The Cryptid Research Team
Grace
Growing up on a small farm in southern Illinois, I learned early how much I loved the outdoors and the animals around me. The barn cats were my first friends, sparking the curiosity that eventually led me into zoology and a career in animal care.
I’ve worked with all kinds of animals over the years, but birds have always been closest to my heart. I’m an avid birder with a life list of 254 species and counting. I’m definitely that friend who points out every bird they see!
Nature is where I feel most at peace, whether hiking national parks like the Everglades and Kings Canyon or wandering local trails. Visiting the Smoky Mountains is high on my list, not only for the sights and birds, but also for their cryptid lore.
Over the years I’ve built a cabinet of curiosities filled with bird guides, rocks, skulls, and other curious objects I’ve found in nature. I am drawn to extinct species like the thylacine and dinosaurs, cryptids like the skin walkers, strange natural mysteries, and eerie bits of folklore that send shivers up the spine.
Marissa
Growing up in the suburbs of Detroit in a probably haunted house, I have always had a love of all things spooky, evident in my lifelong obsession with The Mummy and swapping ghost stories. From watching Ghost Hunters with my dad as a kid to collecting creepy dolls as an adult, I delight in the stranger things in life.
I had always been an animal lover but once I got to college, my full appreciation for nature and the outdoors took bloom. My passion for animals and conservation drives my work in wildlife rehabilitation where I care for injured and orphaned birds and educate the public on human impacts, like window collisions and outdoor cats, some of the spookiest dangers of all.
My favorite natural escapes include the Pictured Rocks Lakeshore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and the mossy trails of Olympic National Forest in Washington. Among otherworldly lore and legend, I devour any story involving a witch in the woods and am particularly captivated by the Wendigo.