FIELD FILE · PIGMANHUMANOIDLOCAL LEGEND
Pigman of Northfield
Also known as Northfield Pigman, Pig Man
A white-haired, pig-snouted figure that frightened teens at a 1971 high-school dance in Northfield, Vermont, said to lurk in the Devil’s Washbowl.
Northfield is a small town in central Vermont, home to Norwich University and ringed by steep wooded hills. Its homegrown monster story dates to 1971, when, according to local resident Jeff Hatch, a group of boys slipped out of a dance at the high school to drink in a sandpit near the cemetery behind the building. They came running back badly frightened – some in tears – saying a humanlike creature covered in white hair had come bounding over the hill toward them. When Hatch and others went to look, they reportedly found only cloven marks in the sand.
Other odd reports seemed to follow. Pets were said to go missing around town, and a man living on Turkey Hill, on the slopes of Paine Mountain, said he heard a noise at his garbage cans one night and saw a white, hairy figure stand up – a being between five and a half and six feet tall with a pig-like snout and small, beady eyes. A darker rumor, never substantiated, claimed that a fair-haired teenage boy had vanished from a farm in Northfield about the time the sightings began. Later retellings shift the story to 1951 and give the missing boy a name, but those versions appear to be later embroidery.
Hatch, whom Vermont folklorist Joseph Citro dubbed “the Pigman historian,” never saw the creature himself, but he spent years investigating. In the Devil’s Washbowl – a basin of streams, small caves and moss-covered boulders on the edge of town – he said he found a bed of straw and animal bones that he called the Pigman’s lair, and heard a high-pitched scream that seemed to circle around him. Hatch also remembered an abandoned pig farm nearby that had once held enormous hogs.
Citro included the creature in The Vermont Monster Guide (2009), illustrated with fellow Vermonter Stephen Bissette, which made the Pigman one of the state’s cult cryptids. Citro has said he is not sure what the Pigman was, but that the fear people felt was real.
- Type
- Humanoid
- Status
- Local legend
- First reported
- 1971
- Best-known location
- Devil’s Washbowl and Paine Mountain, Northfield, Vermont
- Also called
- Northfield Pigman, Pig Man
- Reported in
- Vermont
What witnesses describe
An upright, humanlike figure about five and a half to six feet tall, covered in white or pale hair, with the snout of a pig and small, beady eyes. Some versions describe it as an unclothed man with a pig’s head.
Where and when it’s seen
The woods, sandpits and hillsides around Northfield, Vermont – especially the Devil’s Washbowl and Turkey Hill on Paine Mountain – usually at night.
Notable sightings
- 1971Panic at the high-school dance Northfield High School, Vermont
Boys drinking in a sandpit behind the school came back terrified, describing a white-haired, humanlike creature bounding toward them. Only cloven marks were found.
- Early 1970sThe Turkey Hill garbage raider Paine Mountain, Northfield
A resident checking a noise at his trash cans reported a white, hairy figure with a pig-like snout standing up to face him.
- 2009<em>The Vermont Monster Guide</em> Vermont
Joseph Citro and Stephen Bissette’s illustrated guide listed the Pigman as active from 1971 to the present, introducing it to a wide audience.
What could explain it?
- A stray or feral pig, a bear, or a large pale dog glimpsed in the dark by teenagers who had been drinking could explain the original scare.
- The town had a nearby pig farm with very large hogs, which may have suggested the creature’s features – or provided an escaped animal.
- Later sightings and the story of a missing boy are unverified rumors that grew after the first scare; the story spread largely by word of mouth.
- A masked prankster is another possibility for a figure seen at a school event.
Legend, culture and tourism
The Pigman is a staple of Vermont Halloween lore, featured in Joseph Citro’s books, Stephen Bissette’s artwork, the New England Legends podcast and local newspaper features. The Devil’s Washbowl remains a local spot for curious explorers.
Where it’s reported
Pigman of Northfield in the news
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