Ghost Gorilla of the Moon

 Ghost Gorilla of the Moon

By Cole Herrold

When it comes to the paranormal, there are countless facets that tend to flow interchangeably. We see this time and time again when a phenomenon that should be wholly separate and most times is, has come together; the infamous Bigfoot-UFO sightings are one such case variety. The same can be said for this case; it is a mixture of astral projection, spirits of the deceased, and it was recorded via automatic writing. This hodgepodge of various phenomena may not seem as unique now, especially since these three topics had interconnected on the silver screen with the Insidious franchise, but the account in question was written long before James Wan rewrote the haunted house film structure as the account appeared in written form in 1913 just three years shy of 100 years before the film's debut. While the almost one-hundred-year gap from film to this account is indeed impressive, there is another element that makes it unique and its that the disembodied entity that would become the unlikely antihero in the case was reported not to haunt some ancient, dilapidated house or crumbling castle ruins as ghosts are known to do but in a place that seems impossible for even such an encounter to happen.

The account was recounted by the infamous Irish paranormal investigator and spiritualist Elliott O'Donnell. It was given to him by his friend and fellow spiritualist, a man named Mr Supton, who received the account one night while using a planchette. Now for those familiar with the term planchette, they no doubt will think of the small, holed piece that is used with Ouija boards. This is not the tool he utilized. A planchette is, as described by Encyclopedia.com, "a simple instrument designed for the purpose of communication with spirits. It consists of a thin heart-shaped piece of wood mounted on two small wheels that carries a pencil, point downward, for the third support. The hand is placed on the wood and the pencil writes automatically, or presumably by spirit control operating through the psychic force of the medium”. This apparatus which is very different from the modern interpretation of what is commonly referred to as a planchette for the Ouija board but serves a similar purpose in communication with the spirit world.

One night while operating his planchette Supton began receiving several sprawling messages as the pencil began to operate each writing paragraph after paragraph of the last memories the spirit had and how it became disembodied. Supton was amazed at the fluidity of the spirits communication and waited till the end of the spirits writing to read the full account. What he read would shock him even further and make him question more about what happens after we die and what happens in the unseen world that is around us.

The spirit's tale began with one of the most relatable moments in a person's life. The spirit whose name was revealed to be a man named Hugesson began his tale at the day of his dishevelment. Hugesson recounted that he was sitting in his favorite chair in the warmth of a roaring fire in his one-room apartment. He was stressing out, for as a struggling writer, he had been running low on funds and had not made any money in the past twelve months. The apartment was bare, and Hugesson took the sight in with much sorrow as this certainly was not how he wanted to be. He was seeking freedom, freedom from all his troubles and freedom from this structured plane of existence. He stared out of his window at the moon and had wished it would give him either the freedom he so longed or some form of inspiration for his writing, yet it did nothing of the sort; instead, the soft glow simply illuminated the room even more showing the emptiness and shabbiness of his home. He stared out the window and thought even more of escape, thinking of how wonderful it would be to go to the moon or some other celestial body. It was in this moment he had remembered a conversation he had with a member of the New Occult Society about how if one concentrates enough, one could remove the soul to wander aimlessly and in doing so travel to anywhere, he so chooses. Hugesson had tried this several times but never managed to succeed, but there was something about the moon and this night that he felt as though he had to try even if it was just for a short while he had to see if it was possible.

He stared in his chair at the luminous body in space, focusing on the mountainous craters that were just mere specks on the surface. He watched in awe as the craters seemed to grow larger and larger and noticed that finally, he had managed to leave his body and travel out to some ethereal plane of existence. His spectral form was floating and gliding through the air and out into space; he looked at the passing clouds as they slowly changed to the inky blackness of space and the burning light of stars. The moon grew larger and larger as he approached, and soon he had entered its orbit and proceeded to boldly go where no man had gone before.

As Hugesson landed on the rocky surface, his awe, however, was replaced by sheer terror. The moon had nothing similar to earth, no wind, no green, or water; it was a desert world of darkness and death as clearly, no life could ever have been there, and shadows crept over every surface, making it difficult even for his spectral form to see. Hugesson, in his horror, soon began flailing around, waving his arms and flapping them like a madman as he wished to return to the normality of his body and the earth it walked upon. Yet no motion or prayer or thought he uttered redirected his course back from where he came, and so he remained on the rocky terrain of the moon.

As he stood and stared around at the featureless world, his fear grew only more as he wondered how and if he would ever return home. As he began to walk on the surface, he soon felt a strange sensation creep across the bottom of his legs, and he seemed to notice a strange shuffling on the surface of the moon. He looked down, adjusting his eyes to try to make out what this sensation was since there appeared to be no wind to move the dirt and rock of the moon. As he looked, he noticed that there on his legs were strange creatures slowly scuttling up his legs. In a scene reminiscent of Creepshow, he realized these forms were herds of insects of indiscernible varieties crawling up and down his body and littering the surface of the moon.

Some of these scuttling things seemed like hybrids of scorpions and beetles, whereas others seemed to be long centipedes, as well as other bizarre bugs and creepy critters that seemed to claw and pinch and bite Hugesson as they crawled on him. Hugesson tried to get the swarm of critters off him with only slight success; they seemed to be everywhere scuttling and littering the face of the moon. The insects, however, even though they attempted to bite and pinch and claw him, never seemed to physically make contact with his form, and the insects seemingly unsatisfied with this eventually managed to unleash a choir of hisses before traveling to a strange circular pit or crater not too far away.

During this entomological incursion, Hugesson noticed a large dark form in the distance. It seemed to be coming closer towards him, and Hugesson waited in hopes that perhaps this shadow was some other weary traveler who had managed to astral project out of his body and travel to this barren bug-infested wasteland. Hugesson, however, soon realized that as this form grew closer, it was not the movements of a human but some creature walking on four legs. Fearing the worse, he wanted to run, but for some reason, he could not, and so all he could do was wait in horror as the form came closer and closer to him.

Hugesson's eyes widened, for as the figure came closer, a feeling of dread ushered over his body, for he knew who and what was coming near him; it was quite literally a ghost from his past. Hugesson, before being a writer, had worked at the Berne Zoological Gardens. While there, one of the most troubling animals in his care was a young gorilla named Neppon. Neppon to him was an absolute nightmare to work with, and so he proceeded to hate the animal. This hatred ultimately led him to essentially torture the poor animal. He, in his time there at the zoo, pinched and poked Neppon, pulled his hair, wore all sorts of terrifying masks to frighten the gorilla and made horrendous noises at it, but the finale of his torture was ultimately the poisoning of the poor animal. Yet there in the darkness, its eyes gleaming with satisfaction, was Neppon.

The ghost gorilla grinned and seemed to recognize Hugesson. It began doing all sorts of acrobatic antics while his murderer stood in front shaking in fear as he now felt that he was the quarry in this twist of fate. However, his frozen state would not last for long, for soon as he soon managed to regain control of his faculties, he proceeded in turning and apparently, with a regained superhuman strength and abilities, he managed to jump over huge boulders and do record-breaking sprinting across the moons cold surface. Neppon, however, seemed to be unsurprised by this and continued to chase the man until he reached an exceptionally high pillar of rock. Hugesson started to crawl and climb up the rocks as Neppon stared up at him, its lips unfurling into a sinister smile.

This crawling or climbing was fruitless, however, and in turn, Hugesson soon began to bleed from his fingers as the flesh had apparently been ripped to ribbons. The gorilla stood by, watching the man try to climb up the rock and seemed to sniff the air as it apparently could smell the blood that dripped from his fingers. As Hugesson still tried to climb the wall of rock, he soon had the realization that the figure behind him had begun to do something he never in all of his life would have expected that the creature behind him had started to talk.

Hugesson said that this creature communicated through the language of scents; this communication seemed to of been registered from his olfactory nerves and that it was the language of all animals. The blood splattered onto the crevices and cracks as he slowly turned his head as he continued to gain a grip on the surface of the rocks; as he was turned, he could make out what the creature was saying in a cruel and mocking tone.

"Reach a little higher, there are niches up there, and you must stretch your limbs. Do you remember how you used to make me stretch mine? You do! Well, you needn't shiver. Explain to me how is it that I find you here." The creature unleashed a burst of slight laughter in this questioning. Hugesson, in both horror and confusion, could only mutter, "I cannot comprehend". The gorilla came closer to the man and began to laugh in his face How so? You used to quibble me upon my dull wits; must I now return the compliment?" the creature laughed once more at the man before looking down at his hands and the dripping crimson which plopped onto the surface of the moon. "There’s blood on your hands. Blood! I will lick it up". The creature proceeded incoming even more closer, laughing all the while.

Hugesson started to disbelieve that what he was seeing was real and perhaps he was still at home in the comfort of his chair by the fire and that this was simply a nightmare. Yet as the creature grew closer, he couldn't help but cry out, "keep off! Keep off! My God will this dream never cease".  The creature seemed particularly amused at this and replied, "The dream, as you call it, has only just begun; the climax of your horrors has yet to come. If you cannot tell me the purport of your visit I will tell you mine. Can your lordship spare the time to listen?". Hugesson gave no reply as he simply began grabbing at the wall and uttered cries that simply sounded like a distressed animal. The gorilla grabbed its hairy arms and seemed to feel its muscles, all the while smiling at the man.

"Come you haven't yet guessed my riddle; you are dull tonight. That old wine of yours made you sleep too soundly. Don't let me disturb you. I will explain. This moon is now my home- I share it with the spirits of all the animals and insects that were once on your earth. And now that we are free from such as you- free to wander anywhere we like without fear of being shot or caught and caged, we are happy. And what makes us still happier is the knowledge that the majority of men and women will never have a joyous after-state like ours. They will be earth-bound in that miserable world of theirs, and compelled to keep to their old haunts, scaring to death with their ugly faces all who have the misfortune to see them. There is another fate in store for you, however. Do you know what it is?”

Hugesson remained silent, and this silence remained unbroken until he bumped a certain section of soil. The creature solemnly looked at Hugesson again and began again, "Do you know? Well, I will tell you. I'm going to kill you right away, so that your spirit- its all nonsense to talk about souls, such as you have no soul- will be earth-bound here- here forever- and will be a perpetual source of amusement to all of us animal ghosts”. The gorilla soon unleashed several grunts and howls and began to crouch down on all fours with the sole purpose of sprinting on the spectral man. All Hugesson could cry out was “For Heaven’s sake, for Heaven’s sake!” but this creature knew no mercy for him and intended in showing none.

The gorilla began to laugh once more and said, "What a joke- what a splendid joke. Your wit never seems to degenerate, Hugesson! I’m wondering if you will be as funny when you’re a ghost.  Get ready. I'm coming, coming". The stars seemed to burn brighter, and the sky began to turn into an infinitely deeper black. A blood-red mist rose before his eyes, and a loud singing rang in his ears. This was then followed by the cries of millions of souls screaming and crying. The faces of men and women whose faces seemed to be cast in evil appeared in the boulders and rose up from the crags and seemed to spit and tear at him. He saw what he would describe as creatures as all this was going on as such damning ugliness that all he could do was scream in absolute terror. There seemed to be no end to this until a mountain peak on the moon seemed to erupt, and all the spirits were swept away in the wind that came down from the mountain, and they came upon him, crushing him. He could feel their weight upon him to the point he could experience every moment of suffocation, and through the strained gasps of breath, he could feel his lungs being pulled from his body and his legs being wrenched from their sockets and rotated around his feet, swirling in the air by the various spectral hands of man and animal. This excruciating torment and pain went on for some time until, for the moment, he knew no more.

This was the end of the writing from the spirit of Hugesson and his horrendous ordeal on the moon and its spectral inhabitants. Supton was in awe at this ultimately bizarre tale and had more questions than answers. The first thing Supton felt he had to do, however, was to verify the spirit's identity, and so he began to do some digging; he did find that a man named Hugesson had, in fact, been only for a short time the head keeper at the zoological gardens and had been found dead in bed by his landlady with a look of agonizing pain and terror carved onto his frozen face. The death was after a medical doctor was brought in attributed to syncope, yet from the automatic writing, if it was from Hugesson seemed to show something more bizarre was the cause of his death.

With this case, it is extremely fantastical. It seems so easy to point to it being some piece of fiction that was made by some spiritualists trying to advocate their beliefs that it almost can't be true. However, there is a chance that what occurred actually did. I had written about Elliott O'Donnell before in a similar spectral simian case known as the Serial Killer Orangutan that he covered in the same book and had written about how he is a very complicated figure in paranormal circles. There have been people on both sides who have argued that he was a hoaxster writing about fictitious accounts, and then there are those who swear that every account is authentic. It is difficult to for sure know the truth, so with these accounts, it is best to take them with a grain of salt, especially with one as completely insane as this one. There are no other true accounts of ghosts on the moon, at least that I've found in my research, and the fact that travel to the moon is, as of right now, almost impossible proves that further research is basically impossible. Now it does seem very much improbable that the moon is haunted it as far as we know, has zero deaths, so that doesn't hold much water for a celestial haunted location, but if our spectral forms are more mobile than what we currently think they are who knows how haunted our universe maybe it could be that some individuals at the point of their death had decided to travel out and spend their eternity on Jupiter or Neptune or Mars in pure Dr. Manhattan fashion.

This perhaps is the most difficult case to verify or deny since it really comes down to whether it's authentic or not, and there's not much further research that can be done. My personal opinion is even though it seems extremely unlikely, there might be something to it. Maybe Hugesson stumbled into some purgatory of his own making or built this scenario in his mind, which ultimately led to him destroying himself. Yet this is all just speculation. I do not claim to know all the answers and offer this tale up to the readers to decide for themselves what they think. All I can say is that maybe it's best to not shoot for the moon in some cases.

Works Cited

Animal Ghosts, Or Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter by Elliott O’Donnell

“Planchette” Encyclopedia.com. May 21, 2018. https://www.encyclopedia.com/places/africa/gambian-political-geography/planchette. Accessed August 14, 2021.