The Batsquatch

March 16, 2025

Mount St Helens, May 18th, 1980.

The first sightings were amongst the chaos of the most destructive volcanic eruption in the history of the USA. Unverified sightings and rumours of a shape flying through the ash clouds of the eruption manifested as a legend of a flying cryptid that haunts the region and abound until this day.

The legend concerns a 9ft, blue-furred, winged creature, half-bat, half-ape, which has become known and aptly named as the Batsquatch. The name itself a portmanteau of bat, and the name of another legendary inhabitant of the region, the sasquatch.

The most significant sighting occurred in 1994 and was published in a local newspaper, The News Tribune, Tacoma. In it, the account of a young man, Brian Canfield, driving home at night. All of a sudden, his engine died, the dashboard lights fell dark, his pickup truck screeching to a halt, leaving the beams of his headlights cutting a hole in the darkness on the edge of the forests around Mount Rainiers foothills. It is then, he reports, that he saw a creature descending from the sky, with bird-like feet, bat-like wings, with ‘yellowish eyes, tufted ears and sharp straight teeth’.

“It was standing there, staring at me, like it was resting, like it didn’t know what to think. I was scared. It raised the hair on me… I didn’t feel threatened. I just felt out of place”

— Brian Canfield, Witness

The creature did not linger long. A mere few minutes. Then its fingers twitched, and its wings began to unfold, wings that were as wide as the whole road, and it took off in the direction of Mount Rainier. The only sign of its passing was the dissipating rock and sway of the truck caused by the turbulence of its take off.

A few minutes later the truck sprang back into life, as if the disturbance that caused its malfunction had just disappeared. And Canfield took off home as fast as he could.

On arriving at his home, he shakingly drew the creature, its strange visage such a shock to his newly awakened parents that they enlisted a neighbour to drive with them back to the spot to investigate, but they found no sign of the creature.

The news reporter, C.R. Roberts, vouches for the 18-year-old high school senior by stating he was a just an ‘average, normal kid... He is no fan of heavy metal and he’s never played Dungeons and Dragons. He’s never seen a UFO’.

He also remarks that there were many more things for him to be frightened of at the time such as: drugs, gangs, AIDS, violence and poverty, so he found himself unlikely to disbelieve the young man. Roberts stated, ‘it’s almost pleasant to consider a monster no one can explain. It’s pleasant for the rest of us, perhaps. But not for Brain Canfield.

“It did happen. I’m willing to put my life on it...I just have this picture in front of my head, the picture of it standing there. I can’t get rid of it. It’s just there. I kinda wish it didn’t happen”

— Brian Canfield, Witness

Brian’s encounter is the most thoroughly documented, but there have been other sightings of the creature over the decades, some stranger than others.

In 1998…

after an unfortunate fall on a mountain trail, an unconfirmed man witnessed two of the creatures after one was injured by a logging truck full of Douglas firs.

In 2009…

in Northern California near Mount Shasta, a company of hikers witnessed a ‘huge’ creature with wings spanning 50 feet, fly from the mouth of a crevice in the mountain.

In 2011…

a man walking his dog saw something in the sky with blue fur and around 9ft tall and watched it fly into the distance.

In 2014…

at Archbishop Hoban High School in Akron, Ohio, when a class spotted a giant black mass whip past their window with incredible speed.

As for the debate on whether the creature truly exists, dear reader, I shall leave that to your delectation, however, it can be said that the Batsquatch certainly gives flight to the imagination (it has even inspired a namesake beer), and my own linocut print that can be found on my Etsy.

My print also features on the cover for Dr Martin Shaws book, Smoke Hole, itself a wonderful collection of folkloric tales that I am sure you will enjoy if this article was to your liking. It is published by Chelsea Green and available in all good bookstores.