Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

That’s a pretty long name for a monster, isn’t it? We prefer something like ‘Nessie’ as it’s two short syllables that really get out of your mouth quickly – but that’s a different kind of monster all together.

You see, The Beast of the Land Between the Lakes, or The Beast of LBL for short, is like a giant wolfman that’s been terrifying people in the area for quite a long time. Nobody’s quite sure what it is – but there are theories…

The Land Between the Lakes is a huge wildlife refuge. It’s got around 300 miles of shoreline, forest-galore and there are no man-made developments anywhere in sight. It covers a lot of land too – 170,000 acres to be exact. That’s plenty of room for a gigantic human/dog hybrid to prance about murdering things in secret.

And allegedly, that’s just what the Beast of the Land Between the Lakes does. But what is he? Like we said – there are theories, like these ones from Geochaching.com:

“Some say the Beast is an exiled Indian Shaman that used his shape shifting abilities to do evil and was killed by tribal braves – before he died he vowed to torment the tribe and anyone on this land…. More recent explanations say the beast is a predator cousin of Bigfoot that kills for sport and always kills more than it can consume.”

A predator cousin of Bigfoot? Now that’s a family reunion we’d not want to find ourselves at for fear that if we ever found ourselves in attendance – it would be because we were on the grill being flipped by a fairly large spatula.

Now would you like some more details as to the legend? Of course you would – so here’s a bit from somebody named Jan, who heard all this from a bunch of old timers sitting on a bench somewhere in LBL (as found on the website Guardian Tales):

“Each [old timer] told stories of finding livestock slaughtered, ripped to pieces and ate upon.  Cows and pigs with their legs dismembered from the sockets.  Even a few horses had met their end with savage attacks upon their bodies.  A few of them described what they saw at different times when they caught glimpses of  the figure by  peeking out of the curtains of the windows into the night.  One man said it jumped out of one of the horse stalls one evening while he was putting up some animals. It stopped in front of him, arms spread out like it was getting ready to grab him, let out a howl and then sprang past him and into the dusky shadows of  the  sunset.  This particular man said he ‘wet his overalls’ during the episode.  Another man said he never seen it, but would always hear it’s baleful wails frequently at night, not like a regular wolf or a coyote, “No,” he said, “It was more deeper, longer, stronger sounding then what would come out of any animal I ever heard.”  Another old timer said his wife had seen it trying to get into the chicken coup but gave up after getting tangled in the chicken wire.  They all had tales of ‘someone’s hound dog’ getting killed, ripped apart limb from limb, ‘someone’s pig or cow or chicken’ getting eaten, the mysterious footprints left in the mud, and the stench it left behind where ever it appeared.  And more then one had the same story of listening to it walk across their front porches at night and scratching on the doors and walls which would leave deep gouges in the wood they would find in the morning.”

There’s also a story about how the beast killed a family of four. The details include bowels & limbs strewn all over the place and a blood splattered camping trailer that probably didn’t have that kind of insurance coverage. It’s far too long of a tale to tell here – but it’s just long enough to tell it there (It’s the blog of that Jan we mentioned earlier).

Normally cryptid stories include a giant, fuzzy whatever or other caught out of the corner of your eye, a plaster cast foot print or something that looks like a blurry Rosie O’Donnell having her way with a super-sexy girl buffet table. That last one was seen by our friend Kurt. He doesn’t like talking about it.

The point being all the creatures seen normally run into the distance to escape the eyes that happen upon them. Murder is generally not part of the story.

This time though – this time we’re talking about a monster we’d really rather not see unzipping our tent on a camping trip.

Not unless it’s bringing us breakfast.

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