The Ozark Howler

The Ozark Howler is said to stalk the remote hills of Arkansas and Missouri, announcing itself with a terrifying scream unlike anything else in the woods. But behind the glowing eyes, horns, and mysterious sightings lies an even stranger possibility: what if someone invented the monster—and people kept seeing it anyway?

ANIMAL CRYPTIDS

losZorros

8/26/20269 min read

A strange beast is caught in the light of a flashlight in the Arkansas woods.

The Ozark Howler: Something Screaming in the Hills

The dogs heard it first.

They had been restless for several minutes, staring toward the tree line at the edge of the property. Then a sound rolled out of the hollow beyond the house. It began low and guttural, rose into something resembling a howl and ended with a high, almost human scream. The dogs that had been barking moments earlier went quiet.

Anyone who has spent a night deep in the Ozarks knows how much sound can travel through those hills. A noise coming from the next ridge can seem as though it is directly behind you, while something in the hollow below can echo from several directions at once. Coyotes howl, foxes scream, bobcats produce noises that sound disturbingly human, and an elk bugling somewhere in the darkness can make a first-time listener seriously reconsider going outside.

But according to stories told throughout the region, there's another sound in those woods.

The animal responsible has been described as roughly the size of a black bear, with a heavy body, shaggy dark hair and the general appearance of some uncomfortable combination of cat, wolf and bear. Some versions give it a long tail. Others add glowing red eyes and, most bizarrely, horns protruding from its head.

Then there's the howl. Descriptions vary, but witnesses have compared it with a wolf howling, an elk bugling and a woman screaming, all coming from an animal powerful enough for its call to carry through the mountains.

They call it the Ozark Howler.

Deep in the Ozarks

The Ozark Mountains cover a broad region centered primarily in northern Arkansas and southern Missouri, with portions extending into Oklahoma and Kansas. It is old country geologically, shaped less by towering peaks than by forested ridges, steep hollows, limestone bluffs, caves and deeply cut river valleys.

It is also excellent monster country. (Fun read at Lair of Mythics)

Even today, large portions of the Ozarks feel surprisingly remote. Thick oak and hickory forests cover the hills, while hollows and ravines can conceal animals only a short distance from roads and homes. Black bears inhabit the region, and mountain lions occasionally wander through despite the absence of an established breeding population in Arkansas.

The Ozarks also have a rich storytelling tradition. Generations of isolated communities produced tales involving ghosts, witches, strange lights, panthers and unusual animals in the woods. Stories about mysterious large cats are particularly persistent throughout the eastern United States, including areas where wildlife officials maintain there are no established cougar populations.

That background matters because the Ozark Howler didn't emerge into a cultural vacuum. People were already seeing strange animals and hearing unsettling noises in these mountains long before anyone created a website devoted to cryptids.

What Is the Ozark Howler?

Trying to construct an anatomical description of the Howler is difficult because accounts frequently contradict one another.

Most versions describe a large quadruped covered in dark or black hair, usually somewhere between a large dog and a black bear in size. Some witnesses describe an animal built like a powerful cat, while others give it a heavier, almost bear-like body. A long tail appears in many descriptions, and the creature is generally said to move on four legs.

The Howler is sometimes described with glowing red eyes and a pair of horns. Those features have helped create the popular image of an almost demonic black predator lurking in the Ozark forests. However, there aren't any known North American carnivorous mammals equipped with horns.

The creature's call is considerably more interesting because people really do report strange noises in the Ozarks. The classic Howler vocalization is described as an unnatural mixture of several recognizable animal sounds, often compared with the deep howl of a wolf combined with an elk bugle or human scream.

OK, I'm in.

The History of the Howler

Search for the history of the Ozark Howler and you'll quickly encounter stories claiming the creature has been known in the mountains for centuries.

One particularly popular version drags Daniel Boone into the case. According to the legend, Boone encountered a strange animal somewhere in Missouri during the early nineteenth century and supposedly killed it (well, it was Daniel Boone after all). Depending on which retelling you find, the animal becomes an enormous black predator resembling the modern Howler. It's a fantastic pedigree for a cryptid.

Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be good contemporary documentation connecting Boone to an Ozark Howler. The story seems to become prominent much later, and claims of centuries-old sightings often lead back to modern retellings rather than nineteenth-century records. Even sources sympathetic to the legend acknowledge the difficulty of establishing its early history.

The Monster Arrives on the Internet

In the late 1990s, cryptozoology was moving online.

Bigfoot researchers, monster enthusiasts and people investigating mystery animals were creating websites, joining email lists and communicating with one another in ways that hadn't previously been possible. Information that once circulated through books, newsletters and small groups could suddenly spread around the world almost instantly.

Around 1998, stories about an animal called the Black Howler or Ozark Howler began appearing online. Websites described a shaggy black creature with powerful shoulders, glowing eyes and horns. Supposed researchers began discussing historical sightings, while emails circulated among people involved in cryptozoology. It appeared that an obscure Ozark legend was finally being documented.

Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman became suspicious.

Coleman later described discovering that several supposed researchers and sources were connected. Some used names that were almost comically suspicious, including a purported professor named “Itzakh Joach”—say that one aloud—and others identified as “P.T. Fuelle” and “D. Gaunner.”

The deception was more elaborate than simply posting a fake monster story. According to Coleman's account, bogus sightings and references were deliberately spread across multiple websites. Those websites could then cite one another, creating the illusion that several independent sources were documenting the same creature.

Coleman traced the material back to an individual using multiple identities who eventually admitted creating the deception. According to Coleman, the hoax began after a discussion about the Chupacabra and whether people interested in cryptozoology could be convinced that a newly invented monster was real. The goal was essentially to manufacture a cryptid and see whether researchers would accept it.

To some extent, it worked. More than 25 years later, we're writing about the Ozark Howler.

So the Howler Is Fake?

This is where the story becomes much more interesting than simply declaring the case closed.

The evidence strongly suggests that the specific modern Ozark Howler mythology was deliberately manipulated, particularly the neat historical narrative presenting a horned black monster as a well-documented creature known throughout the region for generations.

But that doesn't mean people in the Ozarks weren't reporting strange animals before 1998.

Stories involving mysterious black cats and unusual predators have circulated throughout the region independently of the modern Howler legend. Even sources discussing the hoax acknowledge that older Ozark folklore contains tales of large black animals and frightening sounds in the woods. And reports didn't stop once the hoax was exposed.

People continued describing large unidentified animals, particularly black or dark-colored cat-like creatures. Some witnesses didn't claim to have encountered a supernatural monster at all. They believed they had seen a mountain lion.

That gives us a more reasonable way of looking at the Ozark Howler. Perhaps there was never one mysterious species roaming these mountains. Instead, genuine encounters with known animals, old regional folklore and an elaborate internet hoax eventually became tangled together.

Once the Howler had a name, anything strange in the woods could become one.

"Because a Cat's the Only Cat Who Knows Where It's At..."

If we strip away the horns and glowing red eyes, the Howler begins sounding suspiciously feline.

A large cat-like animal with a long tail moving quietly through the forest immediately suggests a mountain lion. Cougars historically occupied much of North America, including the eastern United States, before persecution and habitat changes eliminated established populations from most of the region.

Today, confirmed cougars occasionally wander extraordinary distances. That means seeing one outside its established range isn't impossible, although isolated wandering animals are very different from a hidden breeding population.

More importantly for the Howler legend, mountain lions can make horrifying noises.

Their vocalizations include screams, growls, whistles and caterwauls that sound nothing like the roar people associate with large cats. Hearing one at night without knowing the source can be deeply unsettling, particularly when terrain distorts the direction and distance of the call.

Some Ozark reports involving mysterious large cats have ultimately pointed toward cougars rather than unknown animals. Accounts from Crawford County, Arkansas, during the 2000s, for example, included trail-camera images that appeared consistent with a cougar.

The Sound From the Hollow

The most enduring part of the Howler legend may not be what people see but what they hear... and the Ozarks have an impressive lineup of suspects.

Coyotes can produce an astonishing variety of sounds, and a small group can sound like a much larger pack. Bobcats make screams, growls and yowls that can be difficult to identify. Foxes produce piercing calls frequently mistaken for people screaming.

Then there are elk. Elk have been successfully reintroduced to portions of the Ozarks, including Arkansas, and their bugle is one of the strangest sounds in North American wildlife. It begins with a deep resonant tone before rising into a high whistle that can carry tremendous distances through mountain terrain.

The unique geology and terrain of the Ozarks, characterized by rolling hills, limestone bluffs, and caves, can influence sound propagation. The landscape can create echoes and alter how sounds travel, making certain areas acoustically distinct. Combine unfamiliar animal vocalizations with echoes bouncing between ridges and hollows and identifying the source becomes surprisingly difficult. A cougar scream heard at night could become a Howler encounter without the witness ever seeing the animal responsible.

Then Came the Photographs

In 2015, photographs supposedly showing the Ozark Howler near Devil's Den State Park in Arkansas began circulating and attracted local media attention. This should have been exciting. After years of stories, somebody apparently had photographs of the animal.

However, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (aka the Fun Police) wasn't impressed. Wildlife officials reportedly identified the images as a hoax and said they hadn't received corresponding credible reports of a creature matching the claims.

That's particularly unfortunate for the Howler because it repeats the problem sitting at the center of the entire legend. Every time the creature seems ready to move from folklore into physical evidence, somebody appears to be manufacturing the evidence.

Our Take

We don't think there's a horned black monster roaming the Ozarks. But there may be something out there.

The modern Ozark Howler has one of the most damaging histories we've encountered in the Oddex because the mythology itself appears to have been deliberately manipulated. Someone didn't merely fake a sighting. According to Loren Coleman's investigation, the hoax involved multiple identities, websites and supposed historical references designed to manufacture the appearance of an established cryptid tradition. That makes the glowing eyes, horns and tidy Daniel Boone origin story very difficult for us to take seriously.

But we're not quite ready to throw everything associated with the Howler into the garbage.

The Ozarks are home to black bears, coyotes, bobcats and other animals capable of creating strange encounters. Cougars occasionally wander far outside established populations, and stories about mysterious large cats existed independently of the internet hoax. Most importantly, the frightening sounds people report hearing in the mountains don't require an unknown species to be genuinely unsettling.

That's what makes the Howler interesting to us. And we are not the only ones. In 2022 the Discovery Channel program, Expedition X did an entire show about the Howler.

The monster itself may have been manufactured, but the experiences that keep the legend alive don't necessarily have to be. Imagine hearing an animal scream from a hollow at two in the morning. You can't see it, your dogs don't want anything to do with it, and nothing you've heard before sounds quite the same. The next morning someone tells you about the Ozark Howler.

Now your unexplained noise has a name. We suspect that's how this creature survives. A cougar becomes a Howler. A strange elk bugle becomes a Howler. A black bear glimpsed across a road becomes a Howler. Eventually real wildlife encounters, older Ozark folklore and a late-1990s internet hoax become almost impossible to separate.

So we're keeping the file open on the noises coming out of those hills. Because if you hear something screaming from the bottom of an Ozark hollow after midnight, there's probably an animal down there. We want it so badly to have red eyes and horns!

Like the Ozark Howler? Check out these posts: The Enfield Horror and The Beast of Bray Road

Field Notes: Ozark Howler Quick Facts

📍 LOCATION: Ozark Mountains — primarily Arkansas & Missouri

👀 FIRST DOCUMENTED AS THE “OZARK HOWLER”: Late 1990s*

🐈 CLASSIFICATION: Mystery Predator / Folkloric Cryptid

💀 THREAT LEVEL (1–10): 6 — if you actually encounter the animal people are describing

📖 STATUS: Disputed / Heavily Hoax-Tainted

🔎 ODDAGEDDON VERDICT: The modern horned Ozark Howler appears strongly tied to an internet hoax, but genuine encounters with cougars, bears and other wildlife may have helped the legend stick.

*Claims that the Ozark Howler has been documented since the nineteenth century—including the frequently repeated Daniel Boone story—should be treated cautiously. The specific named creature and much of its supposed historical record became prominent during a documented late-1990s effort to fool cryptozoology researchers.