Other Flying · Vermilion County, Illinois · 1885
IL-1885ID case-9725106c03Added to map Oct 6, 2026
- Creature
- Other Flying
- When
- Aug 1885to the month
- Where
- Vermilion County, Illinoisto county level
- Reports
- 2 documents1 independent
The account
A farmer and friends reported battling a gigantic winged snake and three smaller snakes that were attempting to devour sheep.
Trace the source trail → every document, in time order, and how they connect
We map claims, not creatures: this is what the sources say, not proof. How a case is built
Details
- Creature
- Other Flying
- Where
- Vermilion County, Illinois, United States
mapped to county level · from the report's own words, generalized to a larger area - When
- Aug 1885
- Account
- Not first-hand (retold or reported by someone else)
- Backed by
- 1 independent source (2 documents; copies and reprints are not confirmations)
- Added to map
- Oct 6, 2026
- Case id
- case-9725106c03
Place lookups use data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via Nominatim. All credits
Source trail (2)
Down the rabbit hole → 2 documents, and how they connect
Every link goes to where we found the account. The earliest we found is marked; it is the earliest found, not necessarily the original.
- The Flying Serpent Who Battled a Train and Other American Dragons
Reddit · 2024-11-14
Earliest found, not necessarily the original. - The Flying Serpent Who Battled a Train (and Other American Dragons)
Reddit · 2024-11-14
Further reading
- On the Track of Unknown Animals, Bernard Heuvelmans (1959)
The founding work of cryptozoology.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Cryptozoology A to Z, Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark (1999)
Encyclopedia of reported creatures.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Abominable Science!, Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero (2013)
Skeptical history of the Yeti, Nessie and others.
Borrow on Internet Archive - In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, Karl Shuker (1995)
Borrow on Internet Archive
Books we have not reproduced: borrow them free at archive.org. Listing a book is not an endorsement of its claims.