The state nickname for New Mexico is “The Land of Enchantment.” But historian John LeMay’s book “New Mexico Monsters” gives the impression that the moniker should be changed to “The Land of Monsters.”
LeMay takes an extreme left turn at Albuquerque into a landscape where cryptids, supersized beasts, extraterrestrials, and dinosaurs have allegedly been encountered for centuries.
Monsters in this section of North America were already part of the oral traditions of indigenous populations before the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. Native people informed Spanish expeditions about hairy cannibal giants and enormous man-eating snakes lurking about.
In LeMay’s book, the first recorded encounter by an American with an unlikely New Mexico creature came in 1801. Explorer Philip Nolan supposedly sighted a half-man, half-fish in a lake.
Nolan would explain that Native Americans rarely ventured near the lake, believing it contained the spirits of the conquistadors. However, it was never explained why these spirits had taken on a partial piscine anatomy.
Printing the Legend
LeMay does a marvelous job unearthing newspaper coverage from the 19th and early 20th centuries describing what locals claimed to have encountered.
Among the vintage news pieces is “The Strange Quadruped” from the Albuquerque Journal on March 19, 1892. That article describes a weird, hairless animal with deer-like legs, a goat-type head, and a hairless body. LeMay speculates this was one of the earliest published accounts of a chupacabra, which legend insists can attack and drink the blood of livestock.
Another gem comes from the Albuquerque Evening Herald of Feb. 3, 1913. It reports the fatal shooting of a “vicious, grotesque, and hideous looking wild man” with a body covered in “thick, coarse dark hair four inches long.” The creature reportedly had four-foot-long arms and feline-type clawed fingertips.
The article claimed a doctor at a nearby mining camp was preparing a glass coffin filled with alcohol to preserve its body. LeMay suggests it could be describing a Sasquatch, a creature largely unknown to wider American society at the time. In the early 1970s, when alleged California-based film footage of the elusive Sasquatch dubbed Bigfoot entered popular culture, New Mexico sightings of the hirsute cryptid multiplied dramatically.
Mad Monsters Party
In LeMay’s monster mash, no corner of New Mexico is spared from the bizarre beasts. Residents have claimed to see pterodactyls gliding above the Magdalena Mountains while others insist Elephant Butte Lake is home to catfish the size of a Volkswagen.
But not every monster is humungous. The small, statured furry humanoid known as the “duende” has been spotted making mischief across the state.
While these creatures tend to avoid densely populated urban centers, a few have allegedly appeared at popular attractions. These include a 30-foot snake sighted at Ghost Ranch, the one-time home of artist Georgia O’Keeffe and the reported recovery in 2010 of a skinwalker carcass at Chaco Canyon—described as a “saber-toothed duck-billed creature.”
E.T. and Pals
Perhaps the creatures most distinctive to New Mexico are the occupants of the unidentified flying objects (“UFOs”) that frequently zoom over the state.
The 1947 Roswell incident, in which a UFO allegedly crashed, spawned a statewide industry involving the celebration of interplanetary visitors. Subsequent UFO sightings in New Mexico, including several recorded by law enforcement, further fueled interest in the subject.
However, LeMay has uncovered claims of aliens roaming about. A 1938 incident in Silver City involved an encounter with a caped humanoid dressed in a strange grey outfit floating at tree-top level. In 1956, U.S. Air Force Sgt. Jonathan P. Lovette was reportedly dragged into a hovering spaceship by a “long serpentine arm.” His mutilated body was said to have been found three days later.
LeMay notes that this story was allegedly part of Project Grudge, a precursor to Project Blue Book, the Air Force’s official UFO report, but he cautions it is of “dubious veracity.”
Indeed, many of the colorful tales collected for “New Mexico Monsters” are presented with the proverbial grain of salt. Perhaps the silliest of the bunch is Bighoot, a massive owl that can hypnotize human victims and devour them in one gulp. For such extreme cases, the author provides a gentle sigh of disbelief while exploring what may have inspired such loony legends.
One consistent aspect of the monster encounters presented in the book is the absence of photographic or filmed evidence for any of the beasts in question. Artist Chris Casey helps fill the book’s image void with a series of deeply stylish monochromatic illustrations depicting LeMay’s subjects.
LeMay perfectly captures the outlandish elements of these tales with an engaging sense of storytelling. Even if his lineup of monsters are merely figments of overactive imaginations, he does a grand job of preserving their zany niche within New Mexico folklore.
‘New Mexico Monsters’
By John LeMay
The History Press: April 28, 2026
Paperback, 160 pages
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