Farmersville Green Man
By Cole Herrold
Our planet, over the course of countless
years, has been home to tons of bizarre anomalous beings. Many of these
entities tend to fall in one category or another, but as one delves headfirst
into the mire of monster encounters, we find that there are so many different
creatures that are completely unique or heavily inspired or pulled straight
from the works of horror and science fiction. One such creature that appeared
on a Texas farm in 1913 seemed to be a cross between Kermit the Frog and Galwyn
the wizard/mushroom from the 1986 Horror Fantasy film Troll. While this
creature sounds adorable, it, unfortunately, suffered terribly due to its
chance sighting. It, unfortunately, did not make it.
In Farmersville, Texas, three boys were
chopping cotton on a farm in May 1913. The boys were alerted by the sound of
barking coming from the family dogs and, after listening to the ruckus for some
time, proceeded to investigate just what was upsetting the dogs. The boys saw
the canine companions encircled near a section of the property continuing to
bark at a structure on the property. The boys, curious just what about the
structure was upsetting the animals, peered beyond the animals, and as they
looked, they saw a bizarre green figure. The figure appeared to be like a little
person, but the being turned out to be something so different from what would
traditionally be associated with a person. The being was only about 18 inches tall
and was dark green in color with rubbery skin. The creature was completely
nude; however, attached to the top of its fleshy body was a kind of hat-like
structure that was reminiscent of a sombrero that seemingly grew from the
skull. The boys watched in both awe and horror as the creature further caught
the attention of the dogs and watched as the carnivorous canines began to run
towards the strange creature tearing into the rubber skin with their fangs and
as the horrified boys watched as human-looking organs and red blood came pulled
out of the now-deceased creature. Afterward, the animals backed away, and the
dogs avoided the spot where the remains continued to lay rotting in the sun. The
dogs behaved this way the rest of the day and seemed to be frightened by these
strange remains. The next day when the boys returned to the spot again to see
what was left of the creature found that the remains were gone, and at the spot
where the creature died, there was not even a bloodstain. It was as if someone
had come and cleaned up the location.
This encounter was held up as a kind of
family secret as well as a tradition that would be passed down from generation
to generation that is until, in 1978, one of the grandsons wrote to CUFOs about
the encounter. Silbie Latham was one of the main witnesses to the being and the
attack on it, and it was specifically his grandson who wrote about the
encounter. The grandson wrote, "My grandfather has a most solid reputation
for truth and honesty but has never told of this because of fear of ridicule…He
has agreed to tell this only after much prompting and encouragement from me,
his history-oriented grandson. He would take a polygraph or be hypnotized or
whatever you need. There is no question in my mind that he is telling the truth.”
following the letter, Latham was later interviewed by Larry Sessions of the
Fort Worth Museum of Science and History who would describe the grandfather as
"a remarkable man" and commented on his story thusly "There's no
doubt he believes it happened, but that doesn’t mean it did
happen. Maybe he has an overactive imagination. Or maybe his brothers played a
trick on him, and he’s sort of unconsciously embellished the story over the
years”. One of the things Mr. Lesson asked Mr. Latham was that could the
creature have been some sort of frog, but Mr. Latham vigorously rejected this
hypothesis and stuck to his guns about the description of the creature.
Now while bizarre green-skinned beings are
frequently common in Fortean encounters, be it Cryptozoology, Ufology, or in
Faerie encounters, this kind of entity seemingly has never been reported again.
Yet that does not imply that there are no answers as to the identity of the
enigmatic entity. When one starts off skeptically, there are several ideas as
to just what they could have witnessed. Obviously, the one that was most
embraced by Mr. Lesson was that what the boys saw that day could have just been
a very large bullfrog or something similar. I personally think that this is a
little bit of a stretch since Frogs do not have any sort of head structure that
one would compare to a sombrero. Now it would be more plausible for a kind of
reptile if one was to take this route for species of reptiles like Iguanas or
Basilisk Lizards, for if the crest slants over it might give the appearance of
a hat like structure, but even still, these structures are extremely flat and
fold-like, so if one was to point to them as a possibility there is still that problem
of blowing the description way out of proportion as a folded over crest just
does not give off the appearance of a sombrero.
Cryptozoologically speaking, there's never
been an exact match to the Farmersville Green Man. My first thought would be to
compare it to one of the known semiaquatic cryptids reported as these entities
are humanoid in form and bright green in color. Yet the most obvious suspects
such as The Loveland Frogmen, The Mill Race Monster, Lizard Man of Scape Ore
Swamp, Breckinridge Fishman, Charles Mill Lake Monster, but none exactly match.
There is one which could, with a stretch of the imagination, be the same or
similar, and that is the New Kensington Green Thing. The New Kensington Case
describes a bipedal creature green in color with a human-like form, but the
reason I mention it as a possibility is that the New Kensington Case involves
both a head crest and two large floppy ear-like structures that one could
describe as sombrero-like. Now the problem, of course, with this is that again,
if we take a literal look at the description, it still does not match up. The
New Kensington Green Thing has a tail, and also, the ears and crest are not the
same as a sombrero-like structure growing from the skull of the creature. This,
however, does not discredit the Cryptid hypothesis as this species is clearly
biological in nature since it has internal organs and blood. Perhaps this
organism is an incredibly rare species that only was chronicled at least once,
and chances are now it is probably extinct. Yet all of this is speculation, and
on the counter side of the coin, there's a chance this is not a cryptid since
with cryptids, there is a history of sightings such as with lake monsters,
Bigfoot, Thunderbirds, etc. even though that could just mean these species have
a higher population number or that they exist in more accessible areas to
humans allowing sightings to be reported, but if this isn't the case then this
is a completely one-off encounter and therefore something else instead of a
cryptid.
The next most plausible explanation is
that perhaps this is an extraterrestrial of some kind. This could explain the
biological aspects of the creature and could also explain why such a creature
could have been reported only once. There are several reports of small,
diminutive green-skinned or suited beings such as the Hopkinsville Goblins,
Space Penguins of Tuscumbia, and the six to eight fingered green men reported
at several different cases but most famously in the 1947 Villa Santina
encounter. So, perhaps this entity was a species similar to it but with some
particular growth or tech that could explain the sombrero shape feature.
However, the main problem with this encounter being an extraterrestrial one is
that there is no craft seen in connection to the account. While there is the
possibility that a UFO could have landed, and this was its occupant, one would
think that there should have been others seen in the vicinity or in a more
morbid thought that the craft would still be lying in some field waiting to be
discovered as its driver no longer lived.
A note that I feel should be included
deals with the possibility that this entity could be connected to a group of
creatures occasionally reported in both the annals of Cryptozoology and
Ufology. The shape of the sombrero like head is not too far off from a mushroom
shape which could imply that while this creature's internal structure is fleshy
and something akin to a human's, the fact that this being is green and
relatively mushroom-like could indicate either some super camouflage or that it
is some kind of animal-plant. In the pages of Ufology and Cryptozoology, there
are many examples of creatures that blur the line from animal and plant. The
most famous of which is the infamous Vegetable Man. The Vegetable Man was a
creature assumed to be an extraterrestrial from West Virginia that drained the
blood of a man through its long needle-like fingers after communicating with
him in a high-pitched record-like voice. Another case also hailing from West
Virginia, which was called the Veggie Man as a way to distinguish it from the
Vegetable Man, was a semi-tall figure that was green stalk-like with a big
round head and arms that extended into two curling tendril-like appendages.
These beings, especially the Veggie Man, is not too far off from the
Farmersville Green Man and raises the question that perhaps there are organisms
either from our own planet or another that intentionally or due to the course
of evolution evolved either some super camouflage that they developed as a way
to capture prey or that they are the next step in plant evolution organisms
that possibly gained both sentience and mobility. While all this is possible,
there currently is no specific species of this variety known to science, so
again it makes this possibility just speculation.
Another possibility that one can offer up
is that this entity is a member of the Fae. This same idea can be pointed to
for other plant humanoids and bipedal plant organisms such as the veggie Man,
Vegetable Man, and Moss Man. In the domain of the Fae, there are several
plant-like organisms that have been cataloged over the years. The most famous
example of the plant Fae is the Green Man. The Green Man is a forest spirit
that often appears as a humanoid made up of or covered in leaves and acts in
many ways as a kind of guardian of the forests and the seasons, specifically
that of Spring and Summer. These beings are reported and inducted into many
cultures around the world, some of which have had no discernible communication
or connection to each other. Another example of a plant-like fae is the Stray Sod.
Stray Sod is a lump term for two kinds of phenomenon that behave identically;
the first is plain old grass that becomes enchanted by the Fae and causes those
who step on it to lose their way. The second variety is a kind of entity that
camouflages itself with grass and hides on the ground waiting for someone to
step on it so that person loses their way. These beings frequently are reported
in Ireland, France, and the United Kingdom. Yet again, as with aliens and
cryptids, there's no matching variety of Fae to the Farmersville encounter
reported, at least that I am aware of. It is important to note, however, that
mushrooms are very important to the Fae as circular patches of mushrooms are
believed to be gateways to the Faerie Realm. These circles known as Fairy Rings
are constantly reported or claimed to be major areas of Faerie encounters and
other anomalous phenomena. Perhaps there might have been a fairy ring on the
farm that nobody seemed to take note of, and then on this day, the gate was
open, or the veil was dropped, and this being was able to enter our world or be
physically seen by humans.
The final possibility is that this entity
is an interdimensional being. Much like that of an extraterrestrial or a
Faerie, there is this idea that this creature could have come from some other
place as currently there is no known creature that evolved on our planet in the
same way the Farmersville Green Man did. Now with that said, there is the
possibility that this creature could have popped in from whatever original
dimension it came from and, unfortunately, either intentionally or
unintentionally picked the wrong place and time. Perhaps this could also
explain what happened to the body. I had not mentioned the mystery of the
body's disappearance as that could be rationalized by being taken away by
predators or scavengers or that if it was an alien or a fae, they picked up the
remains and took them home or if it was a more earth oriented fae it could have
simply returned to the earth that bore it. However, in the same vein, if this
creature was an interdimensional being, perhaps this popping in and out is of
dimension deals with the structure of the cells, and so if something is even
torn apart or spilled out, it will when whatever controls this ability or force
take every piece back to where it came from. Of course, all of this is
speculation.
Just what this creature is, I'm sure we
will never get an answer to it. This being, however, is interesting as it
raises the question of whether other creatures of the unknown potentially were
killed, and due to an unthinking mind or the body not being found, evidence for
their existence goes completely unaccounted. I think it's important that we
stay vigilant not just to check the skies for UFOs, thunderbirds, and Mothmen
and the surfaces of the lakes and rivers for aquatic humanoids and monsters but
also the ground around us for who knows what might be buried below us or on the
ground rotting around us.
Quick Facts:
Species/Potential Species: Reptile,
Amphibian, Mammal, /Faerie/Extraterrestrial/ Paranormal Entity/
Location: Farmersville, Texas
Sighted: May 1913
Works Cited:
Fairies: Real Life Encounters with the
Little People By Janet Bord
The World's Strangest True Stories By The
Editors of Fate
Alex Evans “Encounters with Little Men” FATE
Magazine November 1978, pp. 83-85
“Farmersville Green Man” Obscurban
Legends Wiki. https://obscurban-legend.fandom.com/wiki/Farmersville_Green_Man.
Accessed February 13, 2022.
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