The U.S. Postal Service has listed a new 2027 stamp issue called Mythical Creatures, and it puts Mothman, Jackalope, Squonk, Sasquatch, and Champ together on one pane of 20 stamps.
The listing on the Stamps Forever site is short on details. The first day of issue date and location are both marked TBA, and no price appears on the page. Still, it is not every day that a group of cryptids is headed for the corner of an envelope. Each of these five has a very different backstory, and a few of them are more surprising than the stamps themselves.
The Artist Behind the Stamps
The art is by Nat Power, a tattoo artist in Austin, Texas, and a resident artist at Royal Legion Tattoo. She began her tattoo apprenticeship there in 2019 and has built a name for animal designs that range from everyday creatures to folkloric and strange hybrid beings. Local news coverage says her background in printmaking and traditional ink shaped the look of the set, which uses a classic American traditional style. She also drew small icons that stand for each creature’s home environment.
This is her first stamp project for the USPS. Antonio Alcalá, founder and co-owner of Studio A, is the art director. He joined the USPS stamp program as an art director in 2011. The Postal Service says the set reflects the country’s love of the unknown and the odd, and that is a fair description of this lineup.
Sasquatch: Two Names, Two Stories
Sasquatch is the biggest name on the pane, and its two famous names have two different origins. The word sasquatch is an English version of a Halkomelem word that means wild man or hairy man. J. W. Burns, a teacher and Indian agent on the Chehalis reserve in British Columbia, popularized it in newspaper and magazine writing around the 1920s. Before that, the Indigenous stories were told in many languages, each with its own name.
The name Bigfoot came later. In 1958, a bulldozer operator named Jerry Crew found huge footprints at a road project near Bluff Creek, California. He made plaster casts of the tracks, and a local newspaper ran the story that October. Then on October 20, 1967, Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin filmed a hairy figure walking through the same area. That film is still argued over today. No remains have ever been documented, so the creature lives on in tracks, film, and a lot of pop culture.
Mothman: The Omen of Point Pleasant
The Mothman story begins in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in November 1966. On November 15, two young couples told police they saw a large winged figure with glowing red eyes near an old World War II TNT plant outside town. The Point Pleasant Register ran the story the next day with a headline that struggled to name what the couples had seen.
Reports kept coming for about 13 months. Then, on December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge between Point Pleasant and Gallipolis, Ohio, collapsed during rush hour. Forty-six people died, and the Mothman sightings stopped. Many locals linked the two events, and writer John Keel helped spread that idea in his 1975 book, The Mothman Prophecies, which later became a 2002 movie.
Skeptics have a simple answer. Investigators documented a mechanical failure in the bridge, and nothing proves a creature had anything to do with it. Still, Point Pleasant has made peace with its monster. The town started an annual Mothman Festival in 2002, and fans now show up in spooky-cute costumes.
The Jackalope: A Prank That Stuck
The Jackalope is the one creature on the stamps with a clear confession. Brothers Douglas and Ralph Herrick of Douglas, Wyoming, were hunters who had learned taxidermy by mail order. After a hunting trip in the 1930s, they tossed a jackrabbit carcass onto their shop floor, and it landed next to a pair of deer antlers. Douglas suggested mounting it just as it was.
Most tellings put the date at 1932 or 1934, though some stretch it later. They sold that first mount for $10 to Roy Ball, who hung it over the bar at the La Bonte Hotel in Douglas. It stayed there for decades until a thief took it in 1977. Wyoming trademarked the jackalope name in 1965, and in 1985 Governor Ed Herschler named the state the animal’s official stamping grounds. Douglas still holds a Jackalope Days celebration every June.
There is a twist for folklore fans. Horned rabbits show up in stories from many cultures around the world. One author who studied them suggests that rabbits sickened by a virus may have sparked those tales long before the Herricks. So the Wyoming prank may have tapped into something much older.
The Squonk: A Tall Tale With a Sad Face
The Squonk comes from the hemlock forests of northern Pennsylvania, and it is said to cry nonstop. Its first known written description is in a 1910 book called Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts. The author was William T. Cox, who later became Minnesota’s first State Forester. Artist Coert Du Bois drew the pictures.
Cox collected tall tales and practical jokes told in logging camps around the Great Lakes, and he wanted to save them before they faded. Folklorists treat these stories as campfire humor, not witness reports. That does not mean the Squonk disappeared. It has since inspired a song by the band Genesis, and today it is a mascot for anyone who prefers a quiet night in.
Champ: Lake Champlain’s Shy Monster
Champ is said to live in Lake Champlain, which sits along the New York and Vermont border and reaches into Quebec. More than 300 sightings have been reported over the years. Some fans trace the story back to a disputed account from 1609 tied to explorer Samuel de Champlain. Showman P. T. Barnum even offered rewards for the monster in 1873 and 1887.
The best-known piece of evidence is the Mansi photograph. On July 5, 1977, Sandra Mansi was on a family outing when she saw something with a long neck in the water and snapped a picture. It first appeared in The New York Times in 1981. Sandra has always stood by what she saw.
Skeptics, including investigators Joe Nickell and Benjamin Radford, looked into it in 2002. They noted that the object could be a log or tree trunk, and that the bay where the photo was taken is only about 14 feet deep. Neither side has settled it, which is exactly why Champ remains a favorite.
Why These Five?
The listing does not say how the five were chosen, but the mix is what makes the set fun. One began as a prank, one is a lumber camp tall tale, and three are tied to sightings that people still argue about. Fans may see the stamps as a nod to how much these legends mean to American culture. Skeptics can fairly point out that a stamp celebrates folklore, not proof.
The same 2027 lineup also includes a set of unicorn stamps, so it looks like the Postal Service is having a good year with fantasy animals.
What Happens Next
For now, the issue date, location, and price are all still to come. We will update this post when the USPS shares them.
Which creature would you put on a stamp first?
