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99 free Cryptids and Urban Legends trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
43 free Cryptids and Urban Legends trivia questions with answers. Cryptid trivia for anyone who has ever squinted at a blurry photo and wondered. This quiz covers the famous ones and the deep cuts: Bigfoot and the Patterson-Gimlin film, Nessie and the surgeon's photograph, the chupacabra's real explanation, Mothman and the Silver Bridge, the Jersey Devil, the Yeti and how it became the Abominable Snowman, the kraken, the skunk ape, the wendigo, the bunyip, mokele-mbembe, the Flatwoods monster, the Dover Demon and the Fouke Monster. It also asks about cryptozoology itself, its founders and its status as a pseudoscience, and about the 'cryptids' that turned out to be real, such as the coelacanth and the okapi. Easy questions come first; the harder ones will stump the true believers. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the creatures, the hoaxes and the people who chased them, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
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Q 01Which forested region of Southern New Jersey is home to the legend of the Jersey Devil?
Pine Barrens
The Jersey Devil is said to haunt the Pine Barrens, the vast pine forest and wetland region of South Jersey, with sightings reported there since the 1700s.
Q 02The Goatman urban legend is most associated with which US state, especially Prince George's County?
Maryland
The Goatman, a creature resembling a goat-human hybrid, is most famously associated with Prince George's County, Maryland.
Q 03The modern jackalope legend, a jackrabbit with antlers, was popularised in which US state?
Wyoming
The modern American jackalope legend is often attributed to Douglas Herrick of Douglas, Wyoming, who popularized the taxidermy hoax in the 1930s.
Q 04Ogopogo, the serpentine lake monster of Canadian folklore, is said to inhabit which lake?
Okanagan
Okanagan Lake in British Columbia is the home of Ogopogo, the lake monster of Canadian folklore.
Q 05By legend, the Jersey Devil was the cursed 13th child of a woman known by what surname?
Leeds
The legend states that the Jersey Devil was the 13th child of a woman known as 'Mother Leeds' in 1735, who allegedly cursed it upon birth.
Q 06The Yeti, said to roam the Himalayas, goes by which other name in Western popular culture?
Abominable Snowman
The Abominable Snowman is the Western name for the large, hairy humanoid of Himalayan legend; Bigfoot and Sasquatch are its North American cousins.
Q 07The 1955 'Hopkinsville Goblins' farmhouse encounter took place in which US state?
Kentucky
Kentucky: on 21 August 1955 the Sutton family reported small glowing goblin-like creatures besieging their farmhouse at Kelly, near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, then fled to the police.
Q 08Old West campfire tall tales credit the jackalope, the horned rabbit of folklore, with what ability?
Mimicking human voices
Mimicking human voices was its party trick: cowboys singing by the fire could hear jackalopes singing along, usually as a tenor.
Q 09Which of these is a recorded translation of 'Naitaka', the Secwepemc and Syilx name for Ogopogo?
Sacred creature of the water
Other translations include 'water-demon' and 'water god'; in the oral tradition Naitaka demanded a live sacrifice for safe crossing of the lake.
Q 10In which region of North America is Bigfoot most often said to roam?
The Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest: most Bigfoot reports come from the forests of Washington, Oregon, Northern California and British Columbia, where Sasquatch Provincial Park is named for the creature.
Q 11Who coined the word 'Bigfoot' in 1958?
Logging crew members in Humboldt County
Members of a Humboldt County logging-road crew nicknamed the track-maker 'Big Foot' after bulldozer operator Jerry Crew found 16-inch prints at their work site; the Humboldt Times printed it as 'Bigfoot'.
Q 12What did the family of Ray Wallace reveal in 2002 about the 1958 Bigfoot tracks?
He had carved wooden feet and faked them
The Bluff Creek prints that gave Bigfoot its name were a prank on his co-worker Jerry Crew.
Q 13Patterson and Gimlin shot the famous 1967 Bigfoot footage at which Northern California site?
Q 21What have investigators found the 'chupacabras' of the American Southwest to actually be?
Canids with severe mange
Canids with severe mange: DNA tests and necropsies showed the hairless, fanged 'creatures' were coyotes and dogs whose fur had fallen out from sarcoptic mange.
Q 22Mothman, the winged humanoid of American folklore, was reportedly seen around which West Virginia town in 1966 and 1967?
Point Pleasant
The first newspaper headline read 'Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something'; the sightings around Point Pleasant ran from November 1966 to December 1967.
Q 23Which disaster did John Keel's 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies link to the sightings?
Bluff Creek
Bluff Creek, in Northern California's Six Rivers National Forest, is where Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin shot their 59.5-second film on 20 October 1967.
Q 14What did Roger Patterson maintain until his death in 1972 about his film?
That the creature was real
Patterson maintained that the creature was real until he died of cancer in January 1972; Gimlin has likewise denied any hoax.
Q 15The Loch Ness Monster was brought to worldwide attention in which year?
1933
A Courier report of George Spicer's sighting in August 1933 set off a flood of letters.
Q 16The earliest 'monster' report near Loch Ness appears in a 7th-century life of which saint?
Columba
Adomnán's 7th-century Life of St Columba has Columba banishing a water beast in the River Ness in 565; water-beast tales were common in saints' lives.
Q 17The famous 1934 'surgeon's photograph' of Nessie is attributed to a London doctor of what specialty?
Gynaecologist
Gynaecologist Robert Kenneth Wilson lent his name to the 1934 Daily Mail photo, later exposed as a toy submarine fitted with a sculpted head.
Q 18Since which year has the surgeon's photograph been generally agreed to be a hoax?
1994
In 1994 Christian Spurling's deathbed confession was published: the 'monster' was a toy submarine with a sculpted head staged by Marmaduke Wetherell; Boyd and Martin's full account followed in 1999.
Q 19What does 'chupacabra' literally mean?
Goat-sucker
'Chupacabra' is Spanish for 'goat-sucker' (chupar, to suck; cabra, goat), named for its supposed habit of draining the blood of goats and other livestock.
Q 20Where and when did the first widely publicised chupacabra sightings occur?
Puerto Rico, 1995
Puerto Rico, 1995: the first widely reported attacks came in March 1995, with livestock found dead and drained of blood, and eyewitness Madelyne Tolentino's August 1995 description set the creature's template.
The Silver Bridge collapse
The bridge fell on 15 December 1967, killing 46; the book became a 2002 Richard Gere film.
Q 24Which two zoologists is cryptozoology as a field traced to?
Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson
Belgian zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans and Scottish-American naturalist Ivan T. Sanderson founded the field in the 1950s; Heuvelmans' 1955 On the Track of Unknown Animals is its key text.
Q 25'Bessie' is the serpent-like monster said to live in which Great Lake?
Lake Erie
Lake Erie: 'Bessie', or South Bay Bessie, is the serpent-like creature reported in Lake Erie since the 1790s, with a flurry of sightings off the Ohio shore in 1990.
Q 26How is cryptozoology classified by mainstream science?
A pseudoscience
Mainstream science classes cryptozoology as a pseudoscience: it does not follow the scientific method, and scholars note parallels with ghost hunting and ufology.
Q 27The name 'Abominable Snowman' arose from a mistranslation by a journalist writing under what pen name?
Kim
Henry Newman of The Statesman, writing as 'Kim', rendered the porters' 'metoh' as 'filthy' after interviewing the 1921 Everest expedition, then swapped in 'abominable' for 'Abominable Snowman'.
Q 28Folklorists trace the Yeti to Sherpa folklore and misidentified sightings of which animals?
Bear or yak
Folklorists point to Sherpa lore and misidentified bears or yaks; the Tibetan name combines 'rocky place' and 'bear', and 2017 DNA tests of supposed Yeti remains came back as Himalayan and Tibetan bears.
Q 29The Honey Island Swamp Monster is a legend of which US state?
Louisiana
Louisiana: the Honey Island Swamp Monster is said to stalk the cypress swamp of St. Tammany Parish near Slidell, Louisiana, first reported by Harlan Ford in 1963.
Q 30The Kraken legend is thought to have originated from sightings of which real animal?
Giant squid
Giant squid, deep-sea animals that can exceed 10 metres including tentacles, are thought to lie behind the kraken; carcasses washed ashore and glimpses by sailors fed the legend.