STATE FILE · AZ
Cryptids of Arizona
What cryptids are in Arizona? The best-known are Mogollon Monster, Bigfoot, Thunderbird and Chupacabra.
Arizona is best known for deserts, but its cryptid heart lies in the high country. The Mogollon Rim – a 200-mile escarpment that cuts across the center of the state – is cloaked in one of the largest ponderosa pine forests in the world, and it is here that campers, hunters and scout troops have told stories for generations of the Mogollon Monster, a tall, hairy, foul-smelling creature said to throw rocks and shriek in the night. Many Arizonans first hear of it around a campfire near Payson, Heber or Show Low.
Cryptids reported in Arizona
HOMINID · 1903
Mogollon Monster
Mogollon Rim, central and eastern Arizona
Arizona’s own Bigfoot: a towering, red-eyed, foul-smelling ape-man said to stalk the pine forests of the Mogollon Rim and scare generations of campers.
REGIONAL LEGEND
HOMINID · 1958
Bigfoot
Pacific Northwest forests, reported across North America
North America’s most famous cryptid: a huge, hairy, upright ape-like being reported from the Pacific Northwest to Florida since the 1958 “Bigfoot” tracks.
WIDELY REPORTED
FLYING · Pre-colonial
Thunderbird
Northern Pennsylvania mountains and central Illinois
A giant bird with a wingspan said to rival a small plane, reported over Pennsylvania’s Black Forest and blamed for lifting an Illinois boy in 1977.
REGIONAL LEGEND
OTHER · 1995
Chupacabra
Canóvanas, Puerto Rico
The “goat-sucker” of 1990s Puerto Rico: a spiny, bloodsucking beast blamed for livestock deaths that spread across Latin America and Texas.
WIDELY REPORTEDThe legends of Arizona
The state has older and stranger tales too. In April 1890 the Tombstone Epitaph printed a story about two ranchers who supposedly killed an enormous winged creature in the desert; the article is often linked to a famous “Thunderbird photograph” that many people insist they remember but that no one has ever produced. In the 1990s and 2000s, livestock deaths in southern Arizona were sometimes blamed on the Chupacabra, the bloodsucking beast of Latin American legend.
Skeptics note that elk, black bears and the eerie screams of mountain lions are common on the Rim, that the Epitaph story fits a long tradition of tall tales in frontier newspapers, and that the “Chupacabra” carcasses examined in the Southwest have turned out to be coyotes or dogs with severe mange. Arizona is also home to Diné (Navajo), Apache, Hopi, Tohono O’odham and many other nations whose sacred beings are part of living traditions and are best learned about on their own terms.
Hotspots
The forested escarpment above Payson and Heber that is the home ground of the Mogollon Monster.
High pine and aspen country around Show Low, Pinetop-Lakeside and Greer, frequently cited in Arizona Bigfoot reports.
The old silver-mining town whose 1890 newspaper story launched the legend of a giant Arizona Thunderbird.
Forests around Flagstaff and the Rim where hikers and hunters report strange howls and tracks.
Sightings timeline
- April 26, 1890The Tombstone “winged monster” Thunderbird
The Tombstone Epitaph printed a story of two ranchers who claimed to have killed a gigantic winged creature with smooth, featherless wings. No photograph accompanied it, but the tale later became attached to the legend of a lost thunderbird photo.
- 1903The wild man of the Grand Canyon Mogollon Monster
The Arizona Republican carried I. W. Stevens’s tale of a clawed, white-haired, bearded creature that screamed and threatened him with a club. It is the oldest account usually linked to the Mogollon Monster, though it resembles other frontier wild-man stories.
- Mid-1940sA Scout’s encounter near Payson Mogollon Monster
Don Davis, later a Bigfoot researcher, said that on a Boy Scout outing he saw a massive, hairy creature with deep-set eyes and a box-like head. His story is one of the best-known examples of the legend’s strong ties to scout camps on the Rim.
- 1982–2004Sightings on the Fort Apache Reservation Mogollon Monster
A White Mountain Apache resident later described seeing a tall, black, long-striding figure several times over two decades, most recently while driving home from Cibecue in 2004.
- September 2006White Mountain Apache go public Mogollon Monster
Tribal members described footprints, hair on fences and night-time screams to the Arizona Daily Star, saying sightings had become too frequent to keep private. The report drew Bigfoot investigators to the White Mountains.
Latest from Arizona
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Videos
ARCHIVE.ORG3:07
Patterson–Gimlin film (unedited)
Roger Patterson and Bob GimlinThe original 1967 Bluff Creek footage – the most famous and most debated minute in Bigfoot history. Marked public domain on archive.org.
ARCHIVE.ORG4:59
The Film That Made Bigfoot A Star
Oregon Public BroadcastingOPB’s short documentary on how the Patterson–Gimlin film turned a regional legend into a global icon – and the hoax claims around it.
▶ VIDEO
Sts’ailes Sasquatch Days in Harrison Hot Springs
Tourism Harrison River ValleyShows the festival celebrating the Sts’ailes people’s Sásq’ets, the being behind the word “Sasquatch” (no archive.org equivalent).
▶ VIDEO
El Chupacabras, a Modern Mystery
Monstrum | PBS StoriedFolklorist Emily Zarka traces both the Puerto Rican and the Texas chupacabra and the real explanations behind them.
ARCHIVE.ORG1:33
John Huffer Thunderbird Footage
John Huffer (Internet Archive upload)The original July 1977 Illinois film of large birds that many cryptozoologists cite – judge for yourself whether they are vultures.