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Scary Monsters and the Christian

It was almost time for bed, and I was laying out what I would need for the next day. Of a sudden, there was a rapping at my door. I opened it cautiously, then flung it wide as Stormie Waters and her fiancé Roland Meadows hurried inside. They looked downright frightened.

"We saw something. Some...thing outside!" Stormie exclaimed.

"Like nothing I've seen before. It gave me the willies!" Roland added. These two are not prone to flights of fancy and I was very interested.

Stump in the sun with growth, Unsplash / Cowboy Bob Sorensen (modified)

They commenced to telling me about a large figure in the road ahead of them, and their horses were skittish. It seemed to turn and look at them with red eyes, then spread bat-like wings and flew away. Having heard similar tales and read historical reports, I shivered despite myself.

People sure do like spooky stuff, don't they? This is being posted one week away from Halloween, a celebration of fear and death. And it seems to be getting more popular all the time. What happened in the story above is an encounter with a cryptid. Many are famous (such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and others). There are also some that tend to be regional such as the Mothman, Spring-Heeled Jack, the Enfield Monster, strange creatures in the local woods, and more. Those generally need to be looked up after hearing about them.

Although scientists deny there is evidence for cryptids, people insist that they have seen them. Yes, of course hoaxsters get involved and fool people who operate more by emotions than with critical thinking skills. Honest and level-headed people can be fooled, many cryptids are mistaken identifications, tricks of the light, and so on.

Consider Bigfoot. Many people claim to have video, photographic, and physical evidence, but nothing fits the bill for scientists. Still, their famous home in the Pacific Northwest is a mighty big place — and there are reports from New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and others. Not just the formerly United States, either. What if one was found? Suppose a Sasquatch strolled from the Bluestone Wild Forest into the Ulster Town Hall in Lake Katrine, New York. He says, "Hi, I'm Trevor. There are some things about your government I'd like to discuss."

Okay, maybe not that dramatic. But if Trevor the Bigfoot was indeed found, evolutionists are likely to come up with some rescuing device (it's who they are and what they do) to preserve Darwin's legacy. Naturally, Christians may be surprised, but the Bible and our faith would not be threatened in the least; we have nothing to fear from facts.

Cryptozoology is the study of evidence intended to substantiate the existence of unverified animals. It is often regarded as a pseudoscience because it involves searching for “cryptids,” animals that are reported to be living but who have no confirmed existence. Among the long list of cryptids are well-known creatures such as Kraken, Nessie, Champ, Ogopogo, and Bigfoot. Do these creatures really exist? How should Christians understand cryptids within a biblical worldview?

To learn the answers and read about interesting cryptids, head on over to "Monsters: Real, Imagined, or Unidentified?"