Momo: Missouri's Legendary Monster

Frightening growls and snapping twigs were all it took to put a normal St. Charles County couple hot on the trail of the legendary Bigfoot.

Robert and Cynthia Stayte said they had never given Bigfoot much thought until their personal encounter with the unknown on July 27, 1997.

“It affected me more than it did my husband. I can’t let it go,” said Cynthia Stayte, 46.

It was a hot, late afternoon when the couple drove to a lonely alcove of the William R. Logan Conservation Area in Lincoln County, 10 miles north of Troy, on Highway 40-61.

The couple parked their car at the top of a hill and walked down toward a lake, said Robert Stayte, 49.

“We were told there was some good fishing in the lakes up there,” he said.

At the bottom of the hill, the couple stumbled upon an unusual footprint.

“It looked like a human footprint, but quite large. I’ll never forget the big toe. I told my husband it could be a Bigfoot, but I was just joking,” Cynthia Stayte said.

The couple dismissed the print and continued toward the lake. They were observing the surroundings when they heard heavy branches snap.

“If you spend a lot of time outdoors, you hear animals moving in the brush. It’s not that rare. I didn’t think much of it until we heard heavy breathing – heavier than a horse. It caught my attention,” Robert Stayte said.

“It was like a human, only 1,000 times magnified,” Cynthia Stayte said.

The breathing seemed to be coming from something right next to them.

Then the growling began.

“It was a snorting sort of growl, like gorillas in the zoo,” Robert Stayte said.

“They were snarling grunts, very deep and guttural,” his wife said. “I turned to my husband and asked him if he heard it.”

“I said, ‘Yes, and we’re out of here,’” he said.

The Staytes began running up the hill to their car. Robert Stayte took the lead, his wife said.

“I said, ‘Wait for me!’ I didn’t want whatever it was to come up and get me,” she said.

“I never had anything scare me like that before,” her husband said.

The Staytes do not match the image of a couple “on the fringe.”

Robert Stayte is a TWA avionics technician. Cynthia Stayte is a dental assistant. But after their frightening encounter, they became Bigfoot researchers.

“When we got home, I got on the Internet and found a Bigfoot database,” Cynthia Stayte said. “I clicked on Pike County, which is near Lincoln County. Sure enough, there were sightings listed.”

Further research uncovered a history of Bigfoot sightings in Louisiana and Cyrene County, she said.

Hoping to network and acquire more information, the Staytes attended a meeting of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).

Bruce Widaman, MUFON state director, said he was impressed with the Staytes’ story.

“Everything she told me sounded true and legitimate,” Widaman said. “I don’t think there was anyone at the meeting who didn’t believe her. She has credibility.”

Widaman said he has documented many Bigfoot sightings in Missouri, especially near the Cuivre River.

“I think there really is such a thing as Bigfoot,” he said. “Perhaps we’ve had one or two come through Missouri, traveling along the waterways.”

Bigfoot was dubbed “Momo,” short for “Missouri Monster,” after a rash of Missouri Bigfoot sightings during the early 1970s.

As for the Staytes, their search continues.

In September, the couple took a trip to Oregon and Washington, visiting the sites of several reported Bigfoot encounters.

They spoke to a young Oregon kite salesman who claimed he and his father found a dead Bigfoot lying in a mountain stream, Cynthia Stayte said.

“They heard a sound and turned around,” she said. “There was a live Bigfoot in the trees just a few feet away, watching over the dead one. They turned and ran out of there.”

While eating breakfast in Seaside, Ore., the couple mentioned to their waitress they had just visited Saddle Mountain.

Cynthia Stayte said the waitress gave her a funny look.

“She said locals don’t go to Saddle Mountain. I asked her why. She hesitated, looked around, then quietly said…Bigfoot.

“They were scared of Bigfoot. She and her husband had seen a Bigfoot standing by the side of a road at 2 a.m. about three years ago. She said it was big and it was real.” - ozarksentinel

A sketch of the creature reported by Doris and Terry Harrison on July 11, 1972, in Louisiana, Mo. Courtesy of MUFON

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Momo Returns in May 2001?

Almost 30 years after their moment in the national spotlight, the people of this small Mississippi River town are still split on what to believe. And now outsiders are stirring things up again. In 1972, many put stock in stories about the Missouri Monster, or "Momo," a large, hairy creature with a nasty stench that some believe roamed nearby Star Hill, about 80 miles north of St. Louis. And many didn't. They figured some of the believers were tippin' the bottle.

The buzz began when a 15-year-old girl reported seeing Momo outside her home. The sighting sent a slew of armed locals into the hills, looking for the beast. Some even planted bait, hoping to be the hero who captured Momo.

Reporters flocked in from around the country to give Louisiana, population 4,000, its 15 minutes of fame. After a few weeks, the buzz — not to mention the reported stench — died down. Old differences of opinion faded. People went back to their lives. But they're talking about it again, since an organization based in Tucson, Ariz., spent a week on Star Hill, just north of downtown Louisiana, looking for any traces of the almost-forgotten monster. Mostly, the effort brought laughter. When someone brings up Momo, a light enters people's eyes and a smile crosses their faces. The children of the '70s, who believed, are now grown up and raising their own children.

Momo seems like a fable to them. But for the International Society of Cryptozoology, the visit is serious. Its members examined the area April 14-20, collecting witness statements and checking whether that locale could provide enough food to sustain a Bigfoot-like creature.

Richard Greenwell, secretary of the organization and a zoologist, said this was just one of many trips the group makes each year. The society was formed in 1982 to document and evaluate evidence about animals that have been reported to exist but never verified.

Its Internet Web site boasts that cryptozoologists in the past 200 years have discovered many now-familiar animals, including the gorilla (in 1847), the giant panda (in 1869) and the giant gecko (in 1984). Greenwell said most of his trips have been to the Pacific Northwest. Greenwell said there does appear to be enough food to support such a creature. But he said it will take more than testimonials of the locals to convince him.

"We don't accept things on faith," he said. "We evaluate information. Sometimes it takes years to reach a conclusion. This is just one piece." On this particular trip, he was joined by Bill Riley, a Hannibal native who also claimed to have seen the creature in July 1972.

Riley said Momo chased him onto the porch of a farmhouse along Highway 79. He described the beast as around 8 feet tall, and putting off an odor he described as a mixture of sulfur and feces, only worse. He said he didn't tell anyone about the encounter for six years, fearing no one would believe him. He finally confided in his future wife.

When Riley made this trip to Louisiana, one of several in recent years, he said many other locals came forward with stories of their encounters, some as recently as 1996.

A lot of people don't want to admit publicly what they saw, out of fear of being the butt of humor, he said. It is true that mere mention of Momo can send Louisiana residents into gales of laughter. "I believed in it then," said Candy Barnett, who at 44 has changed her mind about the sightings in 1972. "I think I would actually have to see it to believe it."

Mary Shrum, 52, owns a farm outside of town and said she's never seen anything out of the ordinary — only raccoons, coyotes, deer and the like. No giant, hairy creature and no nauseating smell. "I just don't believe it," she said. Some do believe it though, people such as Beverly Siders, 54, of Elsberry, who grew up in Louisiana. Siders said she doesn't have a reason to doubt those who say Momo exists. "I believe there's something out there," Siders said. But exactly what might be out there remains to be documented. Maybe it was a bear or some other already discovered creature. Or a prank.

The cryptozoologists' visit was not completely without incident. Some of their gear disappeared during the week. Police Chief James Graham said that after his officers asked questions about it around town, the researchers heard a knock on their motel room door and found the missing equipment sitting outside. They saw no sign of anyone — or anything. - Everyday Magazine and St. Louis Post-Dispatch

An illustration depicting the Troy creature wading across the Cuivre River. Courtesy of MUFON

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Momo: Menace or Hoax?

Momo sightings have been reported throughout Missouri, even in St. Charles County. But the most famous sightings occurred in Louisiana, Mo., a town of fewer than 4,000 people. Located in Pike County, Louisiana lies 75 miles northwest of St. Charles County.

Bigfoot-like creatures have been reported in the Louisiana area since the 1940s, but it was not until the early 1970s that Momo attracted serious interest.

Bigfoot researcher Loren Coleman describes the now-legendary Momo scare in his book, "Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America."

According to Coleman, the Momo saga began in July, 1971. Joan Mills and Mary Ryan were driving along Highway 79, north of Louisiana, when they allegedly saw a hairy creature that made disturbing gurgling noises. The women described the thing as "half ape and half man."

The most notorious sighting took place one year later. On the afternoon of July 11, 1972, 8-year-old Terry Harrison and his 5-year-old brother, Wally, were playing in their backyard at the foot of Marzolf Hill on the outskirts of Louisiana. Their older sister, Doris, was inside the house. Doris heard her brothers scream. She looked out the bathroom window and saw a black, hairy manlike creature, standing by a tree.

The thing appeared to be six or seven feet tall. Its head sat directly atop its shoulders, with no visible neck. The face was likewise invisible, completely covered by a mass of hair.

The youths reported a chilling detail – the creature, streaked with blood, carried a dead dog under its arm.

A local farmer reported his dog had disappeared. A neighbor reported hearing terrible growling sounds that afternoon.

Edgar Harrison, the children's father, also heard loud growls the evening of July 14. He and several other people smelled a strong, unpleasant odor as they investigated the area around Marzolf Hill. Investigators later reported smelling a similar stench, like rotting flesh.

On July 21 Momo revealed itself to Ellis Minor outside his home on River Road. It was around 10 p.m. when Minor heard his dogs barking. He grabbed a flashlight and stepped outside, expecting to see an intruding dog.
Instead, he saw a 6-foot-tall monster standing in his yard. The black, hairy creature turned and ran.

According to a July 23, 1972 story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, police sealed off a 200-acre wooded area while a team of 25 hunters searched for the creature, which many believed to be a black bear. Police received reports of a creature crossing the highway with a dog or sheep in its mouth. Another witness told police that the creature lifted the back of his automobile.

Not all hunters used guns. Many used pencil and paper.

Bigfoot investigators swarmed Louisiana, interviewing witnesses and taking plaster casts of the creature's unusual three-toed footprints. One of the preeminent researchers was Hayden Hewes, director of the Oklahoma City-based Sasquatch Investigations of Mid America.

"What impressed me was the willingness of people to talk to us. Normally people are reluctant to talk about these things," said Hewes, 61. "This was not just one person spitting in a can, saying `yes sir, I saw it right over there.' These were good quality people who were enthusiastic about what was going on."

Hewes said he was impressed with the witnesses' sincerity.

"These people didn't want to sell something. They didn't want publicity. They just wanted to share their stories. I never got any inkling that there was a hoax."

The Momo scare lasted only two weeks, but it triggered a media frenzy. Television and newspaper journalists from across the nation descended on the small town.

"I did close to 75 television and newspaper interviews," Hewes said. "They flew me to Chicago to do some television there. There were people around us shooting documentaries. We haven't had a case that well-documented since."

Sasquatch Investigations of Mid America is an offshoot of the International UFO Bureau, an organization Hewes founded in 1957.

"We researched Bigfoot sightings in eight states, mainly to see if there was any connection with UFO sightings," he said. "With Momo, we found there was no correlation whatsoever with UFOs."

Hewes said his investigations suggest there are families of nocturnal Bigfoot creatures that continuously migrate across the nation from the Pacific Northwest to the southeast.

"The path begins around Oregon and Washington state," he said. "It crosses Oklahoma around the first week of September, then finishes in Florida."

When he is not conducting paranormal investigations, Hewes runs a talent agency and works in warehouse distribution in Oklahoma City. Hewes has a degree in aeronautical and space engineering from the University of Oklahoma.

While Hewes and other researchers concentrated on Louisiana, one team of investigators focused on sightings in the St. Charles County vicinity.

John Schuessler was living in O'Fallon during the Momo scare. Schuessler worked for McDonnell Douglas as a group engineer for life support systems on the Sky Lab space station, then later as director of flight operations for the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

In 1969, Schuessler helped establish the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), an international collective of UFO researchers. The 71-year-old Schuessler still directs the organization from its headquarters in Colorado.

The Momo scare coincided with a rash of UFO sightings, including reports near his home in O'Fallon. The possible UFO connection intrigued Schuessler, so he joined the Momo investigation. Schuessler found no connection between Momo and UFO activity, but he did investigate two incidents that corroborated the presence of Bigfoot creatures in the region.

On June 30, 1972, a month before the Harrison sighting in Louisiana, two young men from Troy were fishing on a secluded bank of the Cuivre River near Cuivre River State Park in Lincoln County. The fishermen, named Vaughn and Tim, stood atop a high bank overlooking an unusually low bank on the river's opposite side.

According to Schuessler, Vaughn noticed a splash and looked up.

"They said they saw something wading across the river – a big, hairy thing. They didn't know what it was," Schuessler said. "Vaughn said, `Hey Tim, look at that silly hippie wading across the river.' Then they realized it was not a hippie."

The men described the creature as standing taller than a normal man and hairy all over, Schuessler said. Like the Louisiana creature, the Troy monster's hair completely covered its face. Its head looked like a dome resting on its shoulders.

Tim scrambled up a hillside while Vaughn held his ground. The creature continued its deliberate march toward him. Vaughn finally panicked and ran. The men found a conservation officer and returned to the scene.

"All they found were fresh, three-toed footprints where the creature came out of the water," Schuessler said.

Schuessler inspected the area the next day and found the prints.

"They were large prints, but I couldn't tell what made them," he said. "We looked for hair, but found nothing but tracks."

Schuessler said Vaughn and Tim seemed honest and genuinely frightened. Schuessler also interviewed the conservation officer.

"He said he'd gotten a lot of weird reports out of the park, but he didn't pay attention to them. I think he wanted to stay at arm's length from it all," he said.

Another Momo sighting took place July 24 near O'Fallon, just after the final Louisiana sighting. Two teenage girls reported seeing a hairy creature at sunset walking along the edge of a wooded area. The O'Fallon incident is mentioned in "The Bigfoot Casebook" by Janet and Colin Bord, but Schuessler does not remember the details.

"It was not as vivid as the Troy sighting," he said.

Momo must have enjoyed his sojourn in St. Charles County, because the creature apparently passed through town again four years later.

The "Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization" Web site lists Momo sightings in 29 Missouri counties, including a 1976 report from St. Charles County. According to the report, two people were in a boat on the Missouri River near Highway 40-61 when they saw what appeared to be a 6-to-7-foot tall creature covered in dark brown hair. The creature was drinking from the river when it saw the boat, stood up and ran into the trees.

Another local story is posted on the "Bigfoot Encounters" Web site. Mark Richardson, of Modesto, Calif., claims to have seen the creature in 1979 when he was living in St. Peters.

According to Richardson, he and a friend were on a railroad bridge over Dardenne Creek one night. Richardson saw shadows moving and assumed it was his friend.

To his shock, he discovered it was an 8-to-9-foot-tall creature with long, matted brown hair covering its body and face. Its shoulders were five feet wide. Its three-fingered hands hung below its knees.

The creature smelled like rotting hair and screamed like a panther. Richardson claims it lifted the railroad timbers and tried to grab his friend.

The two escaped and ran home.

Richardson claims he knows other people who saw the St. Peters creature. He could not be reached for comment.

So is Momo real? Investigators like Schuessler say the sincere testimony of eyewitnesses cannot be dismissed.

"There is definitely something going on," Schuessler said. "I just don't know what it is." - St. Charles County Suburban Journal

Sources:
ozarkssentinel.com
St. Charles County Suburban Journal - 10/31/2004
Everyday Magazine - St. Louis Post-Dispatch - 5/2/2001
missourifolkloresociety.truman.edu
stateofhorror.com

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Centaurs in North America

When you think of a 'Centaur' the vision is usually of a mythological creature from Greek origin. It's head, arms, and chest are those of a human and the rest of its body, including four legs, hindquarters, and a tail is like that of a horse.

There is the legend of Ixion who was purified by Zeus of a first murder of kin, a horrifying deed. The shameless man repaid this honor by trying to seduce Hera. The goddess told her husband. When Zeus learned about this passion he made a disguised model of Hera, a cloud likeness, to see how obsessed he was with his wife.

Ixion was so deeply in love with Hera that he slept with the disguised model. Zeus punished Ixion by chaining him to a winged and fiery wheel, which revolved forever in Tartarus. The cloud gave birth to a creature named Centaurus. It was Centaurus that descended upon a herd of Magnesian mares and conceived the Centaurs.

There have been stories of similar creatures throughout the ages but in locations that you'd most likely not imagine.

I received the following email from M.B. who is Native American:

Hey Lon...this is a second hand account that I heard from my father's trusted friend. I'm sorry I can't provide any more details than what I was told from the witness.

When my father's friend was younger he was a Deputy for the Apache Reservation Police. I believe it happened in the early 1980s, but not sure. One night he was on patrol in his squad car alone on the reservation. He was driving along the deserted highway that passed through town. When he reached the church he saw something moving back and forth along the church, peering into the windows. He stopped the car on the highway, and observed for a while. It was too dark to make out much at first. Then, the dark shape took notice of him and began moving out of the shadows and into the front of the church.

I forget exactly whether he then moved the police car into the parking lot to intercept the man, or if he stopped the car shortly after making a move but either way the headlights helped illuminate what he saw.

Under the orange light of the street lights was a 8 foot tall Demon-Centaur!!! The bottom half was indeed a dark haired horse, while where the neck and head should have been was the upper torso of a man. The man was staring right at him as it strolled by, all 4 hooves clanking on the pavement. His skin was a dark red and it had horns on either side of his head. He said they were like ram horns, curled around on either side of his skull. He was terrified and while the thought of shooting the beast crossed his mind, he reasoned against it. He didn't want to provoke it and have it attack him. It completed crossing the road, and down a steep slope into a farmland field below. Once it reached this open ground, he watched as it started to run away as fast as possible until it disappeared into the darkness and trees beyond.

He was deeply troubled after the encounter and couldn't reason why a demonic creature would be looking into a building as holy as a church. The way he told the story, you couldn't help but believe it to be true and I'm sure that it actually happened.

I've had weird encounters myself, and lots and lots of 2nd hand stories from friends/family on the Navajo and Apache Reservations. I shouldn't talk about many of those though. Being Native American, talking about these weird things can have negative repercussions to those involved. M.B.

I contacted my friend JC Johnson who confirmed that there have been similar sightings in the Four Corners / Navajo Reservation area for some time. In fact he forwarded a sketch of one of these creatures by Leonard Dan.

Sketch by Leonard Dan

I recall a strange sighting in Michigan in 2006:

Location: Between Battle Creek & Bellevue, Michigan - January/February 2006 - night

A woman driving alone on a road between both towns had to slow down for a stop sign. Suddenly a creature of very large size jumped up over a snow bank and ran “10 yards a second”. It was coming towards the car. She further described the creature as “enormous and its body as white as the snow around it”. It had tiny little legs, like animal goat legs but very small. She had the impression that parts of it were like a man and other parts of it were an animal. According to her it either grabbed, or reached for the door handle but he car was locked. She said its fingers were incredibly long, “long, long fingers and nails”. It was so incredibly fast that she did not see a face or anything else. She mentioned that another car of people had also seen it too; they had stopped and looking at it at one point.

Source: unknowncreaturespot “2006 Michigan centaur sighting”

There was another incident in Melbourne, Florida:

"Three friends and I saw an apparition, possibly of a demon, when we were all around 10 years old. Myself, another boy and his two sisters were riding bikes together down a sidewalk that ran along the outskirts of our neighborhood The end of that sidewalk is at a beach-side highway in Melbourne, Florida.

Nearing the highway, with me leading the pack, the boy put his hand on my shoulder and made me stop riding. When I looked back at them, both girls were staring straight ahead with tears in their eyes, and the boy pointed for me to look. Not knowing what they could be pointing at because I had just been looking that direction when they stopped me, I looked and saw what I can only say was a centaur on the sidewalk in between us and the highway. The sun had just risen above the horizon and was at the creature's back, so the whole figure was cast in shadow, but I could make out that it had a very muscular, had a reddish torso, a horse's four legs and was over six feet tall. Next to it was a thicket of palmetto and palm trees from which a person could have jumped out in a clever costume, although the quickness of appearance and the incredible detail of the creature would make me doubt that.

Needless to say, my first move was to turn around and jet, and the others had already done so. Before we pedaled around the corner, I looked and it was still standing there, and I was very relieved that it was not chasing us. After we had reached a safe distance, we celebrated our escape.

Unfortunately, I lost touch with my friends when I moved away that year. When I came back at the age of 15, I lived right by the sidewalk again, and one night from my room, I heard frantic yelling by the road, and came out to discover that a kid had been struck by a car crossing from the beach over to the sidewalk where I had seen the centaur. The family was much too shaken up for me to talk with them, and the boy had been killed instantly, so I won't know if he saw something, but it is a very odd coincidence, if that.

I've just started trying to recontact my friends to see if they saw the same creature as I, or if we all saw our own version of what we thought the devil looked like, as we didn't discuss it in detail at the time." - paranormal.about.com

A few years ago, there were Centaur-like sightings in the Cree Nation of Alberta, Canada:

"There is definitely a growing phenomena up here in Alberta, Canada. Specifically, the location is better known as Hobbema, a place comprised of 4 distinct Cree Indian reservations. These sightings I speak of occur on the Samson Cree reserve, in and around the high school area.

When I first heard about it, I was skeptical and proceeded to tease my friends, thinking they were trying to pull to wool over my eyes. They were neither insulted nor deterred from sharing with me that in conjunction with their own personal experiences, there is an actual video tape of this "centaur" creating violent havoc inside the school in a hallway near a main exit. Other stories they shared have to do with sightings at night, where the centaur actually chases them or appears suddenly out of nowhere.

It is far to easy to pass this off as "something in the water," for the Hobbema Cree peoples of this area have experienced generations of trauma. The brief history of this location has everything to do with the discovery of rich deposits of oil in the middle of the 1900's. Once harvested, the residents of this area became incredibly rich. However, due to the lack of a holistic education, and decades of dysfunction throughout the community wrought by the Canadian government and the Churches, the locals were unable to fathom and properly adjust to their fortune to the fullest extent.

This resulted in various forms of chaos throughout the later part of the century, for the oil royalities were distributed to every reserve member, and their children as well when they turned 18. The mortality rate increased over time in this area, most due to suicide and murder. Today, we see an entire generation of youth, that have completely bought into the ghettoization of their communities and are largely atheist.

In regards to the phenomena of the centaur sightings, it is known throughout the remaining Spiritual community of this area that these "beings" are making themselves known because in the eyes of the youth, there is nothing to believe in anymore. Sightings as such are creating panic and fear, and the phenomena has therefore become demonized by word of mouth.

I am not a community member of this area. Nor have I seen or witnessed anything of the like. However, I have heard this from more than one person from that area and at this stage, I cannot write it off to just coincidence. When I heard of this website, and the kind of work being conducted in communities across the United States, I realized I had to submit something herein in the hopes of generating interest, and hopefully to come across someone else that believes in something of this sort." - pennstateprs.com

Then there was this follow-up to the post:

"I have heard of many stories like this in First Nation reserves in Saskatchewan. I actually have heard of one in Cotes FN, Kawcatoose FN, Kamsack area and in 2003 there was the sighting of a Centaur at Standing Buffalo's FN Pow Wow. I think that it appears to people to tell others that there's something wrong. That there is something wrong in the community. Maybe black magic? We all know as native people that there native people who do practice the bad ways. Sure, there are the good ways but on the other hand so is the dark ways. Personally, I think that when native people practice these dark ways that this centaur or thing will appear to help those ones that practice such bad practices. This thing helps them. I have heard so many stories of this centaur. the most famous one is the sighting at Standing Buffalo powwow. I do not know what the Elders did over there. One Elder had to have a special ceremony and singers were requested from far away to help in the ceremony. The singers who were traveling from far away could sense this evil thing and one singer actually turned around and didn't attend the ceremony because he was afraid. The spirits were afraid of the old man conducting the ceremony. But the spirits helped by taking that evil thing centaur and banishing it to the pits of the mountains. I know there are a lot of native people who have heard such stories and I am curious to know what did their Elders do in such circumstances?" - pennstateprs.com

The following video was sent to me last summer from a resident in York County, PA:

Click for video - Unknown Creature - Hoof, Hand, Paw or What?

There has not been an identification to date....the witness has not captured further evidence. Here is the original link Unknown Creature for more details.

NOTE: Are there Centaurs or similar creatures roaming North America? Could these be interterrestrial beings? I'd been interested in your comments and/or evidence that you may have. Thanks...Lon

British Monsters & Boogeymen

Along with my passion for the paranormal and all things strange is my interest in Great Britain's history and mythology. I'm going to piece together many of the vintage tales and occasionally post these collections. If you have a venerable narrative or anecdote that you'd like to share, please feel free to forward to me.

The Evil Black Hound

The old Newgate Prison harbors one of London’s most terrifying apparitions, that of an evil black hound. The legend dates back to the reign of Henry III, during a period of extreme famine, where prisoners were alleged to have gorged upon one another to survive! One of these victims was said to have been a sorcerer of the darkest arts, who claimed near death that he would seek revenge on the inmates. A fascinating account originates from the pen of a Luke Hutton, who was an inmate in the 1500s, and hanged in 1598. This oft-repeated version of the beast comes from 1638, entitled 'The Discovery of a London Monster' and reads as follows:

I maintained that I had read an old Chronicle that it was a walking spirit in the likeness of a blacke dog, gliding up and down the streets a little before the time of Execution, and in the night whilst Sessions continued, and his beginning thus.

In the raigne of King Henry the third there happened such a famine through England, but especially in London, that many starved for want of food, by which meanes the Prisioners in Newgate eat up one another altue, but commonly those that came newly in..there was a certain scholar brought tither, upon suspicion of Conjuring, and that he by Charmes and devilish Whitchcrafts, had done much hurt to the kings subjects, which Scholler, mauger his Devil Furies, Spirits and Goblins, was by the famished prisoners eaten up…

With vengeance promised by the prey: …nightly to see the Scholler in the shape of a black Dog walking up and downe the Prison, ready with ravening Jawes to teare out their bowles; for his late human flesh they had so hungerly eaten, and withal they hourely heard (as they thought) strange groanes and cries, as if it had been some creature in great paine and torments, whereupin such a nightly feare grew amongst them, that it turned into a Frenzie, and from a Frenzie to Desperation, in which desperation they killed the keeper, and so many of them escaped forth, but yet whither soever they came or went they imagined a Blacke Dog to follow, and by this means, as I doe thinke, the name of him began.

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The Highbury Hunchback

Mr Stock moved into his home in Highbury during 1849. Although the door number was 13, Mr Stock was not prone to superstition. And the overhanging trees and overgrown garden also did not deter Mr Stock. The rent was cheap, and that was the main thing.

Mr Stock employed a housekeeper, a Mrs Brown. Their first night at the property was a little strange, because as Mr Stock retired to bed, on passing a window he noticed not only his own reflection, but one of a very ugly, almost hideous looking man. Again though, Mr Stock had more important things on his tired mind. The following night whilst reading a magazine in bed Mr Stock dozed off but suddenly awoke. In the glow of the candle he noticed an old woman at the far end of the room. Eerily, the door began to open and the haggard figure slinked out the exit. Mr Stock’s yell alarmed Mrs Brown who comforted him but told him it was just a dream.

Two weeks went by without event, until that night he returned home from the theatre. With candle in hand Stock crept wearily upstairs. Staring once again, possibly by habit now, at the window, Stock noticed in the reflection that someone was following him up the stairs. Turning round he saw a terrifying apparition. A ghastly, wretched face almost obscured by a head of wild, shaggy hair. The figure had a hunched back, and its face was illuminated by some unnatural light. The sinister ghoul clutched a table knife in one dirty paw, and slowly ascended the stairs, step by step, towards the cowering Mr Stock.

Bizarrely, as the figure came closer, Stock realised that the monstrous spectre was completely oblivious to his presence, gliding by him on the stairwell and heading towards Stock’s bedroom. Stock, almost frozen with fear, found the strength and courage to follow the intruder. The beast reached the door, turned the door handle slowly and entered. Stock peered over the shoulder of the wraith at a distance, just in case the hunchback suddenly became aware of Stock, who clearly at this point was not on the same astral plateau.

Stock then saw the elderly woman he’d seen in the ‘dream’. She looked petrified as the hunchback leered with menace and approached her. Suddenly, the door slammed shut by the force of the wind. Stock reached for the handle, desperate to free himself from the horror about to unfold. However, when he quickly glanced back at the room, there was no terrified woman, and there was no evil hunchback. Stock ran downstairs and spent the remainder of the dark hours with gaslight in full flow.

Shortly after, Stock was brave enough to search the house but found no other presence or sign that anyone had been there. However, he did find that many years ago the house had been inhabited by a woman and her rather deformed son. Rumour had it that the woman left home and allegedly died abroad and the hunchback stayed in the house, never venturing in to daylight. Local word said that the reclusive figure then mysteriously vanished.

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Dragons Over London

Dragon-like ‘sky serpents’, which have also been connected to sightings of weird-shaped craft throughout history, have been occasionally seen over London. The Brentford Griffin, if genuine, was the last of the ‘dragon’ sightings, but a similar beast was spotted during the 1700s, and was mentioned in "The Gentleman’s Magazine":

“In the beginning of the month of August, 1776, a phenomenon was seen in a parish a few miles west of London, which much excited the curiosity of the few persons that were so fortunate to behold it. The strange object was of the serpent kind; its size that of the largest common snake and as well as could be discovered from so transient a view of it, resembled by its grey, mottled skin. The head of this extraordinary animal appeared about the same size as a small woman’s hand. It had a pair of short wings very forward on the body, near its head; and the length of the whole body was about two feet. Its flight was very gentle; it seemed too heavy to fly either fast or high, and its manner of flying was not in a horizontal attitude, but with its head considerably higher than the tail, so that it seemed continually labouring to ascend without ever being able to raise itself much higher than seven or eight feet from the ground.”

Even more amazing was the fact that the magazine recorded, in 1797, another flying serpent account, this time between Hyde Park Corner and Hammersmith, on 15th June late one evening. The witness, merely known as ‘J.R.’, wrote a letter describing the weird encounter, stating “…the body was of a dark colour, and about the thickness of the lower part of a man’s arm, about two-feet long.”

The witness continued, “…the wings were very short and placed near the head. The head was raised above the body. It was not seven or eight-feet above the ground.”

Whilst the creature seemed very life-like, and indeed almost like a flying snake, the letter ended in morose fashion, concluding, “…being an animal of such uncommon description, I was particular in noticing the day of the month, and likewise being the day preceding a most dreadful storm of thunder and lightning.”


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Spring Heeled Jack

One of the most curious and persistent of all paranormal creatures is Spring Heeled Jack. Reports of his existence date back to the early 19th century in Sheffield, England, and he has been reported on and off in England and the US as recently as 1995. And while a decent case can be made that the legend of Spring Heeled Jack is nothing more than a series of cruel hoaxes, it would represent a conspiracy of impressive scope and durability.

In 1808, a letter to the editor of the Sheffield Times recounted how "Years ago a famous Ghost walked and played many pranks in this historic neighbourhood." The writer went on to identify this entity as the "Park Ghost or Spring Heeled Jack," and briefly described its ability to take enormous leaps and frighten random passers-by, but concluded, "he was a human ghost as he ceased to appear when a certain number of men went with guns and sticks to test his skin."

The following is the chronicle of chaos:

September 1837 – Barnes Common. Over the course of two nights a businessman, and then three girls, were confronted by a fiery-eyed, darkly clad figure. The apparition tore at their clothes and laughed.

Early October 1837 – Cut-Throat Lane, Clapham Common. Mary Stevens, heading towards what was then Lavender Hill, was groped and kissed by a laughing maniac. The following night, a carriage on Streatham High Road was attacked by a creature. Both coachmen and the footman were injured in the crash. A woman walking near Clapham churchyard with her two sons observed a tall, thin and darkly clad gentleman who mocked them.

October 11th 1837 – Blackheath. Polly Adams was assaulted by a mysterious, bounding attacker, described as being cloaked, having glowing eyes and a mouth that spat blue flame. With iron like claws the assailant tore at her clothes, exposing her breasts, and then fled in a rapture of mocking laughter.

Late autumn 1837. Rumours of a stalking spectre at Hampton, Richmond, and Kingston.

Winter 1837. Two young girls were cornered in Dulwich; the clothes were ripped from one. In Forest Gate a couple were confronted; the man had his face slashed whilst a gypsy lady hampered the exploits of the criminal, calling for nearby help before the attacker could strike. He disappeared into the mist.

January 9th 1838. The Lord Mayor at Mansion House addressed the audience with mention of a disguised prankster, appearing also as a ‘ghost’, ‘bear’ and ‘devil’, claiming that the “unmanly villain has succeeded in depriving seven ladies of their senses”. In the same month, rumour spread that the ‘Peckham Ghost’ had attacked and killed in areas of Vauxhall, Brixton and Stockwell. In St John’s Wood the ‘monster’ attacked for two weeks and police believed the criminal would murder six women.

Late January 1838. The name Spring Heeled Jack was born, originating from his ways of leaping, described as ‘springald’ – a jumping jack.

February 1838. Sisters Lucy and Margaret Scales visited their brother Tom at Narrow Street, Limehouse. The girls left Tom at 8:35 pm, and as they walked along a dimly lit passageway, Lucy saw a fleeting figure, which then pounced. She was enveloped in his cloak, the glow of a lantern showing his mouth of blue flame. The figure vanished into the night. Two days later at the home of a Mr Alsop, a knock at the door during a late hour disturbed his three daughters, Mary, 16, Jane, 18, and the married Sarah. Jane went to the door and in the gloom of the shadows saw a tall, dark figure wearing a top hat. “I am a policeman,” the figure muttered, “for God’s sake bring me a light we have caught Spring Heeled Jack here in the lane!” he exclaimed. Jane hurried indoors to grab a candle but upon turning around was met by the figure the whole of London had become so fearful of. Again, his eyes were aglow, as was his flaming mouth. He wore a large helmet and tight fitting garb, and with razor claws slashed at Jane’s garments. It was sister Sarah who took on Jack, freeing her sister from his fateful grasp and then screaming for the police, sending the attacker of into the shadows. According to Mr Alsop, the fiend left his cloak behind.

February 27th 1838. A servant boy at Turner Street, off Commercial Road, answered the door to a figure with glinting claws and fiery eyes. The boy screamed and the form fled. The next day whilst under questioning, the boy claimed that upon the chest of the intruder he saw a breastplate showing off some ornate crest and also the letter ‘W’.

1839. Reports of bounding, fiery-eyed attackers come from as far afield as the Midlands.

Early 1840s. A cloaked, spring-heeled figure was rumoured to have terrorised the Home Counties.

August 26th 1843. A cloven-hoofed ‘Jack’ assaulted a man at Commercial Road. However, the victim fought back against the cloaked figure, even setting him on fire, although such a figure seems like a hoax.

November 1845 – Bermondsey. A springing, leaping figure was seen by several witnesses, bounding through Jacob’s Island. The figure then grabbed thirteen-year old prostitute Mary Davis on the bridge crossing Folly Ditch, spat flame in her face and then threw her into the murky depths where she perished. Her body was recovered and she became the first recorded victim of SHJ.

1870s. Reports from 1845 onwards seem a little vague. During the 1870s the ‘Peckham Ghost’ attacked a wagon at Lordship Lane, and was also seen at Dulwich College, but many of these figures seem to appear as pale imitations of the original, sinister terror.

1900s. SHJ haunted parts of Aldershot.

Spring Heeled Jack’s exploits, since their birth, have embedded themselves in world folklore with similar apparitions being sighted across the United States, South America, France and elsewhere in the UK. Many researchers believe that the Marquis of Waterford was the man behind the original London crimes, an eccentric Irish nobleman about whom author Peter Haining claimed, “the exploits of Spring Heeled Jack were wholly within his capabilities”, in his detailed book on the legend (The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack). Waterford died in 1859, although similar attacks occurred in Norfolk in 1877.

Some theorise that SHJ was an extraterrestrial, but whatever your beliefs on alien humanoids, this theory just doesn’t hold weight. Jack was also blamed for the mysterious set of footprints covering snowy Devon in 1855, which could not be attributed to any known animal or means of human capability.

Whether ghost, devil, serial killer or prankster, the crimes and events that many claimed were the work of the infamous shadow will always remain foggy, because, just like Jack The Ripper only a few decades later, Sweeney Todd, the London Monster previous, and many other puzzling mysteries, they are simply best left unsolved, even as they persist to the present day.

Sources:
londonist.com
www.thecobrasnose.com
"The Blacke Dogge of Newgate" - Luke Hutton - 1638
"Spring Heeled Jack: The Terror of London" - Anonymous
www.casebook.org
www.springheeled-jack.com
www.blackcatpress.co.uk

Bloodless Carnage: Livestock Attacks Continue in the Four Corners

WARNING - GRAPHIC MATERIAL!

JC Johnson of Crypto Four Corners has posted a new video that references a recent raid and killing of 7 sheep, including a large ram, on a farm in the Navajo lands in New Mexico. The culprit is unknown though evidence suggests a bi-pedal or upright creature. The most astonishing aspect of this particular raid is that there was very little blood found at the scene. Many of the sheep had puncture wounds but scant blood traces were left after the carnage. It didn't seem like there was any feeding on the carcasses...though the 300-400 lb. ram was dragged a fair distance.

There have been earlier reports of hominid attacks on livestock - Bigfoot Raids Farm as well as other raids / maulings by unknown entities - Sheep Mutilation Mystery - Dine' Navajo Reservation, Near Hogback, NM.

Mai-cob

There have been reports of canine-like hominids in the area...not unlike those described as shape shifters. In fact, there has been trace evidence collected at earlier events which is currently being tested for DNA.

Could this be an attack of a lycanthrope or possibly a skinwalker / Mai-cob? The activity suggests that, whatever it is roaming and hunting in the area, it will continue to do so...at least in the near future. Stay tuned for updates...


Click for video - Bloodless Carnage at Sheep Pen

This is the location where the sheep with the neck puncture wound was found...no blood splatter or pooling

Above - Example of the many fresh scratches found around the pen

Above - A series of fresh tracks were also found including a few hoof-like prints

Some examples of the carnage inflicted

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Coincidentally, I received a correspondence on Friday from an individual with the moniker 'Coy Criptid'. He is a resident of the Dine Navajo reservation and this is a reply to an inquiry I made in a previous post. I have not changed anything in the email....completely original:

Well, where to start......? We are not skin walkers, we are "eaters of all" (closest translation I can do to our real name, sorry) We are old, so old that some of us remember this world when it had many moons and the land flowed like water. We are not evil, nor good. We just are. In the way of modern thinking, we are like animals; not fallen from grace, and speak and hear God directly. I don't know if we have souls, because we don't die, just .... this is really hard to explain ..... we don't go dormant, just change the way we live. Right now I am Human. I look, feel, think, and act just like one of you. I will apparently die just like one of you, only to spread out from where my " mortal remains " fall or are eaten, adsorbed... or interred, mingling with the strings of life (another hard one to put into words) that come into contact with me. Until I decide to become one of them (I have sort of decided on one of the squids, we'll see how that works out). In the time between dedicated forms, we walk in our true forms, remembering all the things that we have been. Its hard to describe being many things at once, but we do go back to places we've been because the "memories of love"(?) draw us back. We watch over you as we are directed to do, letting you live your lives according to Law both good and bad as is the will of the Creator. You are right to fear us in our true forms because we do not think as humans do, but a collage of thoughts from many forms at once.

The Creator bid us to stay our feeding on you many many eons ago, but left us with the right to protect ourselves if threatened in any of our forms (careful with that fly swatter or bar of soap). We have the ability to grasp your, or any other creatures mind if we choose, and hold them while we eat. In this form it is a very unpleasant thought and leaves me nauseous just thinking about it. All of us by now (except the ones that left this world early on for "walk about" or from the great shame) have spent many lifetimes in human form and almost all of them love people deeply. Every creature on this world fears us because you are all from survivors that have sensed us in true form. We have to calm you to walk among you even in dedicated forms.

We have traits that can be used to identify us in any of our forms. The closest thing that I can call them is "tells" mine is that I don't eat feet (yuck how nasty, .....this includes fins, hooves, tips of tentacles, pads, wing feathers or anything used as contact points for locomotion blahhhhuch). One of my co cross mates (don't ask, we have 17 separate sexes, talk about a bitch on Friday nights) will not eat anything "purple" as she sees it. Another friend of mine dislikes certain forms of nerve tissue, says it makes him itch. Short of these little peccadilloes we can consume almost anything and derive energy for life from it, from sunshine to radionuclide and every thing in between, yummy (I know, I know, "feet" have all that and more too but eeuuuuwwww!!) ! I personally have always wanted to taste anti-matter but have never gotten around to going above the cloud tops to taste any. Well, I am rambling on a bit too much, and I have to go to sleep because I have to go to work in the morning, I thought you should know some more about what we are.

With best regards,
Coy Criptid

NOTE: well...what do you make of that? Is it simply legend or are these beings really among us? Lon

Squonk!

Hey, it's the weekend. Time for a bit of fun...Squonk!

Few people outside of Pennsylvania have ever heard of the quaint beast, which is said to be fairly common in the hemlock forests of that State. (Honestly, I was born and raised in Pennsylvania and I had never heard of this creature.) The range of the squonk is very limited. It has a very retiring disposition, generally traveling about at twilight and dusk. Because of its misfitting skin, which is covered with warts and moles, it is always unhappy; in fact it is said, by people who are best able to judge, to be the most morbid of beast. Hunters who are good at tracking are able to follow a squonk by its tear-stained trail, for the animal weeps constantly. When cornered and escape seems impossible, or when surprised and frightened, it may even dissolve itself in tears. Squonk hunters are most successful on frosty moonlight nights, when tears are shed slowly and the animal dislikes moving about; it may then be heard weeping under the boughs of dark hemlock trees. - "Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods" - William T. Cox - 1910

Mr. J. P. Wentling, formerly of Pennsylvania, but now at St. Anthony Park, Minnesota, had a disappointing experience with a squonk near Mont Alto. Wentling who one fine day at the turn of the century hid near its home after observing it and laying a trap for it, he snatched it up into his bag. As he was returning to the local village to show his friends what he had found in the woods, he noticed the leather bag he was carrying dripping from several cracks in the bottom making it noticeably lighter and of a strange shape. As he set it down on the ground, the legend suggests he suspected some trickery, but as he untied the top a strange liquid very much like water (or tears) spilled onto the soil at his feet. Cursing his bad luck, Wentling returned back to the village with nothing but the tale of his adventure and a soaked bag. - Unexplainable.net

The "scientific name" of the squonk, Lacrimacorpus dissolvens, comes from Latin words meaning "tear", "body", and "dissolve".

The Squonk is probably the world's ugliest animal. So ugly, in fact, that it spends most of its life crying over its cruel fate. Eventually many squonks just dissolve into a puddle of tears. You can read more about this sorry fellow and others like him in Richard Svennson's book "Fearsome Critters."

The Squonk (according to the BBC)

The Squonk (Lacrimacorpus dissolvens) is a legendary creature from the Hemlock forests of north-central and north-western Pennsylvania. The earliest stories about the squonk are lost to history, but the legend probably dates back at least to the late 19th Century, when Pennsylvania's importance in the lumber industry was at its peak, relying heavily on hemlock trees.

Legends

Squonks are very shy, very ugly animals. Their skin is ill-fitting, and covered with warts and moles. Because they know they are so ugly, they weep almost constantly, and try to avoid being seen.

The one well-known story about squonks has to do with how they are hunted. Apparently, squonk skin is valued by some, but they are very difficult to catch, because of their extremely retiring nature. They can be most easily tracked on nights with a full moon, when their tears form glistening trails on the ground.

Sometime around the year 1900, a man named JP Wentling2 was able to successfully catch a squonk. Mr Wentling followed a trail of tears, and when he heard a nearby squonk weeping under a hemlock tree, he lured it by imitating the creature, presumably by weeping. He caught the squonk in a bag, and carried it home, while it sobbed pitifully in his sack. As he carried his prize home, he suddenly noticed that the bag was lighter, and on opening it, found that there was nothing inside but tears and bubbles.

Squonks will apparently dissolve completely into tears anytime they are cornered or threatened; this is the source of their scientific name, Lacrimacorpus dissolvens, from the Latin words for 'tear', 'body', and 'dissolve'.

Squonks in Literature and Music

William T Cox published a book in 1910, called Fearsome Creatures of the Lumber woods, With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts. In this book, he described the squonk, telling the story related above. The book was an encyclopaedic collection of legendary animals from United States folklore. Sadly, Fearsome Creatures is out of print, and rather difficult to find.

Jorge Luis Borges, the Nobel Prize-winning Argentinean writer, used Mr Cox's book as a source when compiling his Book of Imaginary Beings in 19693. This book has descriptions of 120 fantastic and legendary creatures from many different cultures, mostly European and New World.

Borges opened the preface of his 1969 edition with a sentence that may resonate with some h2g2 Researchers: 'As we all know, there is a kind of lazy pleasure in useless and out-of-the-way erudition.' His book has been illustrated and hypertextualized by students in Greece, and may be found here.

In 1974, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker of Steely Dan released their third LP, Pretzel Logic. This album featured the song 'Any Major Dude Will Tell You', a bittersweet acoustic ballad, offering consolation to someone whose world seems to be falling apart. Fagen puzzled his studio musicians with the line:

Have you ever seen a squonk's tears? Well, look at mine.
People on the street have all seen better times.

Exactly why Messrs Fagen and Becker chose this image to use in this song is as mysterious as most Steely Dan lyrics, and as they typically refuse to answer questions about their songs, fans continue to speculate. It seems likely that 'The Dan' learned about squonks from Borges' book.
Genesis

In 1976, the band Genesis released their first LP after Peter Gabriel left the group - the first to feature Phil Collins as frontman. This album, A Trick of the Tail contains the song 'Squonk'. This song is basically a retelling of the story of Mr Wentling, squonk hunter. That Collins is using the story as some kind of allegory seems clear, especially from the final verse:

All in all you are a very dying race
Placing trust upon a cruel world.
You never had the things you thought you should have had
And you'll not get them now,
And all the while in perfect time
Your tears are falling on the ground.

What Mr Collins is actually getting at is left to the reader to speculate. It is not known whether Genesis were inspired to find the story of the squonk by hearing 'Any Major Dude', or whether they discovered it independently, but the story in the song is clearly taken from Mr Cox's work, probably via Borges' book.

Squonks Today

At the time of writing of this entry (October, 2002), people continue to read Borges, and to listen to music from the 1970s. Squonks are being discovered by more and more people. The name turns up, here and there, as a username or domain name on the Internet somewhere, in the name of Squonk Opera, a performing arts troupe in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, and in other unexpected and unrelated contexts. Perhaps we are standing at the threshold of a veritable squonk renaissance!

One shadow looms over this prospect, however. The squonk's habitat, in the hemlock forests of Pennsylvania, is severely reduced. Most of the hemlock trees were logged by 1915, and the species has become just an occasional sight in the area's hardwood forests. It is not known whether squonks rely on hemlock trees, but as their range decreases, it can only mean hard times for any surviving squonk populations. The only hope for the squonk's survival may now lie in the imaginations of dreamers, poets, and those who treasure the legends of the past. - www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2


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'Phantoms and Monsters'
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Legend of the Moon-Eyed People

The Moon-Eyed People are a race of small men who, according to Cherokee legend, live underground and only emerge at night. Unlike the Cherokee, the Moon-Eyed People are bearded and have pale, white skin. The Cherokee knew the Moon-Eyed people primarily from the many remains they left behind...the mounds and low stone walls that can be found throughout the southern Appalachians. The most famous is just over the North Carolina border in Georgia at Fort Mountain. Now a state park, Fort Mountain gets its name form the 850 foot long stone wall that varies in height from two to six feet and stretches along the top of the ridge.

THE MYSTERY OF THE FORT MOUNTAIN WALL


The remains of the 855-foot stone wall that gives Fort Mountain its name wind like a snake around the northeast Georgia park, and its very presence begs a question: Who put them there?

A Cherokee legend attributes the wall to a mysterious band of "moon-eyed people" led by a Welsh prince named Madoc who appeared in the area more than 300 years before Columbus sailed to America.

A plaque at the wall says matter-of-factly it was built by Madoc and his Welsh followers, but most professional archeologists give no credence to the legend.

"There has been no archaeological evidence to back up stories that either this Welsh prince or any others came to explore the New World," said Jared Wood, the manager of the archaeology lab at the University of Georgia.

As the legend goes, the group arrived at Mobile Bay around 1170, made their way up the Alabama and Coosa rivers and built stone fortifications at several spots near present-day Chattanooga, Tenn.

Dana Olson, an author who has spent decades trying to prove the legend, said circumstantial evidence on both sides of the Atlantic is too compelling to ignore.

"I've traveled all over the country finding these forts. Some of them are pretty well known, but I'm still uncovering some of them," said Olson, the author of "The Legend of Prince Madoc and the White Indians."(*Note below)

The stone structures have long been a topic of debate. Many scientists have come to believe that the walls at Fort Mountain and other Southeast sites were built by native Americans between 200 B.C. and A.D. 600.

"We're not exactly sure what purposes these enclosures served," said Wood, the UGA archaeologist. "But they were likely well-known gathering places for social events. Seasonal meetings of friends and kin, trading of goods, astronomical observance, and religious or ceremonial activities may have occurred there."

Yet supporters of the Madoc legend say the wall's tear-shaped designs are similar to ruins found in Wales or elsewhere in Great Britain.

And they point to an 1810 letter from John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee, who said that in 1782 he was told by an Indian chief that the walls were built by white people called the Welsh who lived in the region before the Cherokee.

They were driven out with the promise that they would never return to Cherokee lands, Sevier said in the letter, and they supposedly traveled to the Ohio valley or downstream to the Mississippi.

There is also evidence of a major battle between 1450 and 1660 at the Falls of the Ohio, which Olson said was the scene of the "big battle began between the red Indians and the white Indians" - the Welsh.

Supporters of the legend say Madoc made two trips to North America, with the first visit coming in 1169. While scientists say the story was widely accepted in the 17th and 18th century, it has fallen out of favor over time.

"For one thing, there is not a historian that goes along with the theory of pre-Columbian contacts in the United States," said Sundea Murphy, who works with Corn Island Archaeology in Louisville, Ky.

"A scientist needs proof. A historian needs proof," she said.

Yet she sees no reason to discount the story of Madoc or any other pre-Columbian culture - from the Vikings to the Polynesians - exploring the continent.

"There were too many other civilizations that had the capability to make cross-ocean voyages," Murphy said.

THE WELSH INDIANS

Madoc, a Welsh prince who, according to legend, sailed to America in 1170 with a group of settlers . The legend claimed the settlers were absorbed by groups of Native Americans .Their descendants migrated to the American Midwest, where there were reports from the first explorers in the area finding Indian tribes that spoke Welsh . The stories Welsh Indians became popular enough that even Lewis and Clark were ordered to look out for them . In 1833, artist George Catlin visited the Mandan Indians, whom he believed were the "Welsh Indians." The Mandan were almost wiped out by European disease, the last full-blood Mandan died in 1971.

I found the following reference in John Keel's 'The Mothman Prophecies' quite interesting:

The Indians must have known something about West Virginia. They avoided it. Before the Europeans arrived with their glass beads, firewater, and gunpowder, the Indian nations had spread out and divided up the North American continent. Modern anthropologists have worked out maps of the Indian occupancy of pre-Columbian America according to the languages spoken. The Shawnee and Cherokee occupied the lands to the south and southwest. The Monocan settled to the east, and the Erie and Conestoga claimed the areas north of West Virginia. Even the inhospitable deserts of the Far West were divided and occupied. There is only one spot on the map labeled "Uninhabited:" West Virginia.

Why? The West Virginia area is fertile, heavily wooded, rich in game. Why did the Indians avoid it? Was it filled with hairy monsters and frightful apparitions way back when?

Across the river in Ohio, industrious Indians--or someone--built the great mounds and left us a great heritage of Indian culture and lore. The absence of an Indian tradition in West Virginia is troublesome for the researcher. It creates an uncomfortable vacuum. There are strange ancient ruins in the state, circular stone monuments which prove that someone settled the region once. Since the Indians didn't build such monuments, and since we don't even have any lore to fall back on, we have only mystery.

Chief Cornstalk and his Shawnees fought a battle there in the 1760's and Cornstalk is supposed to have put a curse on the area before he fell. But what happened there before? Did someone else live there?

The Cherokees have a tradition, according to Benjamin Smith Barton's 'New Views of the Origins of the Tribes and Nations of America' (1798), that when they migrated to Tennessee they found the region inhabited by a weird race of white people who lived in houses and were apparently quite civilized. They had one problem: their eyes were very large and sensitive to light. They could only see at night. The fierce Indians ran these "mooneyed people" out. Did they move to West Virginia to escape their tormentors?

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WHO WERE THE MOON-EYED PEOPLE?

OK...so who were the Moon-Eyed People? Over the years there have been several theories on this subject, but no one knows if they even existed and simply a Cherokee legend. The folklore of the region is quite interesting, but it will likely remain a mystery. The interesting part is that they were reported by the Cherokee even before the Spaniards came to the new world.

There has long been a legend of an ancient race or tribe of 'Whites' that existed and thrived long before the American Indians arrived in North America. "The Book Of Mormon" describes a similar story, identifying the race as the Nephites

There are tales among the Piaute about "Red haired giants" with fair skin in the West. The legend says that the Piaute were at war with these giants for generations and that the red haired giants began to decline to a point where they became "dog eaters" (an insult). The final battle came when the Piaute trapped the giants in a cave on the edge of the mountains. They set a huge fire that eventually killed what remained of the giants. Most of this legend was considered "fanciful" in order to give greater status to the tribe....until a cave was discovered on the edge of the Sierra Nevada in the 1920's. It's called Lovelock Cave and a museum is now located there.

Kennewick Man was thought to have been a part of this group of giants as well, though it was most likely of Asiatic ancestry despite being Caucasiod-like. The Tocharian culture thrived in what is now Northwest China. Despite it's total destruction, you can still see blonde hair and lighter colored eyes among the current population.

In recent years, another tale of the nature of the Moon-Eyed People has also been put forth...that they are some part of the vast, pan-dimensional conspiracy of subterranean lizard people or Reptilians that secretly inhabit our world, most notably underground. This theory has been promoted, for the most part, by David Icke. Could it be true? At this point, do we really know what is fact or conjecture?

Skinwalker Chronicles III

This past December, I posted Skinwalker Chronicles that referenced stories of the infamous malevolent witch capable of transforming itself into a wolf, coyote, bear, bird, or any other animal. Since that time, I have received several anecdotes and inquiries about Skinwalkers. A few weeks ago, I compiled a few anecdotes and posted Skinwalker Chronicles II. The following are several more responses that were forwarded and referred to me:

"...my grandpa was asked by "the old woman" to go with her to Snake Butte. She had a gunny sack full of dog pups with her. They're walking along a while until they get to the butte. There's a rock there that when you go around it you come to the butte. She tells him to wait there for her no matter how long she takes and not to go look at what she's doing. He sits for over an hour and starts to get bored so he goes around the corner. As he does he sees 2 huge snakes eating those poor pups with the woman standing there laughing with an evil tone when suddenly she herself turns into a snake and starts eating the pups! He was so freaked out he hauled ass out of there and headed straight to his house 5 miles away. Later on he sees "the old woman' and she gets mad at him for watching her and not waiting for her at the rock. Since that time, everyone in our family stayed clear of her until the day she left. That's another story"

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"I've seen a skinwalker ONCE! I have never seen one since. My older brother, older sister and I were going home for the weekend. We were coming in from Phoenix. We had to leave pretty late. It usually takes us 5 hours to get home which is in Low Mountain near Pinon, AZ. We drove toward Keams Canyon highway and took a certain dirt road that would take us straight to Low Mountain. Before we reached the dirt road we noticed a very old lady walking on the side of the highway with a cane at 2 o'clock in the morning! She had her scarf around her head, a long black jacket and wearing a green dress. We did not think anything of it but thought it was weird that she was walking late at night on a highway. The reservation is really dark at night and there are hardly anyone driving on the roads. We eventually turned on the dirt road.

A mile away from the highway we noticed the same old lady walking on the side of the dirt road with her cane. I freaked out! I started crying because we knew that it was the same lady 15 miles back. My brother stepped on the gas and started driving faster. He gave us some medicine to protect us from harm. We eventually got to a highway that takes us to Chinle, Low Mountain, or Pinon. We passed the first bridge and we noticed that the old lady was sitting on the highway with her head down waving the cane in the air. Before we could pass her the car just shut down and wouldn't start. The old lady stood up facing the opposite way from us so we wouldn't see her face and walked across the other side of the road. She turned her head to face us and her face was painted all black. She kept walking and eventually disappeared in the distance. My brother turned the ignition and the car started!! It scared the hell outta me!!! I was crying so bad that I never wanted to drive through the road again.

When we got home we told my parents about it. My dad said that there was an old couple that lived between the two highways that did bad medicine on people. He also said that her husband had passed on not long ago and that she walks that road every now and then. They had two kids; one of them passed away at a very young age with an unknown cause of death and the other one drinks and huffs. We ended up driving back the longer way which was taking the highway to the junction road and going toward Ganado. It was very real and very scary."

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"...my first encounter was when I was about 13 years old. My family always has a peyote meeting on New Years Eve and into New Years Day. On this particular New Years Eve my family was blessing the new year, all my cousins and I were sleeping in my Mom's hogan while most of our parents and guests were in the tepee praying. They said that a man saw something outside the tepee and he told the fire chief, and he told my uncle. My uncle woke up my older brothers and they got out the guns and our spotlight to look for whatever was creeping around our houses.

We live in a small valley in the highest part of our part of the reservation, near Pinon. All of a sudden I heard a loud gunshot, my brother's 30-30. It scared the hell out of me since I was fast asleep, but my sister was the only one in the house with us and she already had burned some cedar and had said a protection prayer for us. My brothers and one of my cousins were outide shooting at some sort of creature that was running around in an arroyo about half a mile from our house. My niece and I had gotten out of our beds and were watching from the window. They were sure that they had shot it a few times but it would just get and run off again.

When my mother and father smeared white ash on the bullets they started shooting again the creature left our valley. It is a very taboo to do any sort of hunting or shooting during blessing ceremonies but something had to done that time. That is as close as I have ever come to a skinwalker, as far as I know."

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"...the only reason I know about skinwalkers is because of my boyfriend and my Mom told me abut them...no lie, it's is scary and you shouldnt mess around with it at all. But you shouldn't say its fake case odds are you wouldnt even know. I have a lot of shapeshifters, skinwalkers, staginies or whatever you would perfer to call them living or staying by my house. They follow my boyfriend around and sometimes I see them watching me...standing outside my window. About 3 months ago there was a skinwalker outside my house watching my Mom as she came home from work...he was outside for a long time. No one has the right to say what is fiction or fact because you wouldn't even know. A skinwalker told me when my dad was going to die. It was broad daylight and I was in the car with my family. I saw a white owl and it looked right back at me. A week later my dad passed away...so don't say anything unless you know for a fact!"

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"There are too many weird encounters that went on the year my husband and I started dating. It was as though 'someone or something' did everything they could to keep us apart....for instance.

It was a summer evening and the sun had started to go down and we took a short stroll just outside my house. As soon as we started walking, I saw a shadow quickly appear and walk behind a huge cedar tree. Once I noticed this I told my boyfriend and he threw a big rock at it. As soon the rock hit the tree, a huge bird or owl flew out of the cedar tree. I have never in my life seen anything this big! The wings on this thing had to have stretched out at least 7-8 feet across. It was dusk, but still enough sun out to see in front of me and I know for a fact I saw something. I believe whatever hid behind that tree turned into a bird and flew off. It was so weird. After that, we had a very unsettling summer of this strange "shadow visitor" making it's appearance every now and then."

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"...you want me to describe the witch who is a 'skinwalker'? My father told me a story about how they initiate themselves to become one of these bad medicine men/women. They have to kill their own child or sibling; and also they have sex with their siblings. They become this weird looking animal that can run faster than a car. They do wear very old animal skins and they do not allow to expose themselves. We'd be so damn lucky to catch them red-handed but they have powers to paralyze you so that you cannot see them. If you do happen to see who the person is they eventually die in four days so that is why they are very secretive. It does have a lot to do with jealousy. They want what you have even if it is nothing to you...it's huge for them. You cannot kill them with a white man's gun powder, or anything of that nature. It all has to be traditional weapons we use to use a long time ago such as an arrowhead, traditional prayers, or a certain type of ceremony.

Most medicine man/woman would never admit who it is but they'll hint it to you which can be frustrating. My father also said that they can be the sweetest person in the world to you and you'd never know that they're witching you. They use dead people's bones to make you go crazy and you don't even realize how much you lose self-respect. They are very scary and wicked people.