New Hampshire is a state found in the northeastern United States in the New England Region and it is bordered with the nation of Canada and the US States of Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts and it also has a small coast along the Atlantic Ocean. The state capital is Concord while the largest city is Manchester. Like many of the New England US states New Hampshire is one of the smallest of the US states.
Much of the state is covered in forests and there are the White Mountains in the north-central portion of the state and in the east-central of the state is the lakes region named due to many of the state’s lakes being found here and this area also has two small mountain ranges as well.
New Hampshire’s economy originally relied on manufacturing textiles, shoes and also machine shops but this eventually went into a decline and the state developed into a broad-based economy with the largest sectors including real estate/rental/leasing, manufacturing, professional business services, government and services, and health/social care services. Tourism is also a big contributor, specifically outdoor recreational activities. There is no state income tax apart from on dividends and interest although this has resulted in higher property taxes.
Now that is done let’s move on to the strange and the unexplained of the state. Considering the state is so small it will be interesting to see what they have in this department.
The first thing I come across when looking into the strange possible cryptids or monsters of the state is… not a lot, but the first thing I did come across is something called the Wood Devil. This bipedal creature deeply reminds me of the tales of Fearsome Critters of which I did a mini-series on in the lead up to last year’s Halloween. The Woods Devil is said to be found in the forests of Coos County in the state and they are extremely adept at hiding.
If you are to see one of these creatures it would usually be by accident, if you turn around they will very quickly hide behind a tree or stand so still that you will look them over without seeing them, so most the time you will hear it but not see it, which very much reminds me of the Hidebehind Fearsome Critter. They are said to be able to camouflage into the tree’s bark.
Those who have managed to get a glimpse of them describe them as very tall, anywhere from 7-9ft but also skinny. They are also described as having shaggy grayish hair as well covering their body. Some claim they could be a type of Bigfoot species although the way they act and the odd proportions they have makes this appear to not be the case.
One of the witness drawings of the creature also appear to give it a very creepy looking face with a Joker-like smile with a large nose and wide-set eyes with a large overhanging brow. Luckily, they do not seem to be aggressive but rather instead very shy and if startled they are said to run away at very fast speeds, some stories also talk of them making loud bone-chilling screams when spotted by a human but overall, most of the legends agree that they are generally silent creatures.
Sightings of the creature were said to be much more common back in the early and mid 1900s but have dropped off since the 1970s with much less sightings today. Considering the area these creatures are said to inhabit it isn’t too hard to believe that something undiscovered exists in a very remote area that is quite heavily forested, especially if they are as good at hiding as the legends claim.
So the Wood Devil may be shy, elusive and non-aggressive but there is another creature with Devil in the name that is said to be very aggressive, it is or should I say they are known as Devil Monkeys, these creatures have been claimed in forests in both Canada and the US New England Region, with New Hampshire being one such place they are said to roam.
These primate-type creatures are described in height anywhere from 3-8ft although generally in the 3-4ft range in most cases and it is described as having pointed ears, a snout that is either dog or baboon-like, a big bushy tail and only three toes on each foot. Like all primates it travels around on all fours and mostly jumps about from place to place. They are said to be very aggressive when encountered, especially against humans and their dog companions.
It is said the creatures will kill and feed off of livestock and so the unusual death or mutilation of farm animals may be blamed on the creatures. The Devil Monkeys are also said to make aggressive and chilling sounds such as whistling, hooting, and screaming. Naturally if you hear any such noises while out in the forests of Canada and New England it would be suggested to get the heck out of there, just to be on the safe side.
Explanations for the monkeys include them having escaped from captivity, such as during bad weather events or that they have been released/escaped from research facilities or by owners keeping them illegally. Others say it could be a species we once believed to be extinct.
The town of Danville in New Hampshire was said to have been harassed by a monkey in 2001 for 2-weeks with numerous residents reporting sightings and strange noises and many dubbing it a Devil Monkey. The first sighting took place on August 21st of that year and was seen by firefighter David Kimball who said he saw it jump out of the trees, hit the ground and then simply made a giant leap back towards where it came from. The firefighter immediately knew it was nothing native to New Hampshire.
After some research at the town library the firefighter came to the conclusion that what he saw was a Humboldt wooly monkey which, as he had obviously known, was not native to New England let alone anywhere in the US but was native to the Amazon in South America.
From then on, the animal kept being seen by residents, including a sighting of it in a backyard, hearing strange noises emanating from the nearby woods and a child claiming that his cookies had been stolen by the monkey.
After some time, the town residents decided to attempt to capture the monkey, either before it got itself killed or it ended up hurting someone, there was belief that the monkey was likely an escaped pet that had been purposely released although this could not be proven. The townsfolk and local animal control attempted various methods to capture the monkey, such as female monkey urine, putting out bananas and also a local DJ dressing up as a monkey to try and lure it out but it didn’t work.
Eventually soon after the monkey vanished, perhaps it was intelligent enough to know that the townsfolk were trying to capture it and came to the conclusion it was no longer welcome and so left. This funny story likely wasn’t an actual Devil Monkey, but it keeps the imagination going.
I would not be fitting without the usual tale of a water-based cryptid, of which we had lots of in the previous post on Maine. New Hampshire has their own water monster legend situated in the Dublin Lake or also called the Dublin Pond in Cheshire County near to the town of Dublin. It is simply called the Dublin Lake Monster. The Dublin Lake is not super large, it is 0.8 miles in length and 0.6 miles in width and its surface area is 236 acres and has an average depth of 64ft and a max depth of 100ft.
Apparently underwater caverns deep within the lake hide mysteries of unidentified and undiscovered water cryptids that lurk within them, often being described as like gigantic eels. One of the biggest legends and possibly where the rumours of monsters in the lake originates from comes from an apparent scuba diving incident in the 1980s.
It is said a scuba diver had gone missing in the lake for a number of days before mysteriously appearing naked and unconscious near to the shore of the lake and that when he begun to wake up, he babbled incoherently about eel-like monsters deep within the lake’s underwater caverns.
There is also a different version of the legend also involving a scuba diver in the 1980s, the story starts that a diving bell was being used to measure the depth of the lake, but that there was not enough tether for it to reach the deepest area and so a scuba diver was sent down to explore the deep area but vanished, in similar fashion to the other legend the scuba diver was discovered near the shore days later unconscious and naked, discovered by a group of hikers, the man coming to again babbled incoherently about monsters in the lake, but this time the monsters were described as living in dry air pockets deep within the lake and that they were subterranean cryptids rather than the usual lake monster.
Apparently, the scuba diver was so mentally shocked by what he witnessed he was institutionalized for life.
Of course, neither of these legends can be proven and would seem to almost certainly be made up stories originating from somewhere or other, perhaps some kind of other local folklore. The legend is bigger than any sightings, mostly because it appears that these creatures never surface but always remain deep within the caverns and so it is only possible to see them by people brave enough to dive deep down – which may I add I highly suggest not doing.
It also cannot go without mention that one of the first alien abductions to reach popular culture took place in this state to a couple called Betty and Barney Hill and of which I have talked about before in a previous blogpost from last year called 5 Curious Extra-Terrestrial/Alien Encounters which you can read here.
It is known as the first ever alien-abduction story to be widely documented and of which many other alien abduction stories since have taken similar parts from this to have also happened in them. The encounter itself took place in September 1961 as the couple were driving through the White Mountains in their ‘57 Chevy Bell Air. During the drive on this dark September evening they soon noticed a light in the distance which seemed to be following them.
After this odd event they soon arrived home but were spooked to find things were far from normal as seemingly they had been afflicted by a number of events they had no prior knowledge of, such as their watchers no longer working, they also felt messy and uncomfortable and Barney’s shoes has become marked and worn while Betty’s dress had been torn and to their utter confusion they had also lost 2 hours of time.
Eventually the mental anguish and torment was too much and Betty and Barney Hill went to see a psychiatrist to try and rectify what had happened to them, little did they know that this path would lead them through shocking revelations on what had happened during their period of missing time.
During regression they described being chased and teased by a mysterious bright light that would also mess with their cars electronics and engine before eventually abducting them, they described strange Grey humanoid creatures with wide-eyes that led them to a great metallic disk and that these creatures examined them on board this alien ship before they had their memories wiped and were let go.
Well that will about do it for New Hampshire. Next up we will be looking at the strange and the unexplained of the US state of Vermont.
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