Amazing Nebraska Cryptid Photo

Posted by: Loren Coleman on June 15th, 2006

A remarkable photographic image has been snapped on the morning of June 13, 2006, in a woman’s backyard in the Midwestern state of Nebraska. KETV-7 in Omaha broadcast the picture on June 14, and it appears to be an animal unlike any most people have seen locally.

Nebraska Cryptid

In the short dispatch, the Nebraska news staff report that:

Mary Ann Carta lives near 138th and Hamilton streets, and she took some pictures of the animal that she saw. She said it could be a bobcat, but it has her scared about taking her morning walk or allowing her grandchildren to play outside.

"I was not afraid at the moment. I was in the house, but I was just thinking about yesterday with the grandkids it was like, what would I have done," Carta said.

An expert at the Henry Doorly Zoo is examining the pictures. He thinks it could be a feral cat.

What are we to make of the hint of striping on the back? The long canid-like legs? And long thin tail?

A werewolf, perhaps? I’m mildly joking, but that moniker has been used in reports before, as we know from the work of Linda Godfrey, northeast of Nebraska, in Wisconsin.

Or how about something else from the upper Mountain States? The image does have an cryptid canid or hynea-like appearance, reminding me of the Shunka Warak’in mystery taxidermy mount from the 1880s, seen and recorded from the Yellowstone area, as pictured below, and discussed in Cryptozoology A to Z.

Shunka Warakin

What do you think?

_________________________________________ 

The following was not added by Loren Coleman; posted by Cryptomundo editors:

Update 

Image Enhancement

Nebraska Cryptid

Click on image for full-size version

Enhancement provided by Cryptomundo reader Annie

Out of curiosity, I thought I’d see if I could bring any more detail out of the photo.

My outline of the animal was the best I could judge, based to the photo. The face area was fairly difficult to determine. The animal definitely appears to have a tail, but one with a kink in it at the top, giving the impression of a bobbed tail.

Anyways, everyone is welcome to judge for themselves.

Annie

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.


117 Responses to “Amazing Nebraska Cryptid Photo”

  1. Brindle responds:

    I agree with Sasquatch’s interpretaion of what anatomical bits are in the photo. No head visible and four dog legs (and an unbroken dog tail), of whatever breed. Size is hard to determine because there is nothing of known scale with which to compare.

    A good point is made that Mastiffs are uncommon.

    I have seen dogs with unbroken tails hold them with a crook in the middle.

  2. monswine responds:

    the Shunka thing reminded me of a wolf, But then I thought ”andrewsarchus”

    Can’t find a good picture, so just google it, It was the largest carnivorous mammal on land ever. Closer(evolutionarily) to sheep and goats than it is to dogs or cats.

    For the nebraska beast, Ima go with feral dog, or mountain lion.

  3. monswine responds:

    picture at the bottom is good, but the coloration is an artists interpretation.

  4. Brindle responds:

    My money is on the shunka warak’in critter being a pig of some kind. If you could see the feet there would be little cloven hooves! The head doesn’t look the least bit canid.

  5. afeeney responds:

    I’m a bit suspicious of the break that the middle window frame creates, since the back half looks remarkably like a dog and the front half looks much more like a big cat. (I see the two protrusions as ears of an animal looking away from the camera.) The legs do look a smidgen like a primate, though.

    It’d really help if we could see clearly whether the back legs end where the image does, in which case they could be feet (primate), or if they continue into paws.

  6. sasquatch responds:

    The werewolf thing could be a taxidermists joke- pig/wolf, or just bad taxidermy of a wolf.

  7. saurion responds:

    Dog, a mangy beaten straggly broken tailed dog. This photo reminds me of the one I’ve seen of 2 dogs so perfectly lined up to the camera that one blended into the other looking like a 6 legged dog. That’s what this looks like.

    As a few others have noted, the pink ears are the flowers on the plant along the window, the hump is overhanging pine bough, the face appears to be shadows on the rocks and the flowering plant’s foliage. It looks like the animal’s head is to the right and down, like it’s sniffing along. I’m sure a few of you out there have seen a headless animal ‘thing’ standing around only to realize it was a dog when it lifts it’s head up.

    It’s a incredible but convinent combination of a camera focusing on a long range subject with mid range interferance. My question is was it a manual or digital camera?

  8. shadowparks responds:

    It looks like a pitbull to me. I have two of them. What appears to be the cat like head looks like a shadow.

  9. sasquatch responds:

    I saw a greyhound today that was colored exactly like this dog. And to the guy who says “the legs are too massive to be that of a dog”, What are you looking at? They are almost as skinny as the greyhounds that I saw today. there are a lot of greyhounds around where I live because folks started adopting them from the race track because they use to just kill ’em when they got slow and the news publicized it. Greyhounds are bizarre looking so it may have startled the woman to see a tall lanky critter with stripped fur and a skinny pointy snout.

  10. Rialle91 responds:

    Wrong part of the world, but the hindquarters and – is there some stripes there, or is that my eyes deceiving me? – remind me a little of a Tasmanian tiger… They’re ‘extinct’ in Tasmanian, so the idea is ridiculous… But that tail and springy lithe back legs… I wish you could see the head, because you can’t mistake the mouth on them! There’s loads of photographs of the T. Tigers if you want to look, but this sketch shows good leg/tail comparison. About the baboon comment, look at that primates rear… This animal’s isn’t so colourful. If you look at the T. Tiger’s feet, well… Maybe it’s a Nebraska Tiger *chuckle*

  11. kittenz responds:

    Hmm. I did not see this until now. It looks like the back end of a brindle Boxer dog. It looks to me like its head is turned to the right and down, and what some have taken to be a bent head is actually a raised left foreleg.

  12. Muggs responds:

    Did anybody look behind the Creature in the back? It looks like there’s a little one.

    Just thought I would say.

  13. Eveal1 responds:

    After reviewing the photo for a few minutes, I have come to the conclusion that the clipping of the photo is incorrect. THe near front leg is up taking a step with the far (right) front leg down along the window frame that “cuts” the photo. The coloration is interesting in that it has black socks and what I would assume to be a black muzzle. The range of the legs and the length of hair make it look very similar to a shaggy greyhound or even an Irish Wolfhound or Scottish Deerhound. THe trouble with this thought: the chest isn’t deep enough. Even a wolf, whose legs might be long enough doesn’t fit quite right, the chest is deeper on a wolf, I think.

  14. CryptidHuntr responds:

    It’s too bulky to be a cat. I say it looks like a…a….a….Hyena!!!!! That’s it. A hyena! Thanx Loren!!!!

  15. Faintwarrior responds:

    I rhink its a kind of monkey, I never thought it was a dog or cat, always a monkey, maybe a baboon

  16. Faintwarrior responds:

    sorry… I THINK its a kind of monkey

  17. bryanofadown responds:

    I’ve never seen a dog with toes. It’s a primate. Look closely at the feet. It has toes. And I think the outline is mistaken. The mouth opening in the outline isn’t the mouth. The animal appears to be looking down. I’d say, if it’s a cryptid, it could possibly be a devil monkey, which is a baboon like ape/primate said to inhabit the forests of North America and are known to be extremely aggressive and territorial. I looked at it pretty closely and it isn’t a dog. Why would someone bother with taking a picture of a stray dog anyway. I see stray dogs all of the time and never once felt the need to photograph one.

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

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