The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word cryptid as “An animal whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated, such as the yeti.” For the following witnesses to living cryptids, there is no dispute. In this series of National Cryptid Society’s case files, you will read what the witnesses have experienced in their own words.



Keep an open mind when reading these accounts, and also remember one’s perception and memory of an event can be influenced by the emotions felt at the time of the occurrence. The contributors to this series of articles are doing the best they can to recount what are in some cases very shocking and traumatic experiences.



If you have a personal cryptid sighting story you would like to tell us, please visit our “Make A Report” page on this site.

Location: On a country road near Effingham, Illinois

Date: 2010

Submitted by Jade

“In 2010 me and 2 friends decided were going to check out some “haunted” stuff around out in the country in Effingham Illinois. We live about 30 minutes away from there. This was a typical weekend night, driving out to a cemetery to respectfully explore. We were told the Kasbar cemetery deep in the woods surrounded by caves, outside of Effingham was a really good place.

The night begins. We head to Effingham and stop for sodas at a gas station and then head to the country. It’s about 1 to 2am, so its dark. I see something with yellow glowing eyes off the side of the country road just past the ditch in the head lights. Too short to be a deer, but too big to be a possum or raccoon. As we get closer it gets clearer, and I realize what I’m looking at is skinny, hairless and grey, human like but definitely not human. Crazy as hell looking…thing. It was crouched down, It’s arms were incredibly long and looked like it could have been 7ft tall or bigger standing. I can feel myself get cold and my heart race and my hair stand on that back of my neck. I kind of whisper to myself “what in the fxxx?” And then i heard my friend Harley in the back seat shout “WHAT THE FXXX IS THAT?!” Complete shock and terror set in and i can’t make a sound, I’m just staring at it. By that time we are right in front of it, passing it and it just watches us drive by. It slinks into the dark. Then we all just start screaming. Literally freaking the hell out. I was convinced it was a demon for months but still doubted myself even seeing it. Thinking my mind was playing tricks on me. We didn’t even make it to the Kasbar that night, we went straight home. I couldn’t sleep that night.

6 months later I’m at a different friends house and she gets a text from her cousin. It was the trail camera picture. I went cold again, the hair on the back of my neck stood tall again. I was seeing this thing AGAIN! I knew we weren’t crazy, that there was something to this. I knew for sure now that my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me that night.

He said he caught it on his trail camera one town over. (He told us later it wasn’t his camera that he was just pranking us. ) but i immediately recognized it. I asked her to send me the picture and i sent it to Harley. He quickly replies “that’s that fXXXXg thing!!!”. I found out the picture was faked, but still can’t help but to have my doubts. I researched the picture and demons to find some answers and found nothing.

Fast forward to October 2012 I’m on Facebook and i come across a page called “weird Effingham IL”. So of course i start combing through the entire page and I find reports of sightings around the cemetery of creatures with glowing eyes. Nothing as in depth as what i saw but still enough to tell me that we are not the only ones who have seen something like that out there. I researched demons and paranormal some more… still nothing.

2014 I’m scrolling through my Facebook news feed and the trail camera picture pops up. One girl i know posted it on the wall of another girl i know. So i immediately commented my story on it. When i go up to the previous comments i see that one of the girls were talking about seeing one! She replied to my comment and told me that she had seen it in the country in Effingham too! Back in 2011. This guy we went to school with commented on the status too and said that he had a friend that was super into the occult and that she said the are called ghouls. So i went right into researching ghouls. What I find, blows my freaking mind! Lore says; they are cave dwellers.. as i said previously the Kasbar cemetery is surrounded by caves. They feed on the freshly dead and normally stay close to cemeteries to be close to food. They have been known to show themselves to humans when trying to get close to them to eat in times where fresh deceased bodies are scarce. I went to images of them and could only find illustrations but they look exactly like what i saw that night. Everything i was reading was falling perfectly in place. Lined up perfectly with my experience. I couldn’t explain it away.