Still Unsolved: Nebraska Cryptid Photo
Posted by: Loren Coleman on June 1st, 2009
A remarkable photographic image was snapped on the morning of June 13, 2006, in a backyard in the Midwestern state of Nebraska.
Omaha television station KETV-7 broadcast the picture on June 14, and it appeared to be an animal unlike any most people have seen locally.
In the short dispatch, the Nebraska news staff reported 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?
The image does have an cryptid canid or hynea-like appearance, reminding me of the Shunka Warak’in taxidermy mount from the 1880s, seen and recorded from the Yellowstone area, as pictured below, and discussed in Cryptozoology A to Z and elsewhere on Cryptomundo.
Image Enhancement
Click on image for full-size version
Enhancement was provided in 2006 by Cryptomundo reader Annie.
Three years later, what do you think?
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.
Hi!
It is indeed a weird looking canine, but those things are everywhere in America now. In the last few years there was many stories about such strange looking canines, but no serious research was made and even when there was one they said: “Hey,man that is just a fox with mange!”
This is Bologna!!
I don’t know what people think about this in America, but something is not right there. Can’t you see that those things are abnormal!!!
There is that Bray Road Beast; a lot of people said they saw it and there are photos from the creature so just grab a 12 gauge shotgun with 20-30 people and hunt that beast down and then you can see how a fox with mange looks like!!
Huh….. somehow my pit bull, Tugg, got to Nebraska and became a cryptid….. amazing.
It’s obviously nothing more nor less than a short-haired dog with its head lowered and turned away from the camera. The 3rd photo is cut out to look like there is a sort of “face” but that reddish part is clearly just a background object.
yeah pretty clearly a dog
looks like a brindle pitbull to me. “pitbulls” come in various shapes and sizes especially those from backyard breeding. lots of unusual brindle patterns too. some almost look like tiger stripes. closely cropped ears can also make the head look odd. this looks like a tall, long and lanky type with a broken tail.
whatever it is, it looks canid. no cat there.
When I was growing up I had a pit bull dog colored just like that. That coloration is called “brindle” and is pretty common in pit bulls, which is what that image appears to be. I don’t find that photo to be mysterious at all.
I agree with Kittenz. The reddish flower in the background covers part of the head, so that it appears as if the animal has its mouth open in the enhancement.
Was there any attempt to make an estimate of the animal’s size?
I also agree it looks like a dog.
A weird-looking dog, though.
Could be a “dog-hybrid.”
Dolouren is right.
Something is “not right there.”
It looks like a dog to me too. Interesting photo though.
Yup, I also vote “dog.”
Still a dog for me. I don’t think any head is visible – IMO the dog’s head is out of view to the right. Also, tail appears damaged – attempted DIY “docking” gone wrong, maybe.
Averagefoot nailed this one. I also have pitbulls, and I can guarantee you that is a pitbull. Classic brindle coloring of a pit.
yet another case of one vague poorly shot photo of a creature whose head we can’t see, this is no mystery, just a dog with brindle coloring , clearly the cutout has no actual relationship to the shape of the dog , unless of coarse his head is made of geraniums.
spuds mckensie after all these years???
To read more confusion to the mix, the heel portion of the legs seem very elongated and flattened which would seem to indicate a creature which uses them to sit up right. The rear portion of the body, tail and shoulders seem to indicate to me that this was some form of monkey.
Its heels are the hocks of a dog. Probably a pitbull, maybe a hound or boxer type, but definitely a dog.
Looking at the photos before reading the whole article, I just thought “dog”. The back legs and hindquarters look like an undernourished dog. It is probably just a stray that happened to run past this lady’s house. I don’t doubt she may have been frightened and stray dogs can be dangerous but I agree with other posters, definitely a dog.
Not the strangest thing I’ve ever witnessed in these parts.
Definitely not the largest either. Though there are usually not many wild animals in the Omaha metropolitan area pop 500,000 + (they still occasionally wander in). But there is a lot of open country once you pass it going west about 517 miles of open country and farmland to be exact, with tiny towns occasionally littering the landscape (few of them with over 3,000 pop). If there was ever an unknown animal in existence the Nebraska Outback Population density (2 people per square mile on a crowded day) would be a damn good place for a cryptid to go unnoticed nearly indefinitely JMO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_Outback