We need some cryptids in my part of California. Anyone here of anything around San Jose, California? I am going to have to make up something soon.

San Francisco Bay has had some sea serpent sightings.

Linky:

"We have had 8 sightings of a sea serpent in San Francisco Bay during the period 1985-87. The first and closest sighting was only 20 yards away. We were parked in our car at 7:45 a.m. looking north at San Francisco Bay just east of the Golden Gate Bridge and west of Alcatraz Island. The water was dead calm and we saw some sea lions playing about 150 yards from us. We saw what we thought was another sea lion swimming towards them from the west. When it was a few yards away the head and neck raised out of the water at least 10 feet straight up. It then lunged forward and attacked the sea lions. The sea lions fled towards where we were parked with the creature following right behind them. We could see the creature create several vertical undulations in its neck as it swam through the water. Then it went underwater. The sea lions swam right in front of us leaping in and out of the water in an attempt to escape the creature.

We didn't know it until the next day when we examined the area at low tide but the sea lions swam over a ledge with rocks on it that protruded 20 yards into the bay. The water went from 40 feet deep to only 3 feet deep above the ledge. Suddenly, 20 yards in front of us we saw what looked like half a truck tire break the surface with a long neck and head just under the surface of the water in front of it. A second arch broke the surface of the water behind the first and then we watched what we thought was a huge black snake swim by but when we expected it to end it got wider. Then there was a splash and a crashing sound as it stopped dead in the water. Immediately, we saw it lift its neck quickly out of the water and it pulled itself backwards to get off the rocks. It splashed back into the water and disappeared. Instantaniously, the rest of the neck came out of the water in a corkscrewing manner as it tried to pull itself off the rocks and into the deeper water. As it corkscrewed it exposed the midsection and the underbelly above the water and we got an excellent view. The midsection had hexagonal scales that did not overlap but were connected to each with a common side. They varied in size from the size of a dime to the size of a silver dollar.

There is so much more we have to say but we don't have the time to tell it all here but if you go to www.cryptozoology.st you can read our whole story in detail. We are getting tired and there is so much more to tell you about. We had 7 more sightings in the next 2 years and were able to get 6 photos. If anyone wants to talk with us we will be glad to correspond and discuss what has been seen out here since 1976. We are sorry but we have to cut this short but we will contact you again in the near future.

Thank you. Bill and Bob Clark."

never mind califonia

try NW ontario nothing but trees rocks, swamps, deer, and mosquitos . and for right now lots of ice and snow.

we need something to zest up this really quiet area.

Pretty boring, cryptid wise, here in the center of the USA.

i read about those clark brothers they stirred up quite the hornets nest on that crypto website you just linked to. They are charging people money to send them tapes of it. I saw a small portion on a crypto show on the history channel as well. The guy on the show that looked over the portion that he was able to look at said it looked like abunch of birds on the water or something like that.

Areas that have no well known cryptids have the best little known cryptids, trust me.

there's always the Riverside Bridge Monster of Riverside, CA...

tell us about it.

Google it.

I started a post about it a long time ago...

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...showtopic=79102

Not nearly as scary as the reported Platte river monster. Let me know if you'd like me to report upon this terribly scary creature. (I'll have to make up a few features!)

Hm, never heard of it. Please, tell all Take-On-Me man.

Oh, btw, the full list of official CA cryptids can be found on this page:

http://www.weirdca.com/location.php?location=38

There is:

The Elizabeth Lake monster

There are at least ten different Elizabeth Lakes in California. This one is in LA County near Palmdale and is perhaps the oldest one in the state. Legend states that the Devil himself created the lake and placed one of his own pets inside it. If you swim deep enough, eventually you will find a secret passage direct to the underworld which isn't entirely far fetched, as the lake lies directly over the San Andres fault line. From this lake a horrible monster came to be.

Although there have been no reported sightings since the 1880's, there were a few from 1830 all the way up to 1886. The creature has been described as having bat wings, the neck of a giraffe, the head of a bulldog, six legs, a length of at least fifty feet, and emit a horrible nauseating stench. Several ranchers and owners of land around Elizabeth Lake abandoned or sold their property at losses to get away from the beast. Supposedly Spanish missionaries dubbed the lake Laguna del Diablo and Indian Legend also supports the rumors that the Devil created the lake.

The first sighting was by a Spaniard Don Pedro Carillo in the 1830's. He built a ranch on the shores of the lake, but one day a fire of unknown origin burnt every single structure down all in a single night. In the 1850's, American settlers tried to establish themselves near the lake, but screams at night, unnatural noises, visions, and other experiences that they would not relate drove them away from the fertile soils.

Then came Don Chico Lopez and Don Chico Vasquez. He established an entire ranch along the lake and for several months everything was fine. The monster did not show itself. Then the workers reported livestock and animals disappearing. This was followed by a giant winged shadow passing over the house each and every night. Soon the residents had multiple sightings of the beast. Bullets reportably bounced off the creature's hide. As ranch hands quit, and animals kept disappearing, the owners were forced to sell. The land was eventually sold and the ranch abandoned.

Miguel Leonis purchased the ranch next. Leonis was a Basque immigrant, a large and burly man who controlled a large amount of land throughout Southern California. He ruled over it like a dictator, and squatters were often severely dealt with through either lawsuits or armed force.

Several months after he pruchased the ranch on Elizabeth Lake, the creature began eating his animals as well. But Leonis would not have it. He lay in wait for the beast and then savagely attacked it when it emerged at night. As bullets bounced off its tough hide, he engaged it closer, beating it with his rifle butt across the nose and then punching it in the eye. So taken back by the ferocity of the attack, that the creature retreated back to the lake, and there lay resting, healing its injured eye. Eventually, it fled from the lake heading east towards Arizona.

The tale, however, doesn't quite end there. The spawn of the Devil that inhabited Elizabeth Lake has also been linked to the area around Tombstone and the Thunderbird Photograph. The Thunderbird Photograph is a possible picture taken a very long time ago presumably in early 1890 of several cowboys and ranchers holding up what appears to be a pterodactyl. The beast was apparently seen flying in the area, and was lured by some ranchers into a trap in the Huachuca Mountains, west of Tombstone, where they killed the creature. Some stories link the monster of Elizabeth Lake to the old picture of the pterodactyl. The picture, of course, also has several stories surrounding it. Scholars aren’t even sure if such a picture even exists let alone if it is authentic.

Regardless of if the creature fled to Arizona, and regardless of if it was killed west of Tombstone, since the day that Leonis beat up the Devil’s pet, Elizabeth Lake has mostly been quiet. Speculation has long existed on if the monster did exist. Additionally if it did not exist, no one can draw a conclusion as to why several Spanish dons, American squatters, and wild west ranchers would go to such lengths to avoid such a fertile area.

If the Tombstone story is to be believed, the monster outlived it's attacker, Miguel Leonis, by only one year. Leonis eventually died in a strange wagon accident in 1889. As he wasn't very well liked, rumors of his murder spread afterwards. His and his wife's ghost still haunt the Leonis Adobe in Calabasas.

Tessie

Much like Loch Ness, Lake Tahoe has its own water monster and it's called Tahoe Tessie. About half a dozen sightings occur every year. This has led to a museum and even a phone hot line to be established in the area. Local Indian legends have long spoke of monsters in the lake and some other theories point to a giant sturgeon perhaps inhabiting the dark areas of the water.

Lake Tahoe is an extremely deep body of water, getting to 1,645 feet, thus making it the perfect place for sea monsters to lurk and hide. The reports of Tessie are mostly of the sixty foot serpentine variety although several claim Tessie to be a giant fish, hence the sturgeon theory. The first rumors of the sea creature came from the Indians that lived in the area - the Washoe and Paiute Tribes.

Jacques Cousteau, French Oceanographer, explored the depths of Lake Tahoe in the 1970s. Cousteau apparently encountered something so horrible, that he claimed the world was not ready for what was at the bottom of the lake. He subsequently refused to release any of his underwater footage or any of his data.

Cave Rock is a large rock formation along the southeastern shore of the lake. It is easily visible from most of the lake. Once part of a volcanic vent, the caves were created by the constant pounding of the lake's shoreline crashing against the rock walls. This happened about three million years ago when the lake was much higher in elevation of course. Cave Rock has been reported to be sacred to the Washoe Indians. Rumors of the tribe throwing their deceased off the rock have circulated and this has led to ghost stories about Cave Rock mostly concerning several spirits performing tribal rituals. Supposedly you can also see a lady pictured in the rock formation. Called the Lady of the Lake she is gazing out at the lake and is best viewed from north of the rock, in the morning or early afternoon hours. Lastly Cave Rock is suppose to be situated above the underwater lair of Tahoe Tessie.

Lake Tahoe seems to have its share of ghosts. Periodically, there are even reports of a young woman dressed in fine clothing from the late 1800's floating just below the surface of the water.

The Billiwhak Monster

This is one of those stories that so far I can only attribute to local urban legend dating back from World War II. As the story goes a tall muscular apelike humanoid with long claws and ram-like horns on the top of its head lurks around the area of Santa Paula in Ventura County. It calls the area known as the Camulos Ranch its home. Specifically it has been encountered on Aliso Canyon Road and occasionally the Wheeler Canyon Road near what once was the Billiwhack Dairy and Ranch.

Referred to as the Billiwhack Monster, the creature has tormented mostly high school students from the Santa Paula High School. These teenagers are the primary people who have encountered the half goat / half man humanoid creature. It has thrown large fifty pound rocks at their cars and even pounded on the hoods of their automobiles leaving dents. It has also been reported to carry around a large club. In the fifties, a nine year old boy reported being attacked and clawed by a weird animal near the Billiwhack Dairy. He had scratches across his arms and back. Another reference to the creature was in 1964 when it terrorized several hikers for several hours and thus made headlines in a local newspaper. Which newspaper I’m unsure of.

The Billiwhack Dairy according to the legend is a decrepit ruin of what once was a state of the art, very advanced and modern dairy farm. It apparently contains underground rooms and tunnels, but is also rumored to be missing walls, etc, which could be attributed to the many decades of un-use.

The dairy was started up and run by an August Rubel who moved to Ventura County in 1922 and established the dairy in 1924. Rubel was once a native of Zurich, Switzerland. He served in the American Field Service in France from 1917 to 1919. The urban legend connects him to the Office of Strategic Services or the OSS. The OSS was the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. If the legend is true, the OSS had Ruben performing experiments beneath the dairy, including trying to make a super soldier. The Billiwhack Monster is apparently a product of this research and experimentation that escaped to haunt the local area.

The OSS was started by William “Wild Bill” Donovan who was made the Coordinator of Information or COI in 1941. This office eventually became the OSS. The OSS was responsible for much of the espionage and sabotage in Europe and Asia. The OSS was disbanded after World War II, but a proposal by Donovan eventually led to the formation of the present day CIA.

As the urban legend goes, Rubel, after performing experiments in Ventura County, was eventually sent over seas and died mysteriously doing secret work for the OSS in 1943. According to a historical account, August Rubel actually died in Tunisia, when he returned to service and the ambulance he was driving hit a German land mine.

Although most accounts of the urban legend state that the dairy and ranch were abandoned leaving the monster to its own devices, other accounts state that Rubel’s wife, Mary Colgate McIsaac remarried in 1946 to an Edwin Burger. Mary died in 1968 and Burger continued managing and living on the ranch that August Rubel helped build and manage.

Most recently, on May 5th, 2001, Rancho Camulos was awareded a National Historic Landmark. The plaque for the landmark states:


Ygnacio del Valle established Rancho Camulos in 1853, on part of a Mexican land grant of former mission lands. Rancho Camulos was the setting for "Ramona," an 1884 novel that generated national interest in the history of Hispanic settlement in California. August Rubel purchased the property in 1924 and preserved the significant historic features of the site.

Shirley Rubel Lorenz, daughter of August Rubel and President of Rancho Camulos Museum Board of Directors was present to accept the plaque. She had been born and raised at Rancho Camulos and stated that her father, August Rubel, had “instilled in her a sense of trust and stewardship over Rancho Camulos”.

So if there is really a half goat / half man monster lurking in the depths of Santa Paula, there’s a lot of questions regarding what it’s doing there and how it got there. Although there’s little to no evidence of its existence, some cryptozoologists believe it might be related to or actually a Bigfoot, granted a deformed or disfigured Bigfoot.

Ironically, the Billiwhack Monster is not the only creature sighted in the area. In 1939, several people reported seeing a strange half monkey, half man in Ojai, a small town about fifteen miles west of the Billiwhack Dairy. Reports described the creature as the size of a twelve year old boy with gangly long arms and black fur. Mrs. Catherine Loughboro complained that the monkey creature stole two of her chickens from her henhouse and a few weeks later, Mrs. Tom Richards saw the creature eating her corn. Could this be an earlier experiment of Rubel?

Sadly, the urban legend detailing Ruben’s involvement with the OSS remains very suspect and one also has to be skeptical about the creature when combined with the fact that much of Ruben’s family remained on the land after he died during World War II. Wouldn't members of his family have reported the rampaging monster by now? Was August Ruben really a mad scientist who worked for the OSS creating super soldiers? Was he really involved in espionage over in Africa when he disappeared mysteriously during World War II? Is there really a half goat / half man monster lurking in the dark depths of Ventura County? Regardless, it’s probably best just to be on the safe side to be careful when driving down Aliso Canyon Road and watch out for goat headed monsters.

And a few more.

I think the Tahoe Tessie is taking all the stories. I did remember during my high school years hearing how the sea scouts took off to do some whale watching off the Half moon bay waters which is Thirty minutes south of San Francisco. The rumor at that time was how the sea scouts claimed to see a large serpent type creature swimming near them and along with the whales. I can't remember exactly what date but do know that it was during my Freshmen year which is 1986.

Wow, you're old.
But if you want to find out about cryptids, ask everyone nearby about the subject. Thats what I do, and I could write a book with all the stuff I've heard, EXCLUDING all the stories about the same monster!!! Amazing, but how? Ask, especially ask old people.

The Elizabeth Lake monster sounds like a typical, universal dragon, and seems to have been connected with one from the earliest sightings. Many of the Native American 'thunderbirds' also seem more like dragons than giant birds.

The Tombstone story is total nonsense though and intended to be so. It was written to be farce, such as lines like it had a 100 foot wingspan, yet two men shot it and carried it back to town are meant as a joke. Also people all over the west at this time were actually searching for Dinosaur bones which had become another 'Gold Rush'. If any unusual animal like that were actually killed, EVERYONE knew its body would be worth a fortune and would have been preserved and sold to a museum back east.

Like Europen dragon tales however, the story began with the genuine sighting of some unusual creature, and thestory just became exaggerated over the years. Like with the Elizabeth Lake monster. It is described as 50 feet long, and the guy actually hit it on the nose? Yeah, sure he did.