Sheepsquatch: West Virginia’s Woolly Roadside Cryptid
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Across parts of Appalachia, particularly rural stretches of West Virginia, people occasionally report seeing a large, upright figure that does not match any known animal. The encounters are brief, often dismissed, yet strikingly consistent in their details.
Most occur along two-lane mountain roads where forest presses close to the shoulder and visibility collapses beyond the headlights. It is usually late evening or just before dawn. A driver notices movement ahead. Headlights catch a pale shape near the tree line. At first, it reads as a bear.
Then it stands.
The figure rises upright, taller than expected, with a heavy, thick-bodied frame. Witnesses describe a pale or gray covering that looks less like fur and more like matted wool or fleece. The build appears dense and weighty, the posture steady and balanced rather than startled or animal.
The head is the most difficult feature to describe. Some say it appears vaguely sheep-like. Others can only say that it looks wrong. The proportions feel off, too blunt and too heavy to resolve into anything familiar. Facial detail is rarely clear. When eyes are visible, they reflect light briefly and then disappear, as if the figure has already turned away.
The encounter rarely lasts more than a few seconds.
No charge.
No sound.
No sudden movement.
The figure steps off the road or eases back into the tree line, unhurried. Not fleeing. Simply withdrawing.
What lingers is not fear, but dissonance.
Witnesses often describe the same unsettling pause, the moment when the shape refuses to resolve into something known. It stands too upright. Moves with too much intention. Appears heavier and more deliberate than any animal should.
The comparison to sheep or livestock seems less about anatomy and more about texture and presence. The sense of dense, uneven fleece and a body that does not belong where it stands.
Whatever these witnesses encountered, it did not behave like a bear.
And it did not behave like a person.
That narrow space between those two explanations is where the reports tend to remain.
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