The Inhumanoids

by Barton M Nunnelly

  It was a big ‘werewolf-looking’ thing, he said, completely covered with shaggy hair. It had cruel looking eyes, pointed ears and long fangs and claws. He screamed into the radio for his wife to “Go! Go! Go!” and they both got the hell out of the area as fast as possible. The werewolf had looked at him just before it bounded away, he claimed, and it was a terrible feeling. Both witnesses stated that they will never forget that night as long as they live.

  Several years ago a Mrs. Shirley Elkins sent a letter to Bigfoot researcher, Mr. Bill Green of the New England Bigfoot Information Center, who forwarded it to Ray Crowe of the International Bigfoot Society. The letter concerned an event which took place back in April of 1944 in Paintsville, Ky., Johnson County. The incident is notable here not only due to the description given of the creature in question, but also in that it involved aggression in the form of a physical assault on a patient at a hospital where Elkins was working as a nurse on the night shift. She wrote:

  “I was on night-shift at the hospital in my home town in April 1944, and that night a young man was in the waiting room to see the doctor. He was all a mess of scratches and his mother was telling him to just say he fell down and to not mention anything about being in a fight with a tall, man-like hairy thing.

  They kept him overnight at the hospital, and later that night, someone phoned us about an accident caused by a tall hairy creature that was in the road. A year passed and I went to work at this restaurant and there was this man I’d seen at the hospital. He was the owner’s (his mother) son and became my husband on June 7, 1945.”

  His name was Ellis and he later told her what had happened that rainy night back in April. It had been dark and rainy all day, her husband said. He had, “… gone fishing and had caught a pile of catfish for the restaurant. He was out back cleaning them on a table lit by a twenty-five-watt bulb, when up from the river bank came what looked like a man only he was (covered) with dark hair, long and shaggy all over.” He thought it was a teenager dressed in some outlandish costume at first. But then it growled at him, pushed him and “...made a grab for the fish.”

  Ellis grabbed a bottle and promptly hit the creature, knocking it into a rain barrel that was kept outside for cleaning purposes. The creature jumped up and growled again, then grabbed Ellis and shook him like a rag doll before hurling him to the ground and running off with the fish.

  “And mom didn’t believe it. She thought the staff at the hospital would send for a shrink if I told this to them. It had small, aqua-colored eyes; like a cat, heavy scattered eyebrows. Looked like a young teen only was very bushy with hair of a shiny slate color; he wasn’t over six feet tall, slim, long body, short legs. Had large, long feet, long claw-like nails; like overgrown human ones. Its tail bushed when it saw the fish! Looked like it smiled, but still growled. (It) had sharp, long, pointed teeth.”

  The creature reportedly left five-toed footprints complete with the impressions of claw marks in the mud. Although no mention is made of a muzzle, or elongated snout, the other features such as long, sharp fangs and claws, and most especially the bushy tail which bristled at the sight of food, seem to argue against the more mundane notion that this beast-man was merely another Bigfoot. Perhaps it was a juvenile Dogman.

  Interestingly, even encounters with the diminutive versions of the Dogman phenomenon strikes great fear in the hearts of witnesses. In the Fall of 1991, in Harrison County, two witnesses; one of them a former forestry official; saw such a creature one evening around nine p.m. while driving down an isolated gravel road near the city of Cynthiana. Chris writes:

  “I was driving on a gravel road with one of my friends in an area of the county that is somewhat quiet and off the beaten path. The area is forested with mixed pasture. We were only driving about 15 miles an hour when a creature about 3 feet tall ran in front of the car from left to right and jumped down into the brush adjacent to a wood lot. The thing that got me about this thing was that it was on two feet, but the legs looked to be lupine (dog-like). It, however, was not a dog. My friend looked at me and asked if I saw that. We had both seen something that scared us enough to get out of the area.”

  When asked if he could add anything further to the report, he replied:

  “I used to be a forester and I’m used to seeing deer, turkey, barking squirrels and all the other critters out there. This was something different. The creature was about three feet tall and walked on two legs. The best description I can give is to imagine a slightly shaggy monkey with lupine legs. This thing was very fast.”

  There are no animals indigenous to Eastern Ky. which might easily fit the description given by this man. But these creatures are, by no means, only to be found in the eastern parts of the commonwealth. Across the entire length and breadth of the state they seem equally, if not even more so, at home.

  Years ago, my own mother told me a strange story regarding an incident which happened to her when she was a ten-year-old girl living on Wilson Station Rd. in Henderson County. The year was 1951. Some relatives had come to visit her parents and all the kids, mom and her four cousins, had congregated in the living room away from the grown-ups. As they socialized with one another a large animal stood up outside the window and looked into the room. My mother, who was closest to the window, got a good look at it before her screams mingled with those of the other kids.

  It looked like a large dog in the face, she said, hairy, pointed ears, muzzle; but it was hideously disfigured with what looked like numerous deep scars on its face. It fled when the children screamed. As did the kids; in the other direction. The adults were incredulous of the account despite the obvious fear on the children’s faces. By the time anyone made it outside the animal, or whatever it was, was long gone.

  It was a very horrific sight, she told me. One which gave them nightmares for some time to come. When asked, she was able to provide more details concerning the creature’s appearance. She said it was much bigger than a dog and its head was at least as big as a man’s, if not bigger, and covered with dark brown to black hair. It was huge. Its muzzle was not long nor short, but of medium length. The ears weren’t standing straight up, she said, but laying halfway flat on its head. It had large, dark eyes. Dog eyes.

  The most bizarre aspect of her sighting, however, was that the thing looked like it was wearing a dirty white shirt or blouse. This would seem to be a strong indicator of at least some type of human involvement with these creatures. It is most certainly meant to imply that the beast being seen was once human, but anyone can put a shirt on a dog, right? I asked her when the thing stood up and looked in the window if it had placed its paws onto the window or house to brace itself like dogs often do? She thought for a moment and said, no. I then asked if the things front legs were raised up in front of it for balance as dogs must do to stand on their hind legs. ‘No’ was her reply. Its arms were hanging downward.

  What could these creatures be? Fantastic misinterpretations of common wolves? Although no wolves have been seen in Henderson County for over 150 years, I have no doubt that something which very much resembles them is still around. My brothers and I once watched a very large wolf-like animal chase a Black Panther out of a creek in broad daylight back in the 1980’s and I’ve heard more reports of wolf activity in the area over the last few years. But could a common wolf be responsible for the ‘Dogman’ sightings? Perhaps for some, but no common species of wolf can account for the many encounters during which the beast is actually seen to use bipedal locomotion.

  In Martin County, one Kentucky witness told me that he had come face to face with a most fearsome creature while out coon hunting with his dad one evening in 2001 at a place called ‘Nat’s Creek’ near the city of Inez. He was able to view the thing for a full minute before it made an unusual retreat. ‘Andy’ (not his real name) stated:

  “Dad and I were out ‘Coon Hunting, standing beside our truck which had gotten stuck in the mud. We called for the dogs to come back; however, the dogs would only come so close to us and
the truck. They turned around and ran. We heard something going around in a circle like it was hopping. So, dad and I got in the vehicle. Two friends of the family were on the ridge top signaling with the headlights of their vehicle to find where we were at. Dad turned on his headlights to signal back and, when the lights came on, the creature appeared standing in front of the vehicle. We stared at it and it stared back.”

  Andy described the creature, which all four witnesses saw, as being about six and a half feet tall and ‘hunched over.’ It had yellow eyes, he said, with a long snout and sharp teeth about three inches long. It walked on two legs like a man would but, after the lights had hit it, the beast “hopped like a kangaroo” into the woods. Its fur was described as being long and dark brown in color. Perhaps this creature was kin to the one that was seen in Oregon over a hundred years earlier.

  From Oregon’s Daily Review, circa 1900 comes this strange little piece of weirdness:

  “The Sixes mining district in Curry County has for the past 30 years gloried in the exclusive possession of a ‘Kangaroo Man.’ Recently while Wm. Page and Johnnie McCulloch, who are mining there, went out hunting, McCulloch saw the strange animal-man come down to a stream to drink. In calling Page’s attention to the strange being, it became frightened, and with cat-like agility, which has always been a leading characteristic, with a few bounds was out of sight.”

  At the time the creature was said to possess the characteristics of a very handsome man, something no kangaroo, I’m almost sure, has never been accused of. His body, it was said, was covered in hair and his arms were so long that his hands nearly reached the ground, which is also very un-kangaroo-like; and it left tracks which measured eighteen inches in length. Also completely unlike any kangaroo this author has ever heard of, the Curry County entity stood an incredible nine feet tall.

  Perhaps the only kangaroo-like quality this being possessed was his penchant for “bounding” away into the forest. It seems more likely that the creature residents there had the privilege of viewing for the past thirty years was a large, male Sasquatch although, I must admit, these creatures also have only rarely been described as “handsome,” and they do not usually bound, or hop away but are more commonly seen to run or walk or simply vanish into thin air.

  The Beast of LBL

  Paranormal investigator Jan Thompson claims to have had many brushes with various unknown phenomena. These experiences served to inspire her to begin a search for others who have witnessed the unexplained. One of her most frightening encounters concerns a Dogman which attacked one of her cousins one day during summer vacation at their home near The Land Between the Lakes in Livingston County, Kentucky. Here is what happened in her own words:

  “It was one of those typical sultry July late afternoons, back in 1978 in Grand Rivers KY, when this encounter with the inexplicable creature transpired. I had come down to stay at my aunt’s house for a few weeks of summer vacation and spend some time with my two cousins. Her home was surrounded by generously wooded and hilly acres and sat at the end of dead-end road. There were several trails throughout the woods that had led to more than a few places; a long ‘out of service’ railroad track that went on for miles, an old, abandoned sawmill, a large section of rough rock bluffs and a lonely stretch of shoreline on Barkley Lake. Most of the trails were made by my cousin Joe’s dirt bike and were well defined. As it was with almost every day that I was visiting, Joe, 13 at the time, was out riding on his bike through those woods. His younger sister Ronda, she was around 10 at that time, and myself were sitting outside on the porch swing waiting for their mother to come home from grocery shopping. I was 17 years old.

  “The stillness of the afternoon was interrupted by the distinct sound of his dirt bike in the distance screaming through its gears, echoing inside the trees. I knew he must have been on his way home because his dad had forbidden him, or anyone else in the family, to be out in the woods after dark. I could hear the sound of the bike’s motor as it approached us at full throttle. I was expecting him to slow down, but he didn’t.

  Still at top speed he reached the trail opening at the top of the driveway and burst towards us, actually going airborne for a few feet. The front tire crashed down on the pavement and he continued his descent, struggling to keep the bike upright. He hit the brakes hard to avoid going past the driveway and down an embankment, slid the bike sideways and jumped off in a daring maneuver.

  He had a look on his face, like something terrible had happened. His eyes were wide with fright and his body shook from the adrenaline. Sweat was rolling down his face and he drew deep, rapid breaths through his mouth which was drawn taut in a strange grimace. Tears were coming down his cheeks, mixing with the dusty trail dirt, and they remained, unblinking as he turned to stare at the top of the hill and the end of the driveway in fearful anticipation.

  The Bassett Hounds that their parents raised began barking wildly which turned to growls and then to whines. They were kept in a pen across from the driveway and all of them seemed to panic at once, digging and gnawing at the fencing, desperate to escape. All this happened in a manner of less than a minute, taking Ronda and myself by complete and utter surprise.

  “IT GRABBED ME!! LOOK AT MY LEG!!” Joe screamed, making us jump with alarm at the sound of dread in his voice. His Levi’s were scratched all the way through to the flesh, leaving bloody marks on the skin. The claw marks were larger then what a grown man could have made.

  “IT WALKED ON TWO LEGS!” he yelled, scaring us again, as he was trying to tell his story in between huge gulps of air. “It was following me…through the woods…along the path…from the old sawmill…hairy…it was so hairy…and it had a snout…and it walked on two legs…it ran on two legs…” his voice was sputtering, and I could see his pulse throbbing under the skin of his temples.

  In that moment, the howling began. It came from the woods, at the top of the driveway. We all stood deathly still, even the hounds had suddenly grown silent and still. It sounded, at first, like a mournful wolf’s howl, but more profoundly chilling and, as it came closer, more threatening. Joe began pushing us towards the front door, demanding us to go inside when ‘It’ came out of the woods above. With the sun just going down it turned the creature into a silhouette of hairy blackness. It stood maybe a foot taller than a good-sized man and was twice the breadth in the shoulders and chest, which was heaving quickly like someone who had just finished a long-distance race.

  When it raised its head, as well as its arms, up into the air to continue its guttural vocalizations, I could make out the shape of a snout; not as long as a canine but not a nose either. The security light overhead popped on and suddenly illuminated the creature, making it raise one of its arms to shade its eyes, which appeared a bit oversized for its face and solid black in color, from the glare.

  We tore the screen door trying to get into the house all at once and started barricading the main entrance. Then we heard another howl just outside, coming closer, and we all retreated into a back bedroom and barricaded that door as well. The basset hound they had inside as a pet had smelled around the front door, then tucked its tail and ran along with us.

  The other dogs outside were going absolutely crazy again as we also heard items being thrown around on the porch, continuing all around the side of the home as well. There was also the unmistakable sound of a window being shattered just before we heard my aunts horn blare from her car as she drove down the road. We didn’t budge to help with the groceries.

  Later that evening my aunt relayed our frenzied tale to my uncle. He was skeptical but, when he went out and witnessed the broken window and the huge mess outside the house, he decided to go out the next morning into the woods with a rifle on his shoulder. He returned a few hours later with such a look on his face that left no doubt he was now a believer. He warned us all very sternly to stay out of the woods. He had found several large pits that had been dug and filled with animal bones and parts of rotting carcasses along the path that led to the ol
d sawmill.

  He also saw where something had dug holes, which looked like deep caves, (big enough for a man to hide in.) in the sides of the bluffs along the hills that overlooked the mill. There was a rank smell in the area which was unlike the stench of rotting animals. It literally turned his stomach but he could not identify it.

  He related further that years before when the old boy scout camp used to be on the other side of Grand Rivers, that an unexplained two-legged creature with wolf like features was seen along the water’s edge close to the camp sites, and that he and his son had witnessed it themselves one evening on the Kentucky Lake side.

  When summer was over and school resumed, Joe would venture gradually back into those same woods on his dirt bike, with a pistol on his belt for protection. There were many times he felt it watching him and would actually turn and see it again, heavily jogging towards him with a warning howl. For safety’s sake Joe decided to make some new trails on the other side of the woods.

  At night though, after all was quiet and asleep, sometimes the dogs outside would start acting erratic, trying to get out of their pen again. And more than a few times, when Joe had fallen asleep in the living room floor watching TV, that familiar feeling of something intently watching him would cause him to awaken. He would look over at the patio doors that were open to let the cool air in, and see the creature leaning down and staring at him through the screen door.

  In the early 90’s, Joe and my dad, who had come down to visit, would both travel on foot into those same woods, and go all the way back to the old sawmill. They found old as well as freshly dug dirt pits with animal bones in them. The holes in the bluff were still there and they both experienced the feeling of being watched and felt uneasiness that ‘something just wasn’t right.’