The area where the sawmill stood seemed to have no life stirring around it; no birds, no squirrels, crickets, bugs, etc…even the small pond that lay separated from the lake shore stood still and lifeless. And all around it smelled like a combination of skunk and wet dog. When a large shadow moved from inside one of the holes in the bluff the men retreated, walking backwards for a while before turning to make haste back home.
Today those trails have either grown over or they are bulldozed away at some places. Construction crews came in where the sawmill was and demolished acres of the land to make room for condominiums and new homes. My aunt’s home still stands at the end of the road but even further neighborhood advancements are taking place all around them. I’m sure the creature we saw all those years ago has left for more quiet surroundings and hunting grounds, but it must not have moved far, as there are still local sightings of it a few times a year.”
When I contacted Miss Thompson she was able to offer even more details concerning the physical description of the terrifying beast that the three youths witnessed.
“...the beast I saw at my cousins house resembled more of a bigfoot, except for the pointed ears and longer snout and claws that it had...kind of a cross between the werewolf and bigfoot. The nose....it had wider nostrils at the tip, more human like coming down from the bridge of the nose and was hairy...and it was either the thing did not have a neck or that it blended in with the tall head... it had wide shoulders, a thick chest...no muscle definition that I could see, mostly hairy, but there was a slight curvature to the calf muscles...thick legs....big, round eyes...long teeth and wide mouth...big head....no muscles showing on chest but had a bombastically large top heavy chest.
The ears were laid down towards the back not standing up, like a dog’s does when they are agitated or angry. The nose didn’t appear to be a glossy black nose like a canine, but part of the facial skin. The teeth between the long canines were large and square, top and bottom. There was short hair around the muzzle and facial features and then it got longer and straggly...especially in the chin area also. The lips were more of a black smooth outline with no curvature on top like the muzzle of a dog where it meets the end of the nose.
Sketched by author under eyewitness direction.
Miss Thompson also claims to have witnessed this creature, or others similar to it, on more than one occasion in the general area and has extensive knowledge of local folklore and events concerning these wolf-like anomalies. One such event that she claims to be aware of personally is extremely disturbing and involves the gruesome killings of a vacationing family in the LBL area back in the early 1980’s. She writes:
“I believe it was around the beginning of May, just before the tourist season would start on Memorial Day, when the following event occurred. I must make note here that this story was never published in the paper, or on the news, nor did it have any media attention at all.
All the witnesses to the facts were contacted shortly after the incident and strictly instructed not to repeat anything they saw, share any information, or disclose where the actual location was. A few particular individuals said in later interviews that some high-ranking government officials threatened to take away their jobs and pensions if they ever disclosed any aspect of this particular case. So, for nearly two decades, most of the people that were involved kept silent.
Two local police officers, (I’ll name them Adam and Bill to protect their identities.) came in while I was on duty at the same service station. They usually came by during the night, got coffee and a snack, chatted a bit and then left. But on this particular night, I soon discovered, they had just come from a crime scene in LBL and had been there for over 8 hours.
It was around three in the morning and they both appeared particularly shaken, pale and acting curiously bewildered. Adam sat on the curb next to some gas pumps expelling his stomach contents, while his partner, Bill came in to get coffee for himself and water for Adam. Being a slow night, I went outside with Bill to see if I could offer some assistance. Fifteen minutes of hushed silence passed, except for the occasional dry heaving sounds from Adam. They both appeared in a disorientated stupor and it was Adam who spoke first.
“I can’t believe it…it’s not possible…I just can’t believe it…”
“The conversation that followed was in broken sentences at first but, ever so slowly, fragmented descriptions of their recent ordeal were revealed. Finally, it was Bill himself who divulged the whole frightening account:
They had gotten a call to help with an investigation at one of the many rural campgrounds down in LBL. Several types of law enforcement were already there; State troopers, sheriffs, deputies, etc., when they arrived around sundown. Also present were several coroners, each from different counties. A young married couple that was camping in the area had discovered the scene and reported it to the authorities from a payphone in Grand Rivers. They had only given directions to the crime scene and their names, the officer said. They had flat out refused to return to the LBL area.
A motor home was discovered with one of its doors hanging by one hinge, along with bloody hand prints along the metal outside walls. Ripped and bloody clothing and the remains of three bodies were also found on the property. The gouging wounds found in what remained of the bodies were made by thick long claws, and the deep teeth and bite marks were made from some long incisors along with a large snout, according to one of the first examining coroners.
The rake marks in the flesh were made up of four distinctive long strokes with an additional smaller digit stroke, like that from a thumb, and its span was much wider than that of a man’s hand print. The theories that a bear, wolf, mountain lion or coyote could have done the damage were dismissed as the injuries were clearly made by a much larger animal (Bears are not native to the area).
Along with all the evidence collected there was also found a clump of long gray and brown hairs in the hand of one of the victims. From the clothing that was examined inside the camper the authorities presumed that the victims had been a family consisting of a father, mother, a young boy and a small girl, yet there was one body missing; that of the little girl. It was Adam that inadvertently discovered her up high dangling from a tree, positioned on a limb. Parts of her body had been leisurely eaten. Some of the same long, gray and brown hair was found sticking in the bark of the tree near her body.
About a month after this incident, Adam and Bill stopped by during one of my midnight shifts. They seemed to have aged quite a bit, with streaks of gray in their hair and beards which had not been there before. Their faces showed signs of stress. They told me in confidence that they got word that the tests results from the hair samples and saliva taken from the bite marks, came back with an ‘unknown origin of species’ and that the closest animal that they could compare them to was that of a ‘Canis Lupis;’ a wolf.”
Is this a true story or just some fanciful local tale spun by a gifted storyteller? There are those that would argue both sides. When we visited the area in September of 2007 to film the LBL segment of ‘Hunt the Dogman’ (Grendel Films, 2007), John Johnson and I met with Jan and filmed her testimony and the area where the murders/sightings allegedly took place. The location is truly creepy and has an ongoing history of hairy monster sightings both of the Dogman and the more common Bigfoot variety.
Fortean author Jeffrey Scott Holland reprinted an interesting letter in his entertaining work, ‘Weird Kentucky,’ that he received from an inhumanoid witness named Chris Cooper. Cooper writes:
“I was working as a night shift security guard for a construction site in Bowling Green. One foggy night I was doing my patrols down the small country road that flanked the site, when I saw something moving in the mist. At first I thought it was some sort of large breed dog or one of the coyotes that had been around the last few nights, but as I drove closer, I started realizing that it was much bigger. Thinking it was a deer, I shined my spotlight at it, only to see it stand up on its hind legs, and jump nimbly ove
r a perimeter fence along with a second creature I hadn’t noticed.
They stood a good 7-8’ tall, and were covered in brown fur. They were very gaunt looking, which was surprising for their size. I’ll never forget those eyes reflecting in the light and how effortlessly they jumped a 4’ fence. The closest thing I’ve ever had to describe them as is “Anorexic werewolves” but they didn’t quite look like anything from the classic horror movies.”
Cooper claimed that reading Linda Godfrey’s ‘Beast of Bray Road’ section in Weird U.S. gave him goosebumps and a feeling of relief to know that he was not crazy.
Part Three:
Horny Devils
Goatmen
Many people are of the mistaken opinion that the Goatman phenomenon is entirely contained within the state of Maryland but, in truth, the idea originated in the ancient world with the Greek ‘Satyrs’ and the Greek god, Pans (who took the form of a satyre), and the Roman ‘Fauns’ and ‘Sylvans’ and people have been seeing them ever since, in varying sizes and colors, throughout the world. These entities were classically described as having a human torso, arms and head, and the legs of a goat. They were thickly covered with hair, had short horns, and hooked noses. They were very lascivious and fond of strong wine, dancing and playing the pan-pipes.
Country people payed tribute to them by offering them the first fruits of their harvests and lambs were also sacrificed in homage to them. Here we have yet another example of the continued activity of the pantheon of the ‘old gods,’ now stripped of all divinity and delegated to the realms of the demonic. While not all horned inhumanoids fit neatly into the Goatman category at all, this does seem to be a proper place to air them out, so to speak.
It is interesting to note here that the Greeks also recognized other horned entities besides Satyrs. The ‘Kallikantzaros,’ for example, were said to be demonic creatures with shape-shifting abilities, black skin, horns, sharp fangs and long talons. Their name means ‘beautiful centuars’ in English.
Of course these horned inhumanoid characters have their own places in the folklore of numerous other countries. The Germans, for example, called them the ‘Bokman,’ who were known for their habit of carrying off helpless children. In early Irish folklore these monstrous goat-headed inhumanoids were known as the ‘Gab Orchend.’
A similar figure, known as the ‘Hibla Bashi,’ appears in Iraqi legend and is considered to be a blood-sucking monster. Slavic folklore speaks of the ‘Ljeschi,’ a frightening goat-headed grotesquerie that roamed the forests and was able to change its size at will. The ‘Pehtra Baba’ of Slovenian lore are said to be horned and hairy female entities which emit deep growls. Some even claim that these monsters can fly.
In 83 B.C. it was recorded that some of the Roman General Sulla’s soldiers had captured a Satyr as the army marched against Greece through the city of Illyrian in Apollonia near today’s Dirach, Albania. They had surprised the diminutive creature while it was sleeping, according to the account, and eventually trapped it in one of the area’s steep canyons.
With some difficulty, they captured it and brought it before their general. It had a man’s upper body, with short horns on its head, hairy arms and the lower extremities of a cloven-hoofed goat. It was said that the creature whined and moaned pitifully but could not speak and uttered only inarticulate sounds. Moreover, it carried with it a terribly offensive smell and, in fact, its appearance was so loathsome to the eyes, ears and nostrils that Sulla had the creature immediately sent back to the wilderness.
More recently, another of its kind was encountered near Achladocambos, Greece in 1937, and again in a dark lane in Athens in 1950. The witness claimed that the strange beast was, true to its classical descriptions, hopping and dancing around with glee.
One night in the Polish town of Lublin in 1638, a night secretary of the town hall spotted several mysterious creatures which were, in her description, human-like, covered in thick, black hair, and had horns on their heads.
A male witness out walking his dog one evening in South Yorkshire, England during the winter of 1937 was shocked to see a figure in the darkened lane just ahead. It was around eight p.m. when the thing appeared which he later described as humanoid, standing five feet in height, covered in hair with goat-like hands and feet. The strange inhumanoid, on being seen, immediately turned, bolted up a slope and disappeared in the direction of some old railroad tracks. Imagine the relief!
Eleven years later in 1948, down in Somerset, a man named Cyril Barry was outside smoking a cigarette one evening when he noticed light coming from the window of the adjacent house. He casually strode over and looked inside the room; and got the shock of his life! There, sitting at a large table was a white, humanoid figure with a bearded goat’s head complete with ten-inch-long horns. Instantly regretting his indiscretion, Mr. Barry hurriedly left the area.
Shaken by what he’d seen and unable to resolve it, he reportedly returned to the house the following day and, once again, peered into the same window. He was surprised to see that the room was now empty, dusty and in disarray, as if it hadn’t been occupied for years. Did Barry see the Devil himself?
In Yorkshire, another diabolical humanoid entity was seen in 1983 emerging from a wardrobe inside a haunted house. It had the legs of a donkey, the witness said, a blue face and horns on its head.
One inhumanoid witness claimed that he had seen a similar creature in Benaguacil, Spain. He’d been searching through an old abandoned house in his area in April of 1986, he said, searching for old nails and wood when he heard a commotion coming from upstairs. Thinking that he had disturbed another intruder, the man stood quietly for a few seconds.
An eerie, uncomfortable silence now held sway over the dark structure and as the man turned to go, he was confronted by a creature wearing a long, white cape which failed to cover its gnarled, goat-like feet. Even more frightening was the creature’s red, glowing eyes which bore into the witness’ and filled him with terror. Quite understandably, the witness made for a quick retreat, leaving the demon alone to its haunt.
An extremely bizarre encounter took place in the Spring of 1992 in Northern Mexico. A male motorist claimed that he stopped his car when he noticed a woman dressed in red walking alone along the lonely road. He slowed down and drew up next to her and asked politely if she needed a lift. It was then, much to his horror, that he noticed that she had goat’s legs and feet. Panic-stricken, he slammed down the gas pedal to get the hell out of there. On looking in the rear-view mirror, however, there was nothing there. The woman had disappeared.
In Quezon City, the Philippines, a group of youths from the Camp Crame Elementary School claimed they were out burning wood in 1993 when a monster rushed from the darkness, forcing them to flee. They described it as a large, black, horned humanoid creature with a tail. According to author Neil Arnold, the encounter was somehow connected to a local demonic possession case. The implied connection between the two phenomena is intriguing.
A sixteen-year-old witness sighted a strange, horned inhumanoid in the village of St. Neot, Cornwall in the late 1990s. “Bill” was walking with his family at about nine p. m. one evening when he spotted a figure up ahead. Thinking it was his father, he spoke to it and it turned around and confronted him. He was horrified to see what he later described as a six-foot-tall inhumanoid with stag-like antlers growing from its head. He thought it was carrying something but he couldn’t be sure as he had immediately quickly turned and fled.
American Sightings
Although they may (or may not) have originated across the Atlantic, the horny devils also seem to find the shores of the Americas to their liking. As we know by now, oceans are no obstacles at all for the inhumanoids. The earliest report of an American appearance of the horned ones comes from Bracken County, Kentucky. There, in 1866, residents of one farm were reportedly terrorized for over a month by the appearance of a most frightening creature; a giant, hair-covered inhumanoid with glowing eyes and two short horns jutting from its
forehead. It was further described as being grayish-brown in color with a barrel chest and large, sharp-looking claws at the ends of its paw-like hands. It also had cloven hooves for feet, and a long, pointed tail. The entity hissed like a serpent at the frightened witnesses before vanishing in a column of flame.
Another Goatman-type beast was seen in Virginia in 1866, and dubbed, ‘The Horror of Independent Hill.’ The witness, one Silas Brown, came forward claiming that a terrible monster with large horns and long, sharp claws was feeding regularly on his livestock. He was terrified of the thing, he admitted, which was three times the size of a man. Brown claimed that it was grayish-blue in color but, when agitated, it turned completely white and gave off a sickening stench.
West Virginia is said to be the haunt of the “Ragman,” an eight foot-tall inhumanoid covered in “muslin-like” rags with dark, sunken eyes and two horns growing out of its cream-colored head. In 1903, a group of Kansas miners claimed that they were attacked by a terrifying beast while working the night shift in Iola, Kansas. They described the creature as huge and hairy, with blazing red eyes and horns. Terrified by the thing’s sudden appearance, the miners all fled their posts.
In 1964, a group of terrified campers were said to have been harassed throughout the course of an entire evening by the “Billiwack Beast;” a gray-colored, man-like giant with long claws and horns on its head, said to appear in the Aliso Canyon in Santa Paula, California. The beast was allegedly known to have attacked a group of hikers before it vanished into thin air right before their eyes.
The Inhumanoids Page 52
