know a different truth.
- You can't rule out a story because you think
it's too weird, because when you're dealing with the weird,
what is too weird? Where is that line?
- The African mountain gorilla was considered
a cryptocreature mythology until about 1905 when the
mountain gorillas were finally documented by scientists
and everyone could see they really existed.
They were not a myth.
- There's always this evolving relationship
with the world around us where we think we figured it out
and then something happens that completely rearranges
our understanding all over again.
- NARRATOR: Skeptics claim the chupacabra is merely
a mangy dog or a rabid coyote.
But these Texas golf course workers feel differently
after discovering what some believe to be a dead chupacabra
along a wooded driving range.
- I don't know. That's just weird. Weird animal.
It was like a shaved weenie dog with raccoon feet,
a possum tail, and a possum head.
- If you look at the claws on it, and the feet,
nothing like it.
I've never seen anything like it.
I don't know. I don't know what it is.
- Most of the witnesses, they're avid outdoorsmen
and women. They're hunters,
they're trappers, they're hikers.
They know the local wildlife. They're adamant.
They're entirely convinced that this creature is something
not of any known species.
- NARRATOR: And they've got proof.
With the chupacabra being one of the only cryptids ever
successfully capture on camera...
- FEMALE: What is th... oh man!
He's lost!
- The most infamous footage was caught on a dash cam
of a police car where they're following behind what looks
like to be the el chupacabra running down the side of a road.
- FEMALE: I'm seeing it, but I don't believe it.
It's in the daytime.
- We have plenty of eyewitness video evidence,
photographic evidence of these alleged monsters roaming about.
The sightings, the encounters, the capturing of chupacabras
seem to be rising every single year.
Some of the alleged dead chupacabras have tested
to be coyotes or a fox with mange.
But others of these seem to be bigger
than what you would consider a coyote,
and more hideous.
The fangs seem to be long, the claws,
deadly long and sharp, again, placing it in a category
of not just your typical unknown species.
- I wouldn't be surprised if this animalistic creature
had multitudes of itself, if there was offspring,
if there was groups and families and maybe they hunt in packs.
There could be a lot of chupacabras roaming around.
- NARRATOR: The chupacabra has a long history
of going after livestock.
Cows, sheep, chickens,
and especially goats.
But what many believers fear is that these bloodthirsty
predators have been working their way up the food chain.
- ♪
- In 2020, a cab driver was killed and found
reportedly without any blood in him.
And reports were circulating that it was a chupacabra attack.
- That's very scary to think about.
I would not be surprised if these chupcabras
start feasting on human beings.
- Because it's relatively diminutive that you might
be thinking, I could probably out wrestle this thing.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: But our next creatures prove
that size doesn't matter when you're dealing
with the supernatural. We're traveling to one
of America's smallest states, where some even smaller monsters
are bringing the biggest fright yet.
And if that's not enough to leave you battening
down the hatches, stick around. Because the monster
at the top of our list is so terrifying people are
already building up defenses against it.
- Still has the prisoner partition, it has the
plastic seats in the back, it has steel door panels
and window bars, and we've also added the canine
window bars in the back window which are super rare.
He could break out of a regular car door if he wanted to.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: We're tracking down the top 10 giants,
ghosts, and ghouls that keep Americans up at night.
But sometimes the scariest monsters aren't the ones
with mangled faces or razor-sharp claws.
They're the ones that appear innocent and sweet
until the moment they attack.
That's the case with our next state monster,
who comes in at number nine on our list.
Beware the haunting gaze of the Vermont black-eyed children.
- So, black-eyed children. Ooh, that one's a creepy one.
- In the late 1990s, people started reporting
sightings and encounters of unusual children.
- NARRATOR: But unlike the California dark watchers
who attack travelers at random, these roaming terrors take
a more calculated approach with their prey.
- It doesn't matter where you are.
You could be at a stop light, you could be at home,
you could be at school. But wherever you are,
somehow there's these kids that appear.
- NARRATOR: The descriptions are varied,
but some details stay the same. The kids are always pale,
they travel in pairs, and they all have one goal.
- They want in some way to be welcomed or let into
whatever your location is.
- Now, this hearkens somewhat back to, almost,
vampire lore or demonic lore in that they seem
to be asking permission to come in the person's home.
- You go open the door, Dracula would stand there
until you say come in.
- ♪
- The black-eyed children possess that same quality.
You have to invite them in. And then once you invite
them in, all hell breaks loose.
- NARRATOR: Imagine your quiet night at home
is interrupted by a series of knocks at the front door.
The knocks come in threes...
- ♪
- NARRATOR:...a mocking of the Holy trinity.
And they don't let up until someone answers.
- They ask the people to let them in.
Please, let me in.
- And they get more and more aggressive, apparently,
the more that you say no to them.
- NARRATOR: That's exactly what happened to an elderly woman
in rural Vermont on a snowy night in the early 1990s.
- They approached her and said, can we use the bathroom?
- Now, of course if you see a couple of children
and they're like, we need help, of course the first thing
that you're gonna think of is, come into my home.
Let me help you in any way that I possibly can.
- NARRATOR: But even before the woman welcomes
the children inside, she can see that something is not right.
- And at that point, she noticed that their eyes
were pitch black.
- NARRATOR: When confronted by the gaze of a grown-up,
these tiny visitors will look away.
But that's just part of their manipulative ploy.
- Once eye contact is made, they're dealing with something
that is just unnatural, that is not quite human.
People report that they sound robotic or unnatural.
They use terms that aren't completely current
with the time, and they just don't seem like normal children.
- NARRATOR: The woman eventually caves and allows the children
into her home. That's when things
start to get really strange.
- She runs to her husband. The husband's nose
is bleeding profusely. The cat was going crazy.
It was angry, it was jumping around.
- NARRATOR: But just as soon as they arrived...
the children are gone.
Still, the terror continues.
- The nose bleeding never really stops.
The woman gets cancer, the cat is found dead
in a pool of its own blood.
- Some people believe that these things are sinister
and they are bringing the misfortune
to those they encounter.
- People have lost pets, they've gotten
really dark diagnosis of sickness.
People have gotten in car accidents
right after seeing them.
- NARRATOR: And the encounters stretch even beyond
the Vermont state border.
- In Abilene, Texas, apparently there was a police officer
that came across these black-eyed children
in the road and they started banging on the car,
and you have to let us in or else.
And of course, like any person, this police officer
was very terrified. He was like, I don't feel safe.
And he drove off. And apparently in his
rear view mirror, those children were nowhere to be seen.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: Which is why some believe they
aren't children at all.
- Some people believe that they're an alien-human hybrid.
- When you look at the black-eyed children,
if you remove their hair, they look exactly like
the shape-shifting gray aliens
- There's something unearthly about looking
into eyes like that because people report that they
feel like they're staring into a void
or staring into nothingness, or staring into darkness,
darkness in the sense that it feels very negative
and very ominous. So others believe that they're
something from the depths of hell, something demonic
that has manifested on Earth for whatever nefarious reason.
- They are bringing death to people's doors.
Most likely, these are demonic entities that just kinda
skip around history and try to show what they believe
a child would look like during this period.
And a lot of times they're just guessing.
So that's why the appearance is kinda off at all times.
There's some kind of spiritual evil that is personified.
- Maybe it is the devil trying to find his way in.
- So it leaves us with this puzzle that we can't
quite figure out what these children maybe are
supposed to be.
- NARRATOR: One thing is for certain.
You wouldn't want to come face-to-face with them.
- I'd be very scared if I saw them at my door,
these little children with very, very dark eyes.
- So if you find yourself in the Green Mountain state,
how do you protect yourself against the black-eyed children?
- They don't just come into your house.
They don't just do that.
- MALE: They always knock.
- And if the person does not give permission,
the children don't intrude.
- Here's the thing with the black-eyed children.
Their approach usually knocks their victims off-balance.
They're looking at children that are appearing harmless,
helpless, and in need. And then you find out
that they're not harmless. How do you respond?
So that makes them extremely dangerous.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: As conniving as these creepy children may be,
there's still a chance of avoiding their calls,
if you're savvy enough to say no.
That's not the case for our next state monster,
a terror in the water that you'll never see coming.
-
- ♪
- NARRATOR: From the highest peaks to the lowest valleys,
we're leaving no stone unturned in our hunt
for the scariest monsters in America.
We've traveled to the plains of Texas and the porches
of homes in suburban Vermont.
Up next, we're headed to the fresh lakes of Oklahoma,
where we're diving in to find number eight on our list,
an eight-armed anomaly that wreaks havoc
on unsuspecting swimmers. It's the Oklahoma Octopus.
- ♪
- The Oklahoma Octopus is an octopus or a creature
that resembles an octopus that is the size of a horse,
that is 200 pounds, with eight long octopus legs
that is extremely strong.
- So the origin of where this octopus suddenly appeared
were these three lakes. Lake Oologah,
Lake Tenkiller, and Lake Thunderbird.
- It's the octopus hunter. I've just returned
from leading a tour group on a tour of the lair
of the Oklahoma Octopus.
I've been called a madman, a lunatic,
Captain Ahab chasing his morbid Moby Dick,
except it's an octopus and not a whale.
Oklahoma truly is a unique space.
You know, I don't remember the first time I heard
of the Oklahoma Octopus.
But I know it's real.
I've heard numbers, the death toll
from drownings unexplained has risen 138%.
I'll hunt it, track it, capture it,
not to kill it, but for science.
- The Oklahoma Octopus, like the Loch Ness Monster,
very few people see these creatures,
but their existence is always spoken about.
- NARRATOR: But there's one particular encounter that first
put the Oklahoma Octopus on the map.
And it wasn't that long ago.
- 2007, a little boy swims out too far into this lake.
Now they're trying to rescue the little boy
who begins to say, something is pulling me down.
As rescuers, and family members and the like are trying
to get this boy, he, poof...
disappears in the lake, never to be found.
- NARRATOR: Soon, rumors spread about what lurks
beneath the lake's placid waters.
- What ended up spurring these rumors was the amount
of different people, like, the amount of deaths,
the drownings.
Like, what's causing these drownings?
They almost work like how seaweed would work, like,
basically you get your leg caught.
The arm of the octopus is grabbing you
and pulling you down.
- Some survivors have said it was the Oklahoma Octopus.
They've witnesses it, they've seen it.
Some people even went as far as saying they felt it
pulling them under the water, those who were
able to get away.
- NARRATOR: But these sightings aren't just a recent thing.
Hundreds of years ago, tales emerged of a
giant octopus in Oklahoma that terrorized
Indigenous people fishing on the local waterways.
- They have a legend of a similar creature,
same size, same description, red skin, but theirs
is a demonic marine life entity
that will kill you if you came to the lake stream water
to bathe or drink.
- And there have been tales of this giant octopus,
this red leathery octopus with long tentacles
the size of a horse, basically dwelling in these lakes.
- NARRATOR: With so many documented sightings,
the Oklahoma Octopus seems to have some edge
over similar creatures. Like Nebraska's
Walgren Lake Monster and the Lake Worth Monster in Texas.
But there's one detail that still bothers skeptics.
- There is a huge issue there trying to figure out
how exactly something which is a salt water animal
could exist in fresh water.
- There's some people who say, well, you know,
a jellyfish or a catfish, or this, or that put in
a different atmosphere can adapt.
- It's possible for animals and creatures
to adapt to new surroundings. We know this, we've seen this.
What if this actually is something that's
purposefully trying to take you out?
I don't wanna be a part of that number.
- I would say it's demonic. It's possibly taking souls.
- NARRATOR: The Oklahoma Octopus may have you
thinking twice about taking a dip anytime soon.
But deep in the marshes of the southern US,
even dry land can be dangerous when number seven on our list
is lying in wait, ready to attack anyone
whose morals have started to slip.
It's the Louisiana Rougarou.
- The Rougarou is Louisiana's version
of the werewolf.
- It's bipedal, it's torso heavy,
canine head, the dog-like ears, anywhere between
six to nine-feet tall, brown fur or gray fur,
sometimes black.
- Just very tall, upright wolf stalking the swamps at night.
- ♪
- MALE: In the swamp, there's something standing up
on the bank over there.
- MALE: There you are.
- MALE: Look how tall, bro.
Just wanted to show you all what the Rougarou is.
- This is a type of creature that is seen
as a shape shifter.
- It has the body of a man, um, but the head
of a wolf or a dog.
- NARRATOR: Like their brethren the werewolf,
the Rougarou is able to conceal its identity
as a human during the day. But at night,
this hairy brute transforms into a violent predator
that's only after one thing.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: The blood of an ill-practicing Christian.
- The Rougarou targets people who aren't
observing Lent correctly.
It's very closely tied to moral behaviors
and to expected social behaviors especially, um,
behaviors related to Catholicism
- In many ways, it can be viewed as a manifestation of shame.
- The main course of action for the Rougarou is
gonna be to attack.
They bite, scratch, attack, or draw blood
from another human.
- NARRATOR: Once infested by this feral beast,
you face a fate more frightening than death,
becoming a Rougarou yourself
- That's not the case for all the cryptids.
But in this particular case, that is a very, very
important part of the Rougarou story
that you are cursed to become a Rougarou.
- NARRATOR: Which means that any number of Rougarou could
be walking amongst us today.
- You have great stories like the story of the young boy
in Louisiana and was being pursued by a dog
and the dog would not stop pursuing this young boy,
and the young boy ends up cutting the dog
on his front leg.
Then, the dog gets away. And later on that day,
the town physician shows up with a cut on his shoulder
that he has bandaged up and saying, hey, what's going on?
What's happening? And so it was a very
strong suspicion that that physician was
the Rougarou himself.
- NARRATOR: Unlike the Michigan Dog Man,
or Wisconsin's Beast of Bray Road,
the Rougarou has roots tracing far behind America's borders.
- It actually has its origins both in name and in behavior
and shape in the French Loupalou, which is
a werewolf from the middle ages.
- NARRATOR: Traveling to America with Louisiana's
first settlers, the French wolf soon got
an American makeover.
- Rougarou kinda sounds almost like a butchered
pronunciation of Loupgarou.
- The Rougarou, we get that from the Cajun accent.
Everything just kinda gets smoother when you
get to Louisiana. When the legend moved
to Louisiana, that kinda ties into witchcraft,
and voodoo, and all of that good stuff
we get out of Louisiana.
- NARRATOR: Now lurking in the Louisiana bayou,
this monstrous creature is as murky as the swamp itself.
- So you have gators, large spiders, frogs,
just feels like everything is alive in that place.
- If you set a foot wrong, you could disappear.
And so the Rougarou is an embodiment of that wildness
and that unpredictability of the Louisiana landscape.
- NARRATOR: Over the years, the Rougarou survives
by keeping a low profile, which is why is is one of
the lesser-known cryptids on record.
- You're a human by day, you're a Rougarou by night,
so if somebody is attacked by a Rougarou, it's likely
somebody you go to school with, somebody you work with,
somebody you're seeing on the daily.
- It's a curse that's placed on someone, you know?
Deep inside the Rougarou is a person that's trying
to be freed from this curse.
- NARRATOR: And there is one possible way out.
- So even though they are this very dangerous creature,
there's still a chance of redemption or of reversing this
curse and bringing them back into society and civilization.
- One of the versions of the legend is that a person
will be cursed with the Rougarou,
and then after 101 days, they can pass it on
to another person.
- NARRATOR: Should you stumble onto the path of one of
these desperate hunters, forget the crucifix
and silver bullets. Your best defense here
is a piggy bank.
- One of the more popular ways to ward off a Rougarou
is with the usage of 13 pennies.
- So if you take 13 pennies in front of your door,
Rougarou, when he comes out at night, he's gonna look
and he's gonna count.
- The lore says that once a human turns into a Rougarou,
they forget how to count past 12.
They'll continuously count to 12, and then back to 12,
and then back to 12 until the sun comes up
and then they're heading back home, turning into human form.
- The Rougarou is obsessed with counting.
But he is not very good at it.
So math is your friend if a Rougarou is around.
- NARRATOR: Even monsters have their quirks.
But don't let that fool you. The Rougarou is still one
of the most dangerous threats out there.
- I think the Rougarou is personally one of
the scariest things out there. Not necessarily because of
what it is, but the possibility that any one of us
can become the Rougarou.
- He's huge, um, and he's fast, and he's dangerous.
It's funny that he can't count all that well,
but you know, we all have days like that.
- I would say just make sure if you're in France
or Louisiana, to keep 13 objects handy just in case.
- NARRATOR: But pennies won't
help you when it comes to our next paranormal terror.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: Because this next monster's so old
it was haunting well before America even had a currency.
And still, its hold on this country grows
stronger every day
- NARRATOR: It's a state that is known for suburban sprawl
and sandy shorelines. But its hunting ground is a
huge swampy wasteland.
Coming in at number six on our scariest monster
countdown is the ghoul of the Garden State.
Meet the Jersey Devil.
- ♪
- Deep in the pine barons of southern New Jersey,
in a forest where not much grows outside of pine trees
lurks the infamous Jersey Devil.
- The Jersey Devil was a kind of mix of different creatures.
It's got bat-like wings, it's got a horse-like head,
it's got horse-like hooves, it's got a devil tail,
a tail with, uh, the kind of point at the end.
And it's also upright.
- One of the most unique aspects of the Jersey Devil is its
connection with humans.
Not only its interaction with them,
but seemingly coming from the body of a human.
By all accounts, this creature should have come out
of Dr. Frankenstein's lab.
- NARRATOR: When the Jersey Devil first appeared,
New Jersey was a colony, not a state.
- The Jersey Devil is one of the oldest legends
in the United States, at least. It's from 1735,
a full 40 years before the United States became a country.
- It's been around for a long time.
And all of it just spurred from literally
a birth gone wrong.
Mother Leeds, she was 50 years old
and she's expecting her 13th kid.
Unlucky number 13.
- Mother Leeds lived out in the pine barons
and had 12 children to care for.
So when she became pregnant with her 13th child,
she muttered that she would rather have
the devil as a child than another mouth to feed.
- NARRATOR: But be careful what you wish for...
because Mother Leeds soon gave birth to an offspring
that would make Rosemary's baby look like an angel.
- So once the child came out, they said that originally
the child was perfectly fine. There was nothing wrong.
But then, all of a sudden, it started to get hooves,
it got wings, and it basically turned
into this demonic creature.
- The creature devoured its entire family and then
flew out of the chimney into the pine barons area
where it has been terrorizing people ever since.
- So the pine barons is a million acres of woodland.
It's extremely dense, there's a lot of animals
in there, dangerous animals. It has, sort of,
a reputation for being a scary place.
I know the Native Americans were a little bit afraid
of the pine barons, of that section of the forest.
Early American often, if people were discovered
as witches or witch doctors, they would ostracize them out
into the pine barons, so there's definitely sort of
a reputation for witchcraft and spooky things
going on out there.
- NARRATOR: Over the years, the Jersey Devil has been known
to attack trolleys and kill countless livestock,
even now, nearly three centuries since his birth,
the menacing monster continues to make his presence known.
- There are more sightings today of the Jersey Devil
than nearly at any time in history.
- The thing is for that creature to have lived for so long,
it's obviously something that's not of this world.
It's some different type of creature, because so many
people have reported seeing it and some people have
captured it on camera.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: One of the most recent sightings
of the Jersey Devil came in 2017.
A father and his sons driving through the pine barons say
they saw a strange creature through the trees.
- They have some photographs of it, which clearly shows
something out in the field. And from where it was standing
to how tall it was would suggest something between
five and seven feet tall.
It's a little blurry so you can't quite make out what
it is, but it doesn't look like a human.
- NARRATOR: Though these men were able to run off
without a scratch, not all are so lucky.
Only time will tell how much longer this horrific beast
will torment the residents of New Jersey.
- The amazing thing about something like the Jersey Devil
is how it has outlasted the many changes
our culture has taken.
- The Jersey Devil belongs on the Mount Rushmore
of creatures of America because it has a long lifespan.
A lot of legends come and go, they're forgotten about.
But the Jersey Devil has broke out of that confine
where it's one of the best-known legends in America.
- NARRATOR: This reputation doesn't seem to bother
the locals one bit.
- Obviously the New Jersey NHL team, known as the Devils,
many communities in New Jersey will have museums set up
for the Jersey Devil.
- I believe it is technically even their state demon.
- NARRATOR: But no amount of pop culture appeal can change
the fact that coming face to snout with
the real Jersey Devil is a living nightmare.
- Those gigantic wings in your face,
the hooves chasing you down the darkened trail in the woods,
something I would not want to encounter.
- NARRATOR: Still, there's some comfort in the fact
that the Jersey Devil is grounded in one place.
But 700 miles away in a small Tennessee town,
residents are haunted by an even greater menace,
one that can appear out of thin air.
And if this cunning shapeshifter doesn't keep you
on the straight and narrow, we've got another
waiting in the wings who's wails alone are enough
to scare even the most fervent of sinners.
We're only halfway through our quest for the
scariest monster in America. And already we've come
face-to-face with the blood-sucking chupacabra
in Texas, and the ominous black-eyed children in Vermont.
We've uncovered the enormous octopus that strangles
swimmers in Oklahoma, and the shape-shifting Rougarou
who feasts on the blood of sinners in Louisiana.
And who could forget the oldest beast of them all,
the New Jersey Devil?
- ♪
- NARRATOR: But our top five monsters are still to come,
and each one is more frightening than the last.
Up next, we're traveling to the land of rolling hills
where the fear-inducing lady of number five on our lists
is known to some spirits far beyond any element on earth.
It's the Tennessee Bell witch.
- ♪
- Hearing about the Bell Witch, I thought the Bell Witch
was an actual witch, when it turns out that it's actually
some sort of supernatural being.
- We see it manifest in a number of different ways.
Scary animal configurations, large birds,
a ghost girl in the woods.
We're told that it has hands, at least, because several people
report shaking its hands. One person describes, like,
a demure, sort of soft female hand,
another person describes a hairy devilish hand.
- This entity could imitate and use the same voice
and completely repeat everything that you had said.
Whether it was a prayer, it would repeat your prayer
to you, if you sang a song, it would completely sing
that song back to you word for word.
A lot of people were very bothered by that because first
they're thinking, what is this? Is this a demon?
Why is this messing with us?
- The Bell Witch is extremely scary.
Because there is dimensional entities that are walking
among us and apparently able to affect your physical
surrounding if not just your physical being.
So it's not far-fetched to me that these things happen.
The story of the Bell Witch actually takes place
in the mid to late 1800s in Tennessee.
A witch was terrorizing the Bell family on their farm.
- We used to talk about it
some especially around Halloween.
And since I'm a descendant of the Bell family,
I was always asking my grandmother, I was saying, hey,
what do you know about the Bell Witch?
- The most common version of the story that I've heard is
that the Bell family, John, and his wife,
and his kids moved into the area, got some land,
and in the same area, Kate Batts lived
with her husband, Frederick.
- NARRATOR: But after Frederick is injured in a farming accident
he struggles to support his family.
That's when he's forced to make a land trade with the Bells.
- Kate Batts, feeling that her husband was taken advantage of,
swore to have revenge on the Bell family.
-
- It was said that Kate then initiates a seance and ritual
to curse the Bell family and their farm as she was
alleged to be an occultist demonic witch.
- NARRATOR: In the years since, there have been
strange happenings up at the Bell farm.
- Around 1817, John Bell is walking the property and he
sees what he believes to be a dog with a rabbit head.
- Obviously, he was really freaked out and he unloaded
on it with his gun. And supposedly when he went
to go check on the animal that he had just shot,
it disappeared.
- Right after this, uh, John's daughter, Betsy sees a
girl swinging from a branch in the woods.
And, uh, then realizes that that girl is not actually there.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: Over time, the incidents only get stranger.
- They would see a girl in a green dress,
or they would see a bird, or even, apparently there
was a dog, there was a large black dog that would follow
one of their servants to their houses every morning.
- NARRATOR: Convinced these
beings had been conjured up by their occultist neighbor,
the Bells began referring to the presence
as Kate Batts' old witch.
Today, the spirit is better known as the Bell Witch.
- Usually when it comes to witches, we think of them
as shape shifters that turn into different animals
so that they can move around freely without being caught
doing any sort of actions.
- Really we would describe this now as a poltergeist.
There's knocking on the walls, bed sheets pulled off of people
- They started hearing what sounded like what they
described as rats knawing on the floor boards,
maybe even knawing on the bed posts.
- This eventually escalated into the children waking up
with bruising, and scratches, and bleeding.
And one of the girls was even tied to the bed by her hair
and beaten in the middle of the night.
- Word of mouth is huge. As people would travel
they would go, hey, did you hear about the Bell family?
They've got this weird spirit going on, they're trying
to figure out what's happening.
So people from all around the region were coming in
to see what was going on. Of course, it spread
like wildfire because a lot of people that are born there
were having experiences The spirit would talk to them,
it would sing to them, and then they would go out
and say, hey, this really happened.
- NARRATOR: In 1843, Kate Batts dies and the town has high hopes
that the curse will go with her.
But nearly 200 years later, the Bell Witch still has
a hold on this small Tennessee town.
- When you get around a monster or a creature,
that shrieks a certain nerve. It tends to outlast generations.
- It said over the several year period
we're talking about hundreds if not thousands of people
who pass through the town with the hopes of,
uh, experiencing the Bell Witch.
- I think people are so entranced by the world
of cryptids, this adventure of who are these people,
who are these monsters, who are these ghosts?
- And when I was a kid, I learned about the
Bell Witch house where you can actually go and visit.
So not only is her spirit present in the house,
it's also present outside of the house.
- A lot of people came to explore the Bell house,
including Andrew Jackson at one point.
And what's really cool about this is they could hear
the witch's voice from the woods.
There's a cave on the property that's still open to this day.
You can go for tours.
- People say that she might be hiding out there.
When it comes to the Bell Witch, it almost worked in,
like, the same way with demons or with spirits.
They feed on your fear, whether it's an actual witch
or a poltergeist, something was there and something
was affecting these people
The question is, who she decides
to show herself to next.
For me, being a descendant, I'm a little scared.
My anxiety goes up.
- NARRATOR: But what's an attack on an entire family
when this next beast sends shock waves of fear
across an entire town...
- NARRATOR:...that continues to spread across the entire nation?
And later, we're bringing you the most horrific
monster of all, a beast whose name alone
brings fear from coast to coast.
- He is scary. Like, very scary.
Mostly because I think it's the most likely to be real.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: Some monsters go right for the kill.
Others hold back and allow deadly events to take a toll.
That's what haunts residents in West Virginia,
who've laid eyes on the monster coming in at number four
on our list.
Some say he has the power to kill without lifting
a finger. Watch out for the
West Virginia moth man.
- So the West Virginia moth man is probably one of the most
popular cryptids out there.
- When you look at moth man and you hear about what he
looks like, it almost sounds like he's a villain
in a comic book story.
- Now, we're talking about a figure around seven feet tall,
glowing red eyes, a 10-foot wingspan.
Now, this is not a normal creature by any account.
- NARRATOR: The story of
the moth man emerges from the most unassuming of towns,
Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
- Point Pleasant is a very small town.
It's really kinda centered on one main strip.
Everybody knows everybody, kinda feel to the town.
- And like a lot of rural towns, you don't have to go far
outside of the outskirts of the city limits
when things get wild and primitive.
- NARRATOR: On November 15th, 1966, a group of friends
drives out to a former munitions depot.
That's when they see something bizarre.
- At first glance, it looked like a tall, skinny human.
but it didn't have a head on its shoulders
- More of just a lump that came up out of the chest
where the eyes were set, and these massive wings.
- At first they didn't know what they were looking at
and they picked up speed. What they didn't expect
was this thing was gonna chase them and follow them.
This creature took off and kept pace with their car,
going about 100 miles per hour.
They said that they could hear, basically, his wings
hitting the side of the car as they were being
chased by him.
And as soon as they were able to get away,
there was, like, that moment of debate whether or not
to tell the police or anybody in town, oh, we saw this.
- NARRATOR: The witnesses tell their unlikely story
that they were chased by a massive man-sized bird
with red eyes.
- Soon, dozens of people reported encountering
this mysterious monster or apparition.
When you have a car full of young people reporting it,
that's one thing. But then, when you have other
area people that had a solid reputation saying,
oh, this this is real and it's out there,
then it goes to a different level.
- NARRATOR: With all those sightings, the moth man
become a huge local news story.
And soon, a national one, too.
- Once it picked up traction, news reports started appearing
about different sightings. People started fearing it.
- So many people pointed to how the red eyes
seemed to be hypnotizing them or putting them
in some trance-like state. So the moth man definitely was
a terrifying figure.
- NARRATOR: The moth man fills people with fear,
but also questions. What is this strange creature
and where did it come from?
- Some believed it was an escaped medical experiment
Others believed it was not of this dimension
or that it was a demon or demonic-like creature.
- NARRATOR: Whatever its origin, the moth man
is soon as common as coal in West Virginia.
Still, it's not the only strange thing around.
- There's UFO sightings all over West Virginia at the time
And it all kinda culminates in 1967.
- People were seeing weird lights in the sky,
darting about, changing in size, shape, and color.
- NARRATOR: A little more than a year after that
first sighting, on December 15th, 1967,
commuters are traveling along this bridge that
borders West Virginia and Ohio when the legend
of the moth man flies to new heights.
- All of a sudden, people started reporting that
they saw moth man flying back and forth across the river.
And nobody knew why. Nobody knew why he was doing
that, but then a couple seconds later,
that's when they realized why.
- NARRATOR: Witnesses watch in sheer horror
as the bridge falls apart.
- 46 people lost their lives in the collapse
of Silver Bridge. Others were injured.
Two of the missing were never found.
And it has become an integral part of
the moth man legend.
- It was at that moment where people basically were like,
okay, maybe he's a harbinger of death or an omen.
So we're gonna see him whenever tragedy
is about to happen.
- NARRATOR: Others claim the moth man is actually
a would-be savior, trying to alert people
to the danger ahead.
- There's a lot of debate whether or not moth man
is the harbinger of doom or a warning to something.
- It's possible that moth man came, gave his predictions,
tried to save people from the bridge collapse,
and then just disappeared 'cause his work was done.
- NARRATOR: For years, moth man stays out of
the public eye until decades later when word of a huge
man-sized bird with dark red eyes began circulating
way beyond West Virginia.
- Over the years, the moth man, its habitat
seems to have grown. Where it started out
as Point Pleasant on the outskirts of the town,
now it covers a vast region.
- Interestingly enough, the sightings have kind of
moved in a northward pattern since 1967.
- NARRATOR: Each one of these sightings shares something
in common with that infamous bridge collapse.
They all come just before some of the
world's biggest disasters.
- There are stories that the moth man appeared before
the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl.
- Another supposed sighting is right before 9/11 happened.
- There as rumors and conspiracies,
and at that point, it wasn't more of the fear of him,
it was more of, like, oh, he's giving us warning.
- NARRATOR: New moth man sightings continue to this day,
and they show no signs of stopping.
- Many legends have faded throughout history.
If people are not interested in them, they don't start
passing them down from generation to generation,
they disappear, they fade.
The moth man is the exact opposite.
It has only gained steam over the years.
Also, the story reached Hollywood to the point where
we ended up having a movie with Richard Gere in it.
- NARRATOR: So, how fearful would you be
to spot the moth man overhead?
- As a kid, I remembered I did live in fear of moth man
and it did spur my fear of bridges at the same time, too.
- So if moth man visits your town, the going theory
is that it's the harbinger of doom.
Maybe he's bringing a disaster with him,
or maybe he's warning of it. But either way,
a disaster's coming.
- NARRATOR: Catching sight of the moth man is usually
just the beginning of a nightmare.
But our next ominous creature has racked up quite
a haunting past of her own.
One that she's more than willing to make you pay
to help her forget.
- NARRATOR: Our countdown of American's 10 scariest monsters
has brought us face-to-face with beasts of all
shapes and sizes. But there are only
three monsters left, and they're the top of the heap
for a reason. They're the most frightening,
fear-inducing creates the country has to offer,
even if that's not how some may seem on the surface.
- NARRATOR: It might surprise you to learn that some
describe this next supernatural being as
the most beautiful woman they've ever seen.
When they hear her wailing in the dark,
they are tempted to run and help.
But should you find yourself in this scenario
while visiting Arizona, you may be under the spell
of number three on our list.
In which case, the only place you should be running
is far away.
Look out for La Llorona.
- La Llorona means the wailing woman
or the weeping woman
- The way that I heard the legend of La Llarona told
for the very first time when I was a kid is that
centuries ago, there was the most beautiful woman
in the world and her name was Maria.
- ♪
- She fell in love with a man, she was seduced
and became his mistress, and had children with him,
and they were very happy for awhile.
- Then, tragedy struck, either through the man
leaving her for another woman or mental illness
where she snapped, went psychotic, lost her mind.
- She was so enraged, and desperate, and furious,
and jealous, that she drowned the children
that she had had with him.
- ♪
- And as punishment for this murder,
she has been condemned to wander the night,
looking for her lost children.
- And so the legend goes that every night when it's
dark and foggy near a body of water, La Llarona appears
as this ghostly apparition that is crying.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: To this day, there are countless sightings
of the weeping woman by the lake.
- She does appear very consistently,
ether it's near a lake or a river,
or whether it's in these more intimate spaces,
like behind people in their cars.
There are stories of teenagers waking up
and seeing La Llarona standing at the foot
of their bed, weeping. And so this idea that she,
she could be anywhere, that she could even
be in your home speaks to how powerful she is.
- La Llarona's normally spotted at night, but not always,
dressed in a gown, a nice flowing,
usually white gown.
- She's wearing this kind of wedding dress,
white and tattered, and she's often wearing a veil,
a white veil, and she has very, very long dark hair as well.
- Some people say that she is soaking wet because she
came out of that water. They say that she can
be beautiful or she can be scary-looking, like, old.
- So she really is quite chameleonic
and resourceful in that way.
- NARRATOR: Some say that her appearance changes
to suit each intended target.
- When she appears to men, she's seen as a
very sexy woman, a very, very romanticized version
of this woman.
- And most often, La Llorona is approaching people she wants
to offer moral guidance.
- So if one were to meet La Llorona after, say,
a night of drinking, or out of the road
when you should be at home, should you survive,
it's a very starling message that says, you know,
get your act together.
- Ideally, though, turn from their wicked ways.
If not, they'll pay the price.
They could die. They could just go insane
or just be mentally unstable for the rest of their life.
- NARRATOR: Witnesses say La Llorona also
targets children, still grieving over
the loss of her own.
- La Llorona might be the best babysitter
you could ask for. Parents use her as a way
to not only discipline their children,
but to keep them in line. That if you do not get home
when I ask, La Llorona will come looking for you.
- It's a mom thing, I think, too.
Mom's are scary. She's got that going on, too.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: If reports are any indication,
La Llorona has no shortage of targets.
- We have well over 100 years of sightings of her.
She is alive. She is along the river.
She really is there. She's there.
- People believe in La Llorona and they always have,
and people always will.
But I've never seen any indication that this legend
is waning in its strength and popularity
and I'm sure it never will.
- NARRATOR: While people may have different ideas
of what La Llorona looks like, almost everyone can
agree on one thing. She's terrifying.
- Even though I may not be a male or a kid,
that does scare me a lot. Like, I wouldn't wanna
see her, I wouldn't wanna hear her.
- I would just be leary of her because encounters
with her don't tend to go well, and if you encounter her,
you probably shouldn't be doing what you're doing.
- NARRATOR: La Llorona may hold the southwest captive
with her frigid stare,
but in the tundra of Minnesota, there's an even colder monster.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: Who's got an insatiable appetite
for only one thing, human flesh.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: We're nearing the top of our
scariest monsters in America list,
and traveling way up north to track down our next beast.
Coming in at number two is a creature so vicious,
it's known to kill anyone that falls under its influence.
It's the Minnesota Wendigo.
- ♪
- The Wendigo is the perfect emobodiment
of the harshness of the northern winters.
the subarctic, freezing temperatures, lack of food,
crippling wind, and snow, and ice.
- It shows up in time of famine during the winter,
when food is scare, people are at their weakest
mentally and physically. And that's when the Wendigo
will show up as this elemental creature of the winter,
of the cold.
- Many times it's seen as, like, this very tall being
with antlers, its teeth are super sharp.
I've also heard a lot of people say that he has no lips
because he's chewed them off because he's so hungry.
Oh my goodness.
- NARRATOR: And this skeleton on legs has some
surprising superpowers.
- He is supernaturally fast. He runs with the speed
of the wind.
- He has superhuman strength, can uproot trees,
can throw cars, things of that nature.
- NARRATOR: The Wendigo also has super strong senses.
- They're gonna hear you coming a mile away,
they'll smell you before you even know they're there.
- NARRATOR: The Wendigo uses these tools to secure
its next meal.
But you won't find this beast munching on car bumpers,
like South Carolina's lizard man.
It takes something far more sinister to sate
the Wendigo's appetite.
- What sets the Wendigo apart from nearly every other
monster is that while other monsters may have
sinister motives and plans, the Wendigo has one goal
and one goal only, devour human flesh.
- It needs to eat, it needs to feed.
- Eat flesh, eat flesh, consume, consume, consume.
- It's not actively in the background going about
its own business. We are its business.
And it's looking for us.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: This taste for human flesh draws comparisons
to another well-known monster.
- A lot of people make the comparison between
zombies and Wendigo.
And although maybe by appearance they seem
semi-similar, skeletal and gaunt,
but where zombies are thought to be mindless
creatures of the undead, the Wendigo is thought
to be very intelligent.
- So they're cunning as well as ravenous.
- MALE: Possible Wendigo caught on camera.
- ♪
- He's basically, like, the best hunter you
could ever think of. He has thought of it all
and he knows exactly how to get to his prey.
- NARRATOR: Along with its size, strength, and speed,
the Wendigo has another weapon, its brain.
This beast can play some pretty clever mind games.
- One of the beliefs is that the Wendigo has the ability
to mimic human voices.
- If you hear a friend's voice but you know that they are
either further away from you or they're not with you at all,
you do not listen to that voice, you do not listen to it.
It's a lure. It's trying to bait you
to come to it so that it can eat you.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: So if you're out wandering in the
snow-covered woods, how do you know if there's a Wendigo
on your trail? Just follow your nose.
- The Wendigo, it has a very putrid smell.
Many people have equated it to rotting flesh.
- There's another sign the Wendigo is nearby.
Even in the bitter cold, you'll feel the temperature
take a sharp and sudden drop.
- He has a heart made of ice.
And you know he's around because often he'll bring
winter storms or cold with him.
- NARRATOR: But perhaps the most difficult sign to ignore
is the piercing shriek of a Wendigo just before
he attacks.
- Hearing the Wendigo scream, someone you know is
going to die very shortly.
- NARRATOR: If you do find yourself facing off
against a Wendigo, what next?
Step one, panic.
Step two, look for something sharp.
- You need some way to take out his heart,
because that is the source of its possession.
And because in many tellings, the Wendigo's heart
is made of ice.
- The most common way to defend yourself against
a Wendigo, if you're able to is to cut out their heart
and melt it over a fire.
However, if this thing is real, I don't think anyone
is getting close enough to it to do that before
it tears you apart.
- ♪
- To kill a Wendigo, I mean, good luck.
- NARRATOR: To all who know him,
the Wendigo is the kind of creature you never
want to meet on a cold winter's day or night.
- He eats humans. So in a sense, if I were
to come face-to-face with a Wendigo,
nobody would see me right after that because I'm gone.
I'm dinner, basically.
- The Wendigo, there's nothing like it ever.
It's the scariest, most terrifying,
deadliest monster I hope you never encounter.
- But there's still one slot in our top 10
scariest monsters countdown.
And we've saved the worst for last.
Up next is a cryptid that needs no introduction.
It's a monster as American as apple pie,
but a whole lot deadlier.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: We've used our map of monsters to find
the scariest creatures around.
From the Louisiana bayou...
- ♪
- NARRATOR:...to small town West Virginia,
the icy plains of Minnesota...
- ♪
- NARRATOR:...to the New Jersey pine barons.
Now we're going to the home turf of
the scariest monster of all.
Coming in at number one on our top 10 countdown,
it's the biggest, baddest, beast of them all.
Watch out for the Washington Bigfoot.
- If cryptozoology had a poster child,
that poster child would definitely be Bigfoot
or Sasquatch.
- Bigfoot is a large humanoid creature,
and he inhabits wooded areas.
- We have accounts of these creatures being very large,
very muscular and bulky. These are apex predators
when it comes down to it. The king of the forest,
if you will, because they are the largest thing out there.
- A lot of people equate his appearance to maybe that
of a gorilla, maybe that of a bear.
It makes you question, am I in danger?
- NARRATOR: Tales of these towering creatures
go all the way back to Indigenous people
who believe that Bigfoot stands as a reminder
of the untamed beast within us all.
- Most of the more respected theories about
where Bigfoot came from is that it's practically
a missing link, if you will, a part of our chain
of evolution that has been hidden.
- NARRATOR: Over the years, increased sightings
of these savage creators have led to rising panic.
- There were all kinds of accounts in cities
and towns across America where they were encountering
giant hairy men, covers in hair from top to bottom.
They named them wild men of the woods.
And when they started seeing thee creatures,
they took it in a little different manner that
they're fearful, they're something that
should be hunted.
They have a very long gait, they're very quick
when they want to be, very strong.
And I think for a lot of people, that's the fear
of encountering them.
- ♪
- There are violent reports.
For example, 1924 up near Mount St. Helens,
these gold miners were setting up their mine
and they are surrounded by ape men,
which throw rocks at the cabin,
punching the walls of the cabin, trying to get in,
trying to break the door down. They're shooting
at them with rifles up until daybreak when they go away.
When they come out of the cabin,
they find long footprints on the ground
all surrounding the cabin.
- NARRATOR: But it wasn't until the 1950s that one
close encounter gave the beast a new name.
- 1958, a man named Jerry Crew and his logging crew
all began to experience some strange things.
They wake up in the morning and find their oil canisters,
and I mean, 45-gallon oil drums tossed into the creek below.
And a couple people report seeing a large
humanoid-like creature. They're finding large,
human-like footprints.
A journalist named Andrew Gonzoli comes up
with the term Bigfoot and that catches fire.
- ♪
- There are different beliefs as to what Bigfoot is.
Some believe that Bigfoot is, perhaps,
an interdimensional being that comes in and out
of our reality at will.
- NARRATOR: It's this supernatural ability that
might help explain why sightings of Bigfoot
now stretch way beyond the Pacific northwest.
- You have the east coast variety, often called pine apes.
You have, down in the south in the swamps in Louisiana,
actually, it's called, uh, the skunk ape.
- A lot of the time people feel like they're feeling watched.
And I think all of us as human beings can feel
kind of off when we feel like somebody is staring
at us unwarranted. People say, I didn't see him,
but I felt him. I know he was interested.
I know he was watching.
- I believe that Bigfoot is something we should
be cautious of. It is not uncommon to find
deer out in the woods that have had their livers ripped out.
- NARRATOR: One boy from east Tennessee actually came
face-to-face with this colossal creature.
Though it was nearly 15 years ago, his dad,
Matt Seeber will remember the day forever.
- As a lot of young kids do in the summertime,
they play video games all night and they sleep all day.
So he was doing a chore for me in the middle
of the night. And as he was doing that,
a Sasquatch, a Bigfoot approached him.
- NARRATOR: The 15-year-old stood there, stunned
as he considered this creature's frightening reputation.
- It is very possible
that they could have a violent streak.
I've heard some stories of some pretty chilling experiences
where some violence took place.
Uh, people were actually killed.
- You have to remember, you're on their turf.
- NARRATOR: Luckily, Matt says his son was able to slip away
without injury, but the encounter left a lasting mark.
- My son, who's now in his 30s, uh,
does not go outside at night. It is truly messed
with his mind. He's afraid of the dark,
basically, and he's a grown man.
- NARRATOR: It's incidents like these that have led
one man from east Tennessee to take action.
- So this is the only Bigfoot patrol car
in the country It's a 2005 lifted
Ford Crown Victoria. Um, it's a police interceptor.
It's a retired Missouri State Trooper car.
- Nate's modified this cruiser with everything you'd need
to take the world's most dangerous passenger.
- It still has the prison partition
it has the plastic seats in the back,
it has steel door panels and window bars.
We also added the K9 window bars in the back window,
which are super rare. Took me about three years
to finally get my hands on them.
He could break out of a regular car door
if he wanted to.
- NARRATOR: Even with his Bigfoot-proof vehicle,
Nate's hoping he'll never have to make a Sasquatch
citizen's arrest.
- I don't feel like it's a smart idea to mess with a
creature that's at least twice my height
and probably three times my weight.
I'm not a tiny guy, but that scares
the crap outta me.
- ♪
- This is a creature at the top of the food chain
that can take you down as easily as a grizzly would.
I think that they are very powerful creatures
that deserve to be respected and approached with
a great deal of caution.
- ♪
- NARRATOR: Fear and fascination of this furry beast continue
to fuel Bigfoot's cultural appeal.
He's now the headliner at festivals all
around the country.
- I think this festival has a lot of draw to it because,
um, Bigfoot's really mysterious and interesting.
- The dimensions are the pictures of the foot
at that point, uh, convinces me there is
something out there.
- At an event like this, you get to be around
like-minded people, of course, and sharing stories,
different techniques.
- And we get to listen to other people and their tips.
And we can share what we do, you know,
and learn a lot that way.
- NARRATOR: But is it enough to prepare any one of these
people for encountering Bigfoot in the wild?
- Very often, these people who see these creatures are just
going about their business They're walking their dogs,
they're on their way home from work or going to work.
They're out visiting family members
- He is often spotted at a distance.
Eyewitness reports suggest that he makes various noises,
like knocking, sometimes whistling.
-
- MALE: Hear that?
- MALE: I think I heard a knock that time, too.
- Sometime a screech or a scream can be heard
off in the woods.
-
- MALE: I think it's time to go.
- Sometimes people who see Bigfoot also see
these balls of light... - FEMALE: Okay, I found it.
- ...that are near that area right before, or after,
or during their Bigfoot sighting.
- FEMALE: This is interesting. Can you see? See that?
- The balls of light that people are seeing,
they are sometimes different colors.
There's the green ones that are, they look very much
like the same color green that's in a traffic light.
And it happens so frequently that the locals there
had developed a saying of, when the green lights appear,
Bigfoot is near.
- NARRATOR: North Dakota resident, Jen Crews has yet
to see Bigfoot up close, but she's determined
to face her fear, which is why she put together a team
known as the She Squatchers to track down
this elusive cryptid.
- I thought, well, I'll give this a try.
I'll find some ladies to go out with me.
We found a place where somebody had had
a recent encounter. And it was fairly close
to where I lived on the Cast Lake Indian Reservation.
A Native man had been fishing in his canoe
and there was a large Sasquatch that was about
knee-deep in the shallows of the water that was
aggressively moving towards him as he was coming into shore.
- NARRATOR: One night, Jen and her team prowled
the woods near that lake, tempting the beast
to make a repeat appearance.
- When we were driving along this little road,
I started feeling this interesting sensation that
I had never felt before. And so we stopped the car,
we got out. It was so dark that we couldn't
see anything. And so I had my equipment
in hand already, and one of the girls handed me
this thermal camera. Now I'm pointing it out
in front of the car. And on the left side
of the road, right where the tree line is,
maybe about 50 feet in front of the car,
there was somebody standing there.
So when I first saw it, I thought it was one
of my team members, because it looked like a person.
It was a humanoid shape.
- NARRATOR: Jen says she soon took a closer look
and realized it wasn't one of her teammates.
In fact, it wasn't human at all.
- It had more of a conal-shaped head, very thick trapezius,
almost like it had no neck whatsoever and wide shoulders.
So I put the camera down and I looked just to see
if I could see it with my eyes, and I didn't.
But then I put the camera back up and it's gone.
- NARRATOR: Some say Jen was lucky she walked away
without a scratch. Next time might be different.
If we really think about, like, the food web, right,
he's clearly bigger than us and stronger than us,
then we would be next in line.
- Bigfoot is scary, like, very scary,
mostly because I think it's the most likely to be real
of all the ones that I've looked into.
I mean, you're talking about something that could
sneak up on you completely silently
and just watch you. That is so terrifying.
- NARRATOR: What's most terrifying of all is that
nobody has ever been able to catch Bigfoot.
At least not anyone who's lived to tell the tale.
- We don't know what happened to these people
if Bigfoot has gotten them, if Bigfoot has eaten them.
It's crazy.
- NARRATOR: But even if a trip to Washington isn't
on your bucket list, America's scariest monsters
are closer than you think.
- MALE: What the hell is that?
- MALE: That ain't right.
- MALE: Get in the house! Get in the house!
- You know, no matter who you are, no matter where
you are, at any point in time you could experience something
that is far outside the realm of what we consider
to be .
- ♪
- MALE: Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Uh-uh.
- That not knowing, that wanting to know
propels people forward.
You want to be scared. You want to go
and experience that monster that can't be found
anywhere else.
- It's the last bit of mystery left in the world.
Things that are nocturnal and run around at night,
I mean, what is that, if not a monster?
- ♪