by Daniel Cohen
Late at night she was walking down the road with her father. "It was a moonlight night," she said, "and suddenly a sound of something panting came from behind us, and a great black dog, big as a calf, with great shining eyes, came alongside us. I caught at father's hand and cried out. Father said, 'Tis the Black Dog! Hold my hand, don't speak, walk along quietly, and don't cry out.' "
Scene from a movie version of The Hound of the Baskervilles.
The dog trotted alongside them for about a quarter of a mile. Then father and daughter turned to go into their cottage. The dog did not follow. The girl's father said that he had seen the dog many times before, and it had never harmed anyone.
Mrs. Jewell said that later in life she also saw the dog several times, but never at close range. She insisted that many other people in the district had seen it, but would not talk about it because they thought that outsiders would not believe them.
The woman who wrote down old Mrs. Jewell's account was Barbara Carbonell. She collected another Black Dog of Torrington story from her own daughter. Her daughter said that in 1932 she and her husband were driving down a road in the Torrington region. Suddenly an enormous black dog appeared in the headlights of their car. The driver slammed on the brakes. But he was quite sure that there was no way to avoid hitting the creature. Somehow there was no crash. When the car stopped and the couple got out to investigate, they could find no trace at all of whatever it was.
On the Isle of Man there is a place called Peel Castle. There is a well-known black dog legend attached to the castle. The creature was called the Moddey Dhoo. Back in the seventeenth century there was a garrison of soldiers stationed at the castle. A huge shaggy black dog used to come into the guardroom, No one knew who owned the dog, or how it had come into the castle. But the thing was so frightening looking that none of the soldiers had the courage to touch it. So it would just come into the guardroom every once in a while, then disappear.
This is an English bloodhound. Could it be mistaken for a demon dog?
One day a soldier who had been drinking tried to challenge the beast. He yelled at it, and dared it to follow him up the stairs. Then he ran out of the guardroom and the dog padded out after him. There was a horrible scream. The man staggered back into the room. He was pale and trembling. Worst of all, he seemed to have lost his power of speech. The poor fellow died three days later, but he was never able to reveal what had happened to him. The black dog was never seen again in Peel Castle.
However, in the 1920s and 1930s, several people did report seeing the Moddey Dhoo at other places on the Isle of Man. Seeing the dog was taken to be a sign of bad luck. One man who said he met the dog reported that his father died a short time later.
Throughout the British Isles there is a tradition that graveyards were guarded by a spirit in the form of a black dog. Though the black dog was supposed to protect the souls of those buried in the graveyard from the Devil, it was considered extremely bad luck for any living person to see the dog. In fact, anyone who saw it was supposed to die within a year.
Several old English families are supposed to be cursed with a black dog. Whenever the dog appears, a member of the family dies.
As a rule, one would not care to meet one of these black dogs. But there are a few stories in which mysterious blacks dogs guarded travelers.
There was a tale told at the beginning of this century about a man named Johnnie Greenwood. One night he had to ride through a wood about a mile long to get to where he was going. At the entrance to the wood a large black dog joined him. It just trotted along by his side. He had no idea where it came from.
Even when it got so dark that he could no longer see the dog, Johnnie knew it was there because he could hear its footsteps. But when he came out of the woods the dog was gone.
That same night Johnnie returned the same way he had come. At the entrance to the wood the dog joined him again. As before, he didn't touch it or speak to it. When he got out of the woods the dog was once again gone.
Years later, two prisoners condemned to be hanged confessed that they had intended to rob and murder Johnnie that night in the wood. But when they saw the dog, they decided that both Johnnie and the dog would be too much to handle, so they left him alone.
As we have seen, phantom dogs can be dangerous, helpful, or just frightening. But no sane person would ever want to meet a whole pack of phantom hounds. For these would most likely be the feared creatures known as the Wish Hounds or the Devil's Dogs.
The Wish Hounds, or the Devil's Dogs, are part of one of the oldest and most persistent of all European legends the Wild Hunt. The legend runs like this: On certain nights a phantom huntsman, leading a pack of phantom hounds, can be heard, and sometimes seen, racing across the desolate countryside.
In one form or another this legend is told throughout Europe. Often the huntsman is said to be the Devil or some demon. Sometimes he is supposed to be a particularly evil person condemned to ride until Judgment Day without a rest. The dogs are usually described as being black with glowing red eyes. In some versions of the tale, however, the dogs are described as being headless.
According to the legend, anyone unlucky enough to see the Wild Hunt will be torn to pieces by the dogs or otherwise killed. Failing that, the unlucky soul is sure to die within a year.
Belief in the Wish Hounds remained strong until the end of the last century. In England in the 1870s a body was found on the banks of the River Yealm. An inquest was held to find the cause of death. When no obvious cause could be found, the jury wanted to say that the man was "struck down by the phantom hunt" or met "death by supernatural agency." With some difficulty the jury was persuaded to return a more ordinary verdict of "accidental death."
In recent years, belief in the Wild Hunt appears to have weakened. But up until the 1950s, at least, there were still people who said they could hear the barking and yelping of the phantom hounds on dark and stormy nights.
People didn't want to go out and see if the huntsman and his pack were really out there. They knew too many stories about what was supposed to have happened to those who did see the Wild Hunt.
But from time to time there was a story about someone who escaped the demon hunter and his phantom hounds.
About a century ago a tale of a poor but very lucky herdsman was told in the west of England.
The herdsman was riding home one night. In the distance he heard the baying of the Devil's Dogs. He knew he had several miles to go before he reached the safety of his home. He rode as fast as he could, but the phantom pack was gaining on him. When he turned around he could see them coming up behind him. The hunter had horns and a tail, just as the Devil is usually pictured. The dogs were black and snorted fire. The noise they made was horrible.
There was no shelter, no place where the herdsman could hide. Then suddenly he had a thought. He stopped his horse, jumped off and fell to his knees in prayer. The dogs that were just about to pounce on him held back, howling more loudly than ever. The demon hunter looked at him and said, "The boy prays." At that, they all turned off in pursuit of some other soul.
CHAPTER 7
BIG-BIG BIRD
The American Indians have a legend about a creature called the Thunderbird. The Thunderbird is supposed to be gigantic. According to some legends, it could darken the entire sky as it flew by.
Most people think that the Thunderbird is completely a legend. It has been suggested that the idea of the Thunderbird was based on the condor. The condor is a very large vulture-like bird. It has a wingspan of from six to eight feet. The condor was once found throughout the American West. Today it is very rare. It lives only in the mountains of California. It is so rare that many scientists fear that it will soon become extinct. A somewhat larger condor lives in South America. But neither bird is anywhere near the size of the Thunderbird of Indian legend.
The condor
There are a few people who claim that the Thunderbird is more than a legend. They say that the stories are based
on a gigantic, but unknown, bird. This bird may have existed until just a short time ago. And some think it may still exist today.
Unfortunately, the best piece of evidence for the existence of the Thunderbird has been lost. Perhaps it never even existed.
Here is the story. In 1886, a group of ranchers from Tombstone, Arizona, shot and killed a monster bird. They nailed it up, wings outstretched, on a barn. Then six men stood in front of the bird with their arms out, fingertips touching. This was to give some idea of the bird's size. Six average-sized men with outstretched arms would cover a distance of between thirty and thirty-six feet.
American Indian Thunderbird design
Now this astonishing scene is supposed to have been photographed. And the photograph was supposed to have been printed in the Tombstone newspaper. The paper had a very appropriate name, the Tombstone Epitaph. A lot of people say that they have seen the picture. The problem is that no one seems to be able to find it. A check of the files of the Tombstone Epitaph, which go back to about that time, reveal no trace of such a photograph.
One well-known monster hunter said that he had a copy of the original picture in his files. But he loaned it out, and it was never returned. To whom did he loan it? He couldn't remember.
There is another Big-Big Bird story from Tombstone that was supposed to have taken place at about the same time. It may be just another version of the original story. This time, however, the monster is winged, but has no feathers. It is supposed to have been smooth and hairless, its enormous jaws lined with razor-sharp teeth. The wings, which measured up to 160 feet, were thin membranes of skin. This creature was supposed to have been shot, or at least seen, in the Tombstone area around 1890.
The whole idea could be dismissed as just a wilder version of an already wild legend—except for one thing. This creature sounds more like one of the ancient flying reptiles called pterodactyls than it does like a bird. Pterodactyl-type creatures had the largest wingspread of any flying creature ever known. Actually, the pterodactyls probably didn't really fly. They would just glide along on air currents. They were very light, but their huge wings—30 or 40 feet from tip to tip—would keep them up in the air.
Some think the Thunderbird was some kind of giant flying reptile.
The trouble is that pterodactyls died out at about the same time the dinosaurs did—60 million years ago.
Giant bird stories come mainly from the American West. But there are a few interesting accounts from the East as well. In May, 1961, there was a report by the pilot of a private plane who was flying in New York State's Hudson Valley. He spotted what appeared to be another and slightly larger plane nearby. Suddenly this "plane" turned and tried to chase him. The pilot was surprised and frightened, but he circled back to try and get a closer look at the hostile plane. Then he noticed that the other "plane" was flapping its wings. It wasn't a plane at all; it was a gigantic bird. The pilot had seen enough. He flew off in a hurry.
There are frequent tales of planes crashing because of encounters with giant birds. There is no real evidence to support any of these romors, but the stories continue to exist.
Probably the most celebrated case took place in November, 1962. A United Airlines jet crashed in a wooded area of Maryland near Washington, D.C. There were no survivors in the crash. However, there were traces of blood and feathers found in the wreckage. Investigators decided that the plane must have run into a flock of birds shortly before it crashed. Perhaps the birds were even in some way responsible for the crash. Collisions with birds have been blamed for other plane crashes.
But some monster hunters noticed that scratches and gouges had been found on the tail assembly of the plane. They suggested that the plane had run into a Thunderbird. That angered the monster bird, which then turned and attacked the plane, sending it to its doom.
Why had the pilot not radioed information about his collision with a giant bird before the crash? Why had a bird of that size not been tracked on radar? Where is the monster bird hiding now? Questions like that have no answers.
CHAPTER 8
THE DOVER DEMON
Some monsters are reported frequently. They become legends. Other are seen only a few times. Then they seem to disappear. The Dover Demon was that sort of creature. But it certainly created enough excitement when it was reported.
The time was April 21 and 22, 1977. The place was the pretty town of Dover, Massachusetts, about fifteen miles southwest of Boston.
At about 10:30 in the evening of April 21, three seventeen-year-olds were out for a ride. Bill Bartlett was driving. Bill saw something creeping along a low wall at the side of the road. At first, he thought it was a cat. Then the headlights hit it and he got a good look.
The thing had a huge head with shining orange eyes. The rest of the body was small and skinny in comparison. It had long fingers and toes. The creature appeared to be hairless with a rough, peach-colored skin. He estimated that it would stand about four feet tall.
Bartlett only saw it for an instant, as the car lights flashed on it.
"Did you see that?" he yelled to the two passengers. The other two boys had been talking, and not looking out the window, so they didn't see a thing. But they wanted to. Bill was frightened, but the others persuaded him to drive back to the place where he had seen the thing. If it had ever been there, it was gone by the time they got back.
A little less than two hours later a fifteen-year-old named John Baxter was walking home. He saw a small figure coming down the street. He thought it was a friend of his who was quite short. He called out to the figure, but got no answer.
When he tried to get close to it, the figure took off and ran into a wooded area. John tried to follow it. It stopped about thirty feet away from him. In the darkness he could only make out a shadowy form.
He said the figure had a body like a monkey, but a big "figure eight"-shaped head. He could see its eyes, but no other features. It was staring at him. This made John feel very uneasy. He backed away carefully and then he ran.
Bill Bartlett drew this picture of the Dover Demon.
Both Bill Bartlett and John Baxter made drawings of what they saw—or what they said they saw. The drawings looked like they were of the same creature. Both boys also said that they had not heard the other's story before they made the drawings.
The next evening two other teenagers, Will Taintor and Abby Brabham, said they got a glimpse of the creature. They were driving along and picked up something in the headlights on the side of the road. The thing was crouched on all fours. Abby described it as having a very large head and a thin, monkey-like body. She could not see any mouth or nose, but its large eyes seemed to glow with a greenish light. Will only got a fleeting glimpse of the figure. He had the impression of something with a large head, and tan body.
The story got into the newspapers, and the thing was dubbed the Dover Demon.
No one else ever reported seeing the Dover Demon. No physical evidence of its existence was ever produced. A lot of people talked to the four young witnesses about their strange encounters. A few thought it was all a hoax. Most people got the feeling that the witnesses were telling the truth. But even if they were telling the truth, as far as they knew it, that does not mean that they actually saw a strange little creature with a large head and skinny body. They may have seen something quite ordinary—a cat or dog perhaps, It was night. No one really got a good close-up look at the creature. They may have just gotten excited and made a mistake about what they saw. At least one of the witnesses knew about the other sightings before he made his report. People often see strange things—or think that they do—especially at night.
This is John Baxter's drawing of the figure he said he saw.
But what if it wasn't a hoax or a mistake? What could the Dover Demon be?
A lot of people who are interested in the subject are also interested in UFOs. They think that the Dover Demon might be something that came out of a UFO, though there had been no important UFO sightings
around Dover at that time.
Then someone suggested that the Dover Demon might be a Mannegishi. The Mannegishi are creatures of the mythology of the Cree Indians of Canada. They are supposed to be little people with round heads and no noses. They have long thin arms and legs. Their main purpose in life, according to Cree legends, is to play jokes on the big people.
CHAPTER 9
THE BIGGEST SNAKE
How long can a snake grow? According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest and heaviest of all snakes is the anaconda of South America. The book says that a 37 1/2-foot anaconda was "reliably reported" to have been killed on the upper Orinoco River in eastern Columbia. That snake should have weighed about 1,000 pounds.
A 33 1/2-foot anaconda was killed in southeastern Columbia in November, 1956.
A 1,000-pound, 37 1/2-foot snake is enormous. Even a 20-foot snake is a giant, and among anacondas the 20-foot length is fairly common. But there are rumors of anacondas and other snakes which are far, far larger.
Major Percy Fawcett's meeting with a 62-foot anaconda, from a drawing by his son.
Take the story of Major Percy Fawcett, a British Army officer and frequent traveler in the Amazon jungles of South America. He had heard stories of 50- and 60-foot anacondas. But he didn't believe them. Then one day early in 1907, Major Fawcett and several local Indians were in a canoe drifting along the Rio Abuna river. Suddenly, a giant triangular head appeared practically underneath the boat. It was a monstrous anaconda. The creature slithered out of the water and onto the bank. Fawcett didn't stand around watching it. He grabbed his rifle and shot it. He made a rough measurement of the creature. It turned out to be 62 feet long. It also had a terrible odor. "Everything about this snake was repulsive," Fawcett commented.
