The New Myths of CRYPTID CREATOR Vol. I

Read the earliest stories in a collaborative monster mythos: built story-by-story, brick-by-brick.

In the Hidden Ones monster lore, you’ll meet popular classics like Sasquatch, Yeti, & Mothman—but what makes Hidden Ones really special is the original myths and urban legends contributed to the franchise by its brilliant fandom.

In Fall of 2022, we launched CRYPTID CREATOR, Hidden Ones’ first experiment in community-driven storytelling in the form of a lore contest. Suffice to say, we were blown away by the creativity and vision of the entries.

Let’s dive right in to the latest contributions to the franchise’s collaborative cryptid lore…

PorkEE — by @dhoovey

“Throughout the Ozark Mountains in Southwest Missouri, locals speak of a creature with a human torso and a pig-like head. The tales of this “pigman” have been passed from generation to generation since the late 1800s when settlers moved into the area searching for gold and other precious metals.

It is believed only 1 person has caught a glimpse of this creature and lived to talk about it. Grif McCarthy was one of the first settlers to strike gold in an area between what is now Joplin and Carthage. McCarthy said around sunset, he was coming up out of a shaft he’d been digging in, and as he approached the 4 ft. opening, a smell of burning pork suddenly permeated the bit of air he could manage to breath.

When your old lady overcooks your bacon about 15 minutes because she’s “busy bitchin’ ‘bout how ya ain’t give ‘er a good dickin’ fer 2 full moons since ya found that ‘lil nugget a gold down that thar mine shaft,” is how McCarthy described the smell. “Weren’t a pleasant scent,” he said.

McCarthy then heard what sounded like a pig squeal, but more like “a shrill,” he said. McCarthy peered just above the top of shaft and that’s when he saw it. “I shat myself,” McCarthy said.

“Right then and thar, my britches were full uh shit.”

Ol’ Man Griff’s descendants claim that’s when the term “scared the shit out of me” was coined, but it was never trademarked.

McCarthy said he ducked his head back in the shaft, heard a couple of more squeals and then it was gone along with the burning bacon smell.

When he got back to his cabin, McCarthy grabbed his wife and what little belongings they had and fled the area.

“Ain’t never goin’ back,” McCarthy said. “I call it ‘PorkEE’ cause of that gawd awful bacon smell and it had a pig face,” McCarthy added.

Its eyes were red glowing balls and it had coarse hair on its face and head like a pig and a pig snout, but with a human body, McCarthy’s family remembers him saying.

Over the years, the legend of PorkEE continues, but nobody else has seen it and lived to talk about it. McCarthy believed it to be blind but thinks it uses its four ears and a high-pitched pig-like squeal to bounce soundwaves off nearby objects to determine their position. Over the last 125 years - in a 2-mile radius between what is now Joplin and Carthage - livestock, pets and humans have disappeared without a trace. Every now again, some young punk kids get ballsy and go searching the area claiming it’s a hoax, but they’re never heard from again.”

The Minnesota Mauler — by @Big_Love

“Minnesota is known as the land of a 1000 lakes, and this cryptid could be hiding in any of them. Although not much information is known about this cryptozoological masterpiece, what we do know has been gathered from eye witness testimony and the folklore surrounding the creature.

There have been many reported sightings of the creature describing it at around 9ft tall (3m) and have a large round body covered in a spike like skin thought to be an armor and defense mechanism. Its said the spike produce a very strong neurotoxin that paralyses anything that comes into contact with it, making for easy prey.

Most accounts tell of the creature as cyclopic, meaning it has just one eye in the center of the ball like body, but numerous other accounts have spotted another singular eye protruding from the top of its body, many people noting the odd eye configuration as easy to spot since the eyes glow bright yellow. The arms and legs are long and skinny but fully capable of ripping an animal in half, and with claws sharp enough to perform surgery quality cuts to their prey. Another striking characteristic is it kangaroo like tail, thought to not only help it balance, but also used as a weapon using a whiplike motion and capable sending spikes out from the end.

The Minnesota Mauler gets its name from the countless mutilations of animals and people in the areas surrounding the lakes in the state that are attributed to the creature. Its not known how many of the maulers there is, but it is thought to have enough of a population to survive through the generations since its first reported sighting passed along through native oral storytelling. Its range covers almost the entirety of Minnesota although some have claimed to have spotted it just across state lines, but always in rural areas.

If you spot the creature please call you local fish and wildlife protection agency and remove yourself from the area as soon as possible.”

Field of Nightmares — by @PatchesBpx

“If you build it, he will come…”

The Davenport Light Void/Timothy Briggs — by @0xach

“The Light Void Incident was a 2015 phenomenon in which hiker Timothy Briggs posted a selfie to Facebook, depicting himself in front of what appears to be a blinding white void in Davenport State Park, West Virginia. Posted at 4:14 PM ET on October 12, 2015, Briggs’ caption for the photo read simply, "Cool.”

Briggs was last seen at a convenience store that morning. Following the incident, he has been classified as a missing person by the state of West Virginia. Electric power in the area was said to be disrupted for around 24 hours following the photo's upload. Hypotheses surrounding the cause of the Light Void vary, including: freak weather patterns, a camera glitch, exposed or malfunctioning infrastructure, supernatural forces, among other theories.

Locals have adopted the conjunction “Woid” (“white” + “void”) as slang for the incident & surrounding folklore. Two separate unverified claims, one in 2015 and another in 2020, detail hikers encountering a figure of Briggs’ stature in the park, wearing similar clothing as seen in the selfie, and reported to have a glowing white void instead of a human face.”

We hope you love these new cryptids and high strangeness phenomena as much as we do. They prove that, while Hidden Ones is many things across many genres and industries, it’s a collaborative storytelling project at its core.

Next up, we’re making these creatures real through the power of esoteric knowledge and good-old-fashioned [ REDACTED ]

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