August 12, 2025 • 23 mins
Deep in New Hampshire’s remote Coös County, a towering, shadowy figure is said to stalk the forests. Locals call it the Wood Devil—a lanky, gray-skinned cryptid that’s been slipping between trees and dodging human eyes for over a century. But what exactly is haunting the White Mountains? A cousin to Bigfoot? A trick of the wilderness? Or something much stranger?
Join us as we dig into the sightings, the legends, and the eerie isolation of New England’s northernmost county to uncover the truth behind the Wood Devil of Coös County.
Contact us: Thegang@weirderafterdark.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Cryptids. We've all heard of them.
The Loch Ness Monster who swims in the Scottish Highlands, or
the large winged humanoid with glowing red eyes called the
Mothman. Here in New England, we have
more Cryptid creatures than I care to admit.
We have the Dover Demon, the Hockamont Swamp Beast, the
Gloucester Ghoul, and of course,the most famous Cryptid of all,
Bigfoot. But today, my friends, we're
traveling deep into the North Country of New Hampshire to Coas
(00:22):
County to find ourselves the Wood Devil.
I'm Kathy. I'm Chris.
I'm Sean. And this is weirder after dark.
(00:44):
A couple weeks ago we were up north in Pittsburgh, desolate,
completely nothing. There's one store.
Yeah, there was literally a gas station slash grocery store
slash fishing store slash. They still rented movies on VHS.
And they sold clothes. Yeah, it was good.
That was pretty cool. Yeah.
Yeah, that kind of place where if it rains, there's literally
nothing to do but watch the rain.
(01:06):
Being at the gas station I watched a guy come in on his
riding lawnmower to get gas. That was that made me so happy.
I've never seen DID. I miss that.
It must have been in the store. I pulled up on his like John
Deere from the 1960s, filled hisgas and took off on his lawn
board. It was a gas station.
Wow. Yeah.
Rural New Hampshire, Yeah. I'm pretty sure there was a
horse there too at the time. Somebody brought their horse
(01:27):
into the store. It was the right.
Well, the whole reason why I bring this up is because this is
where our story today is going to take place.
So Pittsburgh is in the heart ofCoas County.
And even though we tell stories based in New England, I think
it's important to remember that our listeners aren't necessarily
from here. And some of them who live in New
(01:50):
England and outside of New England maybe never even been to
New Hampshire, never mind the furthest county in New Hampshire
that hugs the border to Canada. So I feel it's really important
to set the scene here. Owas County is known to hikers
for the challenge and privilege of being able to radiate with
pride of the achievement while they peer over the magnificent
view atop Mount Washington. Monroe, Eisenhower, Franklin, or
(02:11):
any of the other spectacular mountaintops that make up the
presidential peaks of the White Mountains.
The land is winding with rapid rivers that flow from snow
covered peaks to rushing currents filled with trout that
leap from the cold water to catch the flies that hover just
above the surface. Imagine the land that is covered
with rich dense forest that black bears, deerk and coyotes
call home. The trees that tower so tall the
(02:34):
tops look like they Pierce the sky.
It truly is a beautiful place full of life that is worth
exploring. There is the other side to
consider, the land rich with forests, covered with untouched
earth, where shadows dance across Moss covered rocks, where
people claim that there are moremoose than humans who inhabit
the land. Which which I just want to go
in. I have yet to see a moose up
there, so let's just throw that.Out there, that's actually not a
(02:55):
true fact, but people do stay. OK.
All right, never mind. So it would be reasonable to
believe that perhaps deep in thewoods, where the silence from
Mother Nature fills the air, there could be life that is
unknown. Creatures rarely seen monsters
that lurk and hide behind the fairy trees that line the path
to places of beauty. So sure, why not, if we believe
that we might find ourselves face to face with the elusive
(03:16):
wood devil? It is so desolate up there.
If there is a Cryptid somewhere I could see it living up there.
You guys remember we went for a hike, went out to see the
waterfall which was absolutely gorgeous.
We were on a back dirt Rd. Like literally a dirt Rd.
No houses, just a road through the woods for like 17 minutes.
It was. Long.
It was crazy. And what I found like the
(03:37):
craziest part too, is just like,I've done a lot of hiking, but
those are dense. Like it's thick.
Like just trying to walk throughthose woods if you're not on a
path is like difficult. So the land in northern New
Hampshire is perfect for a creature like the Wood Devil.
It's the kind of place where cell phone reception goes to
die, whereas the towns get smaller, the trees get taller.
So when stories emerge of something tall and Gray and
(04:00):
unusually quiet lurking behind the trees, even a skeptic like
myself has to stop and say maybe, Maybe there's something
out there undiscovered. First of all, that line about
the trees getting taller and thetown's getting smaller is
absolutely accurate. When we were driving up there,
it was like, we're coming up to a town, we're going to stop at
Duncan. Oh, wait, there's nothing in
this town. Oh, the town's gone.
(04:21):
I remember too, when I was driving up, I was right on the
border in New Hampshire, Vermont, and I was like, oh, I
need to get some gas holding to the town.
I was like, there's not even a gas station.
Yes, I. Can't get gas?
OK. Well, the legend of the Wood
Devil goes as far back as the 1930s, although some would even
suggest that this creature has inhabited the rugged terrain as
far back as to when the cusic Abenaki people use this region
(04:41):
to travel back and forth to Canada and they traveled to
trails woven throughout the forest.
They called the creature the Quoc half man half animal who
would walk on 2 legs, hide in the forest, and would feast upon
the poor souls it encountered. The legend says that these
creatures were once human who after being possessed by an evil
spirit or being guilty of committing unforgivable crimes,
(05:02):
would have their hearts turned to ice, causing them to become
man eaters who could never sedate the hunger within.
Oh, this is airily similar to the Wendigo from the Brunswick
Springs episode I did. I was thinking the exact same
thing with that description. I almost wonder is it like that?
The same idea, just two different tribes, different
names. I do touch upon that like later
(05:22):
when we start getting into sort of some of the theories about
how maybe some of these stories have blended or slightly changed
a little bit because of different people retelling the
stories with different backgrounds.
So because I remember the Abenaki were not a tribe, they
were a group of tribes that had similar language and culture.
(05:42):
So it makes sense that they would have the same story, the
same creature, but it'd be a little bit different.
A little bit different. Well, in the 1930's the region
was being cleared for its lumberand logging camps were popping
up scattered all around. The rugged clusters of
bunkhouses and cook shacks wherethe lumberjacks would live
became the breeding ground for these stories as the men shared
their experiences. Late at night.
(06:03):
The men told stories of being out in the woods, carrying their
tools and the weight from a fullday's work back with them to
their camp, when suddenly they would say without.
The creature that wasn't there asecond ago would suddenly appear
face to face to only dart away and in the blink of an eye the
creature would be gone. Oh I hate how fast it sounds.
Very fast. Yeah, like it's almost sounds
(06:23):
paranormal at that point, right?It just kind of appears.
It's not like I heard a rustle in the woods and I saw him.
And then gone, yeah, I don't like that.
I also like, I can just imagine being alone in the woods or one
other person just like at night walking.
Like, you hear sounds, You see things like corn of your eyes,
like, oh, it's so scary. It's so spooky.
Well, a man by the name of George told a similar story.
(06:44):
After a long day of hunting, he was heading back to his
campsite, and the man found himself standing with a tall,
hairy creature with what he described as the face of a
horse. The moment, lasting only a
second, felt like forever until the creature vanished, making
George almost wonder if it had even happened at all.
And another sighting involved a man who didn't see the wood
devil at first, but claimed to have heard it.
(07:07):
In 1952, while hunting in the Dixville Notch, a man, Robert,
says he heard the wood Devils cry as it bounced off the trees.
He followed the unfamiliar and terrifying screech, only to find
at the end of his search what hedescribed as a raggedy hair
creature about 8 feet tall. I follow it.
That's what. I always say no.
These fools are. Out in the middle.
(07:27):
Of nowhere and they're like, I hear a big scary noise and then
they like, I'm going to go follow it.
Oh, you hear that scream? Yeah.
You want to go check it out? Fuck no, I don't want to check
it. Out which way is the car?
Yeah. It was then that Robert raises
his hunting rifle, took aim, slowly inhaled and as he placed
his finger on the trigger, he let the bullet cut through the
air, only to miss and send the monster running into the
(07:50):
darkness of the night. Chris, you mentioned this a few
episodes ago on the Spectre Moose.
Yeah, if you're a hunter and youshoot something and you miss,
are you telling people you missed?
That makes me feel like this is more credible.
Right, and that the creature moves that fast.
Also 8 feet tall. What the fuck?
Yeah, it's just weird. I'm wondering if it's Bigfoot
but it's Miss but it sounds a little bit different right?
(08:10):
They all sound similar, but justslightly different, which is I
think goes back to what we said earlier about these
similarities. But we do get into some theories
about potentially being related to Bigfoot.
One man, while out on a photo shoot trying to capture the
perfect picture of the pond, took reserve, heard a noise from
behind him. Turning to see what it was.
There was nothing there. So like people do in the middle
(08:31):
of the woods when they're all bythemselves and they heard a
noise, they followed where the noise came from.
And what he saw was tall and thin, darting from behind a
Maple tree, only to disappear. He stood for a moment,
completely still holding his camera, trying to gain focus as
the creature again sprang from another set of trees.
Will clicked away anxiously, hoping to capture the image of
(08:52):
whatever it was that he was seeing.
He spent the rest of the day trying to find this creature,
hoping each turn of the path would lead him to the unknown
beast. Unfortunately, when Will looked
through his photos, as you can imagine, there was no image.
The camera was unable to capturethe creature's movement.
He went back several times to try to find it, but the seven
foot tall creature with dark thick hair remained hidden.
Was it because he couldn't get the creature in focus?
(09:15):
He couldn't take a picture? Or was it that the creature or
somehow couldn't be photographed?
Because you're dancing on the line between Cryptid and
something spiritual here. So it's.
I mean, I don't know. I mean, I wasn't there, so I
don't, I don't know if it was hewas trying to focus the camera.
Was it that the creature was moving so fast that he couldn't
get it? To the capture.
Wondering it's. Or is the camera just not that
(09:37):
good? I love the pieces of the legend
that's already being stitched together though.
We have a 2nd 7 to 8 foot tall like call out here for this
creature. And again, the speed, I don't
know the quickness and it can hide behind a tree.
Is that what you said? That's so.
That. 'D be.
Skinny, like thick. Yeah.
So it's like small, skinny and fast.
Very, very thin and lanky. Even like a Bigfoot from like
(09:59):
the stereotypical Bigfoot you hear about, they're probably too
thick to hide behind a tree, right?
So it's interesting. The Wood Devils seem to have
been the most active in this area between 1930s and the
1970s. Perhaps it could be chalked up
as the hype of the Bigfoot sightings, UFO visitings, and it
could be easy to say perhaps this was some sort of a
hysteria. Right?
We know that that happens, but what about experiences that came
(10:23):
as recent as 2000 and 2004? In 2000, a man, Evan Lichnotsky
and his now ex-wife, They were hunting near Dummer Pond Trail
and as they took in the view of the sunrise, a dark figure
suddenly appeared in front of them.
It happened so fast that they couldn't even process what they
had seen. As soon as it was there, they
watched the tall slim form make its way down the path to vanish
(10:44):
into the shadows. He still wonders what did they
see? Did they see anything and were
their minds playing tricks on them?
Did one make a suggestion and lead the other to use the words
to fill in the spaces that the mind had blank?
I don't know, but in 2004, two more people had a similar
experience. At 5:00 in the morning, two men
were headed into their hunting spots when they saw the tall
(11:05):
creature covered in Gray straggly hair and a pointy head
standing on the path. The creature froze and then
released a high pitched screen so loud that the men were
terrified. They quickly hid behind a tree
and watched the creature move down the Ridge.
Once they knew the coast was clear, as any good hunter would
do, they searched for a trail. They used their tracking skills
and found what they claimed weretwo footprints.
(11:27):
These are the only ones that areactually having, I think, a
realistic experience. They see this like scary
creature. They hear this like horrifying
sound and they hit. I respect that.
Yeah, that's the only thing anyone should do.
Yeah, natural reaction. And if it's one person walking
through the woods, that's suspect.
But both of these two people thought they saw something which
makes it more interesting, right?
(11:48):
Well, now that we've discussed some of the stories related to
the mysterious vanishing wood Devil, we should discuss some of
the similarities and differenceswhich I think we sort of
touching on because let's be honest, the physical
descriptions, the creatures behaviors and even the
experiences, they've got some discrepancies.
A major difference is although the Cusick Abenaki described
these creatures with grey, dark tan, shaggy hair and a scream
(12:12):
that would kill anyone who hearsit, they're legends told of a
creature who was a giant who would tower over those it
haunted. And the most obvious difference
is that that creature would eat those that it found.
The stories that stem from 1930 and the 1970s, they all describe
the creatures as standing between 79 feet tall, which
isn't small, but these creaturesweren't hunting humans.
(12:33):
If anything the stories depict them as being fearful, hiding in
shadows and trying to remain unseen.
Some theorists believe that thiscreature is the cousin of the
one and only Bigfoot, with the similarities that they are both
tall, hairy, human like creatures that live in remote
areas and elude capture and leave little physical evidence
behind. Although in my opinion the
differences are many and drastic, I have to admit it
(12:55):
doesn't steer me away from thinking of them as maybe being
from the same family. The Wood Devil with its lanky
thin wiry figure is silent, moves with the speed unlike any
other animal in this area and has the ability to vanish behind
the trees. Unlike acoustic creature the
Wood Devil of the 20th and 21st century, it's elusive, skittish
and appears to want nothing morethan to vanish without
(13:16):
interactions. A physical difference I noticed
was some of the stories described this creature with a
horse like face. However, in some of the drawings
of the Wood Devil, the creature has a more roundhead, often
being shown with an eerie grin. Are these the same unknown
creatures or are witnesses seeing different cryptids?
I feel like they're two different creatures from my
(13:38):
standpoint. When I start thinking about how
you describe the Cusick people and what they saw, and we start
thinking about Brunswick Spring stuff that Chris had in his
story, those sound eerily familiar.
Like we have this like hybrid human thing with like a weird
face and like devour people. And then what I'm hearing from
these other stories, it just seems like 7, 8 feet tall, super
(13:58):
skinny, elusive. That doesn't seem to match.
To me, that tells me that there's two different unique
things happening. There, I could match them up
just because what if this creature is real, and there's
lore and myth and legend tied into the Abenaki stories, right?
So here's a real creature, but they're also using him as a
parable about the dangers of greed, the dangers of being a
(14:20):
bad person. Yeah, yeah.
Do you have any images? You said there were images that
exist. I do this is the.
Oh wow, so that is a legitimate giant.
That is a giant. Wow, so that's even bigger than
what I imagine, like the Wendigostuff looking like like that's
like 25 plus feet tall, like that's that's the size of a
building. That's huge.
It is a giant. So some of the descriptions,
(14:42):
they're so different, but it just changes, I think, as the
stories get older. It's interesting to me that
there was more sightings in the 30s to the 70s because I think,
and I don't know this for a fact, that that's when there was
a lot more logging going on up there.
So there'll be more people out in the woods who would have
interactions with it. So that would kind of track with
(15:02):
an actual creature. Right.
But also, like, I'm more people out there like making shit up in
the woods, just having weird unexplainable experiences and
just spreading rumors, Yeah. I could see that being twofold,
right? You see it going either way.
There's more people up there telling stories, so they spread
faster and more people making shit up, or more people around
and they're actually seeing something.
Because I know when we were up there, you could get turned
(15:24):
around in the woods and never come out.
Like you could go 60 miles into Canada without ever seeing a
trail or a person or a house. Or so imagine time where there
weren't vehicles, there weren't roads.
Yes, yeah. Well, there's also too, I mean,
think about it like they're still discovering creatures that
are in the ocean. So the fact that they're, you
know, there's parts of the oceanthat have creatures living there
(15:44):
that are, have never been discovered yet.
So I don't know, I don't think it's that hard to believe.
One of the theories is that thiscreature is the cousin to
Bigfoot so. Bigfoot on Atkins.
He took a diet. Yeah, the Atkins.
Diet, I get it now. Oh I wish I got onto that
sooner. Some Bigfoot researchers who
(16:06):
believe that he is actually not from this dimension and is fact
of alien descent. So with the idea of the
relationship existing, could theWood Devil be vanishing because
they too can travel through portals and they maybe could
just be simply visiting like oursmall little planet Earth?
So that's interesting because wewent to that lecture with Ronnie
(16:27):
LeBlanc. Yeah, he's the Bigfoot research
guy, and he was talking about Bigfoot being a ghost or using
portals. And by in the beginning, like
this is really fucking out there.
This guy's crazy. But by the end I was like, that
makes more sense, right? That's why we can't find these
things. They're using portals, they're
disappearing. They're in UFO's from a
different dimension in. Two-dimensional D Yeah.
(16:48):
Yeah, just, I mean, if you believe in ghosts, maybe there's
other dimensional beings moving in and out and that's why we
can't track them down. That's why we we don't find them
dead. That it made a little bit of
sense. Well, I don't know if I buy into
that theory, but I wonder if this creature is real and could
the discrepancies be because thecreature has evolved over a few
100 years as more humans travel the once isolated forest, could
(17:12):
the creature actually have the ability to morph itself into
something that appears more familiar, hence the shape of the
face changing from a horse like image to that of a round head
with eyes and a smile. Is this the creature's attempt
to blend itself in? I think if we can consider for
portals as an explanation, the idea of a natural evolution of
its ability to adapt to its surroundings should also be
(17:33):
considered as a possibility. I.
Feel like I could buy that 10 times more.
Than interventional portals and being dry, turning, going
invisible. Like if Bigfoot is an
interdimensional being, why doeshe smell?
Like we haven't fixed the scent part yet, but you can go through
fucking wormholes. Like what the.
Hell. Well then there's the last
scenario, right? That these stories are just
(17:54):
that, stories. Perhaps legends took on a life
of their own and all the differences are because as time
passed and different people fromdifferent backgrounds told the
stories, small changes were made.
I kind of do tend to think that in the majority of stories
passed down there is some grain of truth or a deeper lesson to
be learned and the creature or horrific endings of the story is
(18:16):
the cautionary tale to be aware of.
So I don't know whether the Cryptid called the Wood Devil is
real or was real, or is just a story created for small children
to learn important life lessons.But I do know that life is still
being discovered, and for that reason alone, I will admittedly
say anything is possible. One thing I do find like super
interesting is the lumberjacks and like how all the logging was
(18:37):
happening during that time period.
I just think like when we were in Pittsburgh, we had like super
tall trees, but did you notice that they looked different, the
trees up there than they do in the rest of New Hampshire?
A lot of that is because that whole area was completely logged
at one point, so all the growth had to regrow.
And I think that just puts in the scale like how much actual
logging was occurring. And I don't know, it's really
interesting to be like, hey, to your point, Kathy, is it a
(18:59):
interventional being? Is it a something that is real
that was up there? And maybe we don't see it a time
now because the logging did happen and they got pushed back
to different territories? Or were there just a lot of
logging companies up there and there was like some type of
competition going on and they wanted to scare the other
loggers from coming up there? Might you be stopped if you
think there's a creature in the woods that's killing men?
(19:21):
Oh, you mean the logging companies started the rumor to
get competition out of the way? Yeah, that's financial means,
right? Like that could be super
interesting. I did read that some of the
lumberjack theories out there were that they were making it up
so the newer guys coming in to scare them or to maybe like make
it so that people wouldn't come and take the job up there even
(19:43):
if they were within the same company.
My 40s and this 21 year old kid comes on, he can do twice the
work I can do. I'm going to try to scare him
off from this job. Maybe it's yeah, it's
interesting because Greed does crazy, he thinks.
Sure does. I do think it's so interesting
and there's not many unique cryptids to New Hampshire
specifically. I think this is this is our guy
(20:03):
right? We got this creepy 7 to 8 foot
skinny motherfucker who can hidebehind trees and apparently just
does some creepy high pitched yell.
Like, kind of cool. Yeah, and I think like some of
the stories, like there was onlyone where they heard the
screeching noise, but then that goes back to, you know, the
Abenaki lore. So those were like the only
ones. But I don't know.
(20:23):
At first I'm like, how could thebe an animal of that size that
we've never seen or categorized or documented?
But then when you are there in that landscape, you know,
driving down again that dirt Rd., that old logging path, I
could see sections of that woodswhere people have probably never
been. When we were hiking down to that
waterfall and I had turned back and I started walking back
(20:45):
towards the car with the dog andI realized that I had gone so
far away from where everybody was.
And I looked around and I knew Iwas on a path, but there was
nothing. There was a little bit of a
moment of panic where I was like, I just wandered off by
myself. Like that was smart.
So if you're not on a path and you're back where there there
aren't trails and you're, you know, the first people to really
(21:07):
explore that area, I don't know,maybe your mind can play tricks
on you. And if it's been cleared, maybe
the animal became extinct that'shabitat was destroyed.
Yeah, my minds was playing tricks on me.
On the walk back, me and Sean tried to climb the waterfall and
you had gone back to the car with the kids and the dog and
well, like I can't see where arethey?
Like we got a little nervous there and it was only like a 15
(21:29):
minute walk. Yeah, it wasn't bad.
Yeah, yeah. I think there was just that
element of like, Chris and I aredoing our thing.
You all went back to the car. We didn't know you went back to
the car. So we get down from the
waterfall. Like where the fuck did they go?
Yeah, well, we couldn't. We couldn't even find you.
We were like, they were here andI knew you had gone across, but
which way did they go? And we couldn't see you.
So we were like, I guess the best thing to do is just go back
(21:50):
to the starting point that we know.
Try to stick to the path. But even being on a path
president. Sean are probably dead.
Let's go back into the car. Yeah, I had fame mini too.
Here's our chance, Ron. Ron.
Well, Kathy, thank you for goingahead and doing the research and
deep diving into New Hampshire'svery own Wood Devil.
We definitely appreciate it was a fun story and gang, we hope
(22:11):
you liked it too. If you did, be sure to go check
out our Instagram, our Facebook and our Reddit page where Kathy
will be dropping some images. They'll support her story and
research on the Wood Devils. And don't forget these
communities. We're out there and we're
building all. So come over, come talk to us,
talk to other like minded individuals who are loving these
episodes just like you are. And don't forget, we are always,
(22:31):
always on the hunt for your stories.
Have you seen the Wood devil? Have you heard his big old cries
in the woods? Have you seen a smiling little
grin behind a tree? If you have, we want to hear
those stories and you can send them to the gang at
weirderafterdark.com. And don't forget that if you are
liking this shit, no, if you're absolutely loving this shit, the
best thing you can do to help usout is to share it with someone
that you know and someone that you love.
(22:52):
And drop a review wherever you're listening to this
podcast. And remember, it always gets a
little weirder after dark. Bye.
Thank you guys.
Cryptids. We've all heard of them.
The Loch Ness Monster who swims in the Scottish Highlands, or
the large winged humanoid with glowing red eyes called the
Mothman. Here in New England, we have
more Cryptid creatures than I care to admit.
We have the Dover Demon, the Hockamont Swamp Beast, the
Gloucester Ghoul, and of course,the most famous Cryptid of all,
Bigfoot. But today, my friends, we're
traveling deep into the North Country of New Hampshire to Coas
(00:22):
County to find ourselves the Wood Devil.
I'm Kathy. I'm Chris.
I'm Sean. And this is weirder after dark.
(00:44):
A couple weeks ago we were up north in Pittsburgh, desolate,
completely nothing. There's one store.
Yeah, there was literally a gas station slash grocery store
slash fishing store slash. They still rented movies on VHS.
And they sold clothes. Yeah, it was good.
That was pretty cool. Yeah.
Yeah, that kind of place where if it rains, there's literally
nothing to do but watch the rain.
(01:06):
Being at the gas station I watched a guy come in on his
riding lawnmower to get gas. That was that made me so happy.
I've never seen DID. I miss that.
It must have been in the store. I pulled up on his like John
Deere from the 1960s, filled hisgas and took off on his lawn
board. It was a gas station.
Wow. Yeah.
Rural New Hampshire, Yeah. I'm pretty sure there was a
horse there too at the time. Somebody brought their horse
(01:27):
into the store. It was the right.
Well, the whole reason why I bring this up is because this is
where our story today is going to take place.
So Pittsburgh is in the heart ofCoas County.
And even though we tell stories based in New England, I think
it's important to remember that our listeners aren't necessarily
from here. And some of them who live in New
(01:50):
England and outside of New England maybe never even been to
New Hampshire, never mind the furthest county in New Hampshire
that hugs the border to Canada. So I feel it's really important
to set the scene here. Owas County is known to hikers
for the challenge and privilege of being able to radiate with
pride of the achievement while they peer over the magnificent
view atop Mount Washington. Monroe, Eisenhower, Franklin, or
(02:11):
any of the other spectacular mountaintops that make up the
presidential peaks of the White Mountains.
The land is winding with rapid rivers that flow from snow
covered peaks to rushing currents filled with trout that
leap from the cold water to catch the flies that hover just
above the surface. Imagine the land that is covered
with rich dense forest that black bears, deerk and coyotes
call home. The trees that tower so tall the
(02:34):
tops look like they Pierce the sky.
It truly is a beautiful place full of life that is worth
exploring. There is the other side to
consider, the land rich with forests, covered with untouched
earth, where shadows dance across Moss covered rocks, where
people claim that there are moremoose than humans who inhabit
the land. Which which I just want to go
in. I have yet to see a moose up
there, so let's just throw that.Out there, that's actually not a
(02:55):
true fact, but people do stay. OK.
All right, never mind. So it would be reasonable to
believe that perhaps deep in thewoods, where the silence from
Mother Nature fills the air, there could be life that is
unknown. Creatures rarely seen monsters
that lurk and hide behind the fairy trees that line the path
to places of beauty. So sure, why not, if we believe
that we might find ourselves face to face with the elusive
(03:16):
wood devil? It is so desolate up there.
If there is a Cryptid somewhere I could see it living up there.
You guys remember we went for a hike, went out to see the
waterfall which was absolutely gorgeous.
We were on a back dirt Rd. Like literally a dirt Rd.
No houses, just a road through the woods for like 17 minutes.
It was. Long.
It was crazy. And what I found like the
(03:37):
craziest part too, is just like,I've done a lot of hiking, but
those are dense. Like it's thick.
Like just trying to walk throughthose woods if you're not on a
path is like difficult. So the land in northern New
Hampshire is perfect for a creature like the Wood Devil.
It's the kind of place where cell phone reception goes to
die, whereas the towns get smaller, the trees get taller.
So when stories emerge of something tall and Gray and
(04:00):
unusually quiet lurking behind the trees, even a skeptic like
myself has to stop and say maybe, Maybe there's something
out there undiscovered. First of all, that line about
the trees getting taller and thetown's getting smaller is
absolutely accurate. When we were driving up there,
it was like, we're coming up to a town, we're going to stop at
Duncan. Oh, wait, there's nothing in
this town. Oh, the town's gone.
(04:21):
I remember too, when I was driving up, I was right on the
border in New Hampshire, Vermont, and I was like, oh, I
need to get some gas holding to the town.
I was like, there's not even a gas station.
Yes, I. Can't get gas?
OK. Well, the legend of the Wood
Devil goes as far back as the 1930s, although some would even
suggest that this creature has inhabited the rugged terrain as
far back as to when the cusic Abenaki people use this region
(04:41):
to travel back and forth to Canada and they traveled to
trails woven throughout the forest.
They called the creature the Quoc half man half animal who
would walk on 2 legs, hide in the forest, and would feast upon
the poor souls it encountered. The legend says that these
creatures were once human who after being possessed by an evil
spirit or being guilty of committing unforgivable crimes,
(05:02):
would have their hearts turned to ice, causing them to become
man eaters who could never sedate the hunger within.
Oh, this is airily similar to the Wendigo from the Brunswick
Springs episode I did. I was thinking the exact same
thing with that description. I almost wonder is it like that?
The same idea, just two different tribes, different
names. I do touch upon that like later
(05:22):
when we start getting into sort of some of the theories about
how maybe some of these stories have blended or slightly changed
a little bit because of different people retelling the
stories with different backgrounds.
So because I remember the Abenaki were not a tribe, they
were a group of tribes that had similar language and culture.
(05:42):
So it makes sense that they would have the same story, the
same creature, but it'd be a little bit different.
A little bit different. Well, in the 1930's the region
was being cleared for its lumberand logging camps were popping
up scattered all around. The rugged clusters of
bunkhouses and cook shacks wherethe lumberjacks would live
became the breeding ground for these stories as the men shared
their experiences. Late at night.
(06:03):
The men told stories of being out in the woods, carrying their
tools and the weight from a fullday's work back with them to
their camp, when suddenly they would say without.
The creature that wasn't there asecond ago would suddenly appear
face to face to only dart away and in the blink of an eye the
creature would be gone. Oh I hate how fast it sounds.
Very fast. Yeah, like it's almost sounds
(06:23):
paranormal at that point, right?It just kind of appears.
It's not like I heard a rustle in the woods and I saw him.
And then gone, yeah, I don't like that.
I also like, I can just imagine being alone in the woods or one
other person just like at night walking.
Like, you hear sounds, You see things like corn of your eyes,
like, oh, it's so scary. It's so spooky.
Well, a man by the name of George told a similar story.
(06:44):
After a long day of hunting, he was heading back to his
campsite, and the man found himself standing with a tall,
hairy creature with what he described as the face of a
horse. The moment, lasting only a
second, felt like forever until the creature vanished, making
George almost wonder if it had even happened at all.
And another sighting involved a man who didn't see the wood
devil at first, but claimed to have heard it.
(07:07):
In 1952, while hunting in the Dixville Notch, a man, Robert,
says he heard the wood Devils cry as it bounced off the trees.
He followed the unfamiliar and terrifying screech, only to find
at the end of his search what hedescribed as a raggedy hair
creature about 8 feet tall. I follow it.
That's what. I always say no.
These fools are. Out in the middle.
(07:27):
Of nowhere and they're like, I hear a big scary noise and then
they like, I'm going to go follow it.
Oh, you hear that scream? Yeah.
You want to go check it out? Fuck no, I don't want to check
it. Out which way is the car?
Yeah. It was then that Robert raises
his hunting rifle, took aim, slowly inhaled and as he placed
his finger on the trigger, he let the bullet cut through the
air, only to miss and send the monster running into the
(07:50):
darkness of the night. Chris, you mentioned this a few
episodes ago on the Spectre Moose.
Yeah, if you're a hunter and youshoot something and you miss,
are you telling people you missed?
That makes me feel like this is more credible.
Right, and that the creature moves that fast.
Also 8 feet tall. What the fuck?
Yeah, it's just weird. I'm wondering if it's Bigfoot
but it's Miss but it sounds a little bit different right?
(08:10):
They all sound similar, but justslightly different, which is I
think goes back to what we said earlier about these
similarities. But we do get into some theories
about potentially being related to Bigfoot.
One man, while out on a photo shoot trying to capture the
perfect picture of the pond, took reserve, heard a noise from
behind him. Turning to see what it was.
There was nothing there. So like people do in the middle
(08:31):
of the woods when they're all bythemselves and they heard a
noise, they followed where the noise came from.
And what he saw was tall and thin, darting from behind a
Maple tree, only to disappear. He stood for a moment,
completely still holding his camera, trying to gain focus as
the creature again sprang from another set of trees.
Will clicked away anxiously, hoping to capture the image of
(08:52):
whatever it was that he was seeing.
He spent the rest of the day trying to find this creature,
hoping each turn of the path would lead him to the unknown
beast. Unfortunately, when Will looked
through his photos, as you can imagine, there was no image.
The camera was unable to capturethe creature's movement.
He went back several times to try to find it, but the seven
foot tall creature with dark thick hair remained hidden.
Was it because he couldn't get the creature in focus?
(09:15):
He couldn't take a picture? Or was it that the creature or
somehow couldn't be photographed?
Because you're dancing on the line between Cryptid and
something spiritual here. So it's.
I mean, I don't know. I mean, I wasn't there, so I
don't, I don't know if it was hewas trying to focus the camera.
Was it that the creature was moving so fast that he couldn't
get it? To the capture.
Wondering it's. Or is the camera just not that
(09:37):
good? I love the pieces of the legend
that's already being stitched together though.
We have a 2nd 7 to 8 foot tall like call out here for this
creature. And again, the speed, I don't
know the quickness and it can hide behind a tree.
Is that what you said? That's so.
That. 'D be.
Skinny, like thick. Yeah.
So it's like small, skinny and fast.
Very, very thin and lanky. Even like a Bigfoot from like
(09:59):
the stereotypical Bigfoot you hear about, they're probably too
thick to hide behind a tree, right?
So it's interesting. The Wood Devils seem to have
been the most active in this area between 1930s and the
1970s. Perhaps it could be chalked up
as the hype of the Bigfoot sightings, UFO visitings, and it
could be easy to say perhaps this was some sort of a
hysteria. Right?
We know that that happens, but what about experiences that came
(10:23):
as recent as 2000 and 2004? In 2000, a man, Evan Lichnotsky
and his now ex-wife, They were hunting near Dummer Pond Trail
and as they took in the view of the sunrise, a dark figure
suddenly appeared in front of them.
It happened so fast that they couldn't even process what they
had seen. As soon as it was there, they
watched the tall slim form make its way down the path to vanish
(10:44):
into the shadows. He still wonders what did they
see? Did they see anything and were
their minds playing tricks on them?
Did one make a suggestion and lead the other to use the words
to fill in the spaces that the mind had blank?
I don't know, but in 2004, two more people had a similar
experience. At 5:00 in the morning, two men
were headed into their hunting spots when they saw the tall
(11:05):
creature covered in Gray straggly hair and a pointy head
standing on the path. The creature froze and then
released a high pitched screen so loud that the men were
terrified. They quickly hid behind a tree
and watched the creature move down the Ridge.
Once they knew the coast was clear, as any good hunter would
do, they searched for a trail. They used their tracking skills
and found what they claimed weretwo footprints.
(11:27):
These are the only ones that areactually having, I think, a
realistic experience. They see this like scary
creature. They hear this like horrifying
sound and they hit. I respect that.
Yeah, that's the only thing anyone should do.
Yeah, natural reaction. And if it's one person walking
through the woods, that's suspect.
But both of these two people thought they saw something which
makes it more interesting, right?
(11:48):
Well, now that we've discussed some of the stories related to
the mysterious vanishing wood Devil, we should discuss some of
the similarities and differenceswhich I think we sort of
touching on because let's be honest, the physical
descriptions, the creatures behaviors and even the
experiences, they've got some discrepancies.
A major difference is although the Cusick Abenaki described
these creatures with grey, dark tan, shaggy hair and a scream
(12:12):
that would kill anyone who hearsit, they're legends told of a
creature who was a giant who would tower over those it
haunted. And the most obvious difference
is that that creature would eat those that it found.
The stories that stem from 1930 and the 1970s, they all describe
the creatures as standing between 79 feet tall, which
isn't small, but these creaturesweren't hunting humans.
(12:33):
If anything the stories depict them as being fearful, hiding in
shadows and trying to remain unseen.
Some theorists believe that thiscreature is the cousin of the
one and only Bigfoot, with the similarities that they are both
tall, hairy, human like creatures that live in remote
areas and elude capture and leave little physical evidence
behind. Although in my opinion the
differences are many and drastic, I have to admit it
(12:55):
doesn't steer me away from thinking of them as maybe being
from the same family. The Wood Devil with its lanky
thin wiry figure is silent, moves with the speed unlike any
other animal in this area and has the ability to vanish behind
the trees. Unlike acoustic creature the
Wood Devil of the 20th and 21st century, it's elusive, skittish
and appears to want nothing morethan to vanish without
(13:16):
interactions. A physical difference I noticed
was some of the stories described this creature with a
horse like face. However, in some of the drawings
of the Wood Devil, the creature has a more roundhead, often
being shown with an eerie grin. Are these the same unknown
creatures or are witnesses seeing different cryptids?
I feel like they're two different creatures from my
(13:38):
standpoint. When I start thinking about how
you describe the Cusick people and what they saw, and we start
thinking about Brunswick Spring stuff that Chris had in his
story, those sound eerily familiar.
Like we have this like hybrid human thing with like a weird
face and like devour people. And then what I'm hearing from
these other stories, it just seems like 7, 8 feet tall, super
(13:58):
skinny, elusive. That doesn't seem to match.
To me, that tells me that there's two different unique
things happening. There, I could match them up
just because what if this creature is real, and there's
lore and myth and legend tied into the Abenaki stories, right?
So here's a real creature, but they're also using him as a
parable about the dangers of greed, the dangers of being a
(14:20):
bad person. Yeah, yeah.
Do you have any images? You said there were images that
exist. I do this is the.
Oh wow, so that is a legitimate giant.
That is a giant. Wow, so that's even bigger than
what I imagine, like the Wendigostuff looking like like that's
like 25 plus feet tall, like that's that's the size of a
building. That's huge.
It is a giant. So some of the descriptions,
(14:42):
they're so different, but it just changes, I think, as the
stories get older. It's interesting to me that
there was more sightings in the 30s to the 70s because I think,
and I don't know this for a fact, that that's when there was
a lot more logging going on up there.
So there'll be more people out in the woods who would have
interactions with it. So that would kind of track with
(15:02):
an actual creature. Right.
But also, like, I'm more people out there like making shit up in
the woods, just having weird unexplainable experiences and
just spreading rumors, Yeah. I could see that being twofold,
right? You see it going either way.
There's more people up there telling stories, so they spread
faster and more people making shit up, or more people around
and they're actually seeing something.
Because I know when we were up there, you could get turned
(15:24):
around in the woods and never come out.
Like you could go 60 miles into Canada without ever seeing a
trail or a person or a house. Or so imagine time where there
weren't vehicles, there weren't roads.
Yes, yeah. Well, there's also too, I mean,
think about it like they're still discovering creatures that
are in the ocean. So the fact that they're, you
know, there's parts of the oceanthat have creatures living there
(15:44):
that are, have never been discovered yet.
So I don't know, I don't think it's that hard to believe.
One of the theories is that thiscreature is the cousin to
Bigfoot so. Bigfoot on Atkins.
He took a diet. Yeah, the Atkins.
Diet, I get it now. Oh I wish I got onto that
sooner. Some Bigfoot researchers who
(16:06):
believe that he is actually not from this dimension and is fact
of alien descent. So with the idea of the
relationship existing, could theWood Devil be vanishing because
they too can travel through portals and they maybe could
just be simply visiting like oursmall little planet Earth?
So that's interesting because wewent to that lecture with Ronnie
(16:27):
LeBlanc. Yeah, he's the Bigfoot research
guy, and he was talking about Bigfoot being a ghost or using
portals. And by in the beginning, like
this is really fucking out there.
This guy's crazy. But by the end I was like, that
makes more sense, right? That's why we can't find these
things. They're using portals, they're
disappearing. They're in UFO's from a
different dimension in. Two-dimensional D Yeah.
(16:48):
Yeah, just, I mean, if you believe in ghosts, maybe there's
other dimensional beings moving in and out and that's why we
can't track them down. That's why we we don't find them
dead. That it made a little bit of
sense. Well, I don't know if I buy into
that theory, but I wonder if this creature is real and could
the discrepancies be because thecreature has evolved over a few
100 years as more humans travel the once isolated forest, could
(17:12):
the creature actually have the ability to morph itself into
something that appears more familiar, hence the shape of the
face changing from a horse like image to that of a round head
with eyes and a smile. Is this the creature's attempt
to blend itself in? I think if we can consider for
portals as an explanation, the idea of a natural evolution of
its ability to adapt to its surroundings should also be
(17:33):
considered as a possibility. I.
Feel like I could buy that 10 times more.
Than interventional portals and being dry, turning, going
invisible. Like if Bigfoot is an
interdimensional being, why doeshe smell?
Like we haven't fixed the scent part yet, but you can go through
fucking wormholes. Like what the.
Hell. Well then there's the last
scenario, right? That these stories are just
(17:54):
that, stories. Perhaps legends took on a life
of their own and all the differences are because as time
passed and different people fromdifferent backgrounds told the
stories, small changes were made.
I kind of do tend to think that in the majority of stories
passed down there is some grain of truth or a deeper lesson to
be learned and the creature or horrific endings of the story is
(18:16):
the cautionary tale to be aware of.
So I don't know whether the Cryptid called the Wood Devil is
real or was real, or is just a story created for small children
to learn important life lessons.But I do know that life is still
being discovered, and for that reason alone, I will admittedly
say anything is possible. One thing I do find like super
interesting is the lumberjacks and like how all the logging was
(18:37):
happening during that time period.
I just think like when we were in Pittsburgh, we had like super
tall trees, but did you notice that they looked different, the
trees up there than they do in the rest of New Hampshire?
A lot of that is because that whole area was completely logged
at one point, so all the growth had to regrow.
And I think that just puts in the scale like how much actual
logging was occurring. And I don't know, it's really
interesting to be like, hey, to your point, Kathy, is it a
(18:59):
interventional being? Is it a something that is real
that was up there? And maybe we don't see it a time
now because the logging did happen and they got pushed back
to different territories? Or were there just a lot of
logging companies up there and there was like some type of
competition going on and they wanted to scare the other
loggers from coming up there? Might you be stopped if you
think there's a creature in the woods that's killing men?
(19:21):
Oh, you mean the logging companies started the rumor to
get competition out of the way? Yeah, that's financial means,
right? Like that could be super
interesting. I did read that some of the
lumberjack theories out there were that they were making it up
so the newer guys coming in to scare them or to maybe like make
it so that people wouldn't come and take the job up there even
(19:43):
if they were within the same company.
My 40s and this 21 year old kid comes on, he can do twice the
work I can do. I'm going to try to scare him
off from this job. Maybe it's yeah, it's
interesting because Greed does crazy, he thinks.
Sure does. I do think it's so interesting
and there's not many unique cryptids to New Hampshire
specifically. I think this is this is our guy
(20:03):
right? We got this creepy 7 to 8 foot
skinny motherfucker who can hidebehind trees and apparently just
does some creepy high pitched yell.
Like, kind of cool. Yeah, and I think like some of
the stories, like there was onlyone where they heard the
screeching noise, but then that goes back to, you know, the
Abenaki lore. So those were like the only
ones. But I don't know.
(20:23):
At first I'm like, how could thebe an animal of that size that
we've never seen or categorized or documented?
But then when you are there in that landscape, you know,
driving down again that dirt Rd., that old logging path, I
could see sections of that woodswhere people have probably never
been. When we were hiking down to that
waterfall and I had turned back and I started walking back
(20:45):
towards the car with the dog andI realized that I had gone so
far away from where everybody was.
And I looked around and I knew Iwas on a path, but there was
nothing. There was a little bit of a
moment of panic where I was like, I just wandered off by
myself. Like that was smart.
So if you're not on a path and you're back where there there
aren't trails and you're, you know, the first people to really
(21:07):
explore that area, I don't know,maybe your mind can play tricks
on you. And if it's been cleared, maybe
the animal became extinct that'shabitat was destroyed.
Yeah, my minds was playing tricks on me.
On the walk back, me and Sean tried to climb the waterfall and
you had gone back to the car with the kids and the dog and
well, like I can't see where arethey?
Like we got a little nervous there and it was only like a 15
(21:29):
minute walk. Yeah, it wasn't bad.
Yeah, yeah. I think there was just that
element of like, Chris and I aredoing our thing.
You all went back to the car. We didn't know you went back to
the car. So we get down from the
waterfall. Like where the fuck did they go?
Yeah, well, we couldn't. We couldn't even find you.
We were like, they were here andI knew you had gone across, but
which way did they go? And we couldn't see you.
So we were like, I guess the best thing to do is just go back
(21:50):
to the starting point that we know.
Try to stick to the path. But even being on a path
president. Sean are probably dead.
Let's go back into the car. Yeah, I had fame mini too.
Here's our chance, Ron. Ron.
Well, Kathy, thank you for goingahead and doing the research and
deep diving into New Hampshire'svery own Wood Devil.
We definitely appreciate it was a fun story and gang, we hope
(22:11):
you liked it too. If you did, be sure to go check
out our Instagram, our Facebook and our Reddit page where Kathy
will be dropping some images. They'll support her story and
research on the Wood Devils. And don't forget these
communities. We're out there and we're
building all. So come over, come talk to us,
talk to other like minded individuals who are loving these
episodes just like you are. And don't forget, we are always,
(22:31):
always on the hunt for your stories.
Have you seen the Wood devil? Have you heard his big old cries
in the woods? Have you seen a smiling little
grin behind a tree? If you have, we want to hear
those stories and you can send them to the gang at
weirderafterdark.com. And don't forget that if you are
liking this shit, no, if you're absolutely loving this shit, the
best thing you can do to help usout is to share it with someone
that you know and someone that you love.
(22:52):
And drop a review wherever you're listening to this
podcast. And remember, it always gets a
little weirder after dark. Bye.
Thank you guys.
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