The Blackwood Centaur

 The Blackwood Centaur

By Cole Herrold

Blackwood, New Jersey, seemingly is an unsung Greek Monster breeding ground as, over the years, at least two creatures from the Myths of the Mediterranean Sea seemed to of appeared in the small community. The earliest account was a strange pigman/minotaur hybrid reported in 1976 known as the Blackwood Pigtaur (see its entry for more info). Sometime later, however, in the winter of 2000, another Homeric beast was claimed to dwell in the nearby community. This account I had originally come across several years ago on About.com's paranormal archive “Your True Tales," and unfortunately, at the time, I was not able to acquire a copy as I had some naïve notion that the account would be there forever. This was not the case and it, along with several other bizarre cases, seemed lost to time, that is until I was doing research on another New Jersey native and found the entry in the Messiah of Fortean filing Albert Rosales’s mandatory-to-own book series Humanoid Encounters which has managed to save most of the cases. So, a personal thank you to Albert Rosales for his incredible resources and hard work. Now on to the encounter.

One night an unnamed witness was driving home from a nightclub in a heavy snowstorm. It was about 2:00 in the morning, and the witness was returning home from a late night of partying at a nightclub that was not from his home. He was in his Ford Explorer and was about to turn onto Erial Road, where his house is, when a strange figure began to run out in front of his truck. The creature was only about 20 yards from his vehicle, and he could see that it was dark gray and seemingly four-legged, which at first made him think that it was a deer. Yet as he looked out into the darkness and up from the lower portion of the creature, he noticed that the quadrupedal body grew into the trunk of a man’s upper torso. He stared in absolute shock and with a twinge of terror at the man-like appendages and took note that not only was the creature's equestrian or cervine lower quarters graying from assumedly age, but so too did the creature's man-like face. The witness watched as the elderly creature stared at him with eerily human eyes before it began to run once more into a nearby wooded lot that was adjacent to his backyard. The witness proceeded to return home completely terrified, dripping with sweat and trembling. He then, after running to the assumed safety of his home, proceeded to lock the patio doors and watched the woods from the backyard just in case the creature decided to make a comeback. As he waited and watched, however, the creature never did return, and as far as being reported, it was never seen again.

Humanoids and specifically creatures known as Manimals have always interested me cryptids like Mothman, Owlman, and of course, Bigfoot, for example, are some of my personal favorites, but these entities, while bearing some human-like qualities, do tend to be more reminiscent of animals very few have features that one could point to as truly human. With creatures like the Centaurs or Flying humanoids such as the Butler County Gargoyle or Butler County Faerie (See entries for more info), they seem to be eerily human and not something such as a bipedal ape, reptile, or bird that is man-sized. So, it raises the question, especially in this case, just what could this creature be as it does not seem to match the known realms of Zoology or Paleontology.

Skeptically speaking, this creature evolutionarily should not exist. When looking at chimeral beasts and creatures such as flying humanoids, some merfolk accounts, and of course my personal favorite, the Jersey Devil, the main problem with their existence is that their bone structure defies our current understanding of how species evolve. Wings, for example, are essentially highly modified hands that are adapted for flight as opposed to walking or grasping. Currently, in nature, no vertebrates have multiple appendages that one would associate with this feature; insects, arthropods, and the like do, but their bodies are built extremely different compared to how we currently understand bilateral symmetry and in general skeletal development in vertebrates. So with cases such as classic Chupacabras or the Jersey Devil, for example, which are described as having both wings and small front legs, this is currently an impossibility as we have no evidence of multi-winged organisms in the fossil record. This same argument also includes Centaurs as basically what is described is a similar skeletal structure of a human's but fused to that of a horses; this would have to imply that there would be three sets of appendages, two that developed much like a horse's and one that continued to function or evolved to be like a set of human arms. This evolutionarily is impossible at our current understanding of how organisms develop, even though such features would be advantageous.

From a not so skeptical standpoint, horse-humanoids that are seemingly fused at weird angles or in almost perfectly cut ways are actually surprisingly common, while one can easily point to the Centaur from Greek Myth as a reference, sightings of similar creatures have been reported elsewhere and in modern times. In Scotland, there is a rather nasty creature that is a variation of centaur-like creature known as the Nuckelavee; this abhorrent abomination is described as having the full form of a horse head, hoof, and tail but also having a humanoid figures upper torso including arms and head growing out of the middle of the back like some sort of macabre tree. All this is even more disturbing when one also mentions that the creature has no skin and that the horse head has a single cycloptic eye peering out of its skull. This creature, unlike centaurs in the Greek myths, which were a mixture of both savage and wise, is completely nefarious; it would ruin crops and genuinely cause unspeakable horrors to any who would run in with it. Reports of centaurs or centaur-like creatures have appeared from time to time in other countries and states as well such as Mexico, Ireland, Virginia, Arizona, Michigan, and another sighting of a similar creature in the Sourland Mountain also of New Jersey. So perhaps these reports are extremely small populations of a kind of cryptid. Perhaps there was some early hominid population or something like that that either through some genetic mutation or altered homeotic hox gene developed an additional set of legs or even arms and that over the several millions of years perfected this feature into enabling it to move faster while still being able to utilize its hands for toolmaking or foraging granted this is a serious long shot, but perhaps it could have happened. Fossils are notoriously unreliable in the sense that while they are factual in the existence of creatures that lived on our planet, they do not sum up all the life that existed on our planet. For an organism to become a fossil, it needs to be in an ideal location at an ideal time, or else it'll just decompose to nothing. For example, most of our early hominid fossils are incomplete are partial skeletons, and for most fossil species, partial specimens are all we really know of them. There are most certainly entire fields of partial remains or entire small populations of organisms that never became fossils or even more probable when one looks at the early methods of paleontology either destroyed, lost, or placed in the vaults of the Smithsonian until some scientist just happens to stumble upon it. The amount of data they have that has not been gone through is staggering hence why some of the most groundbreaking finds in recent history were discovered under their very noses. Perhaps some bizarre evolutionary offshoot of multiple jointed organisms is still buried somewhere, be it in the vault of the Smithsonian or in some desert or under some building, and if or when it's discovered could prove that such creatures did exist or are at least possible.

While the cryptid route anecdotally seems to be the only possibility for these beings, it's by far not the only one. It is unlikely that these beings are ghosts or Extraterrestrials, but I will say that for the extraterrestrial route, there is always the chance that in these cases, there could be some craft hidden in the nearby woods or underground. One popular possibility that was written about in Dante Alighieri’s epic poem Inferno as part of his Divine Comedy features centaurs as a kind of denizen from hell. In Dante's hell, many mythological creatures are claimed, such as Charon, Cerberus, Geryon, the triple bodied creature featured in the 12 labors of Hercules, Medusa, the Furies, the Harpies, the minotaur; of all these classic monsters, however, Dante also encountered three specific centaurs Chiron, Nessus, and Pholus. It's from works as Dante and the general demonization of pagan figures that many views such creatures solely as demonic, but to play devil's advocate, what if they are correct. Perhaps these entities are, in fact, infernal beings who had over the course of centuries in those ancient times convinced people to hold them as gods are in reverence for some malicious purpose and that these beings are authentic demons. Now while one cannot take such a possibility off the table, I do not feel that this is the case. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are relatively new religions, and it's from these Abrahamic religions that most of our perceptions of demons come from and for me to view any phenomenon from this lens which would place almost any phenomena as godly or demonic is frankly just too biased and simplistic for how the world and every other aspect of life is. Plus, those religions, while important, make up only one portion of a wide web of beliefs that ALL need to be taken into consideration; this includes native beliefs, Shinto, Hinduism, paganism in all forms, etc. In this case, this being, even from a considerable demonic identity, did not behave aggressively or do anything that one would associate with the infernal kingdom.

There are two other major possibilities that stick out in my mind as to where this being comes from and, in doing so, just what it might be. The first is, of course, this being could be some interdimensional entity that comes from some dimension where such forms of evolution are common, and for some reason, either intentionally or unintentionally, it ended up here. This would explain the countless sightings over the years and why there's never been official physical evidence of their existence as well as how such a creature could come about.

The other possibility, which depending on your interpretation, could be just an extension of the interdimensional aspect, is that Centaurs are a kind of fae. The fae or faeries, in general, are several species and races of countless types of supernatural beings that are linked to nature. The fae are often linked entirely to Europe, especially in Ireland and the United Kingdom, but almost every culture has some version of them. In Japan, the fae exist in the Yokai as these beings are a colloquial term for bizarre entities that seem to exist for specific purposes, usually for no clear reason, and many bear many similarities in behavior to their European brethren. Native cultures in North, Central, and South America also have tales of diminutive humanoids and bizarre beasts associated with nature; these entities range in shape, size, and purpose but all have almost identical features and abilities to those seen in Europe and Asia. The creatures from Greece are often linked as their own kind, but there are many parallels to the fae, namely with entities such as the dryads, naiads, nereids, and the like, and when one looks at the satyrs, fauns, and centaurs, they too are a kind of being of the woods and interconnected with nature beings that are separate from the divine and the human world. It's from this that perhaps Centaurs are a member of the fae as well. The more I research Fortean cases, the more I think there might be something to the fae or the Fae hypothesis and that it is perhaps it is a much wider and deeper phenomenon than we currently are aware of. However, as with all cases that I mention, the hypothesis is mere speculation.

Centaurs are a bizarre mystery as one does not expect to see one running around in modern times and in a location so far removed from the islands around the Mediterranean Sea. I have several theories as to just what these creatures are, but none are conclusive, as with almost all the creatures that exist in the realms of Fortean studies. I have hopes that eventually, these mysteries will be answered and that these entities, whatever they are and wherever they come from, are part of our knowledge of our world, yet I have doubts that I will see it in my lifetime. Its cases like this that not only pique my interest but also show that once was old is new again and that our monsters and gods are not dead but still living amongst us, hiding in the shadows of the night just out of our sight but on those rare chances just maybe we’ll see them and the legends will continue for generations to come.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal

Location: Blackwood, Gloucester Township, New Jersey

Sighted: Winter of 2000

Works Cited:

Humanoid Encounters: 2000-2009 By Albert S. Rosales

The Blackwood Pigtaur

 The Blackwood Pigtaur

By Cole Herrold

Cryptids often appear to be a cross between at least two animals, typically a man and some other species like a bird, ape, or dog. Others, even though it's less common, are a total chimera of seemingly countless varieties of creatures. Perhaps the most famous chimera cryptid is the Jersey Devil with its bat-like wings, horse-like head, reptile-like tail, cloven hooves, and mammalian paws, and ram or deer-like horns, but it is not alone and seemingly is not the only chimeral cryptid creature in New Jersey if a particularly bizarre encounter from 1976 is to be believed.

It was on August 9, 1976, when a mother named Olivia and her daughter were preparing for the incoming gales of Hurricane Belle and, having gotten most of their mandatory prep work done, decided to get some horseback riding in before the storm started beating on their home. So, the two went to their barn, got their horses out, and proceeded to head towards the Lakeland area by Blackwood. They had visited the area several times and were quite familiar with the trails in and around the area. They chose on that day a specific dirt road that went along a nearby junkyard and began riding out into the woods. The winds were beating wildly already, but the pair already on hoof decided that they might as well make the best of it and continue on their trek. Things were normal even with the incoming storm that would soon hit the Jersey coast, that is until they got to a certain section of woods where everything went deathly silent. There were no bird songs or insects, just absolute quiet the pair noticed this as the woods on an average day were always so lively, and even before this section, there was a cacophony of noises. They listened to the eerie silence for some time when as if as some morbid prophetic omen, they heard the sound of a crow. The crow cawed three times and was heard no more, and as if on cue, the horses started acting up as if they were aware of something dangerous or frightening that the two could not see. The riders were trying to calm down their mounts and were doing their best to try to see what was upsetting the horses, but at their current spot, they could see nothing.

The mother and daughter continued on their path, and when they moved a little further up the path, they noticed something moving about 100 ft from them. They saw a dark form that appeared to be about 6ft in height, seemingly scratching its back on a tree. The creature had its back facing them, so they could not tell what the animal was. Olivia, when she first saw it thought that perhaps this was a large dog, or maybe they saw the top of the horse as the lower half was hidden by brush and nearby bushes. Olivia looked over to her daughter when she realized that neither of her guesses seemed to match, and so she asked, "What is that". As she said this, the figure moved away from the tree and began walking the path in front of them. They soon thought that whatever this was, it had to be a human since the figure was walking like a man, but they were confused since while it was windy, the person would be still extremely warm under all the fur clothing he seemed to wear. The two continued to follow the figure up the hill but kept their distance and moved extra slowly to try to discern just what was in front of them. All the while, the horses were becoming more and more difficult to control as they were seemingly deeply disturbed by the figure in front of them. All this soon broke out as the horses went wild, rearing up on their hind legs and whinnying loudly. This ruckus caught the attention of the figure in front of them, and as it turned around, Olivia and her daughter could tell that whatever this thing was, it was not human.

The figure before them seemed like something pulled from mythology; it was covered in whitish hair and had long curved horns. The creature stood on two feet, but in place of paws or toes, the creature had cloven hooves. The creature's hips had big spots on it like one would expect to see on a cow, and the creature had long muscular human-like arms with hands that were tipped with razor-sharp claws. While all this would seem like a classic Minotaur, there was one feature that seemed to indicate something of a more swinish origin as in place of a bull-like snout, the creature had an upturned and protruding pig-like nose. When she looked at the creature's face even further, she noticed that the creature had bright red slanting eyes and that the creature's fang-filled jaws were wide open and profusely drooling and slobbering. The creature, which was on the side of the path seeing these followers proceeded to jump into the middle of the road, arms outstretched, and proceeded to lower its head as if it was going to charge after them. Fearing that this would be an unconventional version of Spain's running with the bulls, the daughter was fretting frantically; however, as Olivia looked at the creature, she felt that she was almost in some sort of trance which she would later describe "like she was in a movie or something". Her daughter, seemingly noticed her mother's immobility began to yell to her, "Let's turn around and get out of here!" and only then did Olivia seem to snap from whatever trance she was in and realize the very real danger she could be in.

They could feel terror seething through their veins, and as they began to get the horses to turn around, the creature began to move. The creature began to charge at them but brought its arms into its body, tucking them inwards and running as the witness would describe "like the Bionic Man". The creature came extremely close to them and in an almost Legend of Ichabod and Mr. Toad style came so close to the witness that it almost grabbed one of their horse’s tails. But right before its clawed fist could close around the rear of the animal, they got their horses to speed off, running as fast as they could down the hill and the dirt path. When Olivia, in a moment of curiosity to see if they were still being chased by the creature, turned around, she could see that it still stood in the road at the exact spot where it had stopped to grab the horse's tail.

The pair, now mad dashing down the hill, had managed to make their way to the junkyard where almost in a scene reminiscent of such horror classics like My Bloody Valentine or Halloween, a police officer was parked seemingly oblivious to the nightmarish marauder that was lurking in his town. The Washington Township police officer saw the two on horseback running at break-neck pace towards his vehicle, and he proceeded to roll down the window. In strained and frenzied breath, Olivia and her daughter began to tell the officer of the strange creature that they encountered and, seeing the horrified expressions on their face, took them seriously enough to reach over and start to write a report on what the women were saying. As he was writing, he muttered, "Well I hope to hell we don't catch it," and almost as if on cue, the creature returned.

The creature exited the woods and entered the junkyard; it continued its bizarre bionic running and was coming straight towards the police car. The woman and officer could only look in horror as this Greek ghoul came sprinting through the old, dilapidated cars and hopped over the 8ft tall fence that surrounded the auto graveyard. The creature, however, either afraid of the law or for some other unknown reason, seemed not to care for the women and horses that it only moments earlier attempted to chase down and proceeded to gallop in front of the police car and into the nearby woods. The officer stared in disbelief at the awful abomination that he had just witnessed and looked over to Olivia and asked for her address as he wanted to speak to her later about the event the three of them had just witnessed. Olivia complied and began to lead the horses back home and into their stables. Olivia, however, never got to have that follow-up with the officer as apparently she did not make it home in time for his arrival, and he simply came and went.

Sometime later, a neighbor of hers who owned a local ranch told her that at one time, he had found one of his horses dead in the field with its stomach ripped open. Olivia kept this story secret for a long time until her daughter decided that she should come forward with her account and report it to the amazing New Jersey-oriented Fortean book and magazine writers and investigators Weird NJ. She discussed the full encounter over the phone and ended her account, stating, "I believe there is something out there. There were three witnesses that day and my daughter and I can recall vividly every moment of our encounter with this thing. Even after 40 years, Ill never forget it. I’ve never told this story to anyone outside of the family, but my daughter convinced me to tell it to Weird NJ”.

Some of the researchers took an interest in the tale and decided to do a follow-up focusing primarily on if there was an official report on the creature in the local police station. Upon asking several officers who were on the force during the time the event took place at the Lakeland Police Department, they were surprised to find that all of the officers knew about the encounter and claimed that the event did, in fact, happen. The officers also said that the creature seen in 76' was not alone as they frequently got reports about a bizarre flying creature that was also said to hang out in the same area.

This case is unique for many reasons, but perhaps the most interesting is that essentially what was described in the encounter was something like a cross between a known cryptid called a Pigman and a Minotaur, a seemingly mythological creature. Encounters with Minotaurs or Cowmen from a cryptozoological perspective are practically unheard of; these encounters are so rare that other rare cryptid species I've come to call Barnyard Beasts like Goatmen or Pigmen are common in comparison, so this encounter is very unique and rare simply for that reason. The creature's appearance, while cow like is also similar to a Pigman with features similar specifically akin to the Vermont Pigman as both creatures were reported to have whitish hair and a piggish proboscis. Now while I cannot rule out that this might be some unholy love child of a Minotaur and a Pigwoman (as there are reports even though they tend to be interconnected with ghosts), perhaps this pig-like feature could be a kind of deformity or because of Olivia's interpretation of the feature and it could actually be more cow-like.  Yet this is just speculation, and based on the description might just be some hybrid between the two cryptids or its own species altogether that just happens to bear a strong resemblance between the two kinds.

While this creature does appear to be a cryptid, there are some other options, obviously. One thing that points to a potential paranormal avenue for the origin of this creature is the almost trance-like state Olivia was seemingly put through. Now skeptically speaking, this could simply be Olivia attempting to rationalize what she was seeing in front of her and that she was so engulfed in fear that her fight or flight instinct had not kicked in. With that said, however, Olivia definitely described her encounter as being like a trance, so perhaps that is actually what occurred to her, but if so, where does that put this creature.

The creature being an extraterrestrial is highly unlikely, and arguably the same can go for the creature being a faerie unless this was some guise it ultimately was taking. Interestingly the cloven hooves, large horns, and humanoid form do seem to fit the iconic appearance of a demonic entity, yet the problem I have with just about any demonic claim is that the idea of a demon fits one specific kind of religious belief and that these entities would need to behave in the same ways that religion says they need to and almost in every case I've read including those involving the Warrens or Zak Bagans there is a lot of potential ambiguity with what these entities are and often after an exorcism or blessing the spirit is still there, or activity in the house continues years later. With this case, there is an extra layer when trying to fit this creature into this parameter as the creature would need to do something more ethereal such as disappear or possess someone, and outside of potentially putting someone in a trance, it did not do anything of the sort.

Another possibility is that this creature could be an interdimensional entity. The creature could have simply accidentally popped into our dimension and may not have noticed that it changed dimensions, and when the horses reacted, it was just as terrified to their reaction as they were to it, and the trance was its way of protecting itself or as a kind of predatory move. This, of course, is complete speculation. And alternatively, perhaps this creature could be an Ultraterrestrial as the creature seemingly only sought to scare the witnesses for food as it chased them, but they were able to get away as its appetite was satiated. This possibility is also extremely interesting when the creature is seen for a second time, and it seems to completely ignore those that only earlier it was seemingly attacking.

New Jersey has tons of bizarre beasts that are said to exist in the pines and woodlands of the state. While The Jersey Devil is perhaps the most famous along with Old Red Eyes, the Jersey Squatch, yet there are other equally bizarre creatures like a red-haired Collie faced cryptid that ran bipedally across Bowman Road in 1982 and, of course, the Musconetcong River Mantis Man (see entry for more information). This creature is clearly a fitting addition to the New Jersey Paranormal Pantheon, yet as with almost all paranormal entities, we are at a loss for a true answer. I would love a follow-up to this case either from Olivia, her daughter, or the officer who was there when the creature galloped across the road. Until the day comes when possibly one of the witnesses goes and adds more information to this account or perhaps others who had seen the same creature come forward, we are simply left questioning just what this creature is, where it came from, and perhaps more menacingly is there more of them.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal

Location: Blackwood, New Jersey

Sighted: August 9, 1976

Works Cited:

Jersey Devils, Bizarre Beasts And Other Creatures of Weird NJ By Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman