The Lewisberry Scuttler

 The Lewisberry Scuttler

By Cole Herrold

Sometimes a possible connection to other cases can be found in books one currently doesn’t own. I recently wrote about a bizarre cryptid creature known as the Mud Creek Road Monster, and I was under the impression that there had been no other sightings of the creature or anything similar. Well, I recently bought Beyond the Seventh Gate, which is another incredible addition to the Fortean collection, and in it, there's one interesting encounter that has some similarities to the entity reported on Mud Creek Road with only some slight differences.

In October 2013, local business owner Donald Reeser was out driving on Route 382 towards Lewisberry, York County. He was near where Brenneman Drive was when he noticed something tall and dark walking along the roadside. Thinking it was a person in dark clothing, he began to slow down and was watching to see whether the person was going to continue going straight or whether it was going to turn in some different direction. It was at that moment Reeser noticed as he watched the person move that it seemed to be walking in an awkward fashion as though whoever was hurt. He kept staring at the shambling form and soon noticed that the figure was much taller than he initially thought it appeared to be 6 ½ feet tall, but he also had the impression it could be even taller. As Reeser watched, he was almost certain that this man was in an accident and began approaching the figure as quickly as he could. It was only after doing this that he soon realized that whatever this thing is it was not a man. The man, clearly now a creature, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a car was coming towards it, dropped down on all fours and began to spiderly scurry across the road. Reeser, as the creature crossed the road, got a good look at it and would describe it as having black skin covered in short black hair. The creature's face seemed humanoid but where its nose and mouth should be was a long protruding snout. Reeser watching this creature disappear into the woods, was completely dumbfounded. Reeser returned home after an otherwise uneventful drive home and soon began to tell his friends about his encounter. While he was trying to see if anyone else knew or had an experience with this ostensibly unknown entity, two other witnesses would approach him and claim that they too had seen the same creature in the nearby woodlands, but just what it was, none of them knew for certain. The one thing Reeser did know is that the creature was not a bear, nor was it any of the known local species in the area.

Now more information on these other encounters is unavailable, but as mentioned earlier, this entity seems similar to a creature I've discussed recently called the Mud Creek Road Monster. The lanky, awkward movement, the dog-like snout, black skin, and short black hair are all things that the Lewisberry Scuttler had done/looked like that appear to be similar to the Mud Creek Road Monster. Now with that said, there's not much more to the description; there was no report of dog or wolf-like ears, nor was there any reference to the pure black void like eyes or colossal claws that the Mud Creek Road Monster so there is, of course, the chance that these are two different kinds of creatures, but it is needless to say eerie that they have many of the same features.

While there are some similarities to the Mud Creek Road Monster, that's not a clear answer as to what this creature really is. My first thought would be a bear with mange since a bear can rear up on its hind legs and would have that shambling gait as described by the witness; however, the humanoid-like head seems to be something that kind of makes this hypothesis improbable. This, too, can be added when one takes into account when one thinks of the scuttling way the creature is described as going across the road, which almost seems to imply the creature had spindly limbs. This is something that does not occur with bears, who usually have a lopping run.

Renner compares this creature to two other cryptids but states it does not match either the first being the infamous Dogman phenomena and the second being the Crawlers. Dogmen are overly hairy upright canines, and while this creature has a long snout, it does not have any of the other features associated with dogmen. Crawlers, on the other hand, are a far newer cryptid and have appearances like that of the Rake from Creepypasta lore. They are more humanoid in the face, body and have overly long arms and short legs that end in long, overly extended fingers; this seems to be almost a match except for a few things. Crawlers are almost always white or gray in color, they do not have snouts but flat faces, and most importantly, they are almost never reported being bipedal. If this creature is a crawler, it would be the first time one had been reported it would seem walking bipedally for some time. With this creature, I feel confident enough to say it's not a bigfoot with mange as we have the Sam Sherry encounter to compare it to, and it's a far departure from that encounter.

While there's no existing report of anything similar, that is not to say that this creature could not be something biological. The creature assumedly is a mammal since it has hair, so perhaps this is some kind of creature that for some reason managed to remain hidden, living in caves or the dense woodlands around the area. There's also that chance that this creature could naturally be subterranean. I entertained this idea with the Ridge Road Monster, a gangly red-eyed humanoid that seemed to descend into the ground through a hole, and also the Lapping Farm Lizard Man, which also disappeared into a hole after attempting to kidnap a man. Perhaps that's why there are so many bizarre humanoid cryptids, and entities reported since these creatures would only need to come out of the ground or their subterranean lairs for maybe food or resources.

While there is a biological possibility to the creature, there are, of course, countless supernatural routes from interdimensional, Ultraterrestrial, and demonological, yet there's nothing outside of the creature's appearance to indicate such an origin. Creatures like this ostensibly would fall in the cryptid category, yet one must entertain other possibilities if the creature does not match the known parameters of current zoological records. So perhaps this creature is something infernal that was meandering its way to do some evil deeds, or that it's an Ultraterrestrial whose ultimate goal was to freak Reeser out for that split second to gather enough fear for fuel, or maybe this creature just happened to blip into our dimension for a second for whatever reason be it intentional or accidental. We simply do not know.

I find this case interesting for several reasons. For one, this entity is entirely unique even though it has earmarks of other cryptids, two it is from a biological standpoint something that clearly is not comfortable with walking bipedally yet when on four legs seems to have incredible speed, and three there have been other sightings even though information on these are at least to my knowledge unavailable. It's from this I think that this cryptid might be one that researchers in the region should definitely go and investigate; perhaps from this, we may find more eyewitnesses and get a clearer picture as to what is being sighted scuttling around in the woodlands of Lewisberry.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal

Location: Lewisberry, York County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: October 2013

Works Cited:

Beyond the Seventh Gate By Timothy Renner