Encounter Atlas
The White Thing is a West Virginia legend of a pale, shaggy animal that moves on all fours and lets out a scream like a woman in pain. Stories place it on lonely roads and hollows at night, where it frightens people walking or riding home.
Its best-known telling comes from a student in Ruth Ann Musick's folklore classes at Fairmont State, which she printed in her 1965 collection The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales. In that story a woman riding home from church hears the cry before a white beast appears.
Later accounts from Mason and Kanawha counties describe a white-furred, dog-headed animal, and many writers treat it as the same creature as, or an ancestor of, the modern Sheepsquatch legend.
What witnesses report
- A white, shaggy animal on all fours
- A scream like a woman in pain
- Appearing on dark rural roads
Famous cases
- 1965Ruth Ann Musick prints the tale from her Fairmont students
Fairmont, West Virginia
Seen the White Thing?
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