The Dandadan cryptids, their real counterparts, and the likely explanation

I’m a bit of cryptid nerd and when I was younger I was a firm believer. So I really liked Dandadan’s inclusion of some actual real life cryptids. I also find interesting what the cryptids actually are, as I’ve since learned that most cryptids typically have normal explanations behind them.

Flatwoods Monster: in 1952, brothers Edward and Fred May along with their friend Tommy Hyer saw a bright object fly across the sky and land on the property of a local farmer in the town Flatwoods, West Virginia. Hay brothers’ mother Kathleen joined the 3 alongside 2 other local children and a National Guardsmen to investigate. At the top of a hill they saw a 10 foot tall humanoid with a pointed hood-like face, claw-like hands and seemingly have a dress like bottom. The creature also supposedly emitted a foul odor and hissed at them. The group ran and when the local sheriff went to investigate the creature was nowhere to be seen. Now believers in the paranormal explain the Flatwoods monster as an extraterrestrial, like in Dandadan. However the actual explanation is likely much simpler, the bright light was a meteor and the monster itself was likely just an owl. Seemingly in the dark and in their anxious state the quick glimpse of the owl combined with its territorial hissing would have created the impression of a monster. The rest of the monster’s body could be just the environment as the owl might have been nesting in a tree hole with the arms being branches and the skirt being a bush. The biggest difference between Dandadan’s Flatwoods Monster and the “real” one is that Dandadan’s monster is a hulking sumo brute compared to the more otherworldly creature supposedly seen.

Nessie: a poster child for cryptozoology alongside Bigfoot. Supposedly the earliest report was around 565 when St. Columba repelled a “water beast” in the River Ness that had earlier attacked and killed a man. Columba repelled the beast by having a follower lure it and Columba repelled it using sign of the cross along with some prayer. This story is suspect though as the text it came from was written centuries after Columba’s death and includes other stories of Columba performing miracles and exorcising supernatural forces. The first definitive sighting of Nessie was in 1933, when George Spicer and his wife reported seeing a large amorphous creature bounding across the road in front of their car. Later sightings came about following Spicer’s account with varying descriptions of the monster from being described like a large otter or seal to a giant white camel like animal till eventually settling on the plesiosaur-form we know today. The likely explanations for Nessie sort of build on each other. The movie King Kong had come out in 1933 and had become a massive hit, with people fascinated by the idea of ancient creatures still being alive in some remote corner of the Earth, Spicer even admitted to watching the film only a week before his sighting. As such many initial sightings could be inspired by a particular scene in the movie of a large plesiosaur attacking the characters in a lake. As the myth of the Loch Ness Monster grew it attracted lots of attention which may have contributed to more people making either hoax accounts or misidentification. The cultural zeitgeist may have made people simply perceive any random thing in the loch as the monster, any wave or shape, things that they may have not noticed in any other body of water. As well Nessie’s biggest issue is that it resembles the outdated portrayal of plesiosaurs as semiaquatic sluggish reptiles with swan like necks whereas modern paleontology has found that plesiosaurs actually had quite stiff necks and that they would have been physically unable to support their weight on land. Dandadan’s Nessie is very close to the real deal, minus the addition of Godzilla powers.

Dover Demon: in 1977, 17 year old Bill Bartlett was driving through Dover, Massachusetts when he saw the creature on the wall. Describing it as 4 feet tall, with glowing orange eyes on an otherwise featureless watermelon shaped head. Two other teenagers also reported similar sightings. While many take these as proof of an alien or other paranormal creature the likely explanation is other misidentification or hoax. The “demon” could have been a misidentified moose calf, perhaps even an albino or otherwise malformed one. The late reporting of the sightings could indicate that it was simply a hoax made by the teenagers considering that school vacation had started around then and the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind had recently been released. The most different from the original sightings. To the degree that I’m surprised that the mangaka even said Mr. Mantis Shrimp was the Dover Demon.