"A Field Guide to the Monsters and Mystery Animals of Maryland", a Strange Magazine article by Mark Chorvinsky and Mark Opsasnick, gives a listing of many strange creature, the majority of which were one-off sightings. Some of these are given below:
Another Odenton Humanoid: Odenton in Anne Arundel County was home to a famous sighting of the Patuxent Swamp Monster in 1968, but on May 27, 1989 two children playing at a home on Brietwert Avenue saw a creature in the clearing behind the home. It was 3-4 feet tall, with a white stripe on one leg of its dark brown furred body.
Boaman: The Prince George's County News (October 27, 1971) gave an account of this creature. The half-human, half-serpent was reportedly seen slithering around alongside the Lanham-Severn Road near the Lanham Inn. This area is south-west of Lanham-Seabrook. A legend was given that a young girl was "chewed up" by the Boaman. The area of the Lanham Inn is extremely urbanized and near a railroad track.
Buggerman: The boundaries of Charles County are patrolled by a creature known as the Buggerman. It is said that he prevents local children from crossing the boundaries of the county. He is variously described as a ghost, or more interestingly as a great hair-covered black man.
Catoctin Mountain Imps: A "troop of horned and cloven demons marked all over with spots like a leopard" were seen in this South Mountain ridge by a resident of Frederick in 1883. The rather stylish demons haven't been seen since.
Cabbage Head Man: Butch Dory claimed to have seen a humanoid entity emerge from a lake on 54th Street in College Park. Dory and his friends reportedly shot at the creature to no avail.
Cow People: A number of cow-folk have been reported over the years, the first being a Victorian-era tale from Dorchester County of a wildman who ate marsh grass and suckled from cows. A bipedal cow-creature was seen near Bel Air in February 1978, and a cow woman was reported from Charles County in the 1970s. this one, though, turned out to be a hunchbacked man.
Eggheads: These creatures were seen by Dan Long in October 1973 near Westover (Somerset County). Long was in the Pocomoke Forest with some friends when he claimed that he saw a number of glowing white humanoids with large egg-shaped heads near the Perdue Farms facility. However, the entire account must be called into serious doubt as Long admits he was drinking in the woods.
Goblin Damned: These ill-described "questionable shapes" were seen several times on the railroad bridge spanning Big Seneca Creek near Clopper (Montgomery County).
Jabberwok: Not to be confused with the Jabowak described below, this reptilian humanoid was seen across Frederick County from Creagerstown to Thurmont in the 1880s.
Jabowak: This tall and horrible-faced animal prowled McMurray Street in Frederick in 1870. At one point, a dog was shot and killed as the culprit.
Posted by A
Wow! That's an extensive list. I remember one time in the mid 70s, hanging out at a friend's house in Gaithersburg. She had a lake not far from her home and we would wander the woods around the lake and the streams that fed off of it. She went back to her house for something and I stayed near a little dam we were building on a stream. I kept hearing something making little chattering sounds like a tiny voice. I thought it was a squirrel, but when I looked up, I saw something dark and maybe 3 feet high walk between two trees. I thought maybe it was a kid, so I started inspecting the area around me. When I got over to that place, it had moved on a few more trees away, but it rushed through the brush like a wild animal. I caught a glimpse of it and it was some kind of brown fur, but still about 3-feet tall and not a kid for sure. Can't think of a creature that'd be that size. We did find a field of sheep not far away, but this thing was definitely brown. Weird. I still remember the weird little sounds. Very creepy. I'm not surprised about Maryland. I lived in Northern VA, but I went to Maryland at least once a week usually and that whole state just has a very weird vibe. Not at all normal.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly, one of the most interesting cases in that article (or another in the series) was a teenager who heard something in the leaf litter, and saw a couple of hand-sized creatures. Some sort of invertebrate, I would imagine, though the description was vague. Always meant to ask Chorvinsky for more details, but didn't get around to it before he died. Crypto-arachnids in Maryland would be cool.
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