'Zombie Animals': Encounters With Terrifying Creatures on the Rise

Frightening encounters with animals roaming around like zombies have been reported in recent weeks, leading many to believe they are living a scene from "The Walking Dead."

People all over the United States are reporting seeing the "animal zombies," like ragged coyotes and foxes that look like they crawled out of a grave.

Joe Evans of Ohio came to face-to-face with a scary-looking raccoon in his backyard.

"The thing looked possessed," he told Inside Edition. "He was hissing and showing his teeth. Rather than being scared of me, it looked like he was provoking a fight."

A coyote with rabies attacked a 5-year-old girl in Westchester County Sunday, chomping down on her arm.   

"I didn't scream, I didn't panic," little Natalia told Inside Edition. "It was coming through the baseball field and the gate was open and it was running like a cheetah."

An off-duty police officer held the coyote around the neck until help came. The coyote was shot and killed. The little girl and the officer are being treated for rabies exposure.

"It hurts a little bit, but I am feeling better," she told Inside Edition. 

Photographer Robert Coggeshall and his beagles were chased indoors by a raccoon in Youngstown, Ohio. He took dozens of images of the menacing raccoon.

He said the raccoon looked like a zombie. 

"He would be on his hind legs and just fall over backwards in a zombie trance," he told Inside Edition. 

Tara Smith, a professor of epidemiology at Kent State University in Ohio, told Inside Edition that she believes the scary-looking animals have either distemper or rabies.   

"Rabies is 100 percent fatal in humans if it is not treated before symptoms appear," she said. "They are drooling. They seem like they can't control their bodily movements. It is difficult to watch." 

She says you should not approach the animals if they look like they have rabies. 

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