Skinwalker and shapeshifter reports map
Reports of people or creatures said to change shape, including accounts that use the words skinwalker or wendigo. These words come from specific cultures, and many people regard them as sacred or sensitive subjects rather than as creature types. This page only counts modern reports that use the words and takes no position on the traditions.
Other names in the sources: Skinwalker, Wendigo, Shapeshifter.
Background reading on Wikipedia: Wendigo.
We map claims, not creatures. A case is what some source says someone saw or heard, with the link to that source. It is not proof that anything was there, and a retelling counts once, not as a second sighting.
By the numbers
506 cases on the map, 346 of them first-hand (the witness telling it). A case may stand on several documents; copies and reprints are not confirmations.
Best-documented cases
Ranked by independent sources first, then documents, then first-hand accounts. This says how well a claim is documented, not whether it is true.
Skinwalker · Michigan · 2019
The narrator and a friend witnessed a creature that shifted between upright and quadrupedal forms, emitted high-pitched screams and strange noises, and ran across a pond toward them.
Skinwalker · 2009
Witness reports seeing a massive wolf with silver fur and green eyes that transformed into a seven-foot-tall humanoid while entering their barn.
Skinwalker · Aquidneck Island, Rhode Island · 2023
Witness and their girlfriend report seeing a creature at an elementary school playground that appeared to deform from tall and skinny to wide and short, with long hair covering its body.
Skinwalker · Tségháhoodzání, Arizona
The narrator and his father encounter a large, dog-like creature with a distorted human-bear face on a highway near Window Rock, which screams and flees after they approach it.
Skinwalker · Mount Bachelor, Oregon
The narrator reports seeing a man-like figure crouched in a tree near their cabin and hearing hoof-like steps on the roof.
Skinwalker · Albuquerque, New Mexico · 2020
Witness reports seeing an enormous, furry dog-like creature standing on its hind legs in a courtyard near their apartment balcony before sprinting off.
Further reading
- "Some Kind of Power": Navajo Children's Skinwalker Narratives, Margaret K. Brady (1984)
Folklore study of how Navajo children tell skinwalker stories.
Borrow on Internet Archive - 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.