New Year, New Cryptid
It’s been almost six weeks since Omaha’s New Year’s Eve celebration was curtailed abruptly by a mysterious interloper, and city officials have yet to offer a satisfactory explanation of what the heck transpired. Nature abhors a vacuum, so in the absence of any official account, local cryptozoologists and conspiracy theorists have stepped in to provide us with… well, more questions than answers.
Here’s what we know. On the evening of December 31, 2025, the city’s annual riverfront fireworks display was cut short when someone — or something — interfered with the electronic firing devices controlling the show. The official explanation is that “a person suddenly emerged from the Missouri river bank near where the fireworks were being launched… (and) fled, tripping over a cord and disabling the remainder of the fireworks show.”
In other words, a shadowy figure lurking about the dark river bank — perhaps startled, or perhaps even angered, by the commotion of explosions and lights in the cold night sky — slithers up undetected, makes his way into the unsecured firing zone, sabotages the show… then slips away scot-free, free to terrorize other holiday displays willy-nilly. Where was law enforcement? Where was the follow-up investigation? Will no one be held to account for this egregious offense against civic intercourse and our fragile Midwestern sense of community?
Various sources — who naturally wished to speak off-the-record for fear of upsetting the local powers-that-be — report that behind the scenes at City Hall, rumors are swirling around the identity of whoever or whatever emerged from the river that night. The first logical suspect would be a slack-jawed denizen of the sleepy hamlet across the river. Omahans have become accustomed to the mayhem, lawlessness, and general disorder wrought by folks who come over, unbidden, from Counciltucky. Another, albeit less likely, possibility is that a local New Year’s Eve reveler stumbled down to the river after over-imbibing at one of our many fine downtown watering holes. But one would imagine that either one of those scenarios would have been met immediately with swift (and possibly severe) justice at the hands of the Omaha Police Department. We’ve got cops trotting around downtown on horses… a drunken citizen or a meth-addled Iowan should be no match for the long arm of the OPD law. One could be excused for speculating that the offending “person” was able to elude law enforcement precisely because the offender was not, in fact, a “person” (properly understood).
The Missouri River is a deep and swirling maelstrom of murky unknowns. Science has identified some 400 species of critters — fish, fowl, amphibians and furries — that inhabit the so-called “Big Muddy.” But who can really say what other creatures — hitherto unknown to mainstream zoology — might be lurking beneath the churning waters or along the river’s meandering peripheries? Might the perpetrator of what we’re calling “the Missouri River Incident” have been one of these non-human creatures? A creature vaguely humanoid in appearance and behaviors — hence its characterization by officials as a “person” — but possessing the quick, animal-like instincts necessary for it to slip away and elude detection and capture?
One of Omaha’s most eminent cryptozoologists — also speaking off-the-record for fear of repercussions — speculated that whatever caused the disruption on New Year’s Eve must have so shocked and startled witnesses that an ordinary law enforcement response was never even initiated. Emerging silently from the dark river bank — and slipping away nimbly into the night — suggests a nocturnal, amphibious river-dweller that is equally at home on the land and in the water. But its capacity to target sophisticated human electronic systems suggests an intellect and a consciousness beyond those of mere animals. “There’s little doubt,” said our pointy-headed expert, “that city officials are being tight-lipped about all this because they simply don’t know what sort of creature they’re dealing with, and they don’t want to cause a panic. We’ve seen this time and time again with unexplained interactions between humans and potentially dangerous cryptids.”
Omaha Mayor John Ewing, apparently seeking to calm the jittery nerves of his frightened citizenry, issued a vague statement the following day in which he acknowledged the mishap and expressed his determination that “the full fireworks show happen next year.” But absent a full and transparent inquiry — with a clear and comprehensive strategy for how the city plans to neutralize the potential threat of such highly intelligent and dangerous river creatures — such bland assurances will no doubt fail to quell the growing sense of alarm settling in over this river city.
One thing is certain: hope and optimism for Omaha in 2026 may have fizzled out before the new year even really began.
