By Tim Binnall
A Japanese village was recently the site of a massive monster hunt as hundreds of people descended upon the community in the hopes of catching a legendary cryptid known as the tsuchinoko. The sizeable search reportedly occurred on Friday in the town of Higashishirakawa, which holds an annual festival in celebration of the apocryphal snake-like creature. Said to sport a beer bottle-sized bulge at the center of its body as well as the ability to speak, the tsuchinoko became something of a sensation in Japan in the late 1980s following a series of alleged sightings of the oddity in various villages throughout the country. One such community is Higashishirakawa, where the tsuchinoko is purportedly still encountered by bewildered witnesses to this day.
At this year's festival, a whopping 800 people participated in the annual search, which promises a prize of approximately $8,600 to anyone who can catch the famed creature. Alas, despite the considerable number of people looking for the tsuchinoko, the cryptid managed to evade capture yet again. Festival attendee Tomoki Imai, who created a documentary on the creature, mused that "the appeal of the tsuchinoko lies in the fact that its true nature is shrouded in mystery, even though there have been many eyewitnesses." To that end, Higashishirakawa is not the only village in Japan to have embraced the curious cryptid as the town of Shimokitayama has also adopted the tsuchinoko as something of a mascot in the hopes of drawing visitors to the struggling community.