Wohali provided Godfrey with a sketch of the entity (shown above), but insisted that the face was hard to see clearly because the mouth and teeth were so prominent. “It looked hungry,” he said and further described it as having distended ribs, long, human-like legs with claws, huge bat-like wings with ‘arms’ attached. “I remember the teeth,” he told Godfrey, “and the scream we heard was terrifying.” Although his son refused to speak of the experience, Wohali felt that he should come forward with the story to let people know ‘what is out there.”
Through her research, Godfrey was able to make correlations to other sightings of beastmen in the area. She writes:
“...I can’t help but link this sighting to the mid-90s encounter another man and his son had by the riverbank in LaCrosse, WI. while hunting for a lost dog. They saw what they described as a “lizard man,” covered in brownish scales and very reptilian-looking. It did not have its mouth open or arms extended Around the same time, a state DNR warden and separately, a group of highway workers saw what they described as a “reptile man” on Hwy. 13 near Medford. It also possessed wings and was able to fly out of their view.”
An interesting side note: Wohali means ‘eagle’ in the Cherokee tongue. One native story describes how Wohali, the first eagle, used animal skins and bamboo shoots to fashion wings for a small rodent who dreamed of ‘playing with the birds,’ thus creating the bat.
The description of the beast brings to mind the Baital, half-human, half-bat creatures of Hindu lore, which are said to stand around four feet tall and drink the blood of humans.
A four-foot tall winged entity was seen on Nov. 25, 2005, in Southern Colorado by a student at Wild Horse Mesa. It was glowing a soft golden color, had black hair and flew ‘like Superman,’ with one arm down by its side and the other raised and fisted.
Eleven months later, in October of 2006, another winged anomaly was seen in Richmond, Virginia and dubbed “the Awful” by the local press. It was gargoyle, or griffin-like and often seen perched atop buildings and such. The beast allegedly circled the skies in that area for about three years before reports subsided.
It happened several years ago. I was driving down Old 25 towards Richmond, Kentucky. It was raining lightly. I was nearing a place that sells boats when I saw the creature which I’m assuming was a chupacabra. It was on the left side of the road, kind of hunched down. It was near a light so I could make out its color to be either a dark green, blackish, or brown. I remember its skin shining a bit from the rain on it.
As my car drew closer to it, it jumped straight up into the air at which point I clearly saw wings or wing-like appendages. They were bat-like. At this point I was driving much slower, but still not stopped as other cars were approaching from behind. The creature landed in the ditch on the right side of the road and began keeping pace with my car, looking at me. It was like it was racing me. I stared at it as much as I could before it turned right into a field and disappeared into the darkness.
It all happened very quickly, and despite the poor conditions (dark out, rain), I still remember these things quite well. The creature’s skin was not smooth but rather it was mottled and leathery. The eyes were huge, like alien ‘grays’ are described as being. The mouth was closed and small. The legs were like a dog’s legs. The arms were smaller, thinner, and reminded me of a T-Rex because of their placement.”
-Author L. David Scott
Thousands of years ago the ancient Babylonians worshiped, and feared, a demon god named ‘Pazuzu,’ a terrifying four winged, dog-headed inhumanoid creature said to represent pestilence. They put small graven images of this dreadful-looking deity in their homes (one example is shown at left, circa 4,000 B.C.E.), in the hopes that, should he ever come near, he would see his own fearsome likeness and become afraid. Given the continuous appearance of similar winged biform beasties from the beginning of recorded history right on down to these modern times, perhaps we might consider doing the same.
Part Four:
Fiery Phantoms, Grinning Men, Mad Gassers and Killer Clowns
“I believe that there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with the fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are impossible.”
-William James
Any time fire is associated with the appearance of an inhumanoid, the question of the nature of the entity’s origin is rendered moot. Fire is a certain indicator of the supernatural. Once you’ve assured yourself that the encounter is genuine and not some type of psychological aberration or hoax, and that the description of the entity is accurate, there can be no other explanation. There is, quite simply, no physical life-form on Earth that is able to live in or on, fire. Nevertheless...
A fiery inhumanoid phantom was seen running about the countryside in Germany, setting trees ablaze at his very touch. According to Deutsche Sagen, (Vol. 1 page 229):
“In this year, A.D. 1125, a fiery man was haunting the mountains like an apparition. It was just at midnight and the Man went from one birchtree to another, and set it ablaze. The Watchman said he was like a glowing fire. He did that for three nights, and then no more.
George Miltenberger, living in a hopfield near Railbach in the district of Freinstein, explained; “On the first appearance on Sunday night, between eleven and twelve o’clock, far from my house, I saw a man burning all over with fire. One could count all the ribs on his stomach. He continued on his way from one landmark to another until after midnight he suddenly vanished. Many people were fear-stricken by his appearance because through his nose and mouth he belched fire while dashing hither and thither in all directions.”
The fiery entity, apparently, decided to move, as he later turned up again in England. In his Chronicles, Abbot Ralph of Essex, England tells of the discoveries of strange footprints in York during the years 1189-99:
“In the time of King Richard I, of England, there appeared in a certain grassy, flat ground human footprints of extraordinary length; and everywhere the fooprints were impressed the grass remained as if scorched by fire.”
And again, in York on July 29th in the year 1205, when “monstrous tracks were seen in several places, and of a kind never seen before. Men said they were the prints of demons.”
Residents of a small farm in Bracken County, Kentucky spent the month of February 1866, being terrorized by some type of horned, cloven-hoofed beast-man. The creature was described as a being of grayish-brown color, with a barrel chest, paws with long, sharp looking claws at the ends and glowing eyes below two short horns sprouting from its forehead. It also had a long, pointed tail as it stood there on goat-like legs, hissing like a snake before vanishing abruptly in a column of flame. As if with some diabolical unfinished business, the terrifying apparition appeared again over the next few days at neighboring farms, then apparently returned to whatever infernal netherworld that is capable of spawning such creatures.
Apparently, the sinister entity was fond of the rural scenery and told a friend. Two years later on the evening of Oct 10th, 1868 Bracken county again played host to another almost indescribably bizarre inhumanoid; this time at a place called Willow Creek. It appeared from out of nowhere to multiple witnesses and was said to be; ‘half-man, half-horse,’ over six feet tall with a pale, man-like face, brightly glowing blue eyes and ‘curls of fire falling down over its shoulders.’
Its arms were also pale and powerfully built, holding a torch aloft in one hand and a sword in the other. The creature’s tail was described as being three feet of burning flame. After that night, it reportedly appeared quite often to awe-struck citizens, always in the exact same spot just two miles from Brooksville.
Spring-heeled Jack
In all the long history of mankind, however, few creatures can come close to matching the widespread terror that one fiendish inhumanoid visited upon the citizenry of Victorian England, especially its women, during the early 1800s. ‘Springheel,’ or ‘Spring-heeled Jack,’ he was called, and his name struck such a dread into the h
earts of loyalty and commoner alike as was not seen again there until the 1880s when another bane of London named ‘Jack’ took over; ‘Jack the Ripper.’ Unlike the Ripper, a mere mortal psychopath who tortured and murdered prostitutes, Spring-heeled Jack was a supernatural monster who plagued the city with impunity.
An evil looking, darkly dressed, pointed-eared, “unmanly brute” who mocked with a sneer all attempts at capture using his unnatural ability to leap impossible distances in a single bound. And whereas the ‘Ripper’ was never seen and, therefore, indescribable, hundreds of frightened citizens claimed to have been victims of, or witnesses to the antics of, Spring-heeled Jack, and thanks largely to the ‘Penny Dreadfuls,’ there was scarcely a person in all of Europe who didn’t know his ghoulish face. In a 1961 article entitled, “The Mystery of Spring-heeled Jack,” J. Vyner wrote:
“The intruder was tall, thin and powerful. He had a prominent nose and bony fingers of immense power which resembled claws. He was incredibly agile. He wore a long, flowing cloak, of the sort affected by opera-goers, soldiers and strolling actors. On his head was a tall, metallic-seeming helmet. Beneath the cloak were close-fitting garments of some glittering material like oil-skin or metallic mesh. There was a lamp strapped to his chest. Oddest of all; the creature’s ears were cropped or pointed like those of an animal.’
The Demon Comes to Town:
In London, England in the year 1837, people were much the same as people anywhere else. So much so, in fact, that few of them would pay much serious attention to reports of strange apparitions. And predictably few did take notice when, in September of that year, persons crossing a common in southwest London reported witnessing an alarming figure as it flew through the air in “great leaps.” Then the attacks began.
There were four separate attacks in that year alone, three of the four victims being women. One victim named Polly Adams suffered the indignity of having the top of her dress ripped off as well as being scratched on the belly with clawed fingers that felt cold and hard as iron.
One evening that autumn a businessman decided to take a short-cut to his residence, a route which led him through the local cemetery where he allegedly encountered a tall, shadowy figure. The apparition vaulted over the railings and high into the air, landing with a thud right in front of the terrified witness, who turned and fled.
He later claimed that the menace had glowing eyes, a pointed nose and pointed ears. The following night the figure appeared to three girls in the same area, once again springing from the railings and landing before them. The terrified females fled the scene when the ghoul attempted to rip the coat from one of them. The slowest of the trio was apparently caught by the fiend, who pawed at her breasts and tore at her clothes. She collapsed and was later found unconscious by local police.
What marked these incidents as being any different from the many other conventional assaults of the time was the assailant’s ghoulish and terrifying appearance. This criminal was always described as being tall and thin, wearing a dark cloak and tight-fitting garments. According to witnesses, he also sported some type of helmet and usually wore a strange light strapped about his chest. More alarmingly, the phantom fiend also possessed the ability to “spit blue fire from his mouth into the faces of his victims, blinding them.”
He had a pointed nose, pointed ears, glowing red eyes and could leap astonishing distances through the air, moving so swiftly that it was impossible to either escape him or catch him, depending on the circumstances. Due to this unnatural leaping ability and his swiftness, the press dubbed the entity “Spring-heeled Jack,” and the subject quickly became the talk of all the town.
In no time at all Spring-heeled Jack was a household word synonymous with other words none of them pleasant. Jack gave the children of the era a face to attach to the ‘monster’ which they feared lurked beneath their beds and in their closets. Many an unruly child, it could be said, were quieted with the words; “Here comes Spring-heeled Jack. Here comes the Bogey Man!”
A month after the attacks began a servant girl named Mary Stevens was accosted by the frightening entity as she walked down Cut-Throat Lane near Clapham Common. A tall figure adorned in black garments leapt from the darkness and grabbed hold of her, slobbering on her face as it attempted to kiss her lips, and groping her breasts. She screamed and the figure fled into the night. Her screams attracted the attention of some passers-by who were able to calm the girl. The following evening, and in the same area; Jack appeared again leaping in front of and halting a horse-drawn carriage.
On being confronted with the creature the horses bolted in panic, causing the carriage to overturn and injuring the coachman. Jack escaped the scene by leaping effortlessly over a nine foot high wall. Soon after another woman was attacked by a dark-caped figure at Clapham Churchyard. Again he escaped but reportedly left behind two mysterious footprints impressed three inches deep in the mud and appeared to suggest that the leaper had been wearing “some type of apparatus.”
In February of 1838, eighteen-year-old Lucy Scales became Jack’s next victim. At around 8:30 one evening Jane and her sister Margaret had been visiting their brother in the Limehouse area when the incident took place. Lucy was walking slightly ahead of Margaret and, when she reached the entrance of Green Dragon Alley, a cloaked stranger emerged from the shadows and belched a quantity of bright blue flames into her face. The unfortunate girl immediately dropped to the ground and fell into a violent fit which lasted several hours.
Jack then leapt completely over Margaret’s head and onto the roof of a nearby house, vanishing into the darkness. Their brother, whose house they had just left, heard the frightened screams and rushed to the scene as the entity fled into the night. The other sister described the assailant as “tall, thin and of gentlemanly appearance,” wearing a dark cloak and carrying before him a small lamp which issued from it a strange mist. He had remained completely silent during the attack.
Eighteen-year-old Jane Alsop, from the village of Old Ford, had heard of this bogey-man, but didn’t really believe in him, despite the fact that only a few weeks earlier London’s Lord Mayor, Sir John Cowan, had declared Spring-heeled Jack; or “Springald,” as he was otherwise called; a public menace and formed a vigilante committee in an effort to bring the bizarre criminal to justice.
At 8:45 on the evening of February 20th, Jane was summoned to the front door by a violent ringing of the bell. Looking out, Jane saw a dark figure standing in the shadows by the gate and asked him what he wanted. The figure then exclaimed, “I’m a police officer! For God’s sake bring me a light for we have caught Spring-heeled Jack in the lane!” Shocked to realize that the stories were true after all, she quickly fetched a lit candle and hurried outside to the waiting ‘policeman.’ As she neared the gate she noticed that he wore a dark cloak. She handed the candle to him and he took it from her...
“The instant she had done so...he threw off his outer garment (a large cloak), and applying the light to his breast, presented a most hideous and frightful appearance, and vomited forth a quantity of blue and white flame from his mouth, and his eyes resembled red balls of fire. From the hasty glance which her fright enabled her to get at his person, she observed that he wore a large helmet, and his dress, which appeared to fit him very tight, seemed to her to resemble white oil skin.
Without uttering a sentence, he darted at her, and catching her partly by her dress and the back part of her neck, placed her head under one of his arms, and commenced tearing her dress with his claws, which she was certain were of some metallic substance, and by considerable exertion got away from him and ran towards the house to get in. Her assailant, however, followed her, and caught her on the steps leading to the hall door, when he again used considerable violence, tore her neck and arms with his claws, as well as a quantity of hair from her head; but she was at length rescued from his grasp by one of her sisters. Miss Alsop added that she had suffered considerably all night from the shock she had sustained, and was then in extreme pain,
both from the injury done to her arm, and the wounds and scratches inflicted by the miscreant about her shoulders and neck with his claws or hands.”
-The London Times, February 22nd, 1938.
After Jane managed to escape from his clutches, the diabolical menace seamed undaunted. He had even knocked on the door several times, expecting to be let inside, and fled the scene only after family members started shouting loudly for the police from an upstairs bedroom window. By the time any help could arrive Jack was long gone.
Jack the Killer?
More attacks followed in the coming years. In 1845 Jack appeared in a London slum. There, in full view of numerous witnesses, he brutally attacked a thirteen-year-old prostitute named Maria Davis as she was crossing a bridge. According to the eyewitnesses, the inhumanoid fiend leapt through the air and set upon the poor girl, grabbing her firmly by the shoulders and spitting fire into her face. Then he cruelly tossed the unfortunate child into the open sewer below and watched as she drowned to death.
Spring-heeled Jack had committed public murder in broad daylight! The entire country was soon up in arms, as might be expected but, as always, completely powerless against the devilish threat. Jack simply could not be apprehended, and the populace, by now, had become so terrified of him that most dared not venture out of doors once night had fallen.
The Inhumanoids Page 21
