What's the most believable cryptid story you've ever heard of?

Basically every sea monster cryptid. There's so much shit down there we don't know about. Guarantee many many many of them are over exaggerated yes but there has been more than one case of a sea monster cryptid turning out to actually just be a real creature. Fucks me up
- Iirc oar fish and giant squids were cryptids
  
  You are correct about oarfish and technically giant squid. Though the giant squid was heavily exaggerated in its cryptid form
- Angler fish reproduction has entered the chat.
  Shit's like something out of fucking Alien.
  
  Speaking of Alien, there's the ol Moray Eels with their pharyngeal jaws ...

Not exactly a cryptid, but the Ojibwe story about why they moved west is... Kinda compelling. If I understand correctly, the story goes that they were warned by a being which appeared like a cowrey shell that they had to move west if they wanted to preserve their cultural identity because pale skinned people from the east would soon arrive from the sea and attempt to keep them from their traditional way of life.
I guess there's always the chance that it was pure coincidence or that someone made something up to explain their movement after the fact, but it's kinda compelling imo.
If anyone who's from the tribe wants to further explain or correct any misunderstandings, please do! I'd love to hear more about it.
- "If the light skinned race makes the wrong choice of the roads, then the destruction which they brought with them in coming to this country will come back at them and cause much suffering and death to all the Earth's people." 7th Fire Prophecy
  Uh-oh
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojibwe
  cool read, thanks

Bigfoot.
Like, there's probably not any alive today. Probably not any in the last thousands years even.
But at some point in human history, that shit existed. Might even just be stories about gorillas that ancient hominids took out of Africa and kept telling afterwards.
For a stone age human, a silverback might as well been a mythical animal. And they're deceptively quiet. Imagine just walking thru the forest and seeing a fucking Silverback standing 10 feet away staring at you.
That story would keep getting retold long after people forgot what a gorilla was.
- My favorite example of this is on the island of Flores, where old local folklore says that, in the woods and caves, you can sometimes find hairy, tiny ape people.
  Cue homo floresiensis, an early branch of humanity that lived on the island for a long time before homo sapians sapians showed up and had some overlapping time with them. They are very short based on what skeletons we have found....and their anatomy suggests that they looked closer to apes than humans.
  
  Is that the Flores island in Guatemala or in BC?
- I always wondered if there were small groups of isolated Neanderthals that persisted past the assimilation of the majority of the Neanderthals by homosapiens. They could have been responsible for all sorts of tales of Bigfoot, dwarves, elves, etc.
- Eh, it's possible, but I find it more likely that they're wild hermits, wrapped in crude bear-fur clothes. A large primate population sparse enough to be elusive but dense enough to reproduce is a dicey proposition. People occasionally fucking off to the woods to live in solitude is pretty reasonable, I've considered it myself.
- There's also Gigantopithecus
  It primarily lived in subtropical to tropical forest, and went extinct about 300,000 years ago likely because of the retreat of preferred habitat due to climate change, and potentially archaic human activity. Gigantopithecus has become popular in cryptozoology circles as the identity of the Tibetan yeti or the American bigfoot, apelike creatures in local folklore.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantopithecus
- SCP-1000
- That's like saying ghosts are real, because someone once saw a weird tree in a forrest and thought believed it's a ghost.

My mom claims that I'm the result of a tryst with a sasquatch.
I believe

The ocean ones. There's unknown big critters down there, it's basically a statistical certainty.
I don't think I've ever heard a believable one on land. People's UFO and ghost stories can actually be hard to explain sometimes. All the cryptid stories are either very made-up sounding or some variant of "I looked and found nothing/got a super blurry photograph".
- I'm convinced every "bigfoot" sighting is actually "bear with mange walking on its hind legs"

Pandas

Bigfoot
It's such a boring cryptid, I would believe it exists.
- It's just a hairy homeless nudist. The story was propagated by homophobic campers with unfaithful wives. Big foot is actually just a big gay "bear".

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/116385390
HOBART; An official sighting of the Tasmanian tiger, feared extinct for 48 years, was reported yesterday by the State National Parks and Wildlife Service. The tiger was seen 18 months ago by a ranger in forest country in the northwest of the State, according to the service's chief wildlife officer, Mr Rod Pierce. Mr Pierce said the ranger had been "parked in his car at night doing some other work when he saw it in his spotlight. "It wasn't a fleeting glimpse - he had long enough to have a good look at the animal." Mr Pierce said it was one of a number of good sightings of the tiger over the past few years, but it was the only one by a ranger.
Mr Pierce said the service would not disclose the name of the ranger who made the sighting, nor would it specify the area where it was made. "The tiger must have as much protection as possible." he said. "We don't want all sorts of people going out and looking for it." Rangers have searched along creek banks and through muddy areas looking for footprints. If its general location becomes known, rangers will set up infra-red cameras in the hope of capturing it on film. But Mr Pierce said the search had so far been fruitless and no tracks had been found. "The project will run until the end of summer, and then it will be reviewed," he said.
- I certainly hope that's real. If there is even one breeding pair (preferably more to avoid inbreeding), there's hope.

I once saw a flying creature that appeared to be a ~~pterodactyl~~ pterosaur (except for the size), ever since since i've been on the lookout for any kind of "bird" with a diamond/kite shape at the end of it's tail, as that is what i remember most distinctly.
- Could it have been a heron or a crane? When they fly their legs trail out behind them and their feet make them look a bit like a clubbed tail.
  
  I really appreciate the hint! I looked at some google-images of flying herons & cranes. I don't think it was one of those, but it was also some time ago (and old memories can get rewritten as you recall them).
- When (month) and where (approximate city/state) ?
  
  Why does it need to be in the US?
  Is that because you think the majority of superstitious people live there?
- Any chance it was a frigate bird? Their tail isn't exactly diamond shape but they kind of have a pterosaur shape to them.
  
  I was not able to find a picture of a frigate bird that had a significant tail, so I don't think so. That was the most striking thing about it, I had never seen a bird with a long tail (like... about the same length as it's body).
- I saw a skunk the size of a dog once for only a moment. I am also looking for an absurdity. Best of luck!

mothman bc he looks cool and one of the west virginia ones has to be real since they have so many

The rake, actually. It took me a while to realize it came from the internet and that it was made up.