A cryptid in the woods of the PA Wilds

Cryptids are pretty popular. Everyone knows the big ones: Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti. Those are the ones everybody can name. But in addition to those, there are plenty of other smaller, more local cryptids that people aren’t aware of.

There’s the Giwoggle of Clinton County, a sort of wolf-bird-horse hybrid that’s said to lurk in the Elk Country Landscape. Also in Clinton County, but closer to the I-80 Frontier, the Susquehanna Seal makes appearances in the river. Clarion County once had the Clarion What-Is-It, a weird creature spotted in the Cook Forest area. And Potter County had a creature that was sighted by hunters, way back in 1897. It was reported in the Potter Enterprise, which gave the creature its name: The Potter Nondescript.

The first report hit the newspapers on April 21, 1897. A fisherman up in Nelson Run, in the present-day Dark Skies Landscape, reported seeing this creature. Walking upright, the hairy creature screamed and beat its chest. The fisherman jumped onto his horse, which was already frightened, and fled the scene. The creature chased the fisherman and the horse, but abandoned the chase quickly.

After the first sighting, the newspaper speculated that this could have been some sort of gorilla, perhaps escaped from a traveling circus. The next report of the creature, however, hit the papers a week later, and deepened the mystery.

“Some thought the thing a myth, perhaps originating from the fertile brain of the writer,” said the column. ”But now, perhaps, they may think otherwise after reading this.”

And on June 16, the whole thing blew up into an argument between the writer from the Enterprise and a female correspondent over at the Potter Democrat. The correspondent had written a column mocking the Enterprise and their reports of the Nondescript, referring to it sarcastically as a “wild man.” (Hey, I get it. The second this piece hits Facebook, I’m going to have people making negative comments.) The Enterprise responded by claiming that the correspondent knew nothing about these creatures, and then their commentary devolved into a few personal insults.

“You need not fear my wild animal or any other,” commented the writer, “as the color of your auburn locks bears such close resemblance to a ball of fire that if by chance you should happen to meet it, a shake of your head would immediately start it for the hills.”

After that, there seem to have been no more sightings of the Potter Nondescript. But you never do know. There’s a lot of dark forest up there, and maybe there’s a creature still lurking around. If you go up into the Dark Skies Landscape, take a camera, just in case.