Moaning Creature

One of the creatures recorded by the members of the 12th expedition within Area X, the Moaning Creature lived in the reeds near Base Camp, and emitted a moaning noise at dusk that could be heard from the camp.

Appearances

Annihilation

After the events with the Psychologist at the Lighthouse, the Biologist makes her way back to base camp, traveling through the reeds where the moaning creature lives. She ears it moaning and describes the sound as "guttural, filled with confused anguish and rage ... so utterly human and inhuman." Soon after, she comes in contact with a discarded exoskeleton that appears to have been shed by the creature. It resembles a human face with pockmarks, and something about it makes the Biologist feel as if she has seen the face before. She determines that the moaning creature was once human. skibidy

The creature soon becomes aware of the Biologist's presence and tries to block her way back to base camp. It exhibits great speed and almost succeeds in catching her, but the Biologist is able to outrun it with the help of the brightness. The creature's moaning begins to sound sorrowful and lonely.

Later, the Biologist remembers where she knew the face from the molted exoskeleton: the psychologist of the Eleventh expedition, whose post-expedition interviews she watched in preparation for her own trip into Area X.

While reading her husband's journal, the Biologist uncovers more of the creature's origin story. When the 11th expedition split up after the discovery of the lighthouse, the psychologist, anthropologist, archaeologist, and one of the medics stayed behind. Not long after, they fell into paranoia and turned on each other, engaging in a shootout. According to the dying archaeologist, something "not of the world" came up the stairs of the lighthouse, killed the psychologist, took over his body, and came back later. Because the psychologist's body was not among the carnage of the shootout, it can be assumed that the psychologist's body turned into the moaning creature inhabiting the reeds.

The Biologist's husband notes that not all of the wounds or blood spatter match what would be expected from gun violence, and that there was a residue on the floor. It is unclear if this is a reference to the Crawler, who also leaves residue, or if the wounds are truly from a "not of the world" entity, or from the reanimated psychologist.

Acceptance

Control and Ghost Bird discover the corpse of the moaning creature soon after emerging in Area X.

Description

Above a storage closet in the Southern Reach, Control discovered a mural, painted by Whitby, featuring the Moaning Creature:

“The body that dominated [the mural] depicted a creature that had the form of a giant hog and a slug commingled, pale painted skin mottled with what was meant to be a kind of mangy light green moss. The ... arms and legs suggested the limbs of a pig, but with three thick fingers at their ends. More appendages were positioned along the midsection. The head, atop a too-small neck rendered in a kind of gauzy pink-white, was misshapen but anchored by the face pasted onto it, the glue glistening in the flashlight beam. The face Control recognized from the files: the psychologist from the eleventh expedition.”
—Control in Authority.

Eighteen months after the Twelfth Expedition, Ghost Bird and Control encountered the corpse of the creature, which showed signs of decay much more advanced than what the span of time would regularly produce, one of the distinctive signs of Area X's influence:

“[...] were the remains of a hideous skull and a bleached and hardened mask of a face that stared sightless up at them, fringed with mold and lichen. [...] What remained was a skeleton that looked uncannily like the confluence of a giant hog and a human being, a set of smaller ribs suspended from the larger like a macabre internal chandelier, and tibias that ended in peculiar nub-like bits of gristle scavenged by birds and coyotes and rats”
—Ghost Bird in Acceptance.

Trivia

• The situation that led to the 11th expedition psychologist turning into the moaning creature somewhat mirrors the fate of the 12th expedition's psychologist. When asked why she jumped from the lighthouse, she tells the Biologist, "I thought something was after me. ... Then I thought I saw something behind me, coming toward me from the stairs, and I felt such an overwhelming fear I had to get away from it." The Biologist also describes feeling as if she was not alone in the lighthouse: "I had a sensation ... of a presence pressing up from below, impinging on the edges of my senses."
• Ghost Bird hypothesizes that the moaning creature could be a failed doppelganger of the 11th expedition psychologist.