Devil Monkey sketch from North American BioFortean Review
An Ohio woman driving through Roanoke, Virginia at about 2:30 a.m. reported a similar encounter in the late 1990's while driving on a dark road at night and forced to take a detour due to road construction. She had driven past a road sign that read, "Red Wolf Crossing" close to Elizabeth City when a creature, which was not a wolf, leaped in front of her car.
The creature was all black with very short sleek fur, pointy ears and had a long thin tail. She described it as catlike, and yet not like any cat she had ever seen. The snout was flatter than a dog's and more like a cat's. The creature was very tall, because she saw it when it was standing on its hind legs and was easily 6 feet tall. She indicated its torso looked very much like that of a very thin man and its head resembled a man almost with a pointy beard. However, the creature's hind legs were like a wild cat or dog. It was very muscular and thin.
Later, the woman checked with the US Game and Wildlife Department who told her there were no black wolves in the area, but suggested she had seen a feral dog (feral meaning "wild") or a wolf-dog hybrid. But the woman was emphatic it was not a wolf.
The woman explained the creature may have been on all fours just before leaping. The creature leaped with such force and height that it only took one bound to make it across both lanes of the highway. This indicates the creature leaped more than 18 feet or 6 meters to get across the road. Dogs and wolves do not leap this far in one jump. Even larger animals such as deer usually take several bounds to leap across a road.
The devil monkey sketches and Virginia report are courteous of the North American BioFortean Review, Volume II, Number 2, 2000, which is a free electronic newsletter from the Zoological Miscellania website.
