I still wonder if the Cucumber Man is lurking outside my living room window. That is where I saw him as a little girl in East Dorset. He was green with spikes and looked very much like, well, a giant cucumber. I'm not sure if it were the spikes, his pasty white bitter mouth film, or slimy trail, but I always make sure that no cucumber is left on the vine past ripeness. No one on our historic mountain road denies his existence and it is common knowledge that if you are to go outside in fall past darkness you better bring more than a flashlight.

Anna (posted by Steve Zind/VPR)

Your guest claims that his is the first book on this subject be published. To the contrary, I am 27 and remember when I was in elementary school, reading (over and over) a book cataloging the exact same thing. Amongst the entries were a ghost named Emily who haunted a bridge, a Wild Man, a swamp thing in Dead Creek, as well as the usuals like champ and memphy.

Ben (posted by Steve Zind/VPR)

(Joe Citro responds: "Ben is probably remembering my book Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghoulds, and Unsolved Mysteries (Houghton Mifflin, 1994). And my claim was that this is the first and only book about Vermont MONSTERS. And it is.")

I lived in rural Barnard for seven years. In January of 1992 I was returning home on a back road at about 10 PM and a catamount crossed the road in front of me. I called the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences the following Monday to report it and they asked me to "keep it quiet," which I did. Two years later on a summer evening I went outside to admire the full moon and, hearing something behind me, where the lawn met the meadow, I saw a catamount snacking on the scraps I had regualarly put out for the coyotes! The cat looked at me, then turned away and slowly walked across the meadow toward the woods. I also had a bobcat that "visited" me - hung around - for six weeks in April-May of 2007, and photos to document it.

Doug in Vershire (posted by Steve Zind/VPR)

I'm a huge comic book geek and didn't know until the show started that Stephen Bissette is from VT. He's one of my favorite comic book artists ever...please mention that everyone in the world should read the work he did with Alan Moore on SWAMP THING in the 1980's...the series has been collected in books you can get at almost any bookstore and is brilliant......and please ask Stephen if Alan Moore is as scary as he looks!

Mitch in Colchester (posted by Steve Zind/VPR)

This is third-hand, but re: the sighting of a person in a gorilla suit along Route 7 in the Bennington area, someone I know well knows a person who ostensibly does this during leaf season as a gag. I agree with Joe that it's not too bright, but on the other hand does Vermont have a gorilla season?

Naomi in North Bennington (posted by Steve Zind/VPR)

Naomi has provided some independant verification (maybe) of my big foot siting last spring that no one in my family believes.

I was walking down North Street in Bennington. As I passed the parking lot between the Trusco Bank and the VFW I happened to look to my left and saw big foot and an attractive young woman. They waved. This is Vermont, so I waved back and kept on walking.

I didn't have a camera with me so no one believes that I saw bigfoot in downtown Bennington.

I'm assuming that this was the guy and the costume that Niomi mentioned in her note and that we just disagree on whether the costume depicts bigfoot or a gorilla.

On the other hand, Maybe I did see bigfoot. Bennington is not that far from Glastonsbury.

Marty from North Bennington

Sometimes monsters we think we saw ends up being simply real animals, but sometimes, real animals ends up being real monsters. My story is about the second type of monster.

I live on a land in Rawdon, deep in the woods, I call it my enchanted forest. One night I heard screaming, a terrible screaming. I go to the door where one of my young cats that never go outside is standing and the poor kitten is scared, its back is all "round-up" so I know the "thing" is on the other side. I look up the door's windows and see some black wearing fur "thing" outside in the dark and nothing else.
I have another cat that lives outside all the time, I build him a heated house and he likes it out-there. But I don't see him. I am worried for him. But having nothing near me to grab, I simply open the door and kick that little screaming demon with my bare foot. It jumps 3 feet away and keep screaming at me with its big teeth and his huge claws. It's then I notice my outside cat, Bob, lying on his side, not moving. So I finally was able to scare away the little demon who just wanted to get back to my cat.

Bob was there, laying on the side with 2 holes each side of his throat, blood staining his pure white fur and dripping underneath. I gently lay down in front of my dying friend and comforted him for 5 minutes until he took his last breath and then, this wonderful companion was gone.

I researched this animal, and it turns out it is well known (to some) mammal: it is a "Martes pennanti". Known to scream like a child and eat cats and small dogs even attack little kids. But for me, it was and will always be a monster.

Philippe in Quebec (Posted by Steve Zind/VPR)

My favorite Vermont monster is Sasquatch, which I've been studying for years. You can read excerpts from my book, Impossible Visits, here: http://www.impossiblevisits.com, and feel free to contact me with any questions or if you think you may have a Sasquatch frequenting your own property. To see a short video about my recent research on this topic, please go here:
http://www...kM0f3y9BVw

If you find "stick structures" in your woods that are rudimentary yet look like they were assembled by a creature with hands, or if you hear "wood knocking" that definitely does not sound like a woodpecker or someone using an ax, these may indicate the presence of Sasquatch. If you want to get in touch with me so we compare notes on what we've seen and heard, you can do so through the Impossible Visits Web site (http://www.impossiblevisits.com)

When my daughter was 5 months old, as a young married couple, her father and I were very excited to move into our new house in Milton. It was a nice house on a quiet cul-de-sac, surrounded by woods. We quickly made friends with other young families in the neighborhood and would often have get-togethers on the weekends. The first summer in our new surroundings, our evening parties would often involve sitting around a fire in the yard of one of our new friends’. At one evening party, during a lull in conversation, we heard the most frightful sound coming from the woods. We all stared at each other wide-eyed and quite startled. None of us knew what it could be. It sounded like a cross between a baby crying and the devil screaming. The noise stopped, and after a little discussion of what it could have been, we continued on with our party, not letting the noise put a damper on our merry-making. Later that month, at another get-together, we heard the noise again. A wildlife savvy neighbor who had not been at the first party, explained to us that what we were hearing was a fisher cat. It is an animal that is not indigenous to Vermont. It was brought to Vermont to fight the porcupine population. Although the word ‘cat’ is in its name, it is actually part of the weasel family. It is on the larger end of the weasel family, up to 20 lbs and 4 feet long. It can run very fast, take 90-degree turns at top speed and has very sharp teeth and claws. While brought to Vermont for porcupines, it is known to eat family pets too, particularly cats, who love to stray directly into its territory in the woods. We heard the screeches a few more times that season and we kept our cats in the house. Luckily none of our beloved creatures or those of our neighbors were lost, that year.

We did not hear or think about the monster for many years until about a decade later, when we heard the terrible screeches in the woods again. Since the last visitation did not do us any harm, we did not pay as much attention to keeping our cats in the house at night. We had a beautiful black and white tuxedo cat named Jasper who loved to sleep all day and haunt the woods all night. At the height of summer, it was not uncommon for her to stay away from the house for up to 2-3 days at a stretch. However, after 4 days went by with no familiar crying at the back door, I knew something was wrong. I went to discuss my concerns with a neighbor who told me that her cat also had not returned that night. For her, that was not normal, since Ruthie came home each night and spent the night in the house. As we were talking, another neighbor from across the cul-de-sac walked over and told us her cat also disappeared in the past couple days. As the week went on, none of our cats returned and we saw flyers posted in the neighborhood for two other lost cats. Apparently, compared to the difficult to eat porcupines, our little pets were a tasty treat to this monster in the woods. After this weeklong feast fest, we have not heard from the creature again.

Maybe the creature only returns every 10 years. My 20th anniversary in this house is approaching. In anticipation of its possible return, I have to decide whether to keep the cat in the house, or maybe I will just move……

Allison (posted by Steve Zind/VPR)