The Allegheny River Flying Serpent

by Cole Herrold

Pennsylvania is filled with waterways and with them supposed tales of Cryptids. From the western tip of the state is Lake Erie which is home to Bessie, a large plesiosaur type cryptid that has been seen resting on Presque Isle as well as on the coast of the Ohio side of the lake. The Susquehanna River in the early 1900s was reported to of been the lair of a creature I've come to call the Armless Horror, an armless fishman that rose from the churning brine. Giant Catfish are rumored to dwell in every river and stream, and a large serpentine creature known as Ogua is said to dwell in the Monongahela River. In the lake Wolf Pond, a giant circular patterned snake was encountered in a dramatic way when it capsized a fisherman’s boat. Even in manmade lakes, cryptids are reported as in Raystown Lake; a black slimy creature known as Raystown Ray is rumored to appear on occasion in the lake. All these creatures seem to be either amphibious or solely aquatic, and that is to be expected as most species on this planet that deal with water as a lair tend to be one of these varieties. However, in 1906 a creature was seen in Pennsylvania's Allegheny River that was not just at home in the water and land but also in the air.

It was on a warm Fall day near Grunderville when Miss Rachel Talbot, the daughter of W.A. Talbot, was out at her Summer Villa. The Summer Villa was facing the Allegheny River. The river was throshing and churning with the natural flow that Rachel had come to be used to and at times miss when away at her normal residence. It was while staring out at the frothy brine that her eye noticed something dark moving on the water. She squinted and stared at this strange form, wondering whether or not it was a log or piece of driftwood. As the figure got closer, she could tell it was larger than the typical piece of wood that would float down, and it seemed to be significantly larger out of the water than a normal log. She stared, wondering whether an entire tree had potentially fallen and made its way down the river simply from how large and long it was, but the more she stared, the more that didn't seem right either, and then the unthinkable happened the tree turned its head. She soon realized that this was not a tree, a log, or any piece of driftwood but instead a large snake-like creature. The creature swam down the middle of the river, its head stretching ten feet out of the water, appearing like the quintessential Loch Ness Monster image.

Rachel stared at this aquatic anomaly for some time before calling out to her neighbor and friend "Hank" Jackson, a ferryman for the Warren Lumber Co. Mr. Jackson looked out as Rachel pointed to the writhing wyrm on the waves, and they stared in shock and horror. Hank turned and ran to his house faster than a hare but came back in a flash with a rifle. Hank put the rifle to his shoulder, took aim, and proceeded to fire at the creature. The reptile reared its head and proceeded to look towards the ferryman who had been raining metal shells upon the serpentine beast. The creature's eyes were as large as saucers, and they glowed with a fire of hatred and anger at the attempted assault from the ferryman. It stared directly at him, for it knew from where the harassment had come. The creature quickly changed direction from heading down the river towards the shore and its attackers.

Jackson realized that he must stop this creature from clamoring ashore, for if this creature came too close, his and Rachel's life would be in jeopardy. The creature let out a hiss revealing its long-forked tongue, and charged towards the water making the water rise towards the shore. Jackson continued unleashing a rain of bullets, and that is when the pair realized this was more than just a super-sized serpent. The creature, as the bullets continued, began to expand strange features that the pair soon realized was a pair of large wings. The wings beat the water off their form, and the creature proceeded to flap them. Jackson realized that if this creature got airborne, it would easily swoop down and end his and anyone else near their lives. So, taking aim, he began to berate the wings of the beast. The gunshot pierced one of the creature's wings, in effect disabling it from any serious action. The creature began to writhe in the now blood-drenched water beating its wings like mad, attempting to fly away from this unfair assault. Slowly the great slithering form began to lift from the water, its wing still bleeding from the wound. The snake's wound was not enough to stop the creature from moving its great wings, and eventually, after a great many flaps, the creature was able to get airborne.

Jackson and Rachel watched as the creature's wings beat against the sky. Its writhing continued even outside of the water as it rose 20 ft above the River, flying overtop of a ferry cable that was near the strange serpentine beast. And in turn, it continued in a mad rush to escape its attackers and, for that matter, humans in general. Everyone on the river that day saw the strange beast winging its way out of sight, never to be seen again.

While in the lore and Cryptid history of Pennsylvania, there are no other accounts of a flying serpent aside from possibly the Fayette County Dragon. Yet around the world, the idea of a flying snake is not new. For example, the Arabhar is a snake-like creature with large wings that supposedly lives near the Arabian Sea. While not an official document account, the Book of Isaiah in the Bible referenced Fiery Flying Serpents. Several dragons also are depicted as serpents with long bat-like wings, and many old woodcuts and artistic renditions depict them as such. The god Quetzalcoatl of Mexico is another example that is a large serpentine creature as it is described as a large serpent with feathery wings and feathers on the back and head. So, this idea of a large flying snake is not something unique and possibly evidence of a cross-cultural acceptance of such a creature.

While there is a cross-cultural belief in the existence of flying serpents, it does raise the question, what could it be for no such creature to exist? There are snakes that do glide, which is known as the flying snake from India and Indonesia. These snakes have a lateral undulation (a wave-like movement) that functions in the same way as a frisbee allowing these animals to be able to glide from tree to tree. Yet there is no snake with wings in the modern-day or, for that fact, the fossil record. A fossil snake known as Zilantophis Schuberti is often referred to as a flying snake because of a form of broad shaped wing-like vertebrae projections, yet information on this species is slim, and even then, it was only about the size of a human finger, which is a baby compared to the giant beast seen on the Allegheny River.

Trying to decipher a possible misidentification is almost impossible, for there are no native to America flying snakes even of the gliding variety. The existence of a winged serpent in the fossil

record is also nonexistent. There has never been at least that we have found a snake yet with wings. Now it is noteworthy to point out that the original article is ambiguous when describing this creature, so even attempting to get an approximate length, height, wingspan is difficult. What we can decipher from the article is that the creature is longer than 10ft as the creature’s head when coming down the river was 10ft out of the water, and usually, with most organisms, a raised neck is a shorter portion of the total length of the body so the creature could be 20ft or more in length. Another ambiguous nature is the wings. When originally writing this, I was intended to describe the creature as having bat-like wings partially because of the overbearing use of such a feature in fantasy and lore for similar creatures but the ambiguous nature of the article does not state what kind of wings this creature had so there is the chance it had hairy or even feathered wings which is something the winged serpent Quetzalcoatl was claimed to have. While I tend to gravitate more towards a scaly or leathery wing-like structure, there is an argument for a feathered type of structure that has been seen elsewhere.

The Quetzalcoatl connection possibility is something that needs to be addressed. Some Cryptozoologists have hypothesized that some of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca gods and goddesses could potentially be undiscovered animals as many of them are often depicted as bizarre animals or animal/human hybrids with more emphasis on the animal aspect of them such as Camazotz, the death bat. In the belief of the Aztecs, Quetzalcoatl was alleged to be the god of both wind and rain, so it is interesting, at least to me, that this creature is seen to be both in the water and the air. While all of this is certainly conjecture, could it be possible that North America is home to a species of an undiscovered feathered flying serpent that has led to tribes deifying it? It's certainly a possibility many cultures attribute certain qualities of animals to elements or behaviors which helped them in forming their gods and goddesses. We see this extensively in Greek, Hindu, and Egyptian cultures as animals are either a portion of them in form or significant to them. Even Christianity utilizes this with lamb, lion, wolf, snakes, imagery when used to describe Jesus and Lucifer.

Now that said, there is a potential problem with this hypothesis being that Quetzalcoatl is an Aztec god, meaning if there were a species even to inspire the creation of this deity, it would be from Mexico. This is an extreme distance when taking into consideration the fact that the creature was seen in Pennsylvania, so unless the species are or were at one point widespread throughout North America, it would have had to travel over 2,000 miles undetected. So, with that said, this is unlikely, but the idea that it might be a feathered serpent is not entirely impossible.

In fact, in his book From Flying Toads to Snakes With Wings, Dr. Karl P.N. Shuker describes a species of snake reported to of dwelt in Glamorgan, Wales. These serpents were described as having skin that appearing jewel-encrusted but covered in feathers, with peacock feather-like eyes, large wings assumedly feathered as well, and crests on their heads that sparkled like the rainbow. These creatures were well known to the locals and were often killed, if real, probably to extinction because of the mass destruction they wrought on chickens and other small livestock.

While there are reports of sky serpents, dragons, and feathered snakes globally, one has never been captured or found dead either freshly or in the fossil record, so we are left with more questions than answers in this case, as with most cryptid encounters. This creature, if not a piece of yellow journalism from the time, is bizarre. While we don't, unfortunately, have a real form of measurement for this creature or even a real detailed description other than the fact that it was a snake with wings of some great size. We are left to wonder how could a creature like this come about. Where are they now? And do they still live in or around the churning waters of our rivers and streams?

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Reptile/Squamata
Location: Grunderville, Warren County, Allegheny River, Pennsylvania
Sighted: September 1906

Works Cited:

Greenville Evening Record, September 8th, 1906
Hoover, Stephanie “Flying Snake of the Allegheny River” Hauntingly Pennsylvania. 2012. https://www.hauntinglypa.com/flying_snake_allegheny_river.html. Accessed February 27th, 2021.
Shuker, Dr.  Karl P.N. From Flying Toads to Snakes With Wings. Llewellyn. 1997.