Investigated report Logged and followed up by an investigating group.On the record In a newspaper, police, government or court record, or from a named public witness.Told story Folklore, oral tradition or a story passed along.Proven hoax Proven or confessed hoax.
Water monster · Lake Champlain (Port Henry and Bulwagga Bay on the New York side) · first reported 1819 (in print) · also called Champy, Lake Champlain Monster
America's best-known lake monster, shared with Vermont. Port Henry on Bulwagga Bay calls itself Champ's home. See the main Champ dossier for the full case.
Full story: Champ →
Visiting: Port Henry has a Champ sign listing recorded sightings.
Ape-like · Whitehall, Washington County · first reported 1959; main wave 1975-1976 · also called Whitehall Sasquatch
Whitehall, at the southern tip of Lake Champlain, is one of the few towns where police officers put their names to a Bigfoot report. Sightings go back to a farmer's report in 1959 and picked up in the mid-1970s. The best-known came in August 1976, when officers described a creature seven to eight feet tall with brown hair and red eyes that made a sound like a pig squeal mixed with a woman's scream. Another officer saw it the next night and said he did not shoot because it looked too human. More reports followed into 1977, 1982 and 2008. Whitehall has since adopted the creature as a town mascot and holds a Sasquatch festival.
Visiting: Whitehall holds an annual Sasquatch festival; dates vary.
Ape-like · Kinderhook, Columbia County · first reported December 1978 · also called Kinderhook Bigfoot
Kinderhook, a Hudson Valley village, is the home of a long-running family monster saga recorded by writer Bruce Hallenbeck, whose own relatives were among the witnesses. Starting in 1978, his grandmother reported a big black hairy thing on the lawn, a cousin found three-toed tracks, and in 1980 the same cousin fired a shotgun at a creature behind the house. Later reports grew stranger, with groups of cone-headed figures, chattering noises, balls of light, and even a creature compared to a cross between Bigfoot and Big Bird. The last report Hallenbeck recorded was in 1988. Skeptics note how much of the record comes from one family circle and one author.
Water monster · Silver Lake, Perry, Wyoming County · first reported 1855 · also called Silver Lake Serpent
In the summer of 1855, people around Silver Lake near Perry, in western New York, reported a long serpent in the water, and crowds of visitors and would-be hunters came to see it. The story is widely remembered as a hoax staged to bring business to the lake. Perry has leaned into it with pride: the village markets itself as the home of the Silver Lake Sea Serpent, held a summer festival for it for years, and installed a large artificial serpent by the lake in 2016. It is one of the earliest American cases of a monster being used, openly or not, as a tourism draw.
Visiting: Perry's serpent sculpture at Silver Lake and serpent imagery around the village.
Water monster · Hague Bay, Lake George, Warren County · first reported 1904 · also called Georgie, Lake George Monster
Georgie is one of the few lake monsters with a confession and a body you can see. In 1904, swimmers and boaters near Hague on Lake George were startled by a monstrous head rising from the water. Thirty years later, a painter who summered on the lake admitted he had made it: a log about ten feet long, carved and painted with red fangs and a tongue, moved with an underwater rope and pulley. He said he built it to get back at a fishing rival who had boasted of a giant trout that turned out to be fake. The carved head now sits in a display case at the Hague town hall.
Visiting: The original carved monster is displayed at Hague Town Hall.
Water monster · Seneca Lake, near Geneva · first reported July 14, 1899 · also called Seneca Lake Monster
Seneca Lake is the deepest of the Finger Lakes, and its monster tale is unusually violent. In the story, on July 14, 1899, the captain of the steamer Otetiani saw what he took to be an overturned boat, which then swam away. He gave chase and rammed it, killing a creature about twenty-five feet long with a triangular head and an armored, shell-like back. A doctor was said to have described it, and a geologist compared it to an ancient sea reptile. Then, as the crew tried to haul it aboard, the ropes slipped and it sank. No body, no photo. In 2015, Geneva's city council passed a playful resolution protecting the monster from hunting.
Visiting: Geneva's lakefront and Seneca Lake State Park.
Water monster · Cayuga Lake, near Ithaca · first reported Before 1897 · also called Old Greeny
Cayuga Lake, home to Ithaca and Cornell University, has its own serpent, nicknamed Old Greeny. In January 1897, the Ithaca Journal claimed the creature had been showing up every year for decades. That same year a long serpent was reported, though one onlooker said it was just a muskrat. Later stories include two serpents twelve to fifteen feet long seen in 1929, a claim that it attacked a teenager in 1974, and a diver's report in 1979. The lake is long, deep and cold, with large fish such as lake trout and sturgeon, which skeptics say explain most reports.
Visiting: Stewart Park and Taughannock Falls State Park sit on the lake.
Water monster · Onondaga Lake, Syracuse · first reported 1977 (modern) · also called Oggie, Mosqueto
Onondaga Lake beside Syracuse is sacred ground for the Haudenosaunee and was for decades one of America's most polluted lakes. Its modern monster, Oggie, grew out of that history. The joke origin says a Boy Scout flushed a pet salamander that mutated in the dirty water. In 1977, members of a local Scout troop reported seeing something swimming in the lake, and the troop adopted Oggie as its mascot. A large fiberglass Oggie has appeared in a regional Halloween parade. Older stories of a lake creature are tied to Indigenous tradition and should be treated with respect. Oggie itself is best read as a local joke with an environmental edge.
Visiting: Onondaga Lake Park in Liverpool has a long public trail along the shore.
Beast · Ditch Plains beach, Montauk, Suffolk County · first reported July 12, 2008 · also called Hound of Bonacville
In July 2008, four friends looking for a spot to play on Ditch Plains beach in Montauk found a bloated, hairless carcass with a beak-like face and clawed feet. A local paper ran a photo, then Gawker posted it with a headline about a dead monster, and the internet went wild. Theories ran from a turtle without its shell to a mutant escaped from the federal animal disease lab on nearby Plum Island. Paleozoologist Darren Naish and wildlife expert Jeff Corwin both identified it as a raccoon that had lost its hair while decomposing in the water. The carcass vanished before anyone could examine it, which kept the mystery alive for some.
Visiting: Ditch Plains is a public surf beach in Montauk.
Beast · East 123rd Street, Manhattan (1935 case) · first reported February 1935 · also called Sewer gators
The idea that alligators live in New York's sewers is a classic urban legend, but it has one real newspaper report at its root. In February 1935, the New York Times reported that teenagers on East 123rd Street pulled an alligator out of a sewer opening with a rope and killed it. Sewer official Teddy May later told a writer that inspectors saw gators in the 1930s and that he ran a campaign to wipe them out, though scholars suspect May embellished. Biologists say alligators cannot survive long in cold, bacteria-filled sewers. Still, the city does find stray pet alligators now and then, and February 9 is celebrated by fans as Alligators in the Sewers Day.
Beast · Near the Deer River, Copenhagen, Lewis County · first reported May 22, 1900
A short, odd North Country newspaper story. In May 1900, the Watertown Daily Times reported that two men near Copenhagen, Homer Ward and J. D. Dryden, met a large white animal with horns and a thick tail. One man threw a rock and it ran, and later they met it again on the road by lantern light before it disappeared into the night. It was never reported again. The description sounds a little like an albino deer or a loose farm animal seen in poor light, and there are no later sightings to build on. It is a good example of the many one-night monsters buried in old small-town papers.
Beast · Goodleburg Cemetery, Wales, Erie County · first reported Uncertain (local legend)
Goodleburg Cemetery, in the rural Southtowns outside Buffalo, is one of western New York's best-known legend-trip spots. Among its stories are black dogs with glowing red or green eyes that howl at night and travel alone or in packs. They descend from old British black dog lore, where such animals were omens of death. Other tales at the site involve a nineteenth-century doctor's ghost and a curse on anyone who takes something from the graves. Writers on the legend suggest some of these stories may have been spread to scare off vandals. The cemetery is small and on a quiet road, and visitors should respect it and the neighbors.
Visiting: A small rural cemetery; visit only in daytime and respectfully.
Ape-like · Belmont, Allegany County · first reported 1973 · also called Black Creek Whodat
In the hill country of Allegany County, near Belmont, locals in the 1970s told of a pale, almost white Bigfoot. Reports began with high school students at a log cabin in 1973. In 1975, a camper said he saw a white humanoid, and the next night something pounded the cabin walls hard enough to leave dents. The creature was blamed for a foul skunk-like smell and even cattle deaths, and nicknames included the Black Creek Whodat. The reports faded after 1976, supposedly after dogs chased it off. Researchers have wondered about an albino animal, while skeptics point to bears and teenage pranks.
Water monster · Junction Pool, Roscoe, Sullivan County · first reported April 1, 2000
The Beamoc is a Catskills fishing joke with a long shelf life. On April Fool's Day 2000, the Times Herald-Record published a story about a two-headed trout lurking in Junction Pool at Roscoe, where the Beaverkill and Willowemoc meet. The head of the local fly fishing museum, Paul Dahlie, was said to have hooked it at midnight, only to have one head bite through the line. Later embellishments gave it antlers and a beaver tail. The name blends the two rivers. Roscoe is a famous trout-fishing town, and the Beamoc is a fun stop for anglers who like their monsters friendly.
Visiting: Junction Pool in Roscoe, where the Beaverkill and Willowemoc meet.