Mornings in Appalachia start slow. The steep hills and towering trees mean the sun takes its time waking up, stretching and yawning, breathing life into the forests at its own pace. Most mornings, the sun burns away the fog of the night. But other times, the fog fights back, refusing to reveal all the secrets it hides.
People in the mountains will tell you that the forests have their own ways of communicating. The caw of ravens, the rustling of wind through the trees, with the creatures that hide in the shadows, and sometimes with the shadows, themselves. That’s where the Smoke Wolves enter the narrative.
Smoke Wolves are animals said to live in the Appalachian Mountains. Their story starts in the 1900s in Tygart Valley, West Virginia. As cryptid stories go, theirs is rather modern. The local belief is they first began to be seen soon after wolves were eradicated from the area. But the sightings of Smoke Wolves have spread throughout the whole Appalachian region and are most often reported near areas of spiritual significance like burial grounds and forests.
The Smoke Wolves are said to be much larger than typical wolves. They have glowing red eyes and the head you could expect to see on a wolf, but then their bodies dissipate into long tendrils of smoke. Just as with typical wolves, Smoke Wolves also travel in packs.
Smoke Wolves have the ability to completely disappear into smoke on command, making it seemingly impossible to document or capture them.
They also are very aggressive, some would say even malevolent and kill for fun. Coyotes and livestock have been reported as being attacked by wolves that disappear when seen.
The only way to scare off a Smoke Wolf is with the rattling of large chains.