Complex Numbers

Tales from the Cryptid II: Ringdocus

Just like UFOs are only UFOs until they're identified (then they're just FOs), it's only a cryptid until you know what it is.

Beware Montana’s Shunka Warak’in, the ‘Rocky Mountain Hyena’  
Is one of these crafty cryptids on display in a small museum?

Not to be confused with the Rocky Mountain Oyster.

Something has been preying on domesticated animals across the plains of Montana for centuries.

Yeah, wolves.

It has been given many names over the years, below most of which burn angry red squiggly lines when typed into Microsoft Word: Shunka warak’in. Ringdocus. Guyasticutus.

All of which would be awesome band names. Still. Wolf doesn't freak out my spell checker.

But it’s also been called the Beast and the Rocky Mountain hyena—in fact, any name but wolf, although the creature could easily be called a wolf.

Which is what I've been saying.

Perhaps that’s because wolves were extinct in the state for about half of the 20th century.

Yeah, sure they were.

Here in Virginia, and down into North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, people occasionally claim to see a mountain lion (which also has multiple names: puma, cougar, whatever). Officially, mountain lions are extinct in the eastern part of the US. Unofficially, everyone knows there are mountain lions up there. Lamest cryptid ever: unlike the Jersey Devil or the Mothman, we're pretty sure what a mountain lion is.

I'm not saying cougars aren't cool. Just that we lack imagination when it comes to cryptids here in the Blue Ridge.

If only we had a carcass, we could figure out what this creature is once and for all.

Oh, wait. Turns out, we do. It’s on display in a museum in Montana.

There are museums in Montana?

(I know at least two of my occasional readers are from Montana. Relax. I'm joking.)

The article (which is actually a book excerpt, but whatever) goes on to describe how someone actually killed one, and it ended up stuffed and mounted because that's what we do, apparently. Then:

The ringdocus outlasted Sherwood and was on display at least into the 1980s. And then it disappeared.

Probably stolen by Bigfoot.

Or maybe a wolf.

Meanwhile, Lance Foster, a historic site preservationist, paranormal enthusiast, and member of the Ioway tribe, speculated that the beast could be a shunka warak’in, a canid non-wolf beast from Native American lore that would sneak into camps at night and make off with dogs (the name translates to “carries off dogs”).

Okay, fine. Not a wolf. Maybe Bigfoot's dog.

Apparently, they tracked down the taxidermied whatever-it-was (turns out it wasn't stolen by Bigfoot, but just transferred to a museum in the one state less likely to have a museum than Montana) and put the thing back on display.

Today, the creature is the museum’s most popular exhibit. They just call it the Beast.

And we're back to no imagination.

Or is it just a bad taxidermy mount? Only a DNA test could tell, and all interested parties have decided not to do that. The mystery of the shunka warak’in has gone on so long that nobody wants to risk solving it.

It may be the case that some mysteries are best left unsolved, but in this case, come ON. It's like when they tested hair that supposedly got rubbed off of a Bigfoot, and it turned out to be bear or cow or whatever. People still believe in Bigfoot after all that, because it's hard to prove a negative. (See my entry from last year, "Tales from the Cryptid" .) Even though we have hard evidence that all the blurry pictures of that particular cryptid were definitely hoaxes.

It would be like refusing to test the DNA from the multiple taxidermied jackalopes   in neighboring Wyoming: they just don't want people to think that jackalopes are completely made up.