Heath further described the entity as about three feet tall, with shiny black fur, no noticeable ears and a round, “harmless looking” face. The only detail about its face he could clearly recall was a reddish area just over the eyes. He later showed drawings of the beast he’d seen to the Hopis and Navahos. The Navahos identified the creature as a “Skin-walker.”
Another Skinwalker, this one much larger and more frightening, allegedly attacked a group of youths as they were driving through New Mexico on their way to Zuni, in 1970. They were traveling along at about 40 miles per hour when a monstrous figure appeared out of nowhere running alongside their vehicle. It was the size of a man, they said, and hairy. The area through which they were traveling was one fraught with dangerous turns and steep drops, and many locals later felt that the beast was attempting to force the vehicle off the road.
Despite the driver accelerating to over 60 miles per hour the fearsome-looking creature seemed to have no trouble keeping pace with the car, and stayed with it until one of the youths, Clifford Heronemus, pulled a handgun and shot it from point blank range. According to him, “...there was no blood, but the creature fell down; but it got up again and ran off.” Bravely, the group turned around and attempted to search the area with camera in hand, hoping to see the beast again; but it had disappeared.
Another unverified account appeared in Neil Arnold’s excellent work, ‘Monster! - The A-Z of Zooform Phenomena’ and told of an alleged Skinwalker attack on a family which occurred “sometime between 1982 and 1983.” It goes as follows:
“Twenty-year-old F____, her father, mother and younger brother took a road trip back to Wyoming in the family pick-up truck. The trip was a vacation to visit friends in and around their old hometown. The course along Route 163 took them through the Navajo Indian Reservation and through the town of Kayenta, just south of the Utah border and the magnificent Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. “Many strange things happen out there,” F___ says.
It was a warm summer night, about 10:00 pm, when the family’s pick-up was heading south on 163, about twenty to thirty miles from the town of Kayenta. It was a moonless night on this lonely stretch of road...
F___’s father told the family, “We have company,” as the hum of the truck was the only noise to break the silent night. Another pair of headlights appeared on the crest of the hill the family had just eased over seconds ago. The family felt comforted by the presence of another, especially in case they broke down on this lonely stretch of road. The rain had followed the thunder, it was an atmospheric drive, an eerie night beneath the gathering clouds, as the rain pattered the truck windows.
F___ lazily watched the car a few hundred meters away behind them, up and down over the crest of various hills and humps. Her father’s own truck climbed another large hill, the family leaning back into their seats as it reached the equilibrium before suddenly easing into a decline. A minute or so later F___ watched as the headlights of the car behind approached the dip in the road to take on the crest of the hill, but rather strangely the headlights never emerged from over the top. Maybe the car had broken down in the gloomy dip. Maybe whoever was driving it had just pulled over for some reason or other. Yet, for however duration of time F___ looked back, those headlights never appeared on the hump of the hill, and from that moment on, as her father slowed his own truck, the whole atmosphere seemed to change.
“Jesus Christ! What the hell is that?” her mother yelled in shrill terror, as the family all of a sudden stared in horror at the passenger side window, with F___ and her younger brother instinctively reaching for the door locks, insuring they were pressed down in the locked position. Her father was as white as a sheet as the truck slowed, her mother screaming, “Oh my God!” in a squealing voice, her brother a wreck of emotion and F___ just surreally gazing into the silent night, unaware of the pattering rain or the flashes of lightning cutting across the sky. The truck suddenly skidded, her father slammed on the brakes as an ominous ditch appeared on the right of the vehicle, the truck beginning to screech to a halt, and then the horror, the terror from the pit, the most hideous thing they had ever seen, the cause of the panic.
A black and hairy creature was staring through the window on the passenger side, it had kept pace with the truck as it slowed and was now standing outside as the vehicle braked hard. F___ could see its vile features, but as her father began to speed away from the horror, they all noticed that it wore a man’s clothing, more specifically, a white and blue checkered shirt and dark jeans. They zoomed away from the area as fast as they could, leaving the creature with the yellow eyes and gaping mouth standing there, its arms raised above its head like some matted madman from nowhere.
When the family reached Kayenta, there was no evidence on the hood of the truck to suggest anything untoward had happened, but the memory of the incident was embedded firmly in their minds, but all of what had occurred seemed like a surreal dream, a weird nightmare that happened in slow-motion.
Thinking the brief nightmare was over, a few nights later at 11:00 p.m., F___ and her brother were awakened by the sound of drumming outside of their home. They both stared out the back window into the yard. The yard was surrounded by a high fence with black woods (on) the other side. To their horror and surprise, they saw four men appear behind the wooden fence, these figures seemed to be intruders as they were trying to climb the fence but they could not climb high enough to achieve this. As F___ and her brother watched in shock, the men all of a sudden gave up on the idea of trying to get in and began a strange chant which went on for several minutes before they walked out of sight into the darkness. F___ and her brother shared a bed that night.
Although nothing else unusual occurred to the family, a few months later F___ approached her Navajo friend and told her about the weird encounter on the road and the incident involving the men. Her friend told her that, “They were the Skinwalkers, and although they do not usually bother non-natives, they want something that the family has but something protects them,” hence the figures’ inability to scale the fence.
F___ was told that her family has a special power, and that these figures will do their best to obtain it, however, amulets will protect them from these things.
Such stories remain easy for the skeptics to dismiss, and it is easy to see why. They view each inhumanoid as entirely unrelated to the next one, and each story of alleged inhumanoid activity, of any type, in this same context when, in truth, they are all related. Skinwalker activity, as one might expect from such ageless supernatural creatures, has continued on in North America just as it has in every other part of the world, with reported “werewolf” encounters from every era of American history.
In Vincennes, Indiana, several early French settlers were reportedly attacked in the eighteenth century by a werewolf-type creature on Cathlinette Road in Knox County; and so yet another lycanthropic legend was born. Knox County has remained an active area for hairy inhumanoid sightings throughout the years and yet, similar tales of this nature are common in so many other communities in that region and, indeed, throughout America; which is most unusual considering that these inhumanoid creatures officially do not exist.
Image © by author.
An almost identical story is told in Henderson, Kentucky, just across the river from southern Indiana. “Wolf Hills,” named after the alleged attacks on early settlers by vicious bipedal “werewolves,” is now a part of the John James Audobon State Park recreation area. New Orleans, Louisiana is also said to be haunted by similar creatures, as are other small towns in Wisconsin, Texas, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, to name but a few.
According to the 1896 booklet, The Hermit of Siskiyou by L. W. Music, a very unusual being was seen in California ten years previously. The following account was included therein as a footnote.
“Note 1. A Del Norte Record Correspondent writing from Happy Camp, Siskiyou County, Jan. 2, 1886, discourses as follows:
“I do not remember to have seen any reference
to the ‘Wild Man’ which haunts this part of the country, so I shall allude to him briefly. Not a great while since, Mr. Jack Dover, one of our most trustworthy citizens, while hunting saw an object standing one hundred and fifty yards from him picking berries and tender shoots from the bushes.
The thing was of gigantic size; about seven feet high, with a bull dog head, short ears and long hair; it was also furnished with a beard, and was free from hair on such parts of his body as is common among men. Its voice was shrill, or soprano, and very human, like that of a woman in great fear. Mr. Dover could not see its footprints as it walked on hard soil. He aimed his gun at the animal, or whatever it was, but because it was so human would not shoot. The range of the curiosity is between Marble Mountain and the vicinity of Happy Camp. A number of people have seen it and all agree in their descriptions except some make it taller than others. It is apparently herbivorous and makes winter quarters in some caves of Marble Mountain.”
A few years ago, friend and fellow Fortean Nick Redfern had the opportunity to meet a man named Solomon, who claimed to have had an encounter with a very strange wolf-like beast in the woods of East Texas back in the 1930s. In ‘Memoirs of a Monster Hunter,’ Nick writes:
“Solomon’s story was a highly intriguing one because it involved the sighting of a mysterious beast that seemed to eerily fit the pattern of the classic shape-shifting werewolf with which Hollywood movie-makers have for so long been enamored. In his mid-80s at the time I spoke with him, Solomon still retained all his faculties, and had both a sharp mind and a keen wit. And to his credit, Solomon realized that the controversial nature of his story was one that would surely make some people wonder if he had lost his mind. He assured me on several occasions that he had not.
Solomon’s encounter had occurred near Orange in 1933; a full 70 years before we spoke, and at which time he was in his mid-teens. He told me in graphic detail of how he had spent one particular Sunday morning in the early part of the year in question exploring the woods with a couple of friends, and fishing in several small pools that they happened to stumble upon. By noon the trio of adventurers had retreated to the edge of a winding stream that cut through the woods, and sat and ate a small lunch that his mother had thoughtfully prepared for them.
The friendly chatter of Solomon and his two friends came to an ominous halt however, when all three of them suddenly developed an ominous feeling of “being watched.” Indeed, they were. Upon glancing across the stream, they were shocked and terror-stricken to see a huge wolf-like head partly protruding from out of the dense undergrowth. And, explained Solomon, when the beast “realized we had seen it,” it fully emerged from its hiding place and “paced along the edge of the water, one way then the other, five or six times.”
And while the creature was certainly wolf-like in its appearance, in no way could it be considered a conventional one. Rather, explained Solomon, the creature was quite literally a monster; easily ten feet in length, it appeared to be incredibly powerful, and possessed huge, muscular limbs, a very thick neck, an overly elongated jaw, and a “hump on the top of his neck.” While keeping Solomon and his friends in sight at all times, the nightmarish beast issued forth a continuous gutteral growl and occasionally wrinkled its jaw, as if poised to launch an attack. Yet, no such attack came. However, something else occurred that, in many ways, Solomon said was even more frightening.
“After a few minutes, Solomon told me, the animal “sat down” and “started to shake.” It was at this point that matters became distinctly surreal. The creature, that was undoubtedly four-legged in nature, became enveloped in a slight “green fog” that lasted for but a moment, then suddenly reared up on to its hind legs. Still definitively wolf-like in appearance, its stance was now that of a large man.
Interestingly, Solomon said that he got the distinct impression that the creature meant him and his friends no physical harm as such, but seemed to achieve a perverse delight and satisfaction in scaring the boys out of their collective wits. For perhaps 20 seconds the mighty creature; which, having adopted an upright stance, seemed even bigger than it had while walking on four legs; snarled and snapped in what was perceived as a malevolent, hostile, and even sinister fashion.
Most bizarre of all was the fact that the paws of the creature seemed to have shape-shifted into large, man-like hands, albeit a pair covered in a thick coating of hair. Then, without warning, the animal turned and headed into the dense trees, looking back in the direction of the boys only once, and just before it finally disappeared.
“Not surprisingly, the stunned trio exited the woods at high speed and breathlessly headed for Solomon’s home. The boys decided not to tell anyone of their unearthly encounter, probably correctly assuming that they would “get a whipping” for making up fantastic tales. Nevertheless, Solomon was adamant that his story was completely and utterly true, and added to me that he had far better things to do with his remaining years on this Earth than make up bizarre tales about werewolves.”
Another extremely rare case of an actual physical transformation of some type being observed by a witness comes from Madison, Wisconsin in the late 1990s. The wonderful Mrs. Linda Godfrey gives an account of the encounter in her 2006 book, ‘Hunting the American Werewolf.’ The sighting did not take place in some rural or isolated location, as might be expected; but right in the middle of town. The witness had just exited a building one evening when he spotted what he thought was a large dog standing on the sidewalk just a short distance away. Then, to his great surprise, the creature started to jerk “like one of those break dancers.” Incredibly, when the jerking movements ceased the witness found that the dog had transformed into a man-like, gorilla-faced creature which then vanished into the shadows.
In another account, Godfrey was told by a woman named Kim that a group of fifteen to twenty people in Mineral Point, Wisconsin had witnessed an honest-to-goodness Hollywood style werewolf there back in 1987, huffing and puffing along in broad daylight. The creature molted fur, she told Godfrey, and transformed as it ran, gasping for breath, into a building where it reassumed its human form in full view of all.
Georgia Department of Forestry employee, Joseph Whaley, was driving his open jeep thirty miles outside of Edison, Georgia in August of 1956 when, suddenly, a huge, hair-covered, man-like beast leapt from the brush and began chasing his vehicle. It was about six feet tall and a dark gray color, Whaley said. It ran up alongside the jeep and grabbed at Whaley, apparently trying to pull him from the vehicle. “It looked like a gorilla,” he later exclaimed, “except it had claws and long pointed ears.” Fortunately, The terrified victim managed to outpace the beast. His encounter with a being that can’t exist reportedly left scratch marks on his arm.
One evening in January of 1970, a motorist driving down a lonely road in Gallup, New Mexico, near Whitewater, saw what he would later describe as “a man from a flying saucer.” Witness Tony Zecca didn’t say whether or not he’d actually seen a ‘saucer,’ and no one could’ve guessed the strange series of events which would then ensue.
Just a few hours later, as four youths; Clifford Heronemus, Rovert Davis, Carl Martinez and David Chiaramonte; drove by the same spot, their vehicle was allegedly chased by a “werewolf;” a hairy ‘thing’ which appeared out of nowhere and running on two legs. It easily paced the car, which was going 45 mph. “It was about five-foot-seven, and I was surprised it could go so fast,” Heronemus, who was driving, later said. “At first I thought my friends were playing a joke on me, but when I found out they weren’t, I was scared! We rolled up the windows real fast and locked the doors of the car. I started driving faster, about sixty, but it was hard because the highway has a lot of sharp turns. Someone finally got a gun out and shot it. I know it got hit and it fell down, but there was no blood. It got up again and ran off. I know it couldn’t be a person because people cannot move that fast.” Indeed. Especially after being shot, but according to Navaho beliefs, one of the skinwalker’s alleged supernatural powers is the
ability to ‘go very fast,’ faster even than a car.
It’s a very rare thing to hear of alleged sightings of ‘wolf women.’ There seems to be a curious lack of encounters with the female variety of werewolf. Perhaps women are not as susceptible to the Lycan curse. Or perhaps the entities which manifest themselves in such forms have found that, generally speaking, people find female werewolves to be somewhat less frightening. Nevertheless that is exactly what several witnesses claimed to see in Alabama in the Spring of 1971. A creature described as “...unnatural...the top half being of a woman, and the lower half that of a wolf.” That same year a similar ‘wolf woman’ allegedly terrorized the Delphos, Kansas area.
A ten year old girl allegedly witnessed a werewolf near the Eel River in Eureka, California in 1951. It had red eyes and huge fangs, she claimed, and wore torn and tattered clothes, but was clearly hirsute beneath the ragged garments.
Another case of a Dogman appearing in human clothes comes from Lawton, Texas two decades later. On February 27th, 1971 Lawton police were called out to investigate reports coming in about a ‘strange creature’ that had been seen running down the middle of a street on the west side of the city. Startled witnesses had observed it dodging cars and leaping behind hedges.
Twenty minutes after the first calls came in, another man phoned and reported that he had come face to face with the beast. He’d seen the thing sitting on the railing outside his apartment, he told police. At first he thought someone was playing a joke on him, dressed in some type of ape costume and perched on the railing. Then he got a good look at it. It stood up, looked right at him and jumped off the railing to the ground seventeen feet below, before running away on all fours. He described the inhumanoid creature as being covered with hair with a horribly distorted looking face, as if it had been scarred in a fire; and wearing shrunken trousers which only covered his legs to his knees.
The Inhumanoids Page 49
