have you ever seen a creature that just couldn't possibly be real maybe as the night fell you once saw a grotesquely tall gangly lumbering creature with burning eyes heading straight for you but it turned out to be a lamp overgrown with vines woo no just me well you can see how our ancestors thought they saw impossible creatures like dragons unicorns or Bigfoot but what if I told you these creatures actually existed ones so come with me as we uncover the real beasts that inspired these Legends and some that have even been caught on [Music] camera
eye for an eye over 2,000 years ago the Greek poet Homer no not him this guy wrote the Odyssey which follows the adventures of was his arrival on an island populated by a terrifying race of oneeyed manaing giants known as cyclopses well aren't they a sight for sore eyes or eye odyusa polyus until they escaped with a bit of trickery and uh eye gouging sure the Odyssey is a cool myth but is there any evidence that these cyclopic giants existed in real life well along the mediterran Anan Islands people have actually discovered the skulls of
huge oneeyed monsters which seem to back up the myth but testing revealed that these skulls actually belonged to dwarf elephants distant relatives of modern elephants that roamed the Mediterranean long before the arrival of humans until their Extinction around 400,000 years ago an adult grew to about 3 ft tall no bigger than an African elephant calf while their own calf does were the size of puppies they sound adorable how could they have inspired the beastly Cyclops well in the center of an elephant skull lies the nasal passage where the animal's trunk would have been over time
this would rot away leaving behind a hollow cavity before the 4th Century most Greeks had never encountered elephants so if they stumbled upon these fossils they could have mistaken the hole for an eye socket leading them to believe it came from a cyclops with all the other extraordinary things the Greeks believed in like Medusa the minitar or Cerberus I don't think they'd have batted an eye at the existence of cyclopses unicorn acopia the Unicorn is a mystical legendary beast but it wasn't always the beautiful horned horse that we use in emojis or put on lattes
today the first mention in Western literature of this creature comes from the Greek physician tius in the 4th Century bcee he relayed story from Indian Travelers of a large pale blueeyed donkey with a crimson head and three horns of white red and black tas's animal could well be the original unicorn or you know Satan though it seems that this creature was actually a descriptive combination of large herbivores such as the chiro keang and Indian rhino in 77 ad Roman author plen the Elder gave his own description of the Unicorn a ferocious one-horned Beast impossible to
capture alive though he was probably describing the Indian rhino so the radiant unicorn was partly inspired by big smelly rhinos well in the 3r century BC Scholars translating the Hebrew Bible to Greek mixed up Reem with monoc caros meaning one horn previously used for rhinos before they knew it this became unicornis in Latin and un corn in English leading the creature to become a symbol of Purity and Jesus Christ as for that swirled horn this came about during the Middle Ages when sailors and Merchants pedal spiral horns to European markets claiming they were taken from
slay unicorns people believed these possessed mystical Powers such as the ability to purify water and heal the sick in reality these were the tusks of narwhals an Arctic whale species with an enlarged tooth that grows around 6 to 9 ft long from the animal's head royalty and Aristocrats unaware narwhals even existed eagerly purchased the tusks in fact you can see the Throne of Denmark constructed in 1660 is made with exposed unicorn horn what a whale of a scam owls and moths and men oh my back in 1976 the meling family went on an Easter vacation
to Cornwall England it was a trip to remember for all the wrong reasons they were staying in the village of manen and their two girls were playing near the local church suddenly they heard a noise coming from above and when they looked up they saw a horrific Twisted shape hovering over the church's Tower it was a dark feathered creature the same size as a man but with outstretched wings and giant eyes that were far too big for any man's head the girls fled and severely shaken they told their father who in turn counted the incident
to Total Sage Tony doc Shields after this more people were said to be terrorized by the Cornish creature coined the Owlman across the late 70s and 80s and each told their stories to Doc who wrote and inspired books based on Owlman now its Legend haunts the south of England but over the pond in a small village called Point Pleasant in West Virginia USA a similar freak can be found in local folklore point Pleasant was a TNT area somewhere factories that produced explosives for World War II after the war TNT was still being stored on site
supposedly polluting the surrounding environment this led locals to speculate about what sort of effects it might have on the wildlife when in 1966 two couples came running out of the woods claiming they'd seen something monstrous a humanoid figure with 10-ft wings and gigantic glowing red eyes The Moth Man the local paper ran the story which riled the entire town up to go hunting for it this saw it pass from story to Legend with people claiming to this day that they've caught the creature on camera so what were they really if these really were humanoid and
the wings would need to be able to generate as much upward lift as the humanoids weight so if Owlman and Moth Man were both 5 and 1/2 ft tall say then their wingspan would need to be about 22 feet and that's a lot bigger than moth man's 10-ft span perhaps what these people mistakenly saw was a large species of owl like theasian eagle owl you see the larger female of the species can measure up to about 30 in long with a wingspan of over 6 fet just one problem with that theory the species isn't present
in the UK or the us but it's not unheard of for Aven adventurers to get lost and arrive from Mainland Europe they could have also been large barn owls which are hella creepy when they hiss like this owls aren't the only explanation though all of the Owlman stories came from people who spoke to Doc or one of his acquaintances and then vanished for context Doc is a self-proclaimed warlock famous for his tales I couldn't find a single news report on the Owlman so chances are he conjured up the whole thing however Moth Man did have
multiple newspapers run stories about the sightings which included the names and addresses of the people who'd seen it but this was at a time where UFO and alien fever had gripped the nation maybe their imaginations just got carried away and what do you think were these sightings of big birds or just tall tals let me know down in the comments your Krakens showing of all the sea monsters lurking in the ocean depths one of the most terrifying has to be the Kraken the legend originates from the Waters of Scandinavia where sea farers would return home
with Tales of a gigantic monster as big as an island that prayed on unwary ships throughout the ages the kraken's appearance has varied from a formless blob to a giant crustation it was only in the 18th century that the image we have today a giant squid or octopus with tree-sized tentacles emerged the inspiration for the giant squid-like Kraken likely stemed from sightings of well surprise surprise Giant and colossal squids these are massive spilop pods over 40 ft in length and that's bigger than your average school bus the colossal squid sticks to Antarctic Waters where giant
squids are found nearly everywhere bar polar and tropical regions here's one in 2015 that showed up in Toyama bay Japan the giant squid tips the scales around a hefty 600 lb while the colossal squid dwarfs even that weighing up to 1,00 lb which is about as heavy as a grizzly bear even as late as 2004 people have had Kraken likee experiences firsthand French Sailors participating in the jewels Vern trophy race reported an encounter with a kraken likee squid crewman Olivier the kurasa recounted how the creature latched onto their vessel's hole only releasing its grip when
the ship came to a halt there's only been about 250 sightings of giant squid ever recorded mostly involving deceased specimens washed ashore this is because they live at depths of some 3,280 ft and there's been even fewer sightings of the colossal squid which live at depths as low as 6,560 ft live encounters with these animals are are very rare though after hearing stories of Krakens attacking Crews maybe that's a good thing Gruff Griffins a legend from the fth century BC tells of the Greek historian Herodotus embarking on a journey towards Central Asia as he crossed
the GOI desert in Mongolia he encountered the scythians nomadic people who shared Tales of fierce creatures with beaks and four legs guarding caves brimming with gold and protecting their young H those creatures sound just like Griffins wild beasts with the head front legs and occasionally wings of an eagle coupled with the hind quarters of a lion man those things really would make one heck of a guard dog no wait a guard bird cat coincidentally the Gobi desert boasts one of the richest fossil deposits in the world which is where the remains of the protoceratops can
be found the dinosaur lived 80 million years ago during the late Cretaceous Period and was an ancestor of the more famous Triceratops this herbivorous creature measured 6 ft long and weighed 400 lb so about the same size as a very large wild boar classical folklorist Adrien mayor hypothesized that the scythians while mining for gold may have Unearthed protoceratops remains sparking the Griffin myth both have beaked birdlike faces yet walk on four legs like a man mamal but not everyone buys this beasts with Falcon likee heads and Lion's bodies appeared in motifs from ancient Egypt as
early as the second millennium BC around 2,000 years before Herodotus it's much more likely that when Greeks started trading with the Middle East in the 8th Century BC they picked up new styles of Art and religion that's when mythical creatures like Griffins were adopted into Greek culture as for the scythians maybe they just told Herodotus Griffin story to stop him pinching their gold see any serpents do you like snakes yeah no well what if you saw a sea snake over a mile long yeah big no from me myths of gigantic sea snakes have spanned cultures
worldwide from the South Asian Naga gods to the Japanese ryujin to the Norse yoring Gander one of the most infamous sightings comes from the fishing town of Gloucester Massachusetts in the US between 1817 and 19 reports of a strange creature dubbed the Gloucester sea serpent came flooding in descriptions varied wildly but almost all reports referred to its immense size and snake-like head now this might have been a basking shark when viewed from a boat these 40 ft long fish slip through the water just like a serpent it wouldn't be the first time that one of
these goliaths has been mistaken for a mystical creature in 1808 the 55 ft long carcass of a basking shark washed up on Stony in the ory Island Scotland its immense size LED locals to believe it was the remains of a sea serpent the basking shark isn't the only Contender for this monstrous title though in January 1860 what was believed to be a sea serpent washed up on hungry Bay in Bermuda and turned out to be an or fish they disturbingly lack scales and have red hair-like filaments growing along their bodies the sea creature holds the
title for the world's longest bony fish alive measuring up to a gigantic 50 ft long although their elusive nature makes them difficult to study as they tend to live between 65 and 650 ft below only really breaching the water's surface when they're ill or are about to die so what do you think the Gloucester serpent was a basking shark an orish or something else entirely let me know down below all fired up what mystical creature hoardes mountains of Gold beles Flames and Soares through the skies you got it the Western Dragon Legends of these creatures
have been with us since the late 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamia though these early Dragons Were depicted as being thinner and more snake-like it was only in Europe after the 8th Century that they evolved into winged four-legged beasts the fire bre breathing likely came about when Christians Associated dragons with Satan and hellfire on the other side you've got East Asian dragons these Serpentine creatures are wise often associated with water and are generally chill so what animal inspired these creatures man it'd be easier to ask what animal didn't Inspire them whenever early people found fossils left
behind by gigantic animals their imagination understandably conjured up terrifying monsters take for instance the city of Claren Fort Austria where the town hall displayed a skull believed to be from a Lind verm a snakish Dragon Slain by a knight to honor the legend a statue was carved with the skull used as a reference however in the 1800s zoologists discovered it was actually from a woolly Rhino so rhinos were mistaken for unicorns and Dragons well that's surprising what's more in 16th century China a medical guide cre created by a court physician described a medicine made from
dragon bones which were in reality fossils however these may have been from dinosaurus orientalis a 16t long aquatic Reptile from the Triassic period which I mean look at it its Serpentine body looks unmistakably similar to that of traditional Chinese dragons which have no wings and instead are fabled to swim through the air though it's not just fossils that Stoke Legends of this distinct looking creature in 2017 villagers in janako in China's Northern Province claimed to have found a 60t long dragon skeleton while it did resemble the fossil structure and had a number of locals convinced
dragons walked among them it was actually a movie prop though the structure and scale of it was still impressive another more psychological theory is that dragons sprang from the human mind as a combination of all the Predators our ancestors would have feared such as big cats snakes crocodiles and birds of prey hang on if all the early Dragons Were depicted as large snake-like beings it doesn't seem like a stretch to say they might have been inspired by well large snakes good research me for Fox sake if you're like me you've fallen for that special someone
only for the love of your life to reveal their actually a fox in Disguise weirdly it's a tale as oldest time in East Asian folklore where Fox Spirit myths Thrive whether it be the Chinese Huli Jing the Japanese kisun or the Korean gho all have stories telling of their shape-shifting powers as well as their ability to sport over a thousand Tales the number of tales supposedly reflected the Fox's age and Status the more Tales the older wiser and more powerful they were with nine being the most common these myths often involve foxes taking on the
guise of a beautiful woman in China when a foxw woman seduced a man she would feed off his Yang energy weakening the man and even killing him not all foxes were bad news in Japan some were messengers of Inari a god of forest and land in the Shinto religion and were depicted as pure white can you guess what animal inspired these foxes no don't don't actually answer that was a rhetorical question there was no distinction between ordinary red foxes and paranormal ones apparently everyday foxes were simply not old enough to possess Supernatural Powers it was
the animals tendency to appear at Twilight that contributed to them being seen as Lial beings ones that existed within two worlds the regular and the spirit you know I've been thinking about getting back on the dating scene maybe I should start hanging around the dumpster at night and wake for the foxy ladies cability drown if you're ever frolicking in the rivers of Japan locals will say You must watch out for the Kappa this is a goblin-like water spirit about the same size as a child it's covered in Scales has webbed hands shaggy hair and a
depression at the top of its head filled with water just like a bowl Its Behavior r ranges from kind to mischievous to downright murderous they even have a penchant for sucking the insides out of a person's um well let's just say you don't want to bend over near them okay this sounds too bizarre to be real but some claim there's evidence this demon exists in 2014 so-called mummified remains of the creature went on display at the mokon nojo shimazu residence after it was supposedly shot on a riverbank in 1888 uh I'm not buying it either
these remains are fake or they belong to an animal with similar appendages like the giant Japanese salamander this is the second largest salamander in the world weighing up to 55 lb and growing up to 5 ft long that's the same as a 10-year-old child now unlike copas salamanders avoid humans and reports of them attacking people are rare what they are aggressive towards is their prey the way salamanders snap their heads as they Chomp down on their catch may have startled onlookers inspiring the mythical creature but if you ask me the ca looks more like a
really big frog toad or Turtle maybe the myth was conjured up by parents to stop their children from getting too close to the Water by making up a uh butt sucking monster top tier parenting there Abra chupacabra starting in the mid 1970s Farmers across Puerto Rico awoke to a gruesome some scene their livestock had been slaughtered their blood drained and some even slid open Witnesses reported a strange creature prowling in the dark with sharp fangs and glowing eyes the Carnage grew and spread across Latin America and the southern us throughout the 80s and '90s where
the culprit became known as El Chupacabra the goat sucker the most famous account comes from meline Tolentino in canovanas back in August 1995 5 who claimed she saw the monster roaming her street she described it as being some 3 ft tall at the shoulder with human hands big eyes no nose and grayish skin that looked like wet leather covered in rough patches of hair the sketches that came from the depiction were truly unhinged leading some to believe the creature must have been from outer space or the result of a secret government experiment but I'm afraid
our old friend Buzz Kill man is here to rule this wild assumption chupacabra are likely just coyotes suffering from a severe skin condition called mange this is when parasitic mites Burrow under the host's skin releasing eggs and waste causing an inflammatory response from the immune system the animal's fur begins to fall out and the skin becomes covered in sores giving it a scaly appearance the condition is severely debilitating for canines and infected coyotes are forced to pre on easy targets such as Livestock in order to survive mangi canines might not be the only inspiration Tolentino
along with other Witnesses said that the chupacabra bore a resemblance to the alien villain in the sci-fi horror film species released that same year maybe tolentino's overactive imagination exaggerated and infected Coyote's spikiness giving it an extraterrestrial appearance regardless of the reason I'm happy knowing this thing is probably just a sick dog and not a livestock hungry space vampire mountain men ape humanoid hybrid myths have been proliferated all over the world from the European wild man to The Majestic Himalayan Yeti but the most famous of all has to be the North American Bigfoot more Sasquatch whose
Legend traces back to indigenous folklore the word Sasquatch reportedly comes from the Canadian stalis Nation who believed in the shape-shifting saset even today people still claim they have proof that they exist in the wild just take a look at this peaceful car ride through barcord dooran Russia in [Music] 2016 whoa there's a big foot in Russia too well despite spooky phenomena like this Skeptics have dismissed stories of Apen as a load of hooey however in 1935 the discovery of an unusually large Moler tooth in Hong Kong gave Credence to Bigfoot believers since then fossilized jaws
and teeth of a gigantic prehistoric ape been found in China Vietnam and India they belonged to gigantopithecus a relative of the orangutang this extinct ape lived about 12 to 8 million years ago stood more than 10 ft tall and weighed 12200 lb wait a minute mom the animal lived in Asia some 12 to 8 million years ago spending its days lumbering on all fours and feeding on vegetation cryptozoologists people who search for legendary creatures whose existence isn't proven have argued that the relatives of gigantopithecus may still live in places where these Apen are reported though
other Bigfoot afficianados have dismissed these claims arguing that Bigfoot is agile and two-legged rather than a 10-ft tall orangutang man the Bigfoot fan club has more complex politics than I ever imagined Centaur of attention horse riding is hard first you have to get them out of the Stables strap all the gear onto him then attempt to climb on and stay on H wouldn't it be simpler if you were just attached to the horse and that's where being a centaur comes in handy these were a fabled race of creatures from Greek mythology part human part horse
that dwelled in the mountains of thessaly and Arcadia there are a few stories about how centaurs came into being none of them are child friend friendly one version involves a character called Centaurus getting friendly with some Mars resulting in the Centaur race over familiarity with animals aside surely there weren't really half human half horse beings Galloping around no but they were possibly inspired by a real life site back in the early Classical period That's the time from 510 to 323 BC people didn't ride horses so when Ian Horsemen nomadic Warriors from the East came raiding
terrified Greeks might a mistake in the rider and horse as one creature similar effects happen when the horse riding cultures come into contact with those who don't ride when the Spanish conquistadors invaded Mexico the indigenous Aztecs and Incas believed the animal and human to be a single creature now that may not be the only reason for these manimals terracotta figures of humans with horse hindquarters were discovered in the iian City u ugarit in modern-day Syria during the late Greek Bronze Age the Greeks may have snagged this Motif by interacting with other civilizations in the East
whether through War trade or travel sorry to be a nayser and we've come to the end of our Tales what was your favorite mythical creature let me know down in the comments below and thanks for watching [Music]
