Monster Blog
J.M. Plumbley’s monster blog offers over 80 posts that explore weird, real-life monster mythology. Explore the latest posts below, or scroll down to browse the posts by tags.
Latest posts
So Many Shades of Grey: The Am Fear Liath Mor of Ben MacDui
Happy (almost) Halloween! In celebration of my favorite holiday, I thought we’d cover a topic that is less strange so much as it is pants-poopingly frightening. Now, I admit that when I first uncovered the pitch for this creature—which pretty much boils down to...
Hungry Enough to Eat His Own Arm: The Nachzehrer
Welcome to our first full moon MONSTER MEET, and to the 11th post on this site! Now that we’ve covered some creatures that you’ve probably never heard of, I’d like to celebrate this occasion by discussing a variation on a more traditional monster: the vampire. Meet...
For Upcoming Posts, Look to the Sky
Dear friends, In the interest of completing bigger, darker projects in a more timely fashion, MONSTER MEET will slow to appearing once every full moon beginning this September, 2015. In the meantime, the author will continue to be active on Twitter and perhaps even...
Better than Tempeh: The Borametz
As the world transitions to autumn, let’s take a moment to celebrate this wonderful window between the mad heat of summer and the dark desperation of winter. This week, let’s give ourselves a break; let’s study a monster that does not threaten grievous bodily harm! In...
Clean-up on Aisle 15: The Haunting of Toys ‘R Us Sunnyvale
There is nothing more banal than a chain store. But one store in Sunnyvale, CA is not quite as *soulless* as the others: the East El Camino Real Toys R’ Us. By all accounts, the spot has been haunted for some time, but no one really investigated it until around 1978,...
Down, boy! The Beast of Gévaudan
Ah, France. The lush pastures; the fluffy, drifting clouds; the high-pitched whinny of a calf-sized monster as it rips out your throat in broad daylight. 18th-century France had many worries, but when something in the remote hills of Gévaudan (modern-day Lozère)...
The Kongamato: Destroyer of Boats, Soiler of Underwear
You might remember our visit a few weeks ago to the billabongs of Australia, when we encountered everyone’s favorite dog/sheep/serpent/flippery thing. Now we travel to the Jiundu backwaters of Zambia, Angola, and the Congo, where something else waits to burst from...
Tall, Dark, and Phantom? The Shadow People
This topic is of particular interest to me. When I was a child, my family moved to a small house. I had a small room, and a bed crammed next to a long closet with a sliding door. It was a difficult time in my life--my mother was sick, and I was too old to go to my...
Blobs in the Deep: The North Carolina Sewage Monster
Warning: My beta reader has referred to the monster of this post as “okay, like, legit disgusting.” If you are eating or are easily disturbed, you might want to sit this one out. On April 27, 2009, the town of Raleigh, North Carolina contracted South Carolina-based...
The Bunyip: Swamp Monster of the Down Under
Let’s play a game. What is thirteen feet tall, bipedal, and with scales all over? No idea? Okay, what is snake-like, but with flippers, and black fur all over? Not quite? What is essentially an enormous dog, only aquatic and possibly covered with feathers or featuring...
Bridge Over Troubled Waters: Hell Gate
I’ve never slept well with open doors. As a child, I’d see the light flickering through the crack and imagine it was an otherworldly train, drifting through the dark to steal children who hadn’t properly fallen asleep. It would squeeze down the hall: a luminous blue...
Hello and Welcome.
I am glad to be here, and glad you are here, too. Sit down, have a drink--don’t worry, it’s red, but it's not blood. Don’t mind the dust on the chair, or that strange smell. We’re all friends here. And we’re here because we like monsters. So let’s talk monsters. You...
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Banner photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash.