“In one smooth movement, it reared up on its hind legs and it was no longer a deer, but a man.”
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word cryptid as “An animal whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated, such as the yeti.” For the following witnesses to living cryptids, there is no dispute. In this series of National Cryptid Society’s case files, you will read what the witnesses have experienced in their own words.
Keep an open mind when reading these accounts, and also remember one’s perception and memory of an event can be influenced by the emotions felt at the time of the occurrence. The contributors to this series of articles are doing the best they can to recount what are in some cases very shocking and traumatic experiences.
If you have a personal cryptid sighting story you would like to tell us, our contact information is at the bottom of this article.
NCS Case File #51: Shapeshifting Deer Man of Delaware
Submitted by: [anonymous]
Location: Near Hockessin, DE
Date: 1993
“I was 7 or 8 years old and visiting my paternal grandparents with the rest of my family. They lived deep in the woods and I always hated it there, it felt like something was always watching, and was always eerily quiet. Like, not even crickets chirping.
My little brother and I shared a bed in one room on the ground floor. My brother would sleep at one end, his head against the window/wall, and I would be on the other, facing the window. On this particular morning, I woke up first. The sun was brilliant, making the room gold through the curtains. And there, a silhouette against the window, was a deer with the biggest rack of antlers I had ever seen. It was RIGHT there, like almost pressed against the window in profile. I stared in awe.
And that is when it changed.
In one smooth movement, it reared up on its hind legs and it was no longer a deer, but a man. There were only two men in the area, my grandfather and my dad, and it was clearly neither (not sure if that made it better or worse). Grandfather was very built for his age, dad had a gut. This silhouette was clearly younger, muscular but not in the “like a brick” way my grandfather was. It exuded strength. And scared the hell out of me.
It stared to the side for a moment, and then strode off with purpose.
Looking back, I want to tell myself it was just the imagination of a half-awake child, but I remember the awe and the utter fear I felt when the “deer” changed.”
This collection of over 170+ articles, direct from newspapers of the 1800s and 1900s, brings some of the most bizarre, amazing, and incredible stories of true monster encounters out of the past and into your hands! Presented with zero spin or bias, this book delivers just the facts and allows you, the reader, to decide for yourself if the stories within actually happened or not.
From the funny to the frightening, the sincere to the weird, there is something for everyone within these pages!
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A few years ago in what I think was 2016 I swore I saw what looked like a bipedal deer in Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland. I live in Maryland, but not near that area. I was just there camping. It looked sort of like a deer, but was seemingly bipedal and very tall. It looked like it was going to fall over, too. Like it was unbalanced or spasming. It was facing semi-away from me and was far away below me in a semi-forested area (I was on a large rock looking down at the forest) and after looking directly at it for a good 4 or so seconds and realizing I has just looked too long to be hallucinating it, I slowly backed away to where I couldn’t see it and crouched down for a bit. After what seemed like a while, I made my way over to look over the edge, still crouched down, saw nothing. I quickly but quietly made my way back to the camp site I was at, and until now, never spoke of that sighting until now except when I told my family to convince them to never go back to Thurmont. They didn’t believe me, but they also agreed with me because they didn’t want to stress me out. I just now found this article, and while quite a few details of the description aren’t the same as what I saw, this sighting was 23 years before mine.
Since I saw it such a long time ago I don’t remember what its legs looked like, only that it looked like a deer standing unsteadily on two legs. Its face didn’t look too right either, I recall its one eye I saw being too close to the end of its snout. Also, I distinctly remember it having no antlers. Not sure if it was female, or just didn’t have any. Anyway, when I saw it, from where I was standing, when I say it was facing “semi-away” from me, I mean it sort of had its back to me, but was facing diagonally to the right and was to the left of where I was standing. As I looked at it, it was turning itself to the left, but I recall it taking very small steps to do so, not rotating its center body at all to turn like a human would. I had crouched down before cover before it had finished turning, and like I said, by the time I had built up the courage to take a peak over, it wasn’t there anymore, so I never actually got to see it move, so I don’t know if it was able to move fast like the cryptid in that report, and while that report is vague, it is closer to what I saw than this one, and also decently close to Maryland as well. Actually, this makes me feel a little better, because this makes me think what I saw may have been real after all… thank you for sharing this with me.
You’re welcome. And would you mind if I shared your commentary? I’d actually like to feature it in one of the NCS Case Files if you would be interested.
I wouldn’t mind at all, I would actually love that. Maybe then if anyone else has witnessed what I’ve seen they’d be able to see it then and share their stories too. I find it quite interesting that multiple people have witnessed deer-like cryptids in states so close to each other. Earlier I tried to find the general location of where I saw it using google maps satellite since where I was there were very large flat topped rocks all around me at the time of sighting it, and I was actually on top of one at the time, but to no avail, the forest’s just too large.
The National Cryptid Society 
A few years ago in what I think was 2016 I swore I saw what looked like a bipedal deer in Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland. I live in Maryland, but not near that area. I was just there camping. It looked sort of like a deer, but was seemingly bipedal and very tall. It looked like it was going to fall over, too. Like it was unbalanced or spasming. It was facing semi-away from me and was far away below me in a semi-forested area (I was on a large rock looking down at the forest) and after looking directly at it for a good 4 or so seconds and realizing I has just looked too long to be hallucinating it, I slowly backed away to where I couldn’t see it and crouched down for a bit. After what seemed like a while, I made my way over to look over the edge, still crouched down, saw nothing. I quickly but quietly made my way back to the camp site I was at, and until now, never spoke of that sighting until now except when I told my family to convince them to never go back to Thurmont. They didn’t believe me, but they also agreed with me because they didn’t want to stress me out. I just now found this article, and while quite a few details of the description aren’t the same as what I saw, this sighting was 23 years before mine.
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Here’s a somewhat similar report from NE Ohio… No date given. https://nationalcryptidsociety.org/2017/06/27/ncs-case-file-9/
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Since I saw it such a long time ago I don’t remember what its legs looked like, only that it looked like a deer standing unsteadily on two legs. Its face didn’t look too right either, I recall its one eye I saw being too close to the end of its snout. Also, I distinctly remember it having no antlers. Not sure if it was female, or just didn’t have any. Anyway, when I saw it, from where I was standing, when I say it was facing “semi-away” from me, I mean it sort of had its back to me, but was facing diagonally to the right and was to the left of where I was standing. As I looked at it, it was turning itself to the left, but I recall it taking very small steps to do so, not rotating its center body at all to turn like a human would. I had crouched down before cover before it had finished turning, and like I said, by the time I had built up the courage to take a peak over, it wasn’t there anymore, so I never actually got to see it move, so I don’t know if it was able to move fast like the cryptid in that report, and while that report is vague, it is closer to what I saw than this one, and also decently close to Maryland as well. Actually, this makes me feel a little better, because this makes me think what I saw may have been real after all… thank you for sharing this with me.
LikeLike
You’re welcome. And would you mind if I shared your commentary? I’d actually like to feature it in one of the NCS Case Files if you would be interested.
LikeLike
I wouldn’t mind at all, I would actually love that. Maybe then if anyone else has witnessed what I’ve seen they’d be able to see it then and share their stories too. I find it quite interesting that multiple people have witnessed deer-like cryptids in states so close to each other. Earlier I tried to find the general location of where I saw it using google maps satellite since where I was there were very large flat topped rocks all around me at the time of sighting it, and I was actually on top of one at the time, but to no avail, the forest’s just too large.
LikeLike