Reader Submitted UFO / Anomaly Images

 

These images were forwarded by Matt...a reader in Wales: The Hereford Times newspaper ran a story about UFO's turning up on tourist photographs in the area of the Skirrid Mountain Inn. I was taking some photos at nearby Crickhowell some weeks ago and also captured some UFO's on film, there seems to be a wide air corridor that these craft are visiting.

NOTE: Click on the images for the larger versions

These photos were taken a few weeks back at Twmbarlwm which is in Wales, near Crosskeys. It is said that the ancients believed the Iron Age hill fort where I took these pics is aligned with the Pleiades.

I'm currently monitoring UFO activity on the England and Wales border area, there seems to be a 'corridor' in which many UFO sightings are occurring, I currently have a video camera running on 30 second clip capture, these craft seem to know they are being filmed and perform for the camera.

Anyhow, here are some local shots

Thanks
Matt

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This image was forwarded by a reader: I was in Bramwell, WV which is in the southern most area of West Virginia in Mercer County when I took the photo. I didn't notice anything at all unusual at the time. I love taking photos of cloud formations, hence this photo. I transferred the photos to my laptop and was reviewing them and deleting the ones I didn't want to keep when I came across this one. I checked all of the other photos taken both before and after this one and there was nothing unusual in any of them, just this one.

NOTE: Please feel free to comment on the submitted images...Lon

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Messenger, Harbinger or Omen?

I received an email last evening in response to several of the Mothman related posts made on 'Phantoms and Monsters'. I attempted to keep the content as original as possible:

Hello sir - a friend referred me to your articles about strange occurrences in West Virginia. The Mothman encounters stirred memories of an incident that took place when I was a girl.

The strange incident took place near Powellton, WV in December 1934 - I was 8 years old. At the time, my father worked for Elkhorn-Piney Coal. He and the other miners from our area would take a train to the mine each day.

The day before Christmas Eve my father mentioned an unusual sighting he and the others on the train had while traveling back home that evening. As they looked out towards the east they noticed a very large bird flying above the trees. My father was a very conservative man and didn't believe in any nonsense but this large bird really caught his attention. He described it as a freakish sized owl very dark in color. It also seemed to look at the train as it flew over the trees. Nobody on the train could figure out what it was. The mere fact that my father even mentioned it suggested that it must have been an extraordinary sight.

My father was scheduled off from work for 3 days during the Christmas holiday. On December 27th, he was getting ready for work but said he felt poorly. My mother was concerned because he had a high fever and awful chills. She insisted he stay home and telephoned the doctor. My father was reluctant on staying home and put up a good argument but my mother was not going to back down. She put him to bed and waited for the doctor.

Well, we waited for hours until the telephone rang. The operator told my mother that the doctor was at McDunn - there had been a horrible train explosion. She couldn't talk but said that the doctor's wife asked her to contact us. My mother was pale when she told my father what had happened. I remember they both started praying and crying. For years both of them thought the large bird was an angel sent by God as a warning and that my father's life was saved for a reason.

My father never went back to the mine. It turned out that he had contracted polio though he was very lucky since he survived it with only a slight limp. We soon moved away to a small town in Kentucky where my father found the calling and become a Pentecostal preacher. He told his story of survival to anyone who would listen until the day he died. Thank you sir, Emma

NOTE: the disaster that Emma was referring to was the Locomotive Boiler Explosion at McDunn. On December 27, 1934, a boiler in a locomotive hauling mine workers at McDunn in Fayette County, WV exploded, resulting in the death of eighteen miners.  Interesting story...Lon

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The witness from Communion With The Mothman wanted to answer inquiries from the readers:

Lon...I saw the comments to my post and wanted to respond without them knowing who I am. If it's OK with you I'll give you the responses and maybe you can post them.

First of all, the one said "..wait a minute. It was December when this happened...seems a bit odd to be camping at that time of the year." My response is that it was unseasonably warm and we were coming from an area that was hours away to the north. We also were used to camping in all kinds of weather and enjoyed doing this. In the 1960's a lot of people did this all year long. The other two remarked that the post was hard to follow, jumping around a lot. If they would tell me what they needed to know perhaps I could answer that for them.

The first time I talked to a neurologist about my childhood and how bad it really was, they wanted to know how I and the others had survived it all. I've had traumatic childhood amnesia most of my life and most of that "wasn't" caused by my home life. This is what my doctors told me. They knew what I'm just now dealing with in the form of memories that are resurfacing. People don't understand when they read something for fun. They don't understand that this did happen. This creature is real and there's more than one of them. Lon, thanks for being understanding.

Communion With The Mothman

I received this anecdote from a friend who has shared her paranormal experiences previously though none of the accounts have ever been posted on 'Phantoms and Monsters'. The following remarkable narrative may very well add credence to the Mothman phenomena and, frankly, I have no reason not to believe the account. I have not edited the original text except for a few minor errors. I would encourage reader comments and input:

Lon - I've had some experiences with Mothman since the end of Feb. and its still occurring. This isn't something that can be put in with the Mothman report from Middletown, Ohio of May of this year, at least in total.

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In 1967, two weeks before the collapse of the Silver Bridge, a phone call came to our house south of Lancaster, Ohio. It was from dad's friends in southwestern W.Va. Someone else in our house answered the phone and dad was busy watching the evening news so he yelled to whoever answered it to ask them what they wanted. The answer was that they had some trouble over in W.Va. and needed dad to come down. He asked what the trouble was and the person on the other end said it was a big bird. Well, we'd just seen a piece on this on the news and the anchor who reported it laughed about it. Dad laughed and said that was a good one and to tell the person this and then hang up.

A short time after the phone rang again. This was when long distance cost an arm and a leg so dad asked what was going on and again it was that they had this big bird that had done a lot of damage and they needed help to hunt it down. He took the phone call then and we all heard him saying, "All of my guns and all of my ammunition?? What the heck is going on down there?" There were a couple of okays and then I heard him ask why this man's daughter needed to talk to me. It was explained to me that this youngest girl had what they thought was an imaginary friend but asking to talk with me was a good sign that she was coming out of this mentally and emotionally and I was to play along. It was supposed to be for her own good. I was nine years old and she was maybe a few months behind me. I got on the phone and she asked if this was (my name) and I said yes. I asked what her name was and she said what it was. I'd met her once before and she was very introverted and really didn't mix with us. She showed us rocks and bugs but didn't really get involved in getting to know us. That's why I was shocked that this girl asked for me by name. I told her she had a good memory and she said it wasn't her memory that she got my name from! I thought, OK, she's a bit touched as they say, LOL.

I asked where she got my name in order to ask for me and she said it was her friend who was a man - but wasn't a man. I said, "Okay, who is this friend and what does he want with me?" She began to relate that in the course of talking one day he told her my name and said he wanted her to contact me and ask me to come down there to talk to him. I said I'd have to talk to my parents first. I got off the phone and dad wanted to know what was up with this girl. I said there was no way she knew my name. He asked where she got it then. I told him and he got a little alarmed and called their house to ask some questions about this man that 'wasn't a man' and who he might be. They assured him that it wasn't anyone near them as they were out on a quiet country road with only a few neighbors. She said this friend of her's wasn't one of them. They'd checked the woods where she said she'd met with him and never found any footprints or signs that anyone had been there with her. So, because this was urgent we packed up quick and headed down there from central Ohio.

We waited in line to cross the Silver Bridge across from Point Pleasant. A cross member on the top of this bridge on our side of the river was swinging back and forth as it was not attached on one end. The bridge clanged and made all sorts of racket when a car was crossing it. I was told to sit back and rest my eyes because the sunlight was very bright that day and I was getting hot. I felt my eyes get heavy - like I was slipping right into a comfortable rest. The next thing I knew I heard screaming and found myself horizontal above my brothers clawing at the window screaming to be let out that the bridge was going to go into the river. Dad got me calmed down and asked when this was going to happen. I had to rest, I was exhausted. So, I sat back slipped once again and again....found myself across my brothers with my siblings holding my legs and ankles to keep me from going out the window. I realized I was screaming again and clawing at the window. I asked what was going on and they all said I'd been OK and then suddenly lunged for the window to claw my way out while screaming hard. Mom said to beat me for it and so did my siblings. Dad on the other hand told them to hush while he walked me through what I was seeing when I woke up doing this.

I was in a vehicle and it was falling off that bridge into the river below and I saw every inch of the fall to the water and below the water even. I was horrified when it was slow enough for me to see all of this clearly. Dad asked if we'd get across OK that day and when we were supposed to go back home. I searched my mind and saw it was OK to cross. He had me tell him what would cause the bridge to fall and then show it to him on the other side once we got there. When he saw what I'd seen in my mind on the Ohio side before we got to the W.Va. side he was utterly horrified.

Structurally that bridge should not have been in use at all. I won't go into that part but to say that I got it absolutely right on each and every count. He was quiet all the way there except occasionally he would ask me when this would happen. I remember looking in my mind and telling him it would happen in about two weeks. Two weeks to the day we were sitting watching the TV when a news alert came across to say it had fallen into the river. Mom got a calendar right away and checked it to make sure how long it had been. She cried a bit and then asked me to come over to her. She thanked me for saving all their lives. I'd forgotten all about what happened two weeks prior because it was traumatic not just for my visions but for what happened at the people's house!

I hope this helps others, Lon, but I can't have identifying information come back to me about this for certain reasons. I will continue. We drove a long time before arriving and dad went in to talk to these people as we set up our tent to sleep outside. The man came out and said to put it away because we wouldn't want to be sleeping out there with the troubles they had down there. It didn't make sense to any of us how a big bird could be scaring these people that bad but they were scared badly. While the adults got the low down we kids went up into the woods to take care of the imaginary friend thing. The older kids checked everything out to make sure there was no one and nothing to harm us when they left. We were not far into the woods and it was not all that thick with growth. The driveway was pretty wide and it was a sunny day. They all left and I put my younger brother with her brother about 15 ft. from us at the edge of the woods. We all grew up in the woods so there was nothing any of us didn't know how to deal with if confronted with it. We were well practiced. I just wanted to get this over with but the girl was being timid. She said I'd think she was nuts. I laughed and said that sometimes people don't understand but they need to give it time to sink in. I gained her confidence and so she opened up.

She said "he" would scare me if I saw him straight on. I said there wasn't much that scared me anymore with three brothers that challenged my life at every turn. She looked worried and said he was special and didn't look like us. Well, I thought he was disfigured or something but no that wasn't it either. I said that sooner or later if I was to talk to this man I'd have to see him in order to understand what he wanted to tell me. I was thinking that maybe there was some wildlife around there that she wasn't familiar with that she couldn't see clearly so it had scared her. No, she said that wasn't it either. She said I had to promise not to look unless he said it was OK. I said I didn't want to be close to him then if I needed to take off in a hurry. She said I couldn't do that because it would upset him. I let out a Ha! and she just gave me a look and said this was very important to her because he'd been very nice to her and been a good friend when she had no others. Okay, so I appeased her a bit and said I'd play along and be extra nice so I could get this over with. She kept saying not to be alarmed and said she had been the first time she saw him. She said he was very big. I was thinking she must have lost it bad.

I saw movement and there was something looking like a very tall spindly marionette up next to these skinny tall trees. I asked her how she and her siblings had accomplished that. I was laughing but she was looking at me like she had no idea what I was talking about. Then it walked out from the trees without any visible support! I was like okay, there's got to be a sensible explanation to this so I asked if I could move forward after awhile to get a better look. I told her I could take this. Well, she asked him and said he said it was OK. Before that though he wanted to talk to my mind, she said. I thought, oh my God, she's really in La La Land, poor girl, stuck in the sticks of W.Va. and she's lost it! Well that thing moved again as if shifting from side to side in a standing position. That was human like. I begin to hear this man's voice in my mind and it's conversing with me. It's all like 'happy to talk to me finally' and 'so excited by my coming to see him' ...I thought I'd caught this girl's insanity and hit myself at the side of my head to shake this voice out of my head. She asked what was wrong. I told her! She said that was normal. I had news for her but not yet! I had been ordered to see what this was about. This voice seems to be rifling through all my memories like wildfire and then downloading high quality video....like being there in my mind about that bridge falling and other things in the future. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me so I tried to maintain my balance mentally by reminding myself that I was just playing along and this would all play out to be an elaborate hoax.

I inched closer and closer to the edge of this driveway and then a drop off where the bulldozer had shoved the dirt for it. Movement caught my eyes and I looked down to see these big orange bird feet! I thought, oh my God what is that doing in the woods! I took a very slow, very meticulous look up the legs attached to these feet and they looked stork-like. The feet shifted by one picking up and then the other doing it. It was human like in movement but also bird like. I let my eyes go very slowly up the legs, to the body, ick! and then the chest, also ick! because I could count the ribs! There appeared to be scant feathers on it's skin which was greyish. It was a mix of this bright green color and greyish brown. The more I looked the worse it got but I gritted my teeth and kept my thinking to a minimum. I looked at these wings folded behind it's back but yet out a bit to the sides. I could see through them a bit but they looked leathery and stretchy. I looked at the shoulders which in truth were topped with sharp bumps which I realized were from the wings being folded behind it's body. I inadvertently got a good look at it's head and a wave of revulsion hit me and I said I was going to just back up slowly to get a better look from a distance. I think it picked up that I was scared of it. I heard it in my mind again and it was upset that I was scared of it. I explained with my mind, crazy as that sounds, just thinking I'd seen some people who were disfigured in my time and this was scary too. I'd just have to get used to it. I did want to get out of there with my life unscathed. This was nuts. This thing wanted to chat with me and I wanted to go to the bathroom really bad. I told the girl this and she said we'd have to go to the house. He told her, and I heard it too, that he knew I was scared and he was very upset. Then, he got into a part of my mind that showed what I went through at home and somewhere else, a big building in a big city that I didn't remember except in bits. He was livid at me seeing the entire breadth of whatever that was about. I told them both out loud that this wasn't right for this girl or I to be talking to him.

He said his kind didn't want any of them mixing with us because it was dangerous for them. He'd shown me where they were from, and it wasn't this planet. I was feeling dizzy and my brother saw me stagger a bit. I said I had to go and this girl had to help me down to the house, so we were going to leave now and she and I were about to be in big trouble because I wasn't allowed to keep such a secret. I got out of the woods OK and got up against their garage and wet my pants. Then I felt like I was losing control of my body and was shaking all over. My brother went and got dad. I told him to stay close to the garage because it was out there somewhere and it was huge. He thought I was nuts but I told him sternly that this man that wasn't a man but was a huge creature with wings and big orange feet. He laughed and I said "I wasn't laughing and we had to get into the house."

We all got into the house and the girl was livid with me for saying I wasn't supposed to tell and now he was angry with her. My head hurt really bad. The adults got their guns out. Phone calls were made and in short order men with guns in pickups and cars came flying into their driveway. Dad wouldn't allow me to tell mom or that woman what I'd seen...no one. I wanted to cry but felt stunned, shocked, very hard. They got me cleaned up and we all sat trying to be quiet. We tried to listen to what was going on.

That was an awful experience. The men went into the woods leaving the women with guns. They soon came back as it was almost dark. We began to see these huge stick looking figures darting past the picture window out front and then the back windows, and the kitchen door and windows. There was more than one of them. All the guns got loaded and we were put into the middle of the house. There was clawing at the roof, siding and windows. This went on for hours and I finally just went to sleep. I was hot and probably in shock so I just went to sleep.

Everything eventually went quiet and it stayed that way for hours. I woke up needing to go to the bathroom. There was a window so someone had to stand there with a gun as I went. Something came to the window and began to claw at it. By then I didn't know what this was or why it was happening. I was given a magazine and put my whole mind on it and read. When I did this all stopped outside. I got tired and quit doing that while wondering what was going on and it began all over again. We could all hear the tin being torn off the roof. I went back to sleep and everything was quiet the rest of what was left of the night.

The next day we packed up and started home. Dad asked before we got to the bridge if we'd be OK crossing it. I looked in my mind and saw it was OK. They wanted to know this over and over again. I was sure. On the Ohio side of the river my brothers and sisters began to talk about what was going on. Something big swooped down at the car and began to claw at it. This happened off and on all the way home. We could hear this thing holding on to the top of the car!! Once home I was sent to my room and told to go to sleep. Well, I didn't. I was listening to what they were saying downstairs. One of my brothers ran downstairs and said there was noise on the roof. Dad told them to go outside and look to see what it was. My brother returned pale looking and said it was a huge bird like thing with glowing red eyes. Dad said that wasn't funny. My brother said he knew it wasn't but this was true. Dad went out and sure enough he came back to say yes it was true. They were all upset and I was up under the roof that was being torn off. My family was watching shingles coming through the air and landing on the ground out back and front. They got the guns out and I was told to lay down and go to sleep. It was OK for awhile but then it started again.

My brother came to me and said to look out my window. He told me to look at these little red glowing lights outside. They were eyes. I could see huge spindly wings out there walking around on the ground. It was like they were on their elbows. It was really creepy. Dad took a gun out and then I heard him yell to me saying they were going to hurt him if I didn't say he never hurt me. I said I wasn't allowed to tell lies and he asked me nicely to be nice for him. So, I did. I told them I was OK and I was with my siblings who were older and took care of me. He was scared and we could see several of them out there near him. We saw him back slowly into the door.

I felt they were in my mind asking what I wanted most in life. I remember thinking I just wanted to run around and have fun like other kids did. I went to sleep and it was quiet until about 2 am. I woke up to the sound of my older brother's voice asking what we were doing outside with these things and what were they. How did I get outside? My younger brother was behind me and we were running through what I thought was a tunnel on the lawn. I woke up more and saw it was these things lined up with their wings arched over like a tunnel and we'd been running through them! I was horrified and our older brother saw this. He said dad had sent him out and dad was hanging out the window telling us quietly that it was OK, we weren't in trouble but we should come in because it's really late. I looked at my brothers and asked what was wrong with dad. The older brother said dad was really scared to come outside because those things wanted to hurt him. I asked how he could tell! He laughed a little and said he'd never seen him like this before and said he'd woke him up and "asked" him to go out and get us back in the house. We both dropped our jaws and said, "He asked you?"

We went inside and went right to bed before we got beat for it. We never did and the next day it was like no one wanted to talk about it. My younger brother kept asking what those things were and wasn't it funny that dad was so scared of them. My head hurt. I was diagnosed with traumatic childhood amnesia in 1983 but I have a photographic memory. Okay, so I had no memory of these things until some years later. It was difficult to wrap my head around all of this, still is. Earlier this year, end of Feb. 2011 I started to again hear the voice of this thing in my mind. It showed me ripples in a pond. I didn't know what that was supposed to be for and I was busy working so I pushed it out of my mind. My mind was being pulled to Middletown, Ohio on the map. I thought OK, what's this about, spit it out, I'm pretty busy these days. No explanation.

This continued and still is happening even now. I was looking at other things about archeology and up comes information about the thunderbird, dragons, snakes, and how it applies to Native American culture. I'm Shawnee and a direct descendant of Tecumseh. I've still got this unknown 'man' in my mind and he seems to want to chat but I'm thinking these things eat people and people have been known to disappear after seeing these things. I'm thinking I was lucky and blessed to be alive after seeing it that close twice! So, Lon, if you would, say a prayer for me. I'm still very busy with work, photography for home inspections and craft work I have at home. Still from time to time this voice is in my mind. This thing wants to be friends with me but there seems to be something important he wants to convey to me.

I just keep shoving it out of my head. I'm not so sure this thing isn't evil. I mean it did kill a big dog over in W.Va. in 1967. It or they tore it into tiny bits and there wasn't much left of it. If you'd like to turn this into a report I'm sure it would take a lot of work to take out anything that would ID me in any way. I want people to be helped by knowing that these things are real. I can't explain what they are about but I know they are real. Thanks.

Flying Cryptids: Anthology of Readers' Encounters

Dale A. Drinnon from the Frontiers of Zoology posted an interesting piece titled Thunderbirds in Indiana referencing the discovery of a huge feather and the 'flap' of large bird sightings in Indiana in the mid to late 1970's.

Cryptid birds and flying humanoids have been a keen subject for me since my encounter on the Conewago Creek, Adams County, PA in 1988. Since that incident there have been hundreds of flying cryptid sightings forwarded to me...be it an unusually large raptor, a pterosaur-type creature or a winged humanoid.


Below are a few interesting encounters forwarded to me by witnesses:

Strange Bird Witnessed Near La Pryor, Texas

I’m just writing to share this information hoping that perhaps someone else has experienced this because we’ve never seen anything like it.

On Monday 09 Feb 09 at approximately 2120HRS my parents and I were traveling eastbound on US HWY 57. We were approximately 4 miles west of La Pryor, TX when my father slowed down and crossed over into the oncoming lane to avoid hitting a deer that was feeding right on the edge of the eastbound lane on which we traveled. As my father re-entered our lane we came upon a very large bird, gray in color, with a wingspan we estimate to be about 8-10 feet wide and had no visible feathers. We estimate the wingspan based on the width of the car in which we traveled.

We were driving in a 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer which is slightly wider than 66”. It appeared the bird was either resting on the road as we came up to it and it flew to avoid us, or the bird was flying very low to the ground and quickly gained altitude to avoid being struck by our vehicle. My father stopped the vehicle as soon as he could and we got out to look for the bird, but our search of the sky turned up fruitless. Thank you for taking the time to read our experience.

J. Burciaga, SSgt, USAF

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Unknown Flying Entity

The encounter occurred on July 6, 2005 at about 11:30 pm. I had a long day in San Diego then afterward going to the beach at Del Mar, CA for some surf fishing. I arrived at my home in San Marcos about 11:00 pm. After cleaning my fish and showering, I was very tired. I went out to my carport for a smoke and a look at the night sky. I looked north, thinking about a recent UFO sighting and wondering what it's all about. In the distance, at a couple hundred feet, I saw a faintly visible moving object that flitted from side to side. Whatever it was, it reflected light from the streetlights. It's side to side movement was so quick, I couldn't tell if it was one object or two. The object then zipped directly over my neighbors house across the street. By this time, I was certain I'd never seen anything like it. It continued to move side to side, in a space of approximately 50 feet. It then stopped and I observed it more clearly.

It may have had big "eyes" and wing-like appendages, and was probably 2 to 3 feet in width. It remained still and I could see wavering reflections from it's "wings" which were not beating like a birds, but showed shimmering reflections from the streetlights. I felt the hair on my head rise all the way down my back to my ankles! It appeared to be looking at me, as I smoked my cigarette. I felt threatened, and said out loud, "I see you!" Then it went from stationary to out of sight, right over my head in an instant. I came out from under my covered carport, and turned to follow it's movement. Immediately, it zipped into view directly above my head, obviously studying me! I could see really weird large and intensely dark "eyes". It seemed surprised by my looking right at it. It didn't like being seen. My apprehension rose even higher. It turned away and disappeared like a shot.

It had a birdlike shape, but was thicker. My impression was of reflections of the streetlights on wing-like appendages, and big dark eyes!

It wasn't a bird, bat or any familiar nocturnal creature. It's movements did not seem explicable in comparison to any creature that fly's by beating it's wings. The hills and mountains are so rugged and inaccessible near my home, that anything could remain hidden and make night time forays at will. I read about "thunderbirds" but I'm not sure if this was one of these.

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Large Flying Creature - Medina River, Texas

I received this email from a man who lives west of San Antonio, Texas near Medina Lake. He states he witnessed a large flying creature last evening (August 11, 2009). He has requested that his full name be withheld at the present time. (Note: edited for typos only)

Dear Sir. I witnessed a large flying creature this evening that I cannot identify. I found your site during a search. I'm apprehensive of mentioning it to any friends or family until I can get a grip on what this was.

I live west of San Antonio, TX near Medina Lake. Today, I was on a random outing to the area near the Diversion Lake dam. At about 7:30 pm, I was on my way back up the trail when I suddenly heard a loud awful scream coming from below the dam downstream. It sounded like an owl but lasted longer and was much louder. I stopped walking and watched downstream to see if I could catch a look at what caused the sound.

I then noticed a large flock of birds flush out of the trees near the riverbank. Then suddenly this giant flying creature swooped down into the river valley and just as quickly flew back up into the rocks. I continued to watch but did not hear or see it again. I call it a creature because it looked nothing like a bird. I was about 50 yards from it and would say conservatively that it's wing span was 15 ft. or so! It was dark colored and had a very long beak and a strange long thin tail. This sounds crazy, but it actually resembled one of those flying dinosaurs though the head was not as large and it looked like it had feathers.

I got back home and looked on the internet for examples of bird species but found nothing close. I'm not originally from this area and have never heard of anything like this. That is why I'm contacting you. Do you have an idea what it was? I see you have a website, maybe someone who reads your site could help identify it.

JJ

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Winged Manta Ray Shaped Cryptid - Near Ashton, WV - 12/3/2004


I received the following email in reference to my post The Mothman Cometh: John Keel's Reports on August 13th. Much of this was included in a piece written by Chris Holly, but there have been a few changes. Note...click images for larger version:

Hi Lon, thanks for responding so quickly. Here are my drawings and report. Chris Holly reported my story pretty much verbatim, so I will repeat it here for you in a slightly different form.

Date: Dec. 3, 2004

Time:6:00 - 7:00pm

Weather Conditions: clear and already dark. Moon hadn't risen yet

Location: Traveling south on Rt.2 in WV from Point Pleasant to Huntington WV. Near Ashton WV (see map)

A friend and I were traveling on Rt. 2 towards Huntington WV. I was on my way to set up my booth for an art show and my mind was occupied with the booth set up and show logistics. We had just gone over the railroad tracks outside of Ashton WV and were on a long straight stretch of road. There was distant oncoming traffic and the headlights were on. There were no cars behind us in sight. I was in the passenger seat and my friend was driving. I noticed a sudden movement in the sky over the Ohio River to my right in front of the car. It was a greyish, smooth, winged shape. the shape swooped in a figure 8 in front of the windshield and then was suddenly gone to the left of us. It didn't fly out of sight, it was just gone. This happened very quickly, but as I am a visual artist, it was impressed into my memory banks!

Size: Bigger than the car. The wingspread was wider than the 2 lane road we were on. The wings seemed to stretch wider somehow as it did the figure 8 swoop. It was never more than 25 feet away from us as it flew towards the windshield. We thought it was going to crash into the windshield! At one point during the swoop it was only about 5 feet off of the pavement.

Color: Grey, translucent like a jellyfish. As it banked and swooped I could see many angles of it and somehow it looked more transparent as it turned some parts to us. I immediately thought it was like a manta ray. The body was flattish like a manta ray or a bat. The wings were long and smooth and sort of pointed at the tip. I saw no texture or roughness on it, only smooth surface.

Characteristics: Only body and wings- no head, eyes, tail, or feet. It did not look humanoid in any way. On the other hand, it wasn't a bird either. It moved more like something in the ocean would move - Did not flap the wings like a bird, or flutter them like a bat, but stretched them instead. My friend (who alas passed away a year ago) said to him the wings looked ragged like there were pieces coming off of them.


He also said he got a good look at the underneath and it looked grey and smooth. This absolutely was not a machine! It was articulated like a living creature and seemed like something organic.

As I look back on this sighting, I wonder if it was something playing with us - It happened so quickly that the only scary part was when we thought it was going to crash into the windshield. It was so beautiful and strange! It reminded me of a sea creature more than anything else, maybe our air is like water to them.

The only other time in my life I have ever seen anything remotely similar was in 2000 in Clay Co. WV, driving along a one lane road along the Elk River (a river was present in both instance -I just realized) In that case, I was alone and for about a mile as I drove, I kept noticing a shimmer in front of the car about 15 feet ahead of the car. This was late morning in the summer. It preceeded the car at the same distance for several minutes, then I noticed a shadow on the road too, large and shaped sort of like a bird. I looked up out of the windshield and there was a large crow flying above me. But what I first saw in front of the car was not a shadow, it was a disturbance in the air in front of my car that looked like a heat mirage sort of but was very close. This was a curvy country road right by the river. I had never seen heat mirages on that road before or since. At the time I thought that it was just sort of weird, then very close to that time I had a very lucid dream that I was in my car flying over the river right near the place where I saw the shadow.


As an artist, my mind is open to many possibilities and explanations - I think the unseen world is just a small vibrational frequency away. As a child I was fascinated by fairies and nature spirits and spent a lot of time alone outdoors.

NOTE: though there have been several variations in describing the 'Mothman', this particular description is unique and most likely represents another cryptid or non-terrestrial entity. As well as the Mothman sightings, the area along the Ohio River (southern Ohio and southwest West Virginia) has had a large number of other paranormal events including UFOs, large apparitions and hauntings, native and folklore based creatures, etc...Lon

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Additional Ray-Shaped Cryptid Sightings in WV Ohio River Valley Revealed

I received the following email in reference to the Winged Manta Ray Shaped Cryptid post on August 16, 2010 (reposted below). I had heard that there was buzz in reference to this phenomenon recently....a few attendees at the 9th Annual Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, WV apparently mentioned new sightings. If anyone has witnessed anything unusual, please contact me at lonstrickler@phantomsandmonsters.com:

This is a very interesting report. I've been researching ghost, monster and cryptid reports in West Virginia for a few years now. Wrote a wee slim book on the topic. We now have a growing body of reports and stories about an odd "ray-shaped" cryptid in the area. For my book, I collected a story (which at the time I thought was an excellent story but very unlikely--just too weird to credit much beyond its campfire value) about a man who encountered a huge ray-shaped thing straddling the road ahead of him. Initially it was visible only as two reddish-orange spots that he mistook for bicycle reflectors in the fog. When he honked his horn, the "reflectors" blinked at him, then the whole body lifted up off the road and sort of glided down over the hill to disappear into the fog-filled valley below.

There is a sighting reported in Bob Tweet's excellent "West Virginia UFO's: Close Encounters in the Mountain State" in which a boy in a car spots a white "furry" shape gliding along beside the car. It was described as being four feet across with no discernible limbs or separate head.

More recently, a woman and her daughter reported the "Horton Horror" near Horton WV. This was also a manta-shaped Something that glided along over or near their car.

There's an old story about something in the fog at Foggy Bottom (I believe this particular "Foggy Bottom" is an area near Wheeling, WV--since developed) in which a dog is lifted up above the fog and is whisked off--sitting on the top of something that glides away. Dog is never seen again. That story is presented as a sort of UFO encounter, but I think it fits the pattern forming for these other stories.

There are now at least three stories/sightings from near Point Pleasant and others up the Ohio Valley. Strange.

I have no idea what is going on, what people may or may not be seeing, but I think there are enough reports now to say that this represents SOME kind of phenomenon. Folks, we have an emerging Monster tradition! All fresh and relatively new! Something that is most definitely not another manifestation of "Mothman", but a phenomenon in its own right!

Hey! I'm excited! It's not everyday you get to watch a paranormal or cryptozoological pattern form almost right in front of your eyes!

Kurt McCoy
(author "White Things: West Virginia's Weird White Monsters" and self-confessed monster aficionado)

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Encounter With a Shape Shifter

I was with a group of people on Saturday, August 8th in Central Arkansas (out in the country) right before dusk. This area has one lane bridges with gravel roads and no road name signs. Many years ago this had been a Amish community. One of the people I was with had lived there when she was a child. We had returned to the area to go ghost hunting at a cemetery near her old home. None of us are drinkers or drug users and are all middle aged. We belong to a local ghost hunter's club, but this night, we were on our own.

We arrived well before dusk to make sure we had a good feel for our surroundings. I stepped out of the car and walked maybe 6 feet when I heard the sound of something quickly approaching me. It sounded like wings flapping, but not the same. Hard to describe really. It was on a much larger scale than I had heard before. I quickly turned around and saw this thing headed right for me. I was so scared I could not image what I was seeing. I screamed and hit the ground. It flew over my head and landed on the tree limb near me. I looked up and saw it looking down at me, I turned as my friends called my name and was running to me. When I looked back, I couldn't see it. My friends witnessed it as it flew towards me though they didn't see it in the tree.

It didn't look the same in the tree that it had looked while flying toward me. In the tree, it looked more like a large worm or snake but much, much larger. It looked as if it had wrapped it's self around the tree limb. A bird can't do that. I did look to see if there were any other reports like this area, but did not find any documented. I am now afraid to go outside before dusk in fear of seeing another one. I have never been scared ghost hunting. This thing was the most amazing, scariest thing, I have ever seen in my life. I pray I never see it again. Do you have any idea what this thing was? A shape shifter or a Thunderbird maybe? Or a demon? I have no idea.



NOTE: Sorry folks...this is the only post for today. I had a few errands to attend to and it took a bit more time than I expected. Thanks for reading...Lon

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