Author Denver Michaels

The historian Garcilaso de la Vega (1539–1616) was the son of an Inca princess and a conquistador. He quoted the following story about ancient giants in his work  Royal Commentaries of the Incas : Before leaving this region, we should mention a very remarkable story which the natives have received as a tradition handed down by their ancestors for many centuries. It refers to some giants who they say arrived in their country from over the sea and landed at the point now called Santa Elena, a name given to it because it was first seen by Spaniards on this saint's day. As Pedro de Cieza de León is the Spanish historian who speaks of these giants at greatest length, having received his version in the very province which the giants visited, it seemed best I should follow his account word for word, for although Padre J. Acosta and the accountant general Agustín de Zárate say the same, their version is very brief. Pedro de Cieza's fuller account in his Ch. Iii is as follows: “As th

In June 2015, I was driving into work listening to Coast to Coast AM, and I caught most of a conversation about Robert the Doll, a haunted doll in Key West, Florida. This was exciting to me, because in July, the family and I would be in south Florida on vacation. I listened intently to the conversation and made a mental note of the museum in which the doll was housed. Then and there I planned to see the haunted doll for myself when I reached Key West. Robert the Doll is a handmade doll about forty inches tall. The Steiff Company of Germany made the doll around the turn of the twentieth century. According to legend, Robert giggles, moves on his own, changes facial expressions, and more. Gene Otto, a young boy from a prominent Key West family, owned Robert and had a lifelong friendship with the doll. Growing up, Gene often blamed Robert for his misbehaving, claiming “Robert did it.” Some have speculated that this constant and powerful energy from Gene may have animated the doll, causi

Stories of “belled buzzards” were prominent in the Appalachians during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These were turkey vultures with a bell affixed to their necks, and oftentimes seeing one was thought to be a harbinger of doom. The phenomenon is explainable in that there are a number of reports of folks back then catching buzzards and tying bells to their necks, though why anyone would do such a thing is beyond me! It is interesting to note in the following article, from 1920s southwestern Virginia , a belled buzzard was spotted around the same time as the appearance of annual lights thought to be the spirits of the victims of a vicious hate crime. The following newspaper article recounts the tale: BELLED BUZZARD WITH US AGAIN The Graham Daily adjunct to the Telegraph reports the appearance in in that town of the famous bell buzzard, whose absence from the community has been of many years duration. It is said to appear in Graham daily between the hours of 11 and

What is 6 feet tall, has feet like a dog, a big bushy tail, and is black? George May asked this question in an article he wrote for  The News,  a Frederick, Maryland newspaper, on November 29, 1965. The answer to May’s question: a Dwayyo. The first mention of the Dwayyo seems to have taken place in the 1940s in Frederick County. The Dwayyo became a household name in November 1965 in what was more likely than not a hoax. John Becker contacted an area newspaper and claimed he was attacked by a Dwayyo in his backyard. Unfortunately, the story is full of holes. The paper sent the report to the police who tried to follow up with Becker. According to Sergeant Clyde B. Tucker, Becker could not be located for questioning. Furthermore, the address that he provided did not exist. 18 Though the Becker story had every indication of being a pure fabrication, that didn’t stop the Dwayyo from bursting onto the scene in Frederick County. Hunters were seeing it; people were hearing it; reports were rol

Devils Lake is North Dakota’s largest natural body of water and it is the second largest lake in the state behind Lake Sakakawea. Devils Lake is an endoheric lake, meaning it has no outlet, and its waters are brackish. Devils Lake is home to legends of a lake monster . For hundreds of years, stretching back to the days before European arrival on the plains, tales of a monster have persisted along the lake, though modern-day sightings of the Devils Lake Monster are lacking. Perhaps for good cause; during the 1940s, the lake had dried to a point that it could barely sustain fish populations. The local newspaper for the town of Devils Lake ran a piece on July 10, 1908. The story told of a horned serpent-like creature in Devils Lake that made strange noises in the evening: There is truly some horrible monster animal inhabiting Devils Lake. It was seen Thursday evening just as the sun was going down and those enjoying the cool breezes from the lake that evening were thrown into a fit and r

“I always wonder why folks bring up Leviathan and Behemoth but always fail to bring up what is on the same page that speaks of unicorns and dragons ,” said a YouTube commenter in response to a video I made about Leviathan. For those unaware, Leviathan and Behemoth are creatures discussed in the Old Testament Book of Job. I asked if Behemoth might be some sort of long-necked dinosaur, and if Leviathan might be what we would call a sea serpent type of creature in a series of videos and blog posts. Back to the commenter’s question, I think it is disingenuous to suggest folks like myself are ignoring dragons in the Bible or elsewhere. A simple internet search will yield dozens of web pages that address dragons. Simply put, many cryptozoologists and most biblical creationists think dragons are in fact, dinosaurs. The term “dinosaur” wasn’t coined until about 1840. Until then, people called modern-day dinosaurs dragons. Dragon legends span the globe. To those who believe a remnant of dinosau

I had the map out looking for things to do during my 2022 two-week stay in Wisconsin. So far, I had been to Rock Lake but failed to spot the fabled monster in its waters. I visited the amazing ancient mounds and earthworks at Aztalan State Park, Koshkonong Lake, and other places. And I had made an excursion into the fabled Kettle Moraine State Forest—allegedly home to strange creatures and unexplained phenomena. But there was still a place within a reasonable drive to the campground that I hadn’t been—Bray Road, home of the “Beast of Bray Road.” Wisconsin's Werewolf I don’t remember exactly when I became aware of the Beast of Bray Road. But I had done a lot of reading about the beast over the years. So, I was excited to get to see its stomping grounds. The lair of the beast lies just outside the town of Elkhorn, Wisconsin along Bray Road. Bray Road is a rural stretch of road connecting State Highway 11 and County Road NN. Though the road cuts through a rural area, it is not “in th

In the Book of Job, chapters 40 and 41, God speaks to Job and points out the wonders of his creation. In chapter 40, God discusses the "chief of the ways of God," an enormous herbivore he calls Behemoth . In chapter 41, God continues and speaks at length on something he calls Leviathan. Though Leviathan is normally thought of in allegorical terms, some outside-the-box thinkers have proposed that Leviathan might be a sea serpent type of creature.  Job 41 reads: Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? 2 Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? 3 Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee? 4 Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? 5 Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? 6 Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him among the merchants? 7 Canst thou fill his

I visited the small town of Van Meter, Iowa in early-September 2022. On the surface, Van Meter is a typical Midwestern small town—exactly what comes to mind when thinking of Iowa. But there is more to the town than meets the eye. Over a century ago, a strange bat-like creature nicknamed the Van Meter Visitor came to town and terrorized residents for several nights. As the story goes, in the fall of 1903, the Van Meter Visitor emerged from a mine shaft and flew into town at night. The monster stood around nine feet tall and had large, leathery wings, and emitted a foul odor. Frightened residents fired bullets at the creature, but amazingly, gunfire did not harm it. But the weirdest thing of all was that the strange, winged visitor had a horn atop its head that cast a beam of light. The Van Meter Visitor came into town for several nights, flying around and perching itself atop the buildings. Fed-up townsfolk formed an armed mob and made their way to nearby mine where the monster was hol

Who was Quetzalcoatl? In Mesoamerican myth , Quetzalcoatl is the "feathered serpent" or "plumed serpent" deity. He is also described as a culture hero who taught the ancient Mesoamerican people the arts, sciences, farming, and more. I think that not just in the case of Quetzalcoatl, but as far as all of the ancient “gods” are concerned, it is fair to wonder if many of these deities were not gods at all, but rather, men —men who possessed extraordinary knowledge and, in some cases, advanced technology. Some years ago, I read the book Lost Cities of North & Central America by David Hatcher Childress. In the book, Childress presents several ideas for the identity of the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl. One of those theories is that the Quetzalcoatl “myth” is a hazy memory of a charismatic Christian missionary who sailed from Ireland to the New World between 500 CE and 800 CE. The Irish were accomplished sailors and it is an intriguing thought that perhaps their le