All eleven goats declined to participate. Investigators are calling this the most coordinated decision the animals have made to date.

HARLAN’S CREEK, WV — Tuesday’s 7 a.m. sunrise goat yoga session at Bramblewood Community Farm was postponed indefinitely after instructor Peggy Lund observed an unidentified creature completing a slow, deliberate circuit of the paddock perimeter at approximately 6:48 a.m., twelve minutes before the scheduled start time. The session has not been rescheduled. The creature has not returned. The goats have not left the barn.

Lund, a certified yoga instructor and Bramblewood’s lead facilitator since 2019, described the entity as ‘wet, spiny, and deeply purposeful.’ She repeated this description to the Harlan’s Creek Livestock Advisory Panel later that morning, using identical phrasing both times, which Panel Chair Dorothy Essick noted in the meeting record as ‘consistent.’ The Panel voted four to one to refer the matter to a subcommittee. The subcommittee does not currently exist. Panel Chair Essick confirmed that establishing it would require a separate motion at next month’s scheduled session, and that she saw no reason to schedule an emergency session at this time. She was asked to clarify what would constitute a reason. She said she would add that question to the agenda.

Community Notice

It went around the fence line twice. Very steady. Like it had done it before and was checking whether anything had changed.

— Peggy Lund, certified yoga instructor, Bramblewood Community Farm

Nineteen individuals were present on the Bramblewood property at the time of the sighting, including eleven registered yoga participants, Lund, two farm volunteers, and four individuals whose names do not appear on the morning’s sign-in sheet and who had, according to Lund, ‘arrived early to get good spots.’ All nineteen observed the creature complete at least one full circuit of the paddock. Several took photographs. The photographs are, by all accounts, very blurry. One participant described the creature as ‘roughly the size of a large dog, but walking like it had somewhere to be.’ A second said it reminded her of something she had seen once before, near the Sutter Road drainage easement, and that she had assumed at the time it was a raccoon. She no longer assumes this.

All eleven goats remained inside the barn for the duration of the incident and, as of the time of this report, have not voluntarily exited. Farm owner Clete Dunbar described their behaviour as ‘unusual but firm.’ Dunbar noted that the goats are not, as a rule, skittish animals, and that during last year’s equipment fire they had remained calm and eaten through two extension cords. He did not elaborate on what he considered the extension cord detail to establish. Arthur Bellamy of the Department of Cryptid Affairs confirmed his office had received notification of the incident and that the matter was being assessed through standard livestock-adjacent protocols. He was asked whether the DCA would be dispatching a field team. He said he was not in a position to confirm field team deployment at this stage. He was asked whether he personally planned to visit the property. There was a pause before he confirmed he was not in a position to confirm that either.

Goat yoga sessions at Bramblewood are held every Tuesday and Saturday, weather and circumstances permitting. Tuesday’s session fee is non-refundable under standard booking terms, a detail Lund confirmed is noted clearly on the booking page and which she raised unprompted, twice, when contacted for this report. The paddock has been left undisturbed. The single yoga mat Lund placed before the sighting remains where she set it down. She has not retrieved it. She said she felt, on reflection, that she would let it sit for a day or two.