Ah, the Loch Ness Monster. The fabled creature that mankind has been hunting for thousands of years. The Loch Ness Monster is believed to be some kind of plesiosaur that has managed to endure in the Scottish Loch Ness Lake. Although Nessie doesn’t have any powers (that we know of) and despite the fact that there’s also no hard evidence she exists, she’s here because of the wonder and fascination she managed to maintain—real or not—all this time.
Bigfoot is thought to be the missing link between humans and apes—we’d know for sure if only we could find one. The legend of Bigfoot comes from Native American mythology and folklore surrounding European “Wild Man” stories. There are people who have dedicated their lives to finding Bigfoot, and there are even photos, like the one shown here, that offer “proof” of Bigfoot’s existence. In fact, Bigfoot has his very own official FBI file, but so far, despite myriad claims from several sources across the U.S.,
The Jersey Devil haunts New Jersey’s Pine Barrens and has reportedly been around since 1735. This creature is grotesque in appearance, as you can see in this depiction, having horned protrusions in addition to a tail and leathery wings. It walks on its two hind legs, which end in cloven hooves. Some versions of the Jersey Devil myth say the creature was born to one of Daniel Leeds’ wives.
You might know the Abominable Snowman by another name, like Yeti. But no matter what you call it, all the stories tend to be same: somewhere in the mountains, there exists a bipedal, humanoid creature that leaves behind massive tracks, but has never been seen or caught on film. A small Nepalese village claimed to have a Yeti scalp, pictured here, that’s over 300 years old. An analysis, however, showed the scalp had actually been made out of animal hide, but locals
The mythological Chimera is a terrifying creature that features a fire-breathing lion’s head attached to a goat’s body, ending in a serpent tail. There are varying versions of what a Chimera actually looks like, with some iterations giving the creature three heads—a lion, a goat, and a dragon—among other interesting interpretations. According to Greek mythology, the Chimera is the offspring of the monster Typhoeus and his partner, Echidna, who was half-woman and half-snake.
The Minotaur, whose birth name was Asterion, is another fabled creature from Greek mythology. The man-bull hybrid was the product of an affair between Queen Pasiphaë and a bull—hence its weird anatomy. In order to keep the Minotaur and his ravenous hunger for humans locked away, Daedalus and his son Icarus—you know, the one who flew too close to the sun—built a maze to contain it at the behest of King Minos, Pasiphaë’s husband.
Zombies have instilled terror in our hearts ever since they hit the big screen in classic flicks like Night of the Living Dead. However, these creatures have been terrorizing Haitian culture for far longer than a few decades’ worth of films and shows. The ancient Greeks seemed to fear an uprising of the dead as they buried people with stones on top of their bodies in order to prevent them from leaving their graves. In the 17th century, slaves on sugar cane plantations worked under grueling conditions, and necromancy, an undead afterlife, “represented the horrific plight of slavery,” History reports.
The werewolf myth is so prevalent across multiple cultures that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where it originated. Werewolves have had their stories told millions of times over, with each iteration giving the creatures a different power, a different reason to shift from a human into a beast, and providing humans with different methods of killing them—although, a silver bullet usually seems to be the way to go.
The world’s most famous vampire is undoubtedly Bram Stoker’s Dracula, who Stoker reportedly modeled after Romanian Prince Vlad Tepes, more popularly known as Vlad the Impaler (pictured). While most people can name a few vampiric characteristics, there are actually no set parameters for what a vampire can and can’t do because there are “no firmly established characteristics,” according to Live Science
Some reports say the Basilisk originated in Italian lore, while others say it was born from Greek mythology. According to lore, the Basilisk had the power to kill people with a single glance—similar to Medusa, although the two are not interchangeable. The creature emerged from a rooster’s egg after being incubated by a toad, and had the power “to wither landscapes with its breath,” according to the Smithsonian.