The Phantom Ferret of Middle Village

 The Phantom Ferret of Middle Village

By Cole Herrold

This case I came across years ago as a kid in the book Encyclopedia Horrifica which was a great book aimed for juvenile readers but was inclusive of all areas of fortean phenomenon including faerie folk, cryptozoology, ghosts, and other phenomenon. I remember as a kid being pulled to it like a magnet I don’t remember if I bought it at one of the Scholastic book fairs or through one of the book ordering catalogs that used to be sent to us through school. My taste was always into the paranormal and fortean and the vampire skull on its moving cover called to me like a lighthouse beacon. In one section of the book, they dive into the weird world of ghost animals some of which I’ve covered such as the Frozen Ghost Chicken of Highgate. One of the entries in the book revolved around a case of a haunted taxidermied ferret. I forgot all about the case until I started relooking into other animal ghost cases and that was one that I remembered and started doing some digging.

Ghost Hunter Dominick Villella began investigating ghost encounters in 2003 specifically in New York. His group called the Paranormal Investigators of NYC have looked into countless bizarre cases. On March 2005 he received a call from a family located in the middle village which can be found in Queens, New York. The family contacted him because they were experiencing a variety of paranormal phenomenon the family claimed to hear voices and see apparitions in the apartment Dominick and the other members of his crew were under the impression that what the family was experiencing was deceased family members visiting the family’s son. Yet there was a portion of the phenomena that seemed to indicate something more animal oriented. As the family would hear a bizarre kind of panting that did not seem connected to the other phenomena. Dominick entered one room to find that amongst the typical home décor was a stuffed ferret. Dominick whipped out his handy dandy EMF detector and surprisingly got high readings from the ferret specifically. Dominick decided this would be the ideal room to do an EVP session in and upon listening to the tapes he discovered he could hear a strange panting which he could identify. Dominick had at one point owned pet ferrets and after listening to the tapes he could hear the types of sounds these animals would make namely a kind of strange panting noise. Dominick got a hold of the family and told of his finding and stated that the family had best cremate the taxidermied ferret as it may be behind some of the phenomenon and suggested that to stop the phenomenon they cremate the animal. Villella hypothesized that perhaps the taxidermied ferret took in some of the electromagnetic energy coming from a nearby electric clock radio which in turn allowed it to manifest in some ways. If this spirit was trying to communicate what its purpose was, was never stated.

 There was no follow-up as to whether this ended the phenomenon at Middle Village or even for that matter if the taxidermied ferret was cremated. Dominick Villella was a carpenter and a stay at home dad before the subject of the after life got ensnared in him. It was while getting some wisdom teeth removed that he experienced an out of body experience and this totally changed the course of his life. This change led him into investigating any paranormal experience that came his way. Its from this that we can gage that he is investigating this phenomenon not for some fame but for an authentic interest into the phenomenon which is something I can surely appreciate. This added a quick google search of Dominick reveals about four articles involving his work so this adds to this hypothesis of a genuine researcher as he clearly has not been seeking major fame or attention from the wider public. I must say that it is a pity that we have to resort to this to gage his credibility yet with the Fortean it is almost mandatory now adays as there are those big names who seek the paycheck through fraudulent claims or as one particular infamous researcher who shall not be named who proceeds to use a drug overdose as evidence of Close Encounters of the Sixth Kind/Abduction case even after the family has reached out to cease such allegations.

Ghost encounters of this type are difficult to debunk or validate because they come from one group and practically nothing was written about the case. My initial thoughts are that there is very little to instigate a hoax. Frankly I had never heard of Dominick before or after the Encyclopedia Horrifica book and even then I had never seen his work extensively published or mentioned. So the purpose of him attempting to profit off this phenomenon is unlikely. Plus the events of this case frankly are boring if he was to milk this case for money we would expect him or even this case to be in the same vein as the Warrens or Zak Bagans or TAPS. The mundanity of the case seems to indicate a more truthful interpretation of the phenomenon and not that seen over and over at more “popular” paranormal researchers.

It’s from this that it would appear that this case is told exactly as it appeared it happened, and the theories told as what was felt. This is not some case that was generated into a demonic entity sent to tear the family apart or some other life altering event but told almost matter of factly. The phenomenon never became some bigger than life story that seemed to spiral out of control like what we’d see in Amityville or the Haunting in Connecticut case. It was a mere phenomenon is occurring; a simple investigation was conducted; this was the anomalies, and this is what they recommend. It’s from this I tend to believe that this is a real encounter. There was no fanfare or even major interest in the case, and it was just one of many accounts included in Encyclopedia Horrifica.

Ghost Ferrets or animals of a similar kind are not unheard of for those curious. Animal Ghosts of all sorts are claimed yet perhaps the most famous and more animated of them was a ghost mongoose known as Gef. A mongoose is not too dissimilar to a ferret, yet Mongoose are members of the Herpestes genus, while ferrets are members of the Mustela genus. Mongoose tend to be larger and thicker in form to Ferrets yet as carnivorous mammals they bear may features that are similar to each other.

Another thing I feel that I need to bring up is haunted or living taxidermy. There are several reported cases of this over the years and many legends exist about taxidermy suddenly returning to life but unable to hunt or do the things that it feels the need to do. In Pennsylvania there are countless legends of this sort the most famous of which being the Spook Wolves. A series of taxidermied wolves that came to life and are reported from time to time however these entities are now unable to hunt or hurt anyone. There is also the story of a taxidermied mountain lion that came to life. In this legend a mounted mountain lion was kept on the roof of a building only for its mate to drag the carcass back to the woods where it came back to life and is now occasionally seen. In ghost lore ghosts frequently are either attached to or seek out their original bodies or forms that would be similar to what they were when alive. This is where the countless cases of haunted dolls and toys came from as well as how cremating remains can end a haunting in a location. So what Dominick was describing, and the family was experiencing does have a background of similarly occurring accounts and phenomenon.

With all that said the Phantom Ferret of Middle Village is an interesting case of a taxidermied oriented spirit and I would love a follow up to the case as some of the phenomenon described by the family appear to be something more human than animal so one has to wonder if cremating the remains helped the family at all or if they are still experiencing phenomenon. I think the importance of this case and others is that animals are indeed an important part of our world and that they need respect as well especially after their own demise. Now Id love more of a back story on the ferret and how the family acquired it for something that many who know me know I was a hunter, and my family owns taxidermy and I own ethically sourced taxidermy of organisms like an octopus that hangs in my bathroom and several bats yet of all the taxidermy that I owned I’ve never experienced phenomenon associated with them and that’s even with them being in close proximity to electrical devices. Was this ferret a pet, killed by a previous owner, or killed to be taxidermied we will probably never know and so its from this that I wonder just how the animal passed and if that had something to do with its choice to hang around in spirit. The concepts of how a spirit works or how it connects to the flesh is something that has been debated about for centuries yet were no closer to finding an answer and I personally don’t think we ever will and so the same goes for this case. Is there something in all of us that keeps our spirit or even a fragment or partial piece intact or alive and that it can be re-animated through energy I’m not at liberty to say. Perhaps if someone invents some serum like what Herbert West had in Re-Animator we may come close to answering that but until that day arrives all we have at best is speculation.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Ghost Animal

Location: Middle Village, Queens, New York City, New York

Sighted: March 2005

Works Cited:

Encyclopedia Horrifica Book by Joshua Gee

Dan Barry “That Noise? That Stuffed Ferret? Sounds Out of This World”.  New York Times. Nov. 1, 2006. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/nyregion/01about.html. Accessed February 28, 2023.