What The Cryptid? — Witness File
WITNESS INTERVIEW — FILE #0511
INTERNAL — NOT FOR RELEASE
Location: Culvert access road, off Route 9, Harlan’s Creek
Witness: Beverly Marsh, 54 — Officer, Harlan’s Creek Animal Control
Interviewer: Harold “Hal” Ridgeway
DCA Case Reference: DCA-HC-2026-0511
Witness: Beverly Marsh, 54 — Officer, Harlan’s Creek Animal Control
Interviewer: Harold “Hal” Ridgeway
DCA Case Reference: DCA-HC-2026-0511
INTERVIEWER: The date is July 17th, 2026. This is Hal Ridgeway, conducting a recorded witness interview on behalf of the Department of Cryptid Affairs, Harlan’s Creek field office. Present is Officer Beverly Marsh, Animal Control, eleven years of service. Officer Marsh, thank you for coming in.
WITNESS: I put in the report at six this morning. I’ve been up since four. I want that on the record.
INTERVIEWER: It is on the record. Can you describe what brought you to the culvert access road at that hour?
WITNESS: Routine check. We’ve had beaver activity near the Route 9 drainage culvert for about three weeks. Nothing unusual. I go out early because it’s cooler and the beavers are easier to assess before they get active.
INTERVIEWER: And this morning’s visit was not routine.
WITNESS: The beavers were gone. All of them. The lodge was intact, the dam was intact, but there were no beavers. What was there instead was something sitting in the middle of the dam. Just — sitting. On the dam.
INTERVIEWER: Can you describe it.
WITNESS: Large. Broader than a person, but it was sitting hunched so I can’t give you a standing height. Covered in something — fur, maybe, or matted vegetation. It was wet. The smell was significant. It was sitting on the dam with its feet in the water and it was eating a beaver.
[DCA NOTE: Beaver colony at this location confirmed by Animal Control records, three adults and an estimated four juveniles. No prior unusual activity logged.]
INTERVIEWER: Eating a beaver.
WITNESS: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: How would you characterise its behaviour at that point.
WITNESS: Calm. It was not in a hurry. It noticed me — I’d say within about ten seconds of me coming around the tree line — and it looked at me, and then it looked back at the beaver, and then it kept eating. Like it had assessed me and made a determination.
[DCA NOTE: Witness estimated distance from entity at time of eye contact: approximately forty feet. Lighting described as early dawn, clear sky, adequate visibility.]
INTERVIEWER: What determination do you believe it made.
WITNESS: That I wasn’t worth stopping for. Which is honestly fine. I wasn’t going to intervene. That’s not within my scope and I had no equipment rated for something that size.
[Witness pauses. Sets hands flat on the table.]
WITNESS: What I want on the record — and this is the part I need you to write down clearly — is that it was using the dam. Deliberately. It had positioned itself so that its feet were hanging off the downstream side and the beaver was propped up on the upstream lip. It was using the dam as a table.
INTERVIEWER: As a surface.
WITNESS: As a table, Hal. It had set the beaver down on the dam to eat it. Both hands free. It was tearing pieces off and setting the rest back down between bites.
[DCA NOTE: No prior classification includes documented use of constructed environmental features as meal surfaces. Flagged for behavioural review.]
INTERVIEWER: How long did you observe it.
WITNESS: About nine minutes. I timed it. I was taking notes.
INTERVIEWER: You took notes.
WITNESS: I always take notes in the field. I had my clipboard. I wrote down: large, wet, seated, eating, dam, table, does not appear concerned. Then it finished, set down what was left — neatly, which I also noted — stood up, and walked into the water. Upstream. Against the current. It didn’t surface again while I was there.
[Witness produces a single page of handwritten field notes and slides it across the table.]
[DCA NOTE: Field notes consistent with testimony. Handwriting legible. Final notation reads: ‘Left remains. Organised. Not my jurisdiction.’]
INTERVIEWER: Officer Marsh, you previously filed an incident report in 2023 involving an unclassified entity near the Harlan’s Creek water treatment facility. In that report you described the subject as, and I’m quoting, ‘disoriented, probably lost, not my problem.’ Do you consider this morning’s incident related.
WITNESS: No. Different shape, different smell, different behaviour. The 2023 one was confused. This one knew exactly what it was doing.
INTERVIEWER: That distinction concerns you.
WITNESS: That distinction is why I called you at six in the morning instead of filing it under general wildlife and going home. Yes.
[Pause, 14 seconds.]
INTERVIEWER: We’ll have someone out to the culvert site today. I’d ask that you keep the access road closed to non-essential personnel until we’ve documented the remains.
WITNESS: Already done. I put a cone out.
INTERVIEWER: One cone.
WITNESS: I only had the one in the truck. It’s a budget situation. That’s a separate issue.
CASE STATUS: Active — field assessment pending. Culvert site secured (one cone, Animal Control jurisdiction). Behavioural flag submitted to DCA Cryptid Ethology Division, who have acknowledged receipt and asked for clarification on the word ‘neatly.’
DCA SUMMARY: Officer Marsh observed an unclassified large entity using a beaver dam as a meal surface; entity departed calmly and upstream.
DISPOSITION: OPEN
DCA SUMMARY: Officer Marsh observed an unclassified large entity using a beaver dam as a meal surface; entity departed calmly and upstream.
DISPOSITION: OPEN
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