Kentucky

1Bigfoot in Kentucky Investigated report

Ape-like · Statewide; most reports in the eastern mountains · first reported 1980s (BFRO database)

Kentucky's upright ape reports are covered in the main Bigfoot dossier. The BFRO lists about 118 Kentucky reports, led by Lawrence County. Below are four investigated accounts from the Cumberland country, Pine Mountain and the Land Between the Lakes area.

Full story: Bigfoot →

• February 20, 2003Investigated report A driver on Highway 92 near Pine Knot in McCreary County saw a grey-haired figure about seven feet tall at the roadside. It turned toward him with large, reddish eyes, pumped its arms down from its shoulders, shook its head and walked off with a high-stepping gait. Source: bfro.net
• October 1982Investigated report Two boys walking home near Chenoa in Bell County saw something about eight feet tall trying to hide behind a tree twenty feet away. Its eyes glowed red in daylight. The investigator noted dark fur, black skin around deep-set eyes and very large hands. Neighbors reported a root cellar broken into that season. Source: bfro.net
• December 9, 2006Investigated report A hunter on Pine Mountain in Harlan County saw two sets of red-orange eyes before dawn. Later, sitting in a ghillie suit, he was hit by a thrown stick and saw a squatting figure fifty yards off. It charged; he fired a warning shot. It retreated with a smaller one. His pack had been raided for food. Source: bfro.net
• July 2005Investigated report A commuter near Canton in Trigg County watched a figure at the edge of a creek bottom for about thirty seconds at 8:20 a.m. He called it a big hairy man, at least ten feet tall, with jet-black hair, long arms and no visible neck. It rocked in place and watched him. Source: bfro.net

2Kelly-Hopkinsville Goblins On the record

Humanoid · Kelly, Christian County · first reported August 21, 1955 · also called Little Green Men

The 1955 Kelly farmhouse siege, with its small glowing-eyed visitors and a four-hour gunfight, has its own dossier. The farm site is private property and posted against trespassing, with nothing to see.

Full story: Kelly-Hopkinsville Goblins →

3Pope Lick Monster Told story

Humanoid · Pope Lick trestle, Fisherville, Louisville · first reported Folklore; written down by 1988 · also called Goatman

Louisville's goat-man under the railroad trestle has its own dossier. The trestle carries active trains, has no walkway and has killed several visitors over the years. Do not go onto it for any reason.

Full story: Pope Lick Monster →

Visiting: View the creek from the Parklands of Floyds Fork. The trestle is fenced and trespassing is prosecuted.

4Herrington Lake Monster On the record

Water monster · Herrington Lake, Boyle, Garrard and Mercer counties · first reported 1920s; best-known report 1972 · also called Herry, Eel-Pig

Herrington Lake was created in 1925 when Dix Dam backed up the Dix River, and stories about something in it started soon after. The best-known witness was Lawrence S. Thompson, a University of Kentucky professor with a house on the water. In a 1972 newspaper interview he described an animal about fifteen feet long. It had an eel's body with speckled, fish-like coloring, a stubby pig-like snout and a curled tail. Both ends broke the surface at once and it moved as fast as a motorboat. He was calm about it, saying it was a monster only in the way a gator would be to someone who had never seen one. Locals call it Herry or the Eel-Pig. No photograph or specimen has been produced.

• 1972On the record University of Kentucky professor Lawrence Thompson told a reporter he had watched a roughly fifteen-foot animal with an eel-like body, speckled coloring, a pig-like snout and a curly tail cruise the lake at motorboat speed. He did not claim it was supernatural, only unknown to him. Source: pinebarrensinstitute.com

5Spottsville Monster On the record

Ape-like · Spottsville, Henderson County · first reported 1975

For about eleven months in 1975 and early 1976, one family near Spottsville reported a tall, hairy visitor. Rose Nunnelly first saw it by a shed at dusk. Later it reportedly chased her husband out of a tobacco field, and the children saw it standing over the corn. They put it at eight feet or more, square-jawed, with thin, patchy reddish-grey hair that made it look very old. A closer sighting added a short muzzle, long fangs, black skin and red eyes. Local papers in Henderson and Evansville covered the story. After nearly a year the family moved into town. No hair, track cast or photograph from the case is on record in the sources we saw.

• 1975 to January 1976On the record The Nunnelly family reported repeated encounters: a figure by the shed at dusk, a chase out of the tobacco field and a creature looming over the corn. Descriptions agree on great height and thin, aging reddish-grey hair. The family left the property after about eleven months. Source: kentuckybigfoot.com

6Milton Lizard On the record

Beast · Milton, Trimble County · first reported July 1975 · also called Creature of Canip Creek

In July 1975 Clarence Cable, who ran a salvage yard near Milton, reported a huge lizard moving among the wrecked cars. He put it at about fifteen feet long, with bulging frog-like eyes, an off-white throat and black-and-white stripes. His brother said he saw it come out from under a stack of car hoods. Cable saw it again the next day, threw a rock at it and fired a rifle into the brush. The local paper carried the story and it spread from there. Cable had his own down-to-earth theory: lizard eggs riding in from the West inside wrecked cars and hatching in the heat of the yard. No lizard was ever caught or photographed.

• July 1975On the record Salvage yard owner Clarence Cable and his brother reported a fifteen-foot striped lizard with frog-like eyes near Canip Creek. Cable said he threw a rock at it and shot into the brush. He guessed eggs had hitched a ride in wrecked cars from out West. Source: en.wikipedia.org

7Kentucky Meat Shower On the record

Other · Olympia Springs, Bath County · first reported March 3, 1876

Not a creature, but one of Kentucky's strangest documented events. On March 3, 1876, between eleven and noon, Mrs. Crouch was making soap on her porch under a clear sky. Chunks of red meat began falling around her, covering a patch about a hundred yards long and fifty wide. Most pieces were a couple of inches across. Scientists who examined samples found lung tissue, muscle and cartilage. One analyst said the lung tissue looked like a horse's or a human infant's. The leading explanation is a flock of vultures that vomited in flight, as vultures do when startled. A preserved sample still sits in a jar at Transylvania University in Lexington.

Visiting: A sample is kept at the Moosnick Medical and Science Museum, Transylvania University, Lexington.

8Beast of Land Between the Lakes Proven hoax

Beast · Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky and Tennessee · first reported Claimed 1980s · also called Beast Between the Lakes

Online lists describe a seven-foot wolf-man on the strip of land between Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley. The signature tale has a family killed at a campsite in the 1980s with one survivor. Public radio station WKMS traced the legend to a film project by two local businessmen. One said on the record that he saw a chance to create a story and ran with it. The U.S. Forest Service says it has no record of any validated sighting. The harm is real: more than nine hundred families were moved off this land to create the recreation area, and some of their descendants object to invented monster lore being sold as their heritage.

• 1980s (claimed)Proven hoax The best-known story describes a family slaughtered at a campsite with a single survivor. No police, news or Forest Service record supports it. WKMS reporting traced the tale to a planned movie by local promoters, one of whom admitted he set out to create a story. Source: wkms.org

9Bearilla Told story

Beast · Nicholas County · first reported 1972

Nicholas County's monster gets its name from witnesses who could not decide between a bear and a gorilla. The first reported sighting dates to 1972. Descriptions put it at six to seven feet tall, walking upright with a hunched posture. It had long, matted white hair and, oddly, a dog-like face rather than an ape's. That mix of features is close to the white, shaggy creatures reported in Alabama and the West Virginia coal country, which researchers sometimes group together. The Lexington Herald-Leader included it in a 2022 roundup of Kentucky cryptids. No photograph or track is on record, and the name itself is the best-remembered part of the story.

10Giraffe-Possum Told story

Beast · U.S. 60 between Winchester and Lexington, Clark County · first reported 1975

This may be Kentucky's oddest roadside report. Starting in 1975, drivers on U.S. 60 between Winchester and Lexington described animals that looked like a cross between a short-necked giraffe and a possum. Accounts give them a dog-like head with a very long snout, large ears and short, bristly grey fur. They were about the size of a dog. The Lexington Herald-Leader listed the sightings in its 2022 roundup of Kentucky cryptids. No photographs or remains are known. Whether a familiar animal glimpsed in headlights could account for it remains an open question. The sightings appear to have stopped as quietly as they began.

11Boonesborough Octopus Told story

Water monster · Kentucky River near Boonesborough Beach, Madison County · first reported 1944

An octopus has no business in a Kentucky river, which is exactly why this story sticks. In 1944, the tale goes, a girl swimming near Boonesborough Beach on the Kentucky River was grabbed by something under the water. She came out with round, sucker-like marks on her legs, described as quarter-sized abrasions. Witnesses spoke of a large grey octopus-like animal. In 1959 a similar creature was reported in the Licking River near Covington. Both are listed in the Lexington Herald-Leader's 2022 roundup. Neither sighting came with a photograph. Octopuses are saltwater animals, so whatever the swimmers met, it was something else.

• 1959Told story A second octopus-like animal was reported in the Licking River near Covington, far downstream of Boonesborough near the Ohio River. Like the 1944 tale, it described a grey animal with arms. No details of the witnesses survive in the sources we saw. Source: aol.com

12Demon Leaper of Old Louisville Told story

Winged · Walnut Street Baptist Church, Old Louisville · first reported Undated urban legend

Old Louisville, the city's grand Victorian district, is famous for ghost stories. One of them is not a ghost. Locals tell of a bat-like creature with leathery wings, claws and talons that leaps from rooftops and steeples. It is tied to the area around the Walnut Street Baptist Church. Witnesses usually describe it springing across rooftops rather than flying smoothly, hence the name. The Lexington Herald-Leader included it in a 2022 cryptid roundup, but no dated sightings are given. It belongs to a long line of urban rooftop leapers, from London's Spring-heeled Jack onward. It is best treated as neighborhood folklore.

Visiting: Old Louisville is a public neighborhood with regular walking tours.

13Genny, the Geneva Water Monster Told story

Water monster · Geneva, Henderson County · first reported Undated local legend · also called Geneva Water Monster, Henderson County Water Snake

Henderson County claims a second monster besides the Spottsville creature. Genny lives in the water near the small community of Geneva. Her description is gloriously mixed up, even by lake-monster standards: the head of a horse with a duck's bill, joined to a long, stretched-out catfish body, all covered in dark green moss. She is also called the Henderson County Water Snake. The Boone County Public Library's folklore blog lists her among Kentucky's cryptids. No dated sighting or witness is attached to her. She appears to live entirely in local storytelling, passed along as a river tale rather than a news story.

14Breckinridge County Sheepsquatch Told story

Beast · Breckinridge County · first reported 2004 · also called White Thing

The Sheepsquatch is best known from West Virginia, but Kentucky has its own report. In 2004 an encounter was reported in Breckinridge County. The witnesses described a creature about seven feet tall with a sheep's head, curled horns and shaggy white fur, walking upright. The Lexington Herald-Leader summed it up as a cross between mutton and man. Researchers link it to the older White Thing stories of the Appalachian coal counties. One modern site names the witnesses as Dakota Cheeks and Ricky Joyce. No photograph or physical trace from the 2004 report is known, and no follow-up sightings were found.