The Musconetcong River Mantis Man
By Cole Herrold
New Jersey has its
fair share of Fortean phenomenon, but the two big contenders when it comes to
multiple sightings are the Jersey Devil and Bigfoot (also known as Big Red
Eyes). Both Cryptids have accounts dating back to the Native Americans and have
seemingly staked out their own territories. Even though during 1909, the Jersey
Devil ran amok in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and every county of New
Jersey, most sightings tend to be concentrated in and below Mercer and Monmouth
Counties. Whereas Bigfoot sightings tend to take place primarily in the far
north of the state. In Warren County, however, a relatively new cryptid has
been reported, and the sightings are rivaling the bizarreness of the Jersey
Devil's and growing in number. Reports of an insectoid-like entity have as
recently as 2006 been reported along the Musconetcong River in and around
Hackettstown, and this seemingly biological entity has the uncanny ability to
disappear like an apparition on its own accord leaving all those who witness the
bizarre beast baffled.
In Spring of 2006, Paul Jacks and his boss
had decided to change up their typical fishing destination. Jack's boss offered
the option of going and casting their lines in the Musconetcong River near
Hackettstown. As soon as the employer and employee got to the riverbank, Jack's
felt uneasy about the area, yet he could not point out as to why. His boss
seemed to be unphased by the eerie nature of the place and proceeded to ask
Jacks where he'd like to set up their lines. Jacks decided to head across the
river and downstream. Jacks, as he traversed down the raging river, noticed
that the area was extremely bizarre; while he felt the area was like a
nature-oriented enclosed tunnel, he also couldn't help noticing that
civilization was just within reach. He noticed that the west side of the river
was bankless, and he could see that the land bordered Route 46, but the
opposite side had large banks on the east side, which led into nearby forests,
fields, and farmlands. Near what could be called the rural side of the river,
the banks were on average about 10ft high, and they were covered with strips of
trees 10-20 yards thick that separated the river from the field beyond. In
between these tree sections, there were occasional clear gaps of mud and grass
about 20 yards wide, and these made access to the river easier. Jacks was about
chest high in the water when he noticed something inside one of these gaps.
Jacks was looking from the corner of his
eye and noticed some thick object seemingly moving on the bank about 7ft above
him from where he was in the water. He turned his head to see what the object
was, and he noticed that what he was staring at was an immense thigh. The thigh
he noticed was not like that of a human's, and while it was bent forward like a
human's, the first thing that he thought it looked like was like a
grasshopper's. Jacks realizing that this was something bizarre, began to scan
up the figure and realized this is not something of the known natural world.
The figure, which he could now tell was a peculiar creature, had a triangular
head with huge black slanted eyes that appeared to be like a praying mantis's.
Its body was about 6’6” to 7’ and was black and gray and gangly and knobby yet
noticeably powerful and was seemingly more humanoid in appearance even though
it has insect-like qualities. The creature's arms seemingly also reflected this
as Jacks would say the arms were noticeably more humanoid and did not appear to
have the mantis-like forelimbs one would expect. Jacks, in an interview, would
describe the creature in more detail "This thing had the skin of a snake.
Where our abdomen is and where our organs are, it has a narrow cor. The
creature's eyes were black and very large but set in the front, so it had
binocular vision.” He could see the figure clearly against the dark sky in this
gap
The creature soon noticed that he noticed it,
yet Jacks was seemingly unperturbed of the creature. Jacks and the creature
stared at each other for a few seconds, and Jacks seemed to feel that, unlike
him that the creature was surprised at him. “I sensed Astonishment, whether it
was that I was in the water or that it knew that I could see it. It was very
aware that I was aware of it and that seems to concern it because it never took
its eyes off of me”. Jacks also expressed that the creature might have felt
astonished at the fact that he seemingly was unamazed at the bestial figure in
front of him. The creature, either insulted by the man's un-amazed response or
simply trying to get away from the man's gaze, began to work its way up the
bank. The creature looked over its right shoulder at him as it continued up the
bank; it never stopped looking at him, but Jacks noticed that as the creature
moved, it slowly began to become transparent as it crawled up, and this
continued for some time before ultimately evaporating in mid-stride. Jacks felt
that the creature was cloaked and was adamant that this was a physical
creature; it did not slip into another dimension or was some spectral entity
but was still there, just invisible to him. Jacks feels that he was only able
to see the creature because the creature was in a spot where it needed to
readjust its camouflage (The best way to describe this mindset is like Randall
from Monsters Inc). Jacks left the area and continued on his fishing
trip. His boss was only 50 yards upstream and did not tell his boss about what
was lurking around them.
The next sighting of the Mantis Man
occurred in 2011 when businessman Joe Parenti went on a fishing trip with his
brother on the Musconetcong in Stephen’s State Park. Parenti was familiar with
the area as he built a home along the Musconetcong outside of the park and
quite frequently headed out to the river and woods. It was early in the
morning, and the two decided to head out to the small little islands on the
Musconetcong and split up to give them enough space for fishing. Parenti was on
one of the islands upstream, and his brother was on one further downstream.
Parenti had his line cast when he heard a kind of humming and felt a bizarre
vibration or tingling sensation that ran throughout the body. He had the
weirdest sensation that something was near him, and as he looked in the corner
of his eyes, he noticed that something was standing there. As he turned, he
noticed a 7ft tall, big brown and gray/black “humanoid praying
mantis-looking-man” that was staring at him and seemingly eating at the same
time. The creature had noticeable mandibles that flexed and moved up and down
as it ate. The creature was looking down at him and had its head tilted as
though it was curious of him. Joe was
absolutely terrified and felt that the creature was telepathically speaking to
him and seemed to be “sucking the information” out of him before he could even
think it. Parenti was sure that it was trying to communicate but would later
say in an interview, "To see those mandible moving up and down and there's
no way that could talk to me." The two stared at each Joe, saying that the
creature's "dark eyes were just so intense." The Mantis Man opened
its arms to reveal what appeared to be a pair of wings. Parenti would say,
"The creature showed me the width of its scales and its chest and how
strong it could be. And that was completely terrifying". The creature
seemed to continue to stare at Parenti as a large mist or fog rolled in, and as
soon as the fog subsided, the creature disappeared. Parenti dropped to his
knees and realized that he had lost all control of his bodily functions,
seemingly soiling his pants out of fear. Parenti realizing what he had done,
dropped further into the river to make it seem that he didn't have an accident
and called his brother, who was only a short distance away. Parenti felt like
he had to throw up and was crawling on the ground on his hands and knees.
Parenti and his brother ultimately cut their trip short and headed back to
town; he told no one about his encounter until one day when he was at work out
of a need to tell the encounter to someone. His coworker realizing Parenti was
not one to believe in the paranormal, was truly serious and uploaded his
account on the internet when he got in touch with Lon Strickler.
In 2014 the final definitive sighting of
the Mantis Man occurred. A man traveling home from a drug store in Hackettstown
was driving down Newburgh Road and was going over a bridge that goes over the
Musconetcong. He looked out over the rushing water and noticed a dark figure to
his left. He thought at first that this was a fisherman standing in the river
near the south bank, but as he slowed the car, he noticed that something wasn't
right with the figure. As he looked closer, he noticed that the person was
transparent-like and had a weird shape. The figure moved slowly towards the
bank and into the trees. The man was intrigued by what he saw and sped up to
where the figure should be headed; as he reached the approximate area where the
creature was going, he saw it come out of the woods, and he realized it was
clearly not a man. It was 8ft tall, or so it had long thin arms that seemed to
just be hanging off it; the creature was pale brown, but it seemed to be
transparent as he could see right through it. The head was much smaller than
the body. As he passed where he saw the creature, he could see it no more and
went home. While home, he was trying to rationalize what he had seen, and his
first thought was that since it was a sunny day, perhaps all he saw was a glare
from the water, but then he realized that it certainly could not have been a
glare. Several days later, he had much like Parenti mentioned his encounter to
a coworker, and his coworker gave him a bizarre look, but much like Parenti's
coworker, the man's coworker went to the internet and found a thread of the
previous sightings. Resulting in the man reporting his account to Lon Strickler.
Lon Strickler has since been one of the
main researchers of this phenomenon and, in a brief interview of Monsters
and Mysteries in America, states that he's received about 4-5 accounts of
the creature, three of which are the 2006, 2011, and 2014 accounts. In Jersey
Devils, Bizarre Beasts, and Other Creatures of Weird NJ, Moran and Sceurman
include some of these other Mantis-like figures and weird encounters along the
M'Cong. The first account features a man in Mount Olive who witnessed 4-5 man-like
creatures running through his neighbor's backyard and the adjoining woodlands.
The witness would state, "they moved like a herd of animals, staying
together it was so strange. The legs were very thin with small feet. Id say
they were 5ft in height. They wore loose dark colored robes or something
similar the heads were small with no necks. I couldn't tell what color they
were, but it was lighter than the robes. I am confused and upset by what I
witnessed".
This account clearly seems to be something
else entirely other than a Mantis Man, but since it has been included in the
case by other researchers, it needs to be mentioned. Now the second case of
something possibly Mantis Man oriented is just as bizarre but even more
ambiguous as nothing definitively is seen. This case, however, predates all the
other Mantis Man sightings and is in the same general area.
This bizarre encounter was published in the
Warren Reporter in response to an article on the Mantis Man. The woman who
was identified only as "H-Town Mama" described in the article a
variety of strange phenomena that occurred on the property her mother owned
that she stayed in 2003. The initial account was very broad, but Lon Strickler
then got a follow-up that appeared on Phantoms and Monsters and Jersey
Devils, Bizarre Beasts, and Other Creatures of Weird NJ.
It was from May to August of 2003 when
“H-Town Mama" and her husband were staying at her mother's house for the
time being. Her mother's property was bordered by woods that led down to the
Musconetcong River as well as a local fish hatchery. Their backyard is only a
5-minute walk to the river, and they were very familiar with the area and the
local wildlife and businesses. On one night, they noticed that there were
strange lights that seemed to be coming from the river and near the hatchery.
This was odd because the lights were so intense and not typically what the
hatchery would use. The hatchery almost never had lights on at night, and when
they did, it was only a few dull yellow lights. The lights they were seeing
were bright red, almost like what one would see from a laser pointer. These
lights were not alone however for whenever they would go out to look at these
lights, they would hear strange sounds, almost like garbled radio talk. These lights
and sounds were sporadic and would reappear and disappear at random. Yet this
was only the beginning of the peculiar happenings around the property.
Days after these lights first appeared,
the family began to notice a pair of bright red lights that seemed to hover by
a specific window near the back of the house. Whenever they would go to
investigate these lights, the pair would move together and disappear. It was
because of this connectivity that the family felt they were a pair of eyes. The
problem with this, however, was that it couldn't be from an animal as the
animal would have to of been 6-7ft tall to look into the window. When the
family would rush outside to try to see whatever was peering in, they would see
nothing, but they continued to hear garbled walkie-talkie sounds. What the
family could make out was that it sounded like military-style communications
that would appear in short bursts. They could hear these sounds almost
regularly but could not make out where these noises were coming from and what
could be making them. After months of this phenomenon, the pair had decided out
of curiosity to ask her sister whether or not she had experienced the same or
something similar. The sister confirmed that she, too, had seen the lights and
heard the sounds but not in the excessiveness as they did. This phenomenon,
however, had not reached its peak yet, and neither was prepared for what would
occur on the night of August 3rd.
That night the group noticed that
something was running around in their backyard. They seemed to be very tall
people that seemed to run in droves, but they could not make out specific
details. They could see the dark forms running towards the hatchery one minute
and then would reappear running back to the same window where they saw the red
"eyes," and once more, when the figure was at the window, the
"eyes" would return. These shadowy red-eyed beings, however, were not
alone in the area where the river was, and the hatchery was covered in red
lights. The air was also not just filled with lights but also the garbled
walkie-talkie noises that filled the area like an orchestra with the dark
shadowy figures almost synchronized dancing on the ground. This paranormal
performance, however, proved to be too much for the couple, and so they proceeded
to call the police around midnight. As if the entities, sounds, and lights were
late-night partyers, they seemed to book when they heard the call for the
police. The area became deafly still, and this continued when the officers came
with their lights flashing. The officers searched the area with flashlights but
hearing the family's account, they took it halfheartedly and ultimately found
nothing. The officers, laughing, returned to their squad cars and drove off
into the night.
As soon as the officers left the premises,
all of the entities and sound returned. Frustrated, "H-Town Mama"
decided she was not going to deal with whatever was going on, on her mother's
property. She and her husband entered the green knolls and noticed that nothing
was moving out there and went towards the perimeter of the yard. As she got
near there, she began to hear bizarre sounds that seemed to be played on a loop
these sounds, unlike the garbled militarized noises she heard previously. The
sounds she was able to hear was a peculiar phrase that seemed strange compared
to the events that went on; the phrase was a resounding "Thank You, Thank
You." Hearing this, however, appeared to be too much for her, and she
began to sprint back towards the house. When she got back to the house, she was
terrified, but she, as she sat in the living room, felt that whatever uttered
the phrase "Thank You, Thank You" was thanking her for acknowledging
its existence. The two, however, knew that whatever had attempted to communicate
was something far beyond their comprehension, and so the pair did not get a
wink of sleep that night. The following morning the pair went out to
investigate the lawn in the light of day. There in the grass were several deep footlike
impressions that led from the woods to the window and that had a fork-like
shape. The family, however, was so terrified by this that they immediately
moved out of the house that day and then moved to Florida shortly after a few
years.
This case which I file under H for High
Strangeness, is not a clear Mantis Man sighting but seems to be very similar to
events that occur during other major cryptid and paranormal flaps. To me, while
it's perhaps the most overly referenced period of High Strangeness, the Point
Pleasant 1966-1967 flap of sightings is eerily similar to what was occurring
along the Musconetcong River. The reason I say this is because the sighting of
red lights that seemingly appear like eyes at some points and a flesh and blood
creature is very similar to the "Bandit" case that occurred in Salem,
Doddridge County, in 1966 and is often linked to the Mothman case. The Bandit
case for those unfamiliar with the account features a farmer by the name of Mr.
Merle Partridge who saw red lights on his property which his dog chased after only
to seemingly disappear without a trace. A short time later, a dead dog was seen
in the vicinity of a Mothman sighting by Linda and Roger Scarberry and Steve
and Mary Mallette, which occurred about 90 minutes after the disappearance of
Bandit. Now it is important to point out that what Partridge saw was not the
eyes of a creature like what most Mothman researchers claim but mechanical or
anomalous non-sentient, at least from what can be gleaned from the encounter
lights. I compare it to this encounter because what "H-town Mama" saw
out by the river was very similar to this and that it led to a possible
red-eyed creature visiting the property, which some researchers compare to the
Mantis Man. This leads to a potential theory about the origin of the creature,
but I will get to that in a little bit.
Now with this creature, there are many
ways we can interpret what was encountered. From a cryptid standpoint, this
creature could be just that of an organism that we have not yet discovered, and
the fact that it seems to stay in one place does tend to point to a more
animal-like territory. The fact that this creature seemed to disappear is not
unheard of; we see similar behavior in chameleon's where they change their skin
color to express moods and blend into their surroundings; perhaps this creature
managed to take this quality and ramp it up to the max being able to generate
almost picture quality designs on its skin giving it an almost invisible or
cloaked ability. Now there are obvious problems with this; the first and
probably the most obvious is that the creature is seen in an area that is a
high traffic area even with the surrounding woodlands, there should be more
sightings outside of the sporadic 5year to 3-year span. Another problem deals
with what this creature is the creature simply cannot be an insect. Insects in
nature have never been gigantic in terms of what the Mantis Man is supposed to
be, and a lot of that is because it's believed their exoskeletons simply would
not be strong enough to hold their weight. Another element to this is that
these animals would need much more oxygen to help them basically function, so
the chances of a colossal man-sized or larger insect are unless they've somehow
evolved a way to overcome these problems impossible. Now another problem with
this hypothesis is that in one specific encounter, the creature seemed to be
probing a witnesses mind this as long as the witness wasn’t just undergoing
some sort of psychological effect to seeing something he did not understand is
something animals cannot do and implies something far beyond the normal.
While the cryptid category is not entirely
plausible, there are other possibilities that are equally or more unlikely,
depending on your view. The next step up the ladder would be this could be an
extraterrestrial of some sort. In Ufology, there is a race of extraterrestrials
referred to as Mantids, and while they typically are seen as more human-like
entities on occasion, they either intentionally appear or actually appear as
giant Praying Mantises. A relatively well-documented case of this is the David
Huggins extraterrestrial encounters wherein several of his early memories, the
aliens he would describe as Mantis beings, looked like colossal praying
Mantises, but later some of them would appear like humanoid mantis beings. The
Mantis aliens, much like what was described in the Mantis Man case, have
similar abilities, especially with their ability to instill fear and read
minds. The problem with this hypothesis is that Mantis beings are almost always
seen in connection to a UFO, so unless the lights seen by "H-Town
Mama" in 2003 were their craft and they decided to stay on earth or build
a colony for some reason, this is unlikely. Mantis beings also are not
described as having wings, and most accounts do not describe them as being
taller than a human typically; they reach a height of about 3-6ft tall and not
the 7-8ft or taller Mantis Man.
The next possibility for this creature is
that it is an interdimensional entity or Ultraterrestrial. There's a good
probability that this creature, even though Jacks said he did not feel it was
from another dimension or that it shifted into one, could have originated from
one. In an alternative dimension, there's an infinite number of ways that
creatures could evolve, and certainly, at least one could be a functional
version of the creature seen in Hackettstown. I throw these ideas together as the
events surrounding this creature's arrival, and continuous sightings are very
Keelian. There's a lot of minor weirdness that seems unrelated, and all happen
at once, and then some major creature is seen and continues to be seen. The
fact that this creature goes invisible could be that the creature could be part
of Keel's Superspectrum, a member of the Ultraterrestrials, which are entities
that co-exist with us on this plane only to feed off emotions and proceed to
mess with humanity like Pennywise from Stephen King's IT. The fact that
two out of the three actual encounters with this creature seem to be very
emotion-oriented seems to emphasize this point, and I feel that for this case
its one of the few times the Ultraterrestrial angle is actually a higher
possibility than something that simply has to be thrown out there for the sake
of conclusiveness.
This case is absolutely bizarre and,
therefore, now one of my favorite cases. When first doing research into this
entity, I thought it would simply be a giant insect-like cryptid or
extraterrestrial that I someday might head out to the field to do some boots on
the groundwork, but instead, the case turned into a bizarre psychic high
strangeness cryptid case that seems like a mini window area. While I covered
mostly Mantis Man-oriented phenomenon, just a brief scan of the area, and
there's a significant amount of encounters of other creatures, ghosts, and
aliens. Just why these entities chose to take up residence along the
Musconetcong, I have no true idea, but perhaps it’s the water, as most
researchers into other phenomena suggest. Water is life animals need it to
live, so rivers, lakes, and streams are hotbeds for animal activity; it makes
sense that cryptid sightings would occur there too. Perhaps Aliens look at
water as a natural resource that they are particularly interested in for energy
or because they don't have it on their planet. The same goes for ghosts, as the
water might allow spirits to manifest easier. If this is the case, then the
window area is bunk on a cosmic sense, but due to the mandatory nature of such
an area, it is true in that much like a window, it allows you to see things
that you may not see if there's a wall there or a curtain. While I can only
speculate based on the work of others, I do know that New Jersey is already a
bizarre monster riddled state; it seems one does not need to go far to
encounter a colossal bird asking for a garbage can or a bipedal flying horse
monster in the Pine Barrens or a sea serpent off the coast and so with the case
of the Mantis Man, its clearly in good company.
Quick Facts:
Species/Potential Species: Insect
Location: Musconetcong River,
Hackettstown, Warren County, New Jersey
Sighted: Spring 2006, 2011, 2014
Works Cited:
Jersey Devils, Bizarre Beasts, and Other
Creatures of Weird NJ By Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman
Strickler, Lon “'Praying Mantis Man'
Sighting - Musconetcong River, Hackettstown, NJ”. Phantoms and Monsters.
July 26, 2011. https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2011/07/praying-mantis-man-sighting.html.
Accessed October 8, 2021.
--- “The Musconetcong River 'Mantis Man'
Returns” Phantoms and Monsters. December 19, 2012. https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2012/12/the-musconetcong-river-mantis-man.html.
Accessed October 8, 2021.
“Mantis Man sighting on the M'cong... this
is no joke”. HackettstownLiFE. http://www.hackettstownlife.com/forum/4849761222.
Accessed October 9, 2021.
Monsters and Mysteries in America “Mantis Man, Spottsville
Monster, Tornado Phantoms” Season 3, Episode 8.
Destination America. 2015.
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