STATE FILE · NV
Cryptids of Nevada
What cryptids are in Nevada? The best-known are Tahoe Tessie, Bigfoot, Tommyknockers and Walker Lake Serpent.
Nevada’s strange-creature lore runs from the deep blue water of Lake Tahoe to the empty basins of the Great Basin desert. Tahoe, shared with California and one of the deepest lakes in North America, is the home of “Tahoe Tessie,” a dark, serpent-like animal that boaters and shoreline residents have described for decades. Skeptics suggest large lake trout or sturgeon, boat wakes and floating logs; the lake’s cold, clear depths – over 1,600 feet at their deepest – keep the speculation alive.
Cryptids reported in Nevada
LAKE & SEA MONSTER · 1865
Tahoe Tessie
Lake Tahoe, California–Nevada border
A humped, serpent-like monster said to glide through the deep, cold water of Lake Tahoe – the Sierra Nevada’s friendly answer to Nessie.
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 HUMANOID · 1820sTommyknockers
Gold and silver mines of Colorado’s Front Range, around Idaho Springs and Central City
Little mine spirits brought from Cornwall to the American West, said to knock in Colorado’s gold and silver mines – warning, teasing or guiding the miners.
FOLKLORE
LAKE & SEA MONSTER · 1868
Walker Lake Serpent
Walker Lake, near Hawthorne, Nevada
A giant serpent said to live in Walker Lake, Nevada, rooted in Paiute tradition and frontier tall tales, now beloved as “Cecil” in Hawthorne parades.
LOCAL LEGENDThe legends of Nevada
The desert holds older stories. Northern Paiute oral tradition tells of the Saiduka (often written Si-Te-Cah), a hostile people said to have been driven into a cave near Lovelock. Excavations at Lovelock Cave in the early 20th century uncovered thousands of artifacts, including famous duck decoys, and popular writers later spun the tradition into tales of a race of red-haired giants – claims archaeologists reject. Pyramid Lake, on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation, is the setting for traditions about Water Babies, which the tribe treats as part of its living heritage rather than a tourist curiosity.
Modern Nevada is better known for UFOs than monsters. In 1996 the state named State Route 375 the Extraterrestrial Highway, and the hamlet of Rachel, near the secretive Area 51 base, caters to sky-watchers. Bigfoot reports are scattered across the Ruby Mountains, the Jarbidge country and the Sierra slopes above Reno and Carson City.
Hotspots
The deep alpine lake on the California line where “Tessie” is said to surface.
Archaeological site linked to the Paiute tradition of the Saiduka and to later “giants” claims.
Lonely State Route 375 near Area 51, Nevada’s magnet for UFO enthusiasts.
Rugged range in northeastern Nevada with scattered Bigfoot reports.
Sightings timeline
- 1865A giant serpent tale Tahoe Tessie
According to a much-repeated account, a San Francisco visitor named I. C. Coggin described a serpent with an enormous head and a body hundreds of feet long. The original source is obscure, and the story reads like a frontier tall tale.
- 1868Strathers’s letter Walker Lake Serpent
Reuben Strathers claimed he and a companion had killed one of the lake’s monsters, describing a crocodile-like head, small front feet and a long, scaly tail.
- August 1, 1883Two monsters fighting Walker Lake Serpent
The Walker Lake Bulletin reported campers watching two serpents battle in the lake; later retellings had the victor sunning itself on shore.
- 1907The prospectors’ sighting Walker Lake Serpent
Don Cornelison and Goldfield prospector John McCorry reported a creature about 30 feet long and six feet across the back.
- 1964Cecil takes to the water Walker Lake Serpent
For Nevada’s 100th birthday, Hawthorne Army Ammunition Depot workers built a Cecil float that sailed on the lake during the Armed Forces Day celebration.
- 1980sA rash of modern sightings Tahoe Tessie
Hikers, local law enforcement and others reported dark shapes and wakes; a local TV station owner said children shouted “It’s Tessie!” during a commercial shoot at Zephyr Cove, but the footage was reportedly lost. Around the same time a University of Nevada, Reno conference on “unidentified swimming objects” discussed the claims.
- Mid-1980sMickey Daniels’s V-shaped wave Tahoe Tessie
Veteran charter captain and former Placer County officer Mickey Daniels said he and a passenger watched a wave split into a huge V half a mile offshore, with no boat to explain it. He told the Los Angeles Times about it in 2005.
- April 2005Humps off Tahoe Park Beach Tahoe Tessie
Two visitors reported a dark, undulating shape with three to five humps about 100 yards offshore. They took no photographs, and the sighting was reported in the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
- May 2022Divers circle the lake – no monster Tahoe Tessie
Volunteer divers with the nonprofit Clean Up the Lake finished a year-long survey of the entire shoreline, removing about 25,000 pounds of litter. The Associated Press reported they found no trace of Tessie.
Latest from Nevada
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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).