The Strange Legend of Oklahoma’s Chicken Man

Odds are, wherever you live in Oklahoma, you have some haunted monster nearby.

Bigfoot. Mothman. The Oklahoma octopus... But the Sooner State is home to another that almost nobody talks about. It also might be the weirdest one of the bunch.

The Chicken Man.

Depending on who tells the story, Chicken Man is six feet tall, has the body of a dude, and has the head of a chicken. Like a wererooster.

Sometimes the story says this Chicken Man has feathers and wings, but opinions vary. It's all in the fun of "if you saw it... you'd remember it."

And given how stories like this spread, I'm surprised it's not a common Sooner State campfire tale.

It's in the same range as those Volkswagen Beetle-sized catfish below your local dam.

Every community seems to have at least one haunted something or other. A haunted bridge. A ghost light. The deer lady. Something parents used to scare kids away from wandering too far after dark.

The Chicken Man just happens to be Oklahoma's version... with feathers.

Of course, there are plenty of theories.

Maybe someone saw a large bird in poor lighting.

Maybe somebody caught a glimpse of an emu or an escaped exotic animal. Stranger things have happened in Oklahoma.

Maybe it was nothing more than teenagers trying to scare each other on a Friday night.

Or maybe... Someone really did see something they couldn't explain.

I wasn't there.

I just know that if I ever find myself driving a back road at two in the morning and a six-foot chicken walks across the road... I'll be sure to stop and ask where it's going.