Wyoming is a box-shaped state located in the Western United States and is bordered with Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota and Nebraska. It is the least populated out of the 50 US states (having less total population than a number of US cities) and the 2nd most sparsely populated state in the US. The state capital and most populous city of the state is Cheyenne.
Wyoming’s land includes mountains and rangelands in the western two-thirds of the state and the eastern third of the state is made up of prairie at high elevation and called the High Plains. Parts of the well-known Yellowstone National Park are in Wyoming and there is also Grand Teton, there are also two recreation areas, national monuments, national forests, historic sites and more which are federal land, with almost half of the state’s land being federal.
Mineral extraction and tourism make up the majority of the state’s economy.
So, with all the wilderness that this state has within it, there surely has to be a number of mystery cryptids that roam within it, so let’s see…
The sasquatch has been reported in Wyoming such as in the Yellowstone National Park area and there have also been sightings of things such as werewolves or “dogmen” which some have attributed to the Native American legend of the Skinwalker, which are said to be active in the state… but let’s look into some more localized paranormal stuff and cryptids of Wyoming…
One thing that first needs to be given an honourable mention is that of the Jackalope, although it is widely seen as a big hoax and is mostly a running joke to those who like to tease outsiders with it – the origin of this strange rabbit creature with antlers on its head has a strong culture and home in Wyoming’s city of Douglas, which has been dubbed the Jackalope capital. It all began when two taxidermist brothers, Douglas and Ralph Herrick, created mounted rabbit heads that they had attached antlers on to and this business became quite popular with many buying them and hanging it up in places such as bars and restaurants where many can still be seen up today – although whether they are originals made by Douglas and Ralph, can be up for debate.
What isn’t up for debate though is that the two brothers actions very much popularized the Jackalope into the public consciousness in the United States, especially in West of the country. It has pushed it into the culture of not only Wyoming but also a number of other areas of the US in the Western United States and has even been used as a way to attract tourists. The town has a big Jackalope statue and also hosts an annual Jackalope Days celebration – the Chamber of Commerce also issues novelty Jackalope hunting licenses to tourists, the licenses are only valid on 31st June, from midnight to 2am, of which such a date doesn’t exist, another “requirement” requests the hunter to have an IQ greater than 50 but below 72.
Wyoming’s legislature has even had bills drafted and considered to make the Jackalope the state’s official mythological creature.
Although the two brothers made the myth of the Jackalope much more visible and perhaps provided for the creation of its name, the legend of horned rabbits has existed for a very long time before then, but just wasn’t as well known. There have been many claims through history of seeing rabbits with antlers/horns and not just in the wilderness of the United States but also in other places around the world – where such creatures may have different names or descriptions, but of which the idea of the Jackalope could very well have possibly originated from in folkloric history. Tall tales and stories of Fearsome Critters told in the early history of the United States could have also helped propagate and build the Jackalope into the US folkloric mind through the telling of stories about horned rabbits.
Next, we shall look at a water cryptid – the US sure seems to have a lot of them. This one in Wyoming allegedly calls Lake De Smet its abode. The lake is a natural undrained basin found in the north-east of the state not too far from the Montana border and the Crow Reservation Territory. There isn’t anything too special about the lake compared to some of the others we have covered from previous states, but it does provide a place for fishing and the lake was expanded through the construction of a dam and of which has been increased in size two further times. The Lake was once quite saline and so supported limited aquatic life, but over time the salinity dropped due to rains and run-off from nearby creeks as well as the former irrigation ditch and the dam further dropping the salinity of the lake.
Today the lake encompasses about 3,600 acres of land (up from the original 1,500 acres). The water cryptid, as is the common thing, is named after the lake, the Lake DeSmet Monster or as otherwise known by its nickname Smetty. There have been reports of this creature since the turn of the 20th Century, but the first recorded sighting came in 1925, recorded in a book called Locating the Iron Trail by Edward Gillette, the encounter was told to the author by the Barkey family, who owned a ranch near to the lake.
In the book the family would tell the author that if he had arrived half-an-hour earlier he may have caught a glimpse at, not one, but two apparent serpents that they sighted in the lake. These serpents were described as making a great commotion in the water and that they swam “as fast as a horse could trot”. On the author asking for a description of the apparent animals, the wife, Mrs. Barkey, said that they looked like a long telephone pole with lard buckets attached. So, clearly it was a description of a long serpent with perhaps big flippers or fins. It was interestingly noted by the author that the members of this family had previously discredited the apparent older sightings of an unknown creature in the lake.
The question remains though, with the lake originally being so small and having a lot of human activity around it during the time of its expansion into a much larger reservoir, as well as previously being quite unwelcoming to aquatic life, is it really plausible that such an aquatic beast could have remained in it for such a time, going almost entirely unnoticed to the vast majority of people who have visited the lake? Could it be another one of those residual things? Perhaps not as there doesn’t appear to be any modern sightings, but then if such a beast died in the lake as recent as the early 1900s, surely some kind of carcass would have been discovered? – again in a lake that isn’t so large, especially in comparison those we have covered before. Some have theorized, quite outlandishly, that there could be subterranean tunnels that provide access to the lake from the ocean, and of which is how the monster could have got there, this explanation has also been touted by believers of serpents for many other lakes as well, as another way of explaining how it hides so well.
The lake is also seen as taboo by Native American’s, due to the story of a monster from the lake that snatched up an Indian Papoose from the shore never to be seen again and the lake is also said to be haunted, due to a Native American legend of heartbreak that occurred at the lake, leading to the suicide of the Chief’s daughter, who sought revenge on the warrior who caused the heartbreak, by killing him and since then it is said that you can sometimes hear the warrior’s spirit wailing or see it wandering the shore.
Over in the previous Paranormal Idaho post I included the Native American legend of a mythical small race of peoples called the Nimerigar, which were said to be found in areas of the Rocky Mountains, of which stretches into Wyoming as well and the legend of the Nimerigar also exists in this state. These little peoples were said to be ruthless and would fight the Shoshone Indians in Wyoming in their legends and were also said to kill off any of their own race who were weak, feeble or holding them back.
The reason I am bringing this up again is due to their being an interesting find in the San Pedro Mountains within the state of Wyoming. The discovery of a small 4-foot tall, 4-foot wide room was discovered 15-feet deep into one of the mountains, unintentionally uncovered by Cecil Mayne and Frank Carr through the usage of dynamite while prospecting in October 1932. Within this room a tiny 1-foot tall mummified corpse was discovered, having a face that appeared to have been of a man of old age. Of course, this discovery would spur much speculation that this naturally mummified corpse was none other than one of the Nimerigar, perhaps in some kind of burial tomb.
Scientists on the other hand were a lot more skeptical and believed it to be either an infant that had anencephaly, a condition that caused its deformity and early death or further proof of the Native American Pygmy race, pygmies being peoples who were short in stature, but of which was not a medical condition, such as dwarfism. There are though some thoeries that it was a dwarf as well, with evidence of other damage to the body and speculation that a blow to the head could have killed the being – of which the Nimerigar were said to do to their own if they suffered from a disability that held them back. The disappearance of the mummified corpse since the last analysis has frustrated attempts to make a full determination and has also led to continued speculation of the Nimerigar.
To round this off we will check out a haunted place found in the state and for this we will be going to the city of Laramie which is West of the state capital of Cheyenne. The place name also has an association with mystery itself, being named after a trapper called Jacques LaRamie who seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth one day after travelling into the Laramie mountains.
In this city there is the Laramie Plains Civic Center which has a morbid previous history, being that it was an old school called the East Side School and this school was built on grounds where dead bodies had to be removed from and given a proper burial.
This was due to Laramie’s old lawless history where many people resorted to vigilante killings in an attempt to reduce crime and many of these bodies would be dumped in different parts of the developing settlement back in the mid-1800s. One such lynching involved three outlaw brothers including “Big” Steve Long, they owned a saloon called the Bucket of Blood and would harass settlers in the area to sign over the deeds of their property and upon refusal would kill them, killing as many as 13 men.
In response a vigilante committee that was organised by the first county sheriff N.K. Boswell would overwhelm the three brothers and lynch them at an unfinished cabin down the street from their saloon. Many other vigilante killings happened after the event and although lynching is seen most often to only make things worse and can easily lead to innocent people being killed, in this case it was seen to bring a semblance of law and order.
Nonetheless the bodies of some of those killed, as said, had to be removed from the grounds where the school was built in 1878. The school was considered the oldest public school at the time and was expanded twice in the early-mid 1900s before it was closed down in 1979 and became a civic center, providing office space and room for community classes and clubs such as performing arts. But there has been many reports of a haunting in the building by those who have been there.
Such phenomena have included electrical equipment acting off of its own accord such as lights turning off and on, electrical equipment such as doors working by themselves even when power is not connected to them and of course things being moved and manipulated by unseen forces and unusual sounds seemingly emanating from nowhere randomly, such as the sound of beating Native American drums and also smells such as that of perfume appearing suddenly for no explainable reason. Shadow people have also been reported lurking in the hallways of the building, sneaking around and observing those inside.
Other apparitions outside of the shadow people have also been reported, including clear full-body apparitions that are there one moment and gone the next.
Laramie also has a number of other haunted places as well, such as Fort Laramie.
And that is some of the unusual stuff that can be found in the US state of Wyoming. Next up we will be checking out the unexplained in the state of Colorado.
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