You know the feeling? Late at night, staring at a wall, running back through every failure and wrong turn. Every thought you’d bury if you could. And that quiet certainty sitting on your chest, that if anyone ever saw you, the real you, they’d leave.
So maybe you’re like me, and you go walking. Out past the last light, into the woods, trying to outrun the noise in your head until you find a patch of ground where you’re truly alone.
Then you hear it. Soft, wet weeping just off the trail.
You can ignore it. Keep walking. Most do. Or you can step off and push through the brush, careful not to spook it.
And there it is, a small twisted creature trying to make itself smaller still.
The Squonk.
One of the few things in American folklore that doesn’t want anything from you. It doesn’t want to trick you, eat you, or even scare you. It just wants to be left alone, too afraid to be seen.
The legend comes out of the hemlock forests of northern Pennsylvania. Hard country. Long winters. The kind of place where men made up creatures to pass the time and sometimes told the truth by accident.
It was first written down in Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts by William T. Cox. He describes the Squonk as so ashamed of its own appearance that it spends its life crying over it. Its skin doesn’t fit right. Covered in blemishes. Always hiding, and usually found by the sound of its sobbing. And if you get close enough to catch it... It doesn’t fight. It doesn’t run. It dissolves into a puddle of itself and disappears.
These days the Squonk gets dresses up and made endearing. A fluffy mascot that’s easier than admitting why it sticks with us. Its not the creature people recognize but the feeling. We all have a little Squonk tucked away somewhere.
So the next time you hear it, you can do what you always do. Walk past. Pretend it isn’t yours. Or you can try to wrestle it into submission. Most people make a mess of that. Or you can sit with it for a spell, and until it grows quiet and its eyes go dry. Because if you won’t stay, why would anyone else?
Get ready for the 4th Annual Squonkapalooza
August 1, 2026 • Johnstown, PA
Squonkapalooza is a FREE all-ages cryptid festival celebrating the Squonk and other creatures of Appalachian and Americana folklore and cryptozoology at Bottle Works in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.