Author Denver Michaels

The Catawba, a Siouan-speaking tribe indigenous to the Carolinas, have a tradition of little people called the Yehasuri. Yehasuri translates to “little wild people.” According to legend, these wild people looked and dressed like the Catawba, but were “leprechaun-like” and stood at about two feet tall. The little wild people lived in hollowed-out tree stumps and ate tree fungus, insects, tadpoles, frogs, and turtles. The Yehasuri were strikingly similar to other legends of little people. They were tricksters who did not like to be seen; at times, they became violent toward the Catawba. The Yehasuri possessed magical arrows that were deadly to humans. When humans got too close to the little people, they loosed their powerful arrows at them. Catawba tradition held that once a little person had turned violent, the only way for someone to stop them was to perform a ritual involving tobacco. Catawba Texts Anthropologist Frank G. Speck (1881–1950) recorded much of the Catawba language and st

The Wendigo is a described as an emaciated-looking giant , with a grayish complexion and sunken eyes. The malevolent creature stinks of death and decay; it grows in size proportionate to what it has eaten, yet, it can never be satiated. Thus, it is the incarnation of greed and excess. The Wendigo is closely associated with starvation, extreme cold, and social taboos such as cannibalism. According to legend, the consumption of human flesh could cause a person to be taken over by the spirit of the Wendigo; going insane from the cold could also change one into a Wendigo. Some believed that all who were afflicted by the Wendigo were not beyond redemption. Treated kindly, and fed normal food, a Wendigo can be rehabilitated and can become human again. This condition—in which a person is afflicted by the spirit of a Wendigo—became known as “Wendigo Psychosis.” Wendigo Psychosis Wendigo Psychosis is a phenomenon in which a person goes mad; the victim desires human flesh and fears turning into

Lately, I’ve spent a little time reading some old accounts of Bigfoot-like creatures from the former Soviet Union. One candidate is the Chuchunaa, a Russian wild man of sorts. Tales of “wild men” have always fascinated me. Old newspaper reports, especially from the 1800s, tell of wild men running around on the outskirts of towns. Oftentimes, these wild men are naked and covered in thick hair. Some researchers think these tales point to early Sasquatch sightings. Others think they might indicate there are pockets of “feral humans.” Behind the Iron Curtain Equally fascinating to me as the old wild man stories are strange tales from the former Soviet Union. As a kid growing up in the 80s, I always wondered what life was like behind the Iron Curtain. What were the average people like? Not the high-ranking military personnel and politicians that I saw one television, but ordinary folks—how were their daily lives? The Iron Curtain hid a mysterious world from the West. I often lost myself i

Many who are familiar with early American history and westward expansion have at least a cursory knowledge of the stunning amount of alleged “giant bones” recovered from ancient burial mounds and from the earth as land was cleared and fields were cultivated. There is a lesser-known aspect to the discoveries—some believe that a race of pygmies may have inhabited ancient America in the past.  The following article appeared in the  Reading Times in their December 28, 1875 issue: Thursday morning, accompanied by Dr. J. W. Sawyer, Mr. Lillard went to Doyle's farm and beside the grave cut of which Haywood obtained a skeleton during his researches, he obtained the bones of a pigmy. One of the graves had as a headstone a limestone rock, a thing unusual. By this particular mark it is presumed the bones must have been that of a noted person of the race. In the one in which he obtained the fragmentary portions of what was left of a pigmy, Mr. Lillard found remnants of pottery which show si

Since roughly 2005, folks have reported hearing the eerie sound of "sky trumpets." In 2015, the phenomenon began receiving widespread attention and reporting. In my home state of Virginia, reports of sky trumpets come from Virginia Beach , Prince William County, Gloucester County, southwestern Virginia and more. According to the New York Post, The Guardian, and other news outlets, there was an uptick of trumpet sounds in 2020, especially from places affected by harsh Covid-19 lockdowns. Some call the strange noises the “sound of the apocalypse” after the Seven Trumpets in the Book of Revelation. Are the unexplained sky trumpets a precursor to the doomsday predictions in the Bible? The Seven Seals In the Book of Revelation, Jesus Christ opens the “Seven Seals.” When he opens the first six seals, some sort of calamity occurs on Earth. For instance, when he opens the first four seals, the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” appear. The first horseman is the Antichrist who rides

The journal Nature ran a piece titled “Underground Monsters” in 1878. The piece referred to a previous article that discussed the Minhocao, an underground monster from Brazil. This article tells of underground monsters similar to the Minhocao living in Nicaragua. I have reprinted "Underground Monsters" in its entirety below: “In a former number (vol. xvii. p.325) we gave some account of a curious underground monster, the Minhocao, supposed to exist in Brazil. Dr. Spencer Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, sends us an interesting document, which shows that the belief in such a monster is not confined to Brazil, but is shared in by the people of Nicaragua. In the Gaceta de nicaragua for March 10, 1866, is a long letter signed "Paulino Montenegro," containing a circumstantial account of an object possessing very much the same attributes as the Minhocao. The letter is dated Jinotega, Nicaragua, February 21, 1866. The writer states that he went to Concordia on priva

Unfortunately, there are no mammoths alive today. Mostly, they died off around the end of the last ice age, and by about 4,000 years ago, the last mammoth took its final breath . At least, that is what the mainstream would have you believe. I have written at length in a couple of my books that based on Native American traditions , I do not believe mammoths went extinct thousands of years ago. Rather, I think they hung around until a few hundred years ago , and in fact, there may still be a remnant in remote regions of Siberia and Canada's Northwestern Territories. Stories such as this, which appeared on page 12 of the Portland Daily Press on November 28, 1896, only strengthen my belief: Live Mastodons Credible Witnesses Say They Can Be Found in Alaska. ONE OF THE WONDERS OF A MOST WONDERFUL COUNTRY. Two of the Mammoths Recently Killed by Indians—Other Marvels of Our Strange Northern Country—A Talk With a Long Time Resident There. “When the late Secretary Seward purchased the big

It was not until 2013 that I started paying attention to reports of so-called "mystery booms." In fact, I did not know this was a phenomenon until I heard a guest discuss it on a late-night AM radio talk show. The guest gave details from cases all over the country in which strange booms had occurred, all without a known cause. From 2013 until now, it seems these strange occurrences have been taking place with far greater frequency and intensity. It just so happens that my home state of Virginia —especially central Virginia and the Tidewater region —is a hotspot for mystery booms. In 1997, the Virginian-Pilot ran a story about a mystery boom that residents from Norfolk to Suffolk heard; slight tremors accompanied the noise. However, it was not an earthquake that caused the tremors or noise. According to the article: Dr. James Coble, associate professor of geology at Tidewater Community College, said the cause of the trembling probably was not an earthquake. “I looked at

One of the most enduring tales of dinosaurs—if you believe as I do, dragons are dinosaurs—is the story of Saint George and the dragon. The key is to substitute the word dragon with dinosaur. The word dragon is an overarching word once used to describe living dinosaurs . A Fierce Monster As the story goes, citizens of the Libyan city of Silene lived in fear of a dragon that dwelled in a lake on the outskirts of town. The creature was fierce and spewed venom. In an effort to appease the monster and protect the city, the citizens began offering sacrifices to the beast. Early on, they brought live sheep—two per day—as tribute. But, as you might expect, things escalated. Soon, the frightened townsfolk offered a sheep and a man as a sacrifice to the dragon. But the stakes got higher. Eventually, the city began a lottery system to determine whose child would serve as the next sacrificial offering. This was all good and well so long as society’s elite remained untouched and stayed insulated fr

The Bunyip is a legendary cryptid from Australia. Descriptions of this creature vary wildly. The Bunyip lives in lakes, rivers, swamps, and various waterholes throughout the land down under. Descriptions of the beast vary wildly. Mostly, it is described as a dog-like or seal-like creature. Sometimes, it almost sounds like some sort of dinosaur . The Sydney Morning Herald ran a piece titled "Wonderful Discovery of a New Animal " on July 12, 1845. It tells of the fabled Bunyip. I have reprinted highlights from the article below: "In our last number we gave an account of the finding of a fragment of the knee joint of some gigantic animal, which from there being no such animal hitherto known to exist in Australia, we supposed to be the fossil remains of some early period. Subsequent information, however, coupled with the fact that the bone was in good preservation, and had altogether a recent appearance, has induced us to alter our opinion. On the bone being shown to an [Ab

Sometime around 575 BCE Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar the Great ordered the construction of the Ishtar Gate in present-day Iraq. This was a gate on the north side of the city of Babylon and part of a processional wall into the city. Citing Iraq’s Babylonian heritage, Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) built a small reproduction of the gate as an entrance to a still unfinished museum. Sadly, the reproduction suffered damage following the American invasion of Iraq. Ishtar Gate German archaeologist Robert Koldeway excavated the Ishtar Gate in the early 1900s, introducing the magnificent work of the ancients to the world. The gate was partially reconstructed in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum. It features blue-glazed brick walls decorated with animals and deities. Among the decorations are lions, oxen, and, as Wikipedia puts it, “a mythological hybrid.” This mythological creature is a dragon, known as the sirrush. For me, dragons point to dinosaurs. And the sirrush, with its

Is the Chinese dragon based on fact, not mythology? J. O’Malley Irwin asked this very question in a 1916 article he penned for Scientific American . I have reprinted the article below: "During the latter part of a holiday trip in the Yangtze Gorges undertaken by my wife and self in November 1915, we met Mr. M. Hewlett, British Consul at Ichang, and his wife, and in their company spent a day in the Ichang Gorge, landing at various points to climb the cliffs and explore some of the numerous caves. "While exploring a large cave on the right bank of the river, about one mile above the Customs Station at Ping Shan Pa, we discovered the fossils about to be described. The cave is reputed by the Chinese to extend some 20 miles to a point near Ichang. It is reported that a party of bluejackets from H.M.S. “Snipe” spent three days in the cave some years ago and that they failed to reach the end. Evidence that this party penetrated beyond the point where the discovery was made exists in

Author Georges Dupuy (1858–1935) penned a story titled "Le Monstre de Partridge Creek" for the French magazine Je Sais Tout . The story ran in April 1908. The Strand Magazine , a British publication, ran an English translation of "The Monster of Partridge Creek" in July 1908. It is a harrowing account of an encounter with a dinosaur deep in the wilds of Canada. I have reprinted the entire story below. The Monster of Partridge Creek The story which follows is in  no sense a romance. I wish, in the first place, to ask the  readers of the following narrative to believe that I am in no way attempting to impose upon their credulity. Concerning the amazing spectacle I am about to describe, I report nothing but plain facts, however astounding and apparently incredible they may seem at first glance, precisely as they appeared to my own eyes—and I am possessed of excellent sight—and to those of my three companions —all three white men—without counting five Indians of the K

The “Tennessee Pygmies” have held a prominent position in what skeptics like to call “archaeological folklore” since the 1820s. Due to the discovery of an enormous amount of the skeletal remains of small-statured people throughout the Cumberland Plateau region of Tennessee and Kentucky, it was once widely believed that a tribe of pygmies inhabited the area in the prehistoric past.  Where it Began To start, we need to go all the way back to 1820, when it all began. The first mention of the Tennessee Pygmies can be traced back to an article in the  Nashville Whig in their July 5, 1820 edition: On the farm of Turner Lane, Esq., five miles south east of Sparta, on the waters of the Caney Fork of Cumberland, and on other farms adjacent, have lately been found, small graves, sunk into the earth from one foot to eighteen inches below the surface. They are about ten inches broad and eighteen inches long, having a flag limestone rock at each of the ends and sides, and covered with the same sp