STATE FILE · OK
Cryptids of Oklahoma
What cryptids are in Oklahoma? The best-known are Bigfoot, Oklahoma Octopus and Deer Woman.
Southeastern Oklahoma is the state’s Bigfoot heartland. The Kiamichi and Ouachita mountains, thick with pine and hardwood forest, rivers and lakes, produce report after report of tall, hairy creatures, wood knocks and howls. The tiny community of Honobia, in the Kiamichi Mountains on Choctaw Nation land, has held an annual Bigfoot Festival and Conference since the mid-2000s, with researchers’ talks, vendors, music and a Bigfoot 5K run, and proceeds supporting local scholarships.
Cryptids reported in Oklahoma
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
LAKE & SEA MONSTER · 1987
Oklahoma Octopus
Lakes Thunderbird, Tenkiller and Oologah, Oklahoma
A horse-sized freshwater octopus said to drag swimmers to their deaths in Oklahoma’s reservoirs – a legend largely built by books and a 2009 TV show.
HOAX / DEBUNKED HUMANOID · Pre-colonialDeer Woman
Oklahoma and many Native nations of the Plains and Eastern Woodlands
A spirit being of many Native nations who appears as a beautiful woman with deer’s feet, and who punishes men who harm women and children.
FOLKLOREThe legends of Oklahoma
Oklahomans take the creature seriously enough to legislate in jest: in January 2021 state Representative Justin Humphrey, whose district includes Bigfoot country, filed a bill to create a Bigfoot hunting season to promote tourism, saying the idea was to trap rather than kill, and floated a bounty for the first person to catch one. Skeptics point out that black bears are common in the southeastern mountains and are the likeliest source of many sightings.
Elsewhere, the internet-born “Oklahoma Octopus,” said to lurk in freshwater lakes such as Thunderbird, Oologah and Tenkiller, is a modern legend with no evidence behind it. Oklahoma’s 39 tribal nations also carry their own traditions about beings of the woods and waters, which they share on their own terms.
Hotspots
Kiamichi Mountains community that hosts the annual Honobia Bigfoot Festival and Conference.
Rugged forested mountains on the Arkansas line with dense clusters of Bigfoot reports.
Forested park near Broken Bow in the heart of southeastern Oklahoma’s Bigfoot country.
Reservoir near Norman linked to the modern “Oklahoma Octopus” legend.
Sightings timeline
- 1982An octopus on the Verdigris Oklahoma Octopus
The Daily Oklahoman reported that two boys found a dead octopus by the river – most likely a discarded bait or market specimen – near two of the lakes later linked to the legend.
- 1987“Legends of the Kiowa” Oklahoma Octopus
Writer Russell Bates described a large, reddish-brown, tentacled lake creature, the earliest known detailed account of what became the Oklahoma Octopus.
- 2007The monster-spotter’s guide Oklahoma Octopus
Scott Francis’s book claimed that carnivorous freshwater octopi inhabit three Oklahoma lakes and are blamed by some for drownings.
- January 2009<em>Lost Tapes</em> episode Oklahoma Octopus
The docufiction series aired an episode about the Oklahoma Octopus, and online interest in the name roughly doubled that month.
- 2023“Deer Lady” on <em>Reservation Dogs</em> Deer Woman
The FX series, set and filmed in Oklahoma’s Muscogee Nation, devoted an episode to Deer Lady’s origin, played by Kaniehtiio Horn as a recurring character.
Latest from Oklahoma
No recent cryptid headlines from Oklahoma. See all the latest cryptid news.
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).