The White Thing of West Virginia

3/18/2024

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
Imagine if you will, a creature found in The Island of Dr. Moreau, one known as the Sayer of the Law. However instead of a lonely island it is found in Appalachia, and known as The White Thing.

Is The White Thing more animal or human?

It's also known as Sheepsquatch by West Virginians, and it's described as a large, bipedal creature reminiscent of bigfoot or a four-legged animal, larger than a dog with sharp, saber-like teeth. It's white with ram's horns and most alarmingly, known as being aggressive, smelling like sulphur and possibly carnivorous. The reported sightings are found in a mountain range known as Morgan's Ridge, in the counties of Boone, Kanawha, Putnam, and Mason.

The size of the animal can vary, but what is common is that it has white shaggy fur, a long hairless tail, paw-like hands and has a unique and chilling scream.

One sighting dates back to 1929, which occurred to an immigrant by the name of Frank Kozul (1890-1981). He like many others came to America seeking a better life. He left Dalmatia, Croatia in 1914, fleeing impending war at his homeland, and came to West Virginia drawn by offer of work as a coal miner.

By 1920, the 30-year-old lived at a boarding house in Marshall County, West Virginia with other Croatians. He eventually married, and went to work at the Consolidated Coal Company's Jordan 93.

On a summer evening in 1929, he was walking home from his shift, and decided to take a shortcut through Morgan's Ridge (present day US 19). This is what he experienced as retold by his daughter Beatrice (1927-2012):

He encountered a beast about the size of a large dog with white hair, a bushy tail, and sharp teeth. Before he could react, the animal pounced on him, and though he swung at it with his lunchbox he couldn’t make contact. Kozul attempted to escape the creature by running away, but it continued to attack. As he reached the outskirts of a nearby cemetery however, the attacks ceased and the animal disappeared. Looking himself over Kozul was astonished to discover he had no injuries from the attack, in fact he had no marks of the incident whatsoever. He rushed home to a sleepless night, and never took the same shortcut home from the mine again.

Was The White Thing something conjured, like in the storyline of the film "Pumpkinhead"?

Are these stories folklore, urban myth or actual events? Kurt McCoy in his book White Things (2008), mentions that the mountains, hollers and the backwoods of West Virginia are secluded areas where occult practices have taken place.

Think of the setting and storyline of the film Pumpkinhead (1988).

These are other firsthand stories about contact with Sheepsquatch:

In 1994, a former Navy seaman witnessed the beast break through the forest. The white thing drank for a few minutes, then crossed the creek and continued on across toward the road. The navy seaman observed the animal for a while, and then it moved on into the surrounding brush.
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Also in that same year, two children observed the beast while playing in the yard in Boone County. They saw what looked like a large white bear, and it stood up on its hind legs, which made it over six feet tall. Startled, the beast ran away through the forest, breaking medium-sized limbs off of trees as it went.
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Another encounter a year later involved a car. A couple driving through Boone County noticed a large white beast sitting in the ditch along the road. They stopped their car to get a good look at it. It was described again as a large white animal with woolly fur about the size of a bear. In this instance, it was described as having “four eyes”. Then, it jumped out of the ditch and started attacking the car. The couple drove off quickly, and when they got home noticed the large scratches on the side where the beast attacked.
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Another incident occurred in 1999, this time a couple of campers were in the forest of Boone County at night around a campfire. They heard an animal snorting and scuffling around the camp, but it did not come into the light of the campfire. All of the sudden, the SheepSquatch appeared out of the darkness and charged at the campers. They jumped up and ran back to their house; all the while being pursued by the SheepSquatch. It stopped at the edge of the forest however, and let out a terrible scream. Then it just turned around and headed back into the woods. The next morning, the campers examined their campsite and the trail home. It was torn up, they said, “like someone had tilled it up for gardening".

In 2011, Lon Strickler from Phantoms and Monsters received the following story:

Mr. Strickler - I hope you can give me an idea of what I saw a few weeks ago while hiking with a friend in Fairy Stone State Park in Virginia. We had been on one of the trails for about an hour when we stopped for a brief rest and drink. This was my first visit to this park and I was pleased that the area we were in was secluded.

After a few minutes of rest we continued to walk along the trail when my friend suddenly stopped and pointed towards the right at a large group of rocks. Something was moving around, but it was about 50 yards away so we didn't get a very good look. We could see that it was light in color and was quite bulky. We stood frozen wanting to know what this creature was though I was getting more frightened by the second. As we started to walk the creature moved onto a rock where we got a good look at it. It looked like a medium sized bear, but the fur was very light in color, almost a yellowish gray. The head was very strange also. There was a snout like that of a bear but the dark round eyes were set lower on the head. It was looking in our direction and we had no intention on sticking around to see what it was going to do.

We got back to the car and immediately left for home. I have read online that this area has a strange history, thus the name 'Fairy Stone'. The creature is unlike any I have seen or heard about before. I had made an inquiry to a local historian who laughed at me and said I saw a 'Sheep Squatch'. What is that? Thanks for you help - Teena

Sheep Squatch (Source - GabAI)

In 2013, Monsters and Mysteries in America, S1E1 released an episode titled Appalachia. It recounted the encounters between some hunters and The White Thing, this way:

In July 2004, Dakota Cheeks and Ricky Joyce set off on a hunting trip into a remote area of Breckinridge County, Kentucky. Ricky's grandparent's cabin was at the foot of a hundred acres of dense timber. It would be their base camp.

On the first morning, one of Ricky's dogs would not come when called. They found her deceased in a ditch, her head twisted all around. 'There's no animal up here that can grab an animal by its chin and the back of its head and twist it, you know, no coyote can do it, there's no bear, as far as I know up here,' Dakota noted.

They had been hearing noises (growls and screams) coming from the top of the mountain and using their four-wheelers, they went out to the hilltop to look for what might have killed the dog. 'We decided we're gonna hop on the four-wheelers and stake out the hilltop. We ended up going to the far side of the property where nobody really goes. There are no trails. We make a couple laps around the field that way we can both easily see where the four-wheeler has been so we know where to look.,' Cheeks recalled. They spent a good portion of the day looking for whatever it could be but found nothing. Eventually, they retreated back to the camper.

Right away they began hearing strange noises, like something was walking around. At around 5:00 AM, the dogs started barking. They ran off. Soon something began slamming into the trailer. 'It literally sounded like all hell was breaking loose. It's almost like you can hear something pressing up against the side and you can kind of hear the tent start to bend. Just that weird, eerie metal sound,' Dakota said. Suddenly whatever it was, stopped and walked away. Eventually, they armed themselves and headed out on their four-wheelers to look for the creature that rocked their trailer. They looked most of the day into the evening.

Just after dusk, they had crossed through a cemetery and just entered an open field when they saw something. Ricky spotted it first, 'I'd seen something standing in the field and at first I thought it was a tree. It was tall but it was also kind of hunched over a little bit. It was big. It was white. Its arms were long but they were kind of out like this and they had these long talons. It was too big to be a person. When it was on two legs, it stood at least nine feet tall. I mean it was massive. When it noticed us it let out this just ungodly gut curling growl. It came straight at us,' Dakota said, adding, 'We saw Sheepsquatch. That's what we saw!'

They shot at it while rushing back to Ricky's grandparent's cabin. They weren't certain they actually hit the creature but they never saw it again that evening. 'I've been in some pretty scary situations but most situations you know what you're dealing with; on that one I didn't so I didn't know how to react. That's quite possibly the scariest moment in my life,' Ricky recalled. 'It made me believe the unbelievable. I didn't believe in myths. I didn't believe in wives' tales, none of that until I saw that, and after that changed my life forever, I mean there are things out there and we don't know what they are.'

Anotherstory of a close encounter with a Sheep Squatch dates back to 2004:

As I walked the creek I heard something large break through the brush ahead of me and I froze. Logic told me that it was at worse a large dog or even a stray cow, as it is very little in the way of predators in Mason county. Still, I’ve been a hunter since my teenage years and I knew well that the WV DNR had been actively repopulating absent native species: it was wholly possible that I was about to become face to face with something which might consider my lunch.

What I saw emerge from the brush was a large brownish-white creature. It’s fur looked dirty and matted as if the animal did very little in the line of self-grooming. I can’t be sure if I was looking at a dirty white animal or a brownish animal with a white undercoat. It was late in the fall so it makes sense that it might be putting on a winter coat. The creature moved on all fours as it breached the brush line and knelt to drink from the creek. It’s front limbs, the only limbs I saw clearly, ended in what was markedly paw-like “hands”. Its head was long and pointed, like a canine, and it had largish horns; not antlers but single point horns.

I shrunk back into the brush and watched, afraid to stay and afraid to run. It drank for a few minutes, then cross the creek and continued on across toward Sandhill Road. When I was sure it was gone, I turned and ran as fast as I could back toward the pond where I’d parked.

The one thing that sticks out in my mind about this encounter most clearly is the way it smelled. It smelled like sulfur. Now, don’t think I’m screaming fire and brimstone here, I’m not. One of the biggest problems with the TNT area is the pollution from the manufacturing activities that went on there. The worst of this is the Red Water runoff generated by the production of gunpowder. The area was a navy ammunition plant at one time and made gunpowder. Red Water, the cause to this date of the brownish-red foam seen in many of the run-off ponds, has a sulfur content that should concern anyone exposed to it. It makes sense that anything living in this area should absorb some measure of that scent if they are drinking from these water sources.