The Vegetable Man

 The Vegetable Man

By Cole Herrold

Some cases are classics, and then there are cases that, even though they are rarely mentioned by the Fortean community, are destined to be such. The case of the Vegetable Man is one such case. As the years grew, more and more became aware of this bizarre, monstrous mutant freak flora. It has gained both love and jeers from those who have heard the encounter and, interestingly enough, may be interconnected with a wider phenomenon reported cross-culturally and not just in the hills and hollows of West Virginia.

It was a warm summer day during Mid-July 1968 when Jennings Frederick had begun to traverse through the woods near Rivesville and Fairmont in West Virginia near his father's property. His intent of being in the woods on this particular day was to hunt woodchucks with his bow and arrow. After almost a full day of searching for the game of his choice, he had decided to return back home before nightfall. As he was traveling back the path, his thoughts were troubled, and so he proceeded to stop under a set of Red Maple trees to adjust his 45lbs bow before moving on, but his deep contemplation would soon be broken by a bizarre sound. The sound he heard to him sounded strange; it was not an animal call or something he was familiar with, and the closest he could explain as to what it sounded like was akin to a record played at an extremely fast speed. This sound caught his attention, and as he listened, he soon was able to decipher that this was some sort of words or communication which seemed to say, " You need not fear me. I wish to communicate. I come as a friend. We know of you all. I come in peace. I wish medical assistance. I need your help!" Jennings proceeded to reach down into his pocket for a handkerchief because during this whole excursion, he had become rather sweaty, and as he reached down, he suddenly felt a sharp pain on his hand, and as he looked over to see if his hand had been caught in a brier brush, he saw that there was a strange green form grabbing onto him by the wrist. Following the green form up, he noticed that this was not a typical brier brush but instead a colossal creature that defied explanation.

There standing exceptionally close to him, was a 7ft tall creature bright green in color with features that were eerily human in its face. The most noticeable feature of this creature's face, however, was its bright, piercing yellow eyes and its long ears. As he scanned the creature's body, he noticed it was carrot-shaped but was green, almost like a plant stalk. The body had noticeable shoulders and arms, but these arms were only about as thick as a quarter. The arm's eerie thinness was not the most disturbing feature of this portion of the body; however for, the creature's hands stretched down into three incredibly long fingers with 7" needle-like protrusions that were enveloped by a kind of suction cup. It was the right arm of this peculiar creature that had encapsulated his arm, and as he watched, the creature seemed to grip even tighter, and he noticed that through this, the creature punctured one of his blood vessels. As the creature continued to do this, he could hear a sound almost akin to sucking that instantly told him that this creature was draining his blood. Pain from this motion shot up his arm, and as he continued to stare at the creature, a peculiar thing began to occur; the creature's yellow eyes suddenly began to swirl with red creating almost a spiral type effect and where the two colors would meet in the center orange circles appeared. This sudden change in eye color and motion had a hypnotizing effect on Jennings, and he soon realized that he no longer felt any pain from the creature's grasp as it did this. As the creature did this, it once more released its message that Jennings had heard before, but he was unsure if the creature was communicating telepathically or whether the creature was speaking it audibly. This otherworldly transfusion lasted at least to Frederick's for only a minute, but the drainage could very well have lasted much longer. After the creature seemed to have its fill, it suddenly released him extremely quickly, and the creature then, at incredible speeds, began to jump away and sprint up a hill in jumps or leaps that were 25ft in each leap. Jennings was able to estimate the height of these jumps after he watched the creature clear a 5ft tall fence with still 3 ft to spare.

Sketch of the Vegetable Man which appeared in Time Life's UFO Phenomenon

Once it reached the hilltop, it ultimately disappeared, and as he stared in the direction of where the creature left, the pain in his arm suddenly returned, and as he stood there holding his arm in pain, he then heard a high humming and whistling sound which he instantly felt was the creature's UFO coming back to pick it back up. Jennings, after no longer hearing the sound, began to work his way home and, after washing his wound and bandaging it, decided to not speak a word about his encounter or go to a doctor for fear that no one would believe him. Yet as time went on, he began to develop a friendship with Gray Barker and told the tale to him, but this would not be Jennings' last brush with the unknown. Sometime before or after this event, Jennings' mother would encounter a strange entity that was seen around the house.

Image of the Vegetable Man encounter from Gray Barker's Newsletter

While Jennings was still in school, his mother would have a bizarre encounter with a tethered entity from a UFO. This she experienced after she had dropped her husband off at work, and as she was washing the breakfast dishes, she glanced out of the family's window and noted what she at first believed to of been a child playing in the field on the hillside by their house. Her motherly instinct kicked in because she was concerned the child might go and touch the nearby electric fence on their property, and so she began to head out onto her porch to warn the child. Once she got onto her porch, however, she noticed that what she initially thought was a child was not a child but a strange creature that was small and black or dark green in color. The creature bore the appearance of almost a little devil to her as it had long pointed ears and a tail, but she was unable to see a face on the creature. The strange entity as she watched was as she watched grabbing clumps of dirt from the hill and shoving the clods into a bag in its hand, and as she looked over, she noticed that beyond the creature nestled in the grass was a large cream and silver-colored craft on the ground. The object was about 10ft in diameter and about 5ft tall and had several windows under the dome of the craft. The creature was seemingly connected to the craft by some sort of cable or wire, and the object seemed to rotate in a clockwise motion and seemed to release a humming sound. Mrs. Fredericks was deeply disturbed by this apparition and the potential satanic origins that she rushed back inside and jumped into bed, covering herself up and hoping for the entity and its craft to disappear. She waited for some time until finally gathering enough courage to peek out of the cover and out the window upon which she just caught sight of the craft leaving and noted that the object made an even louder humming sound before it finally departed. Mrs. Frederick told no one about what she had seen until Jennings came home from school because Jennings had either before his encounter with the Vegetable Man or afterward suddenly developed a keen interest in UFOs and had an idea of just what to look for.

Jennings, upon coming home and hearing his mother's account, proceeded to go out onto the hill and investigate upon which he found a depression on the ground and, based on the impression and soil consistency, was able to estimate that the craft weighed a ton. As he searched the area, he also found claw-like tracks from which he was able to gauge that the creature weighed some 45lbs. As Jennings observed the area, he also found hair samples that he managed to collect as well as managed to make plaster of Paris casts of the creature's tracks. He proceeded to send all of this evidence to an unspecified sect of the air force, which, upon analyzing the data, claimed that it came from a weather balloon, and they never proceeded in returning the samples he sent to them.

Sometime later, Jennings would later join the air force, and after his discharge, he was living with his parents once more in their family home where his previous encounters had occurred. One morning sometime between one and four in the morning, he was awakened by a bright flash of red light. Jennings, instinctively and certainly concerned after his previous excursions with the unknown, withdrew his .38 service revolver that he kept under his pillow and left his room to investigate the strange illumination. At first, he believed the source may have been caused by the gas furnace. Yet suddenly, a small canister about the size of an apple dropped to the ground and began to bounce around the living room floor. Suddenly as he was watching this strange device, he felt a hand grab him as well as the prick of a needle in his left arm. Afterward, he was confronted by three bizarre men wearing black ski masks, turtleneck sweaters, and slacks. Upon which they began to talk amongst themselves, saying, "the dogs have been darted, and everybody gassed!" "what about this one?" "he's going out soon- he's half asleep" "don't worry about the needle; it'll make his arm sore for a day or two, that's all." Just as the canister was about to reach Jennings, the strange men proceeded to put on gas masks, and the last thing Jennings remembered was that one of the men put the jumping canister into his pocket. The men then began to put something over Jennings' head and began to ask him about UFOs and exactly what they were. The men also asked what time it was and also what he had thought of the future, but after that point, Jennings remembered nothing and was sure he had passed out. Jennings remembered nothing and slept soundly until the next morning and no one else the following morning seemed to remember or comment on anything strange.

Thus ends the strange tale of Jennings Frederick, which is more or less what this tale is about. Now breaking down this case, I'm only going to focus on the Vegetable Man portion of his encounters since that is arguably the most important and easiest to break down. Now going fully skeptical, there is a lot to point out. First up would be the source, and that is that this case is given to us by Gray Barker. Now Gray Barker was a hoaxster, and there's no denying that even though he has covered other seemingly legitimate phenomena like the Flatwoods Monster, Mothman, or Grafton Monster and, in part, the Men in Black but still one must recognize that as with all of his writings one needs to take it a grain of salt. Especially with a case like this, since there's no peer review of the case as in the others, it's literally just his account, so we have to either assume he's being honest or fabricating a tale.

Now upon initial reading of this tale, there are a lot of similarities to films that would have been easily accessible to Barker, and if we go, Jennings fabricating the tale access to. The most recognizable is Howard Hawkes the Thing From Another World. While most are familiar with the John Carpenter reboot, the original based on the short story "Who Goes There?" is still a classic and important in regard to this case. In the film, the extraterrestrial being who goes on a murderous rampage in the frozen environment that serves as the setting of the film is a tall humanoid shape with strange knuckle protrusions akin to thorns or claws. Yet as the film discusses the morphology of the entity, it is revealed that the alien is, in fact, a kind of humanoid plant that feeds, and this is the most important part of blood. There's a scene where the creature kills several of the outposts dogs and hangs the bleeding carcasses over the plants in the greenhouse to essentially feed them all off-screen, of course. The features on the creature's hands (granted, they’re on the wrong section) and the creature's need for blood and vegetable connection are very similar to the Vegetable Man. Add this to the films of Dracula and even the 60s Batman, namely with the villain the Mad Hatter, where hypnotism is utilized through the eyes to stop a person from feeling or being easily manipulated, and it would be so easy for someone to be influenced by these films and shows to create a false story that seems believable. Now it must be said that while this is very likely, the creature's overall description does not exactly match anything, at least that I'm aware of, that would match the description of the creature given, especially with such specific lengths and measurements as a quarter thick arms or 7” long fingers.

Now with that said, perhaps this creature is a cryptid. Clearly, there's nothing in the known botanical or zoological categories that would match, but there are a few different possibilities that I think need mentioned. The first is that perhaps this creature is a highly evolved version of insectivorous plants. These species of plants like the Venus Flytraps, the Sundews, Cobra Lilys, etc., developed this need to consume other organisms as a way of getting their mandatory need of nitrogen to survive in the environments that they reside in. These species are extremely fascinating, and perhaps over some million years of evolution, one became more mobile, no longer needing the nutrients of the ground as much, and, in turn, crossed the line into a species almost akin to an animal. Now granted, this is pure speculation, but there have been other cryptids reported of the plant variety that are similar; the Ya-Te-Veo, for example, is an alleged south American tree sort of like a short tendrilled tree that does attempt to capture humans, a similar type of tree is also reported to exist in Madagascar. Now obviously, there's a big issue with this; for one thing, neither the Ya-Te-Veo nor the Madagascar equivalent, which seem to be megafloral versions of insectivorous plants, have been found, and again, the lore of these plants is that they grow in the ground and do not move in a sentient way like the Vegetable Man.

Now while this creature might not be a plant, it may be an animal. We know in nature that there are insects that mimic plants, there are beetles that look like leaves, there are stick insects, and so on. So perhaps the creature that was seen was some sort of colossal equivalent of such a creature. In nature, animals always find unique ways to camouflage themselves or find ways to better their chance of survival, such as through Batesian Mimicry. A creature that could essentially blend in so well with its environment that it would appear part of the natural flora would be perfect for catching any number of prey as well as remaining elusive for countless years. Now, of course, the problem with this is that this creature, if real is far more advanced than an insect, and its abilities and features are, in fact, more plant-like than animal, so it simply could not be a traditional animal as far as we know it or even from a speculative standpoint unless its that this creature is something altogether new from everything we currently know that somehow managed to evolve.

It is also important to note in regard to a potential undiscovered species of plant-like humanoid in West Virginia that this is not the only report. I had written about a case that appeared in Monsters and Ghosts of West Virginia by one of the authors who, while working in his/her garden, encountered a strange stalk-like entity with yellow eyes that was lurking in a field of sunflowers. The author watched the anomalous two-fingered green entity run through the flowers before ultimately disappearing in the surrounding woodlands before ultimately disappearing. The author instantly compared his/her sighting to Jennings Frederick's, and perhaps this entity might be a juvenile or male/female version of the species since it did not have the same number of digits or the long ears as reported by Fredericks. Or perhaps this is something altogether different and a part of a wider belief of moving plants reported from most countries.

Now the next possible option to this is the same assumption that Gray Barker and Jennings Fredericks came up with, and that's that this creature was, in fact, an extraterrestrial. Now a lot of the interactions one could compare with that of an ETS. Aliens seem intent on causing pain, and then once they realize that they are doing so, the witnesses stare helplessly into the eyes of the beings, and in doing so, the pain goes away. Another thing is the possible telepathic interaction between Jennings and the creature, as such interactions are common in extraterrestrial lore. The strange sounds described two of a high pitched record, and whistling is also something frequently described in UFO reports. Now the thing about this that seems to not point to such a possibility is that there is no UFO reported. There's plenty of noise associated with UFOs, but no craft reported, and whistling sounds are very ambiguous; they're seen in hauntings and in cryptid accounts as well as from people, so perhaps such sounds are totally unrelated. Plus, in alien cases, encounters that involve transfusions are not done in the wilds but again on a craft unless this entity was actually in some dire distress, as his message stated. Yet again, there's nothing to indicate that this being came from outer space. Barker, it is important to note, made a similar comparison to the Grafton Monster case, which also involved a whistling noise, but again no UFOs were reported directly in that case.

Now there is another possibility with this case, and that is that what this entity might be is a faerie. Now the fae are often described as humanoid plant elementals, the most famous example being the Green Man, which is often described as a humanoid figure with a man-like face that symbolizes rebirth. The fact that this creature was humanoid in almost all aspects aside from its obvious plant-like features is important for this possibility for unlike cryptids, this is an intelligent creature (non-animalistic intelligence) that has plant-like features, is aware of us as a species, and appeared and disappeared at superhuman speeds these are all things associated with the fae. Now, much like any Fortean topic, the fae has never been viewed as a plausible or even worthwhile subject, but I do find it interesting, especially when comparing the overall description of the entity to reports of plant-like fae that there are some stark similarities. Yet, of course, it's not the only possibility.  

The final possibility of just what this entity could be is that it could be either an interdimensional being or an Ultraterrestrial one. Now, these are sort of the catchall theories as if everything Jennings Fredericks and Gray Barker said is true and that none of the other hypotheses turn out to be accurate that they still allow for this creature to exist. If this creature popped in, for example, another dimension that opens up countless possibilities not only for evolution to work but also for why it has never exactly been seen since or why we don't have further evidence for it. The same goes for Ultraterrestrials, yet with Ultraterrestrials, they are supposed to be tricksters or entities that exist amongst us manifesting for the sole purpose of either feeding off our emotions or to mess with us for some purpose we have yet to see or understand. Now with this creature, it did leave alleged physical traces of itself via wounds to the wrist; if Gray Barker is to be believed so, chances are this creature would not be an Ultraterrestrial as they are more akin to less violent Pennywises from IT. If this creature is from another dimension, though, it would fit all of the boxes, but again, with how extensive our universe is and the universes around us, if String Theory is to be believed is accurate with at least one planet or dimension some entity like this would have to exist.

Now there are a ton of ways to interpret this case, and those who know Gray Barker's personal life will notice some Freudian elements to this tale that they can interpret as being examples of a fictional story. Yet there are so many intricate details that if this is a piece of fiction and not an actual account and was perpetrated in the mind of Barker, it is incredibly detailed, and he belongs up in the annals of one of the greatest Science Fiction-horrors writers. Yet as with all encounters, there is a chance of reality, and so I leave it to the reader to decipher their own ideas of just what Jennings Fredericks encountered on that warm July day in 1968.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Plant/ Carnivorous Plant, Extraterrestrial, Faerie, Paranormal entity

Location: Near Fairmont and Rivesville, West Virginia

Sighted: Mid July 1968

Works Cited:

Alien Meetings By Brad Steiger

Humanoid Encounters: 1965-1969 By Albert S. Rosales

The UFO Phenomenon by Time-Life books

Gray Barker’s Newsletter March 1976

The Presque Isle UFO Incident

 The Presque Isle UFO Incident

By Cole Herrold

There are some cases that are clear classics. These encounters are often retold and retold, and for me personally, such encounters, while interesting, are often told so much that they become a rather old hat. This is not to say that such encounters are boring or that there isn't further information on the accounts; the Ape Canyon Incident, for example, is one that while there is tons of potential new information on that case, no one seems to cover it and so the same story is told and retold. The problem with this is that for those who are incredibly interested in Fortean phenomena, these cases tend to not get further looked into and instead are left with the already lengthy work that was done. I run into this issue rather frequently hence why most of my articles are on cryptids, aliens, or ghosts that seemingly were only encountered a few times and only appear in antediluvian archives or forgotten books. When I initially wrote about the Uniontown UFO-Bigfoot Incident, I pulled some of my resources that involve similar encounters; among them was perhaps the earliest encounter from Pennsylvania of a seemingly extraterrestrial sasquatch.

The case is rather famous and known as the Presque Isle Incident. Initially, I was reluctant to write about it as the encounter has been written about rather extensively but being incredibly intrigued by such encounters, I dug a little deeper, and after searching through old newspaper accounts, various news videos, and some of the various books on the subject I've come across more information revolving around the case that has not been currently put into an official up to date document.

The incident began on the most unassuming of days on Sunday, July 31, 1966. This encounter began when 18-year-old Douglas Tibbets, 16-year-old Betty Jean Klem, 22-year-old Anita Haifley, 26-year-old Gerald La Belle, 2-year-old Sandra Haifley, and 6-month-old Sara Haifley were out spending the day on picturesque Beach 6 of Presque Isle. The group had traveled to the beach from their homes in Jamestown, New York. They had spent the day eating a picnic on the sand and spending an hour or two swimming and might I add rather hazardously in the waters of Lake Erie (I add the hazardously because the lake is reportedly home to an aquatic cryptid that has on several occasions taken a bite out of swimmers, I hope to discuss it on a later date). As the group was getting ready to leave, they all barreled into the car and noticed that as Doug Tibbetts started the engine and applied gas to the accelerator that the car was simply spinning on the sand, and they were unable to get traction. The group then proceeded to get out and try to push the car off the coarse terrain, but again they were still unable to get their vehicle moving. It was during that time that they had decided to send Gerald La Belle, the oldest of the group, to go and find help. Gerald was able to hitch a ride with another group of beachgoers and made his way to Erie to search for a tow truck or some other help.

It was starting to get dark out and was about 9:30-10:00 pm when patrolmen Robert Loeb Jr. and Ralph E. Clark came to the area where the group was stranded. Seeing the car, they came close and asked the group if they required some assistance; the group told the officers about how La Belle had left to get some help in town and that the officers needed not to worry themselves about their current plight. The officers, however, told them that if La Belle did not come back in around 40 minutes, they would return to come and check to see if they had become free from the sand trap.

The group, as they stared completely bored out of their mind, began to stare upward at the stars. As they gazed into the dark semi twinkling abyss, they saw a bright light that seemingly shot out of the sky. The object, which at first they thought was a star, they noticed, however, that it was moving erratically as it would start and stop moving incredibly fast, occasionally dimming. The light was octagonal in shape with a hollow center and appeared to be a glowing purple and blue. The object came from the north, and as it reached a certain section, it seemed to hover in the sky.  The object, as it came closer, seemed to change shape as it began to slowly descend down to the ground; the object slowly landed onto Beach 7, about some 300 yards from their car. When the object landed, they noticed that the object was mushroom-like in shape. It was an oval structure with three lights on the back atop a narrow base. The object emitted a beam of light that moved in a straight line across the sand. The object seemed to emit a sound like the noise of a telephone receiver but countless times louder. The sound was so loud that it vibrated their car. As the object did this, it seemingly unleashed several rays of light that illuminated the surrounding woods and gave them a clear look at the object. Mrs. Klem would describe it further ‘it lit up the whole woods in the path. It wasn’t like a searchlight. There was light along the ground along the whole path”.

The officers returned to the area at about 10:30pm, and they noticed that La Belle had not yet returned. As they approached the car, the group was talking so fast and panic-stricken that the officers could barely decipher what the group was saying. Eventually, the group was able to calm themselves, and Douglas Tibbetts would utter to the officers, "There's something weird going on here." He would go and tell the officers that something had landed near Beach Area 7 and that the group was hearing several strange and peculiar sounds coming from that area. Tibbetts would add that "…you arrived the lights went out" to the officers as if the object was aware of their presence. The officers looked over at the area and were starting to walk over to the area. Tibbetts feeling the safety of being surrounded by armed individuals, decided to aid them in pointing them in the direction where they saw the anomalous object land. The officers and Tibbetts were heading towards where the craft seemed to land; they only made it a little distance when they heard the horn sound from the car.

The officers and Tibbetts ran back to the vehicle with such a sense of importance that one of the officers lost his service pistol in the sand and chose not to take the few moments to recover it but continued on his path to aid the women and children in the car. Where the remainder of the group was completely freaking out. Betty Klem was in the driver's seat, and when she saw the officers and Tibbetts, she began to run down the beach in a state of hysterics. She was pursued by the officers and eventually calmed by Officer Clark and initially was unable to tell what happened. Once they returned to the vehicle, the officers and Tibbetts noticed that Mrs. Haifley was in a total state of shock and unable to speak of what had occurred. While Haifley was unable to speak, Klem began telling them what happened while they were away. A little after the officers and Tibbetts entered the woods, a figure came from the exact entrance. Thinking it may have been Tibbetts or one of the officers, they weren't too concerned, but as they called to the figure, they soon realized that it was not human. The group stared at the creature and saw as it approached that the entity was some 6ft -7ft tall and had a strong resemblance to a gorilla, yet further specific features were undefined aside from its long protruding fangs. The creature then began to circle the car first from a distance and then much closer. When the creature was right next to the car, it began to reach out with razor-tipped claws and scratch the side of the car, and hit the roof of the vehicle, which left some dents. In the moment of pure terror, all the girls and children could seemingly do was to scream and honk the horn. The creature seemed to react negatively to the sound and, upon hearing it, returned back into the woods. Then right before the men left the woods, the girls saw the craft rise up and speed off into the north.

The officers feeling that this was getting out of hand, began to take the group to the nearest police barracks, where they retold the whole account. They then sent out a party to search the area, and the entire area was filled with officers with every kind of caliber weapon you could imagine, and the beach was littered with the red flashing lights of police cars. It was around midnight when George La Belle returned to the location, and he was in total awe at what he was now seeing. The car was still there, trapped in the sand. All he could think seeing this spectacle was, "my god, what is it, a war going on here." The officers searched the area and focused primarily on the area of the car. They took pictures of the scratches, which every member of the group claimed was not there before the incident. Realizing they weren't going to get far investigating at night, they returned to the barracks and decided to return to the scene in the morning.

At the police barrack, the group was still kept, and Betty Klem's eyes were exceptionally red, which the officers attributed to her crying; however, researchers, later on, would associate with radiation. Chief Dan Dascanio would do the official interview and felt that the witnesses were being truthful and considered the matter no joke. That morning at about 7:00, they let the group return to the beach with them to retrieve their car and belongings, and the group then spent the remainder of their time being involved in the various investigations that followed. The following morning the officers began to investigate the beach, and Officers Paul Wilson and Robert Canfield found several triangular shapes, each 11 ft apart from each other, and skid marks in the area where the object landed about 350-400 yards away from the car. Among them were two diamond-shaped imprints about 18" wide and 6-8" deep, each 10-12ft apart. Also, there was a series of tracks that seemingly were found that led from the site of where the craft landed to about 12ft from where the car was parked. The tracks were conical and similar to a bear's or a person's and about 8" wide, 5-7" deep, and 5-8ft apart. However, it is important to note that Officer Wilson, one of the policemen who found the wave, did not feel that the tracks were from a creature but appeared to be made by some kind of heavy object or objects. Photographs were taken of the triangular patterns on the ground and made wide newspaper circulation. Major William S. Hall of Youngstown came to the location on Beach 6 during this time and took plaster casts of the impressions in the sand.

As a follow-up, they proceeded to check to see if others might have seen a similar object in the sky in which they found several people who starting at 8pm and ending at midnight, reported seeing a bizarre craft in the sky. The witnesses were Stephanie Lupo, Helene Roche, Alain Orcel, Charoly Mango, Sue Karle, Linda Henderson, Janice Dickey, Jane Moran. Reports of these UFO sightings would be covered in the Erie Daily Times and the Erie Morning News. Steve Lupe, another witness who was around during that time, would also claim to of seen a craft on Beach 2 when he and several of his friends and three other individuals saw a craft hovering over Lake Erie at about 8:30 pm. French exchange students Helene Roche and Alain Orcel, who lived at 412 Frontier Drive about a mile away from the beaches of Presque Isle, saw a lighted silvery object flying low that evening. Stephanie Mango of 4704 Homeland avenue also saw a similar craft claiming that the object was round and an undistinguishable color that flew silently at treetop level. She watched as the object moved toward the beach and then changed course towards the Erie's bay area, where it disappeared from sight. Sue Karie, Linda Henderson, and Janice Dickey were sleeping out in the yard of Karie's home at 1012 Shenley Drive around 11:00pm when they spotted a silvery object which they first thought was a star flying from South to North. They noticed that the object was seemingly fading in and out but was noticeably round and saucer-shaped. Ms. Karie reported that she heard a whistling sound and, as she looked up, saw an object moving north as high as the Boston Store (about 138ft). It was very low, and all the witnesses ran and got into their station wagon and proceeded to lock the doors. They watched the object from the safety of the car for only a minute before it ultimately disappeared. Another similar UFO sighting featured two girls, one named Cheryl Coffi, who lived in the lighthouse at Presque Isle State Park, claimed to of had a sighting in the area some three months prior to the sighting but did state that it probably had nothing to do with the incident near Beach 6.

Chief Dan Dascanio would then get ahold of the air force due to the closeness of Wright-Patterson Airforce to determine if some craft was potentially out that way that might have been misidentified. There was a confirmed none, but this led to a follow-up investigation on the Tuesday of that week within a matter of hours by five members of the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena, better known as Project Blue Book. The researchers named Richard Hobbs, Joseph McGuire, James Reed, Jeffery Gow, and James Sippell did a precursory check of the area for radiation levels which they would state was safe on the August 5, 1966 edition of the Erie Morning News and took a statement from Ms. Klem. Project Blue Book would later classify the Presque Isle case as one of the 'unexplained' cases in their files. After their investigation, La Belle would return to the location and discovered something incredibly odd. The tree where the creature appeared was completely gone, as if the tree was never there from the beginning. It was not laying on the ground or broken, nor was there a stump or roots. In an interview, La Belle would say that he felt that "The air force found things they didn’t want us to know. Betty didn’t even want to talk about it and Doug passed away about 3 years after this happened and then Anita just dropped out of sight…I don’t think they’re from this earth. They have to be from Outer Space, and they sure are smarter than us because we’ve never caught one”.

UFO investigators and newsmen hearing about all that would go on, began coming to the area to investigate and talk with the officers. Dr. Berthold E. Schwarz would discuss at length the encounter with Chief Dan Dascanio focusing primarily on Betty's sighting and said, "I’m convinced that the young people saw something. The girl was a credible person. Of the two individuals she was the most specific about what she saw- she made no attempts to fill in her story when she wasn’t for sure. She was one scared girl when I first saw her. Her hands were shaking, her face was trembling, her speech was more inarticulate, and she had difficulty remaining her composure. Her eyes were red, and she kept shaking her head from side to side”. A year later, the findings of the case were investigated by Dr. Berthold E. Schwarz, and his findings were reported in the October 1968 Medical Times. Schwarz concluded that Betty was being truthful and that the incident was not due to any illness or delusion.

During that time, two police officers reported that they saw a UFO in the area some two hours before the sun rose on August 3, 1966. The officer who initially saw the UFO was Lawrence Park patrolmen William Rutledge who spotted the craft at 4:45 am, and around the same time, Wesleyville patrolman Donald Peck also saw the object. There were a scant amount of sightings in the area that were reported in the Erie Morning Times the next day. After the police and the air force finished their investigations, the beach became a major hotspot for locals and those wishing to catch sight of something unknown. The entire Presque Isle was filled for countless months by those who came armed with cameras, telescopes, picnic baskets, binoculars, all aimed at the heavens in an almost Close Encounters of the Third Kind-like scene.  Yet Beach 6 was one of the most heavily visited locations on the entire Isle. However, during that entire time after the last few sightings at the beginning of the week, no further encounters or sightings were reported. The town still remembers this encounter, and occasionally material revolving around the case will appear in the local media.

Some years later, the case did return to the media through Brian Sheridan, a local ABC news reporter who did a news story on the sighting in 2005. In it, he interviewed Officer Ralph Clark, who would describe the events of the night further based on the interview with Betty Klem. He would add that the craft when it first appeared was very similar to a basketball with red, yellow, and orange lights and a white beam that came out onto the beach as if the craft was looking for something. He also would add that during the initial investigation, they found strange claw-like indentations that led to the water that they associated with a tripod-type object and, upon analyzing the area, came up with nothing. They also found a bizarre liquid that appeared in the sand that they could not identify, but that was safe from radiation.

After his initial report, Sheridan received a call from local truck driver Mr. Kim Faulkner who, upon seeing the news broadcast, felt that he needed to come forward and claim that he was behind the encounter that occurred that night. Mr. Faulkner was an 11-year-old boy at the time claimed that he purchased two 9ft tall hot air balloons made of first-grade tissue paper that had to be glued together and were heated with pie tins from the back of Boy’s Life magazine for $3.50 that he managed to put together at his home. He clamored onto the roof of his house with his modified hot air contraption. The two balloons which were glued together were red and white striped and had cleaner bags in the center of the creation that gave the appearance of windows. As he let the balloon fly, he soon realized that it was moving much faster and further than he anticipated and decided to chase the balloon on his bike. He followed the balloon all the way to 15^th and Pittsburgh Ave before he ultimately gave up as he was unable to come close to the balloon. Seeing he would not be able to recover it on foot or bike, he returned home and attempted to get his dad to drive him to go recover his balloon. His father, however, would have none of it as the balloon he said went way too high and fearing that since they were so close to an airport, there might be legal ramifications if it interacted with air traffic to this boyish whimsy. So, his father sagely told him don't say anything, and he forgot about it, but upon seeing the news broadcast, he felt he had to clear the air about the sighting. He would say, "I believe it landed or close to it, it reheated itself then it regained its height it only went out so far and then it descended into the water and that s why there was no trace it was first grade tissue paper and all they would find is maybe a few pie plates." However, when asked about the evidence found at the scene and the creature seen at the site, he said he had no part of that, only the UFO.

Sometime later, paranormal researcher and holy man Pastor Robin Swope, the Paranormal Pastor of Erie, felt that something was wrong with the statement laid out by Faulkner and proceeded to do some digging. He contacted Sheridan and asked him whether he felt Faulkner had attempted to gain some notoriety by claiming he was a hoaxster. Sheridan replied that he verified the story with Faulkner’s brother, found the Boy’s Life advertisement for the balloon, and even said that Faulkner did not even want to be on the news, did not brag, and he was the only person after they aired the original story that came forward claiming to of caused the sighting. He seemed to be a credible person. While Sheridan felt that Faulkner was telling the truth, there was something about his claim that seemed off. Swope, who is a lifelong resident of Erie, knows that typically during that time, the winds tend to go in a southwest direction, but the balloon would have to of gone in a northwestern direction of three miles to of landed at Presque Isle. Sure, enough upon doing some research into the weather patterns and contacting local meteorologists of the region, he found that the wind indeed was going a southwestern direction on the night that Faulkner allegedly freed the balloon and that the balloon would have been going in a totally different direction. So unless there was some strange weather pattern that night, there is no way the balloon was the object seen by the stranded couple, and of course, none of this explains the physical evidence or creature seen at the site.

Variations of the account do exist, and some are clearly accidental mistakes, such as Loren Coleman, who dates the encounter in his book Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America as July 31, 1977.  The show Monsters and Mysteries in America featured an episode revolving around the case, and while not as different as Coleman's date places the incident on July 30, 1966, a day before the actual event. However, other variations occur mostly in regard to the depiction of the creature seen and its behavior at the site. The August 6^th edition of the Pittsburgh Press, for example, describes the creature seemingly as a floating entity. They described the entity as a "formless" creature about 6ft tall with a head and shoulders but no legs and that the entity was about 5ft from Betty Jean Klem. This variation is interesting as the eyewitness sketch that was done seems very similar to this description as it seems to only show a creature's upper torso and arms and a straight line where the creature's waist should be. If this is the case, then I would venture that it's safe to say that the encounter is not that of a traditional Sasquatch variety ET and something entirely different. Coleman would also describe the creature in a different way; he would describe the creature as both neckless and armless that moved sluggishly in the underbrush.

Another frequent variation involves the kind of reported evidence found at the site. There were several burn marks in the ground in the shape of a triangle as that appears in every version of the account, as well as the fact that there were several photographs showing the anomaly. However, the tracks seemingly from the creature were something that is debatable. Some accounts state that there were several footprints from the woods to the car, whereas other accounts do not mention the tracks at all, or more frequently, there was simply a single track found. Some of the accounts involving multiple sets of footprints are occasionally described as starting and stopping in an odd pattern as if the creature seemingly disappeared in mid-stride.

Outside of the infamous Balloon hoax as previously described, there was also an accusation that went out against La Belle that he, in fact, created the UFO by using a flashlight and playing tricks on the people in the car as a kind of practical joke, but after analyzing all the evidence there’s nothing to confirm this and as La Belle is the only surviving member of that night willing to talk about the event he after some 55 years since the encounter is the only person keeping the story alive aside from researchers. However, even with all this information, we are nowhere near coming to a discernible answer.

In the annals of Pennsylvania history, encounters with Bigfoot-like creatures and UFOs are rather common. I recently covered the Uniontown UFO-Bigfoot case from 1973, which is perhaps the most bizarre case of this type. A similar case occurred near Ohiopyle in 1974 and featured several bigfoots that, when shot at, seemingly disappeared as a bright Christmas ball style UFO flew through the sky. These cases are perhaps some of the most interesting when it comes to the phenomenon, for there are many ways to look at it there's for example, the idea that these creatures could be the pets of some extraterrestrial species or that they are the intelligent drivers of such objects, there's also the possibility that they are a completely unrelated phenomenon that just happened to of been seen at the same time. It is important to note that all of these cases are surprisingly different, especially this one. For if any of the variations of the depiction of the creature are the actual description, then that means that the creature seen on Presque Isle does not fit into the Sasquatch category at all and is some bizarre entity. This is also the most technological UFO of the Pennsylvania cases as most seem to be bright lights or something more ethereal. The shape of the UFO is also interesting as it bears a strong resemblance to the Space Penguins of Tuscumbia case, which too was described as being a mushroom-shaped craft, albeit an incredibly small one. Even with all of this, however, whatever happened that night, I'm sure we'll never truly know and thus ends one of the weirdest cases in Pennsylvania.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Hominid or Extraterrestrial Hominid

Location: Beach 6, Presque Island, Lake Erie, Erie, Erie County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: July 31, 1966

Works Cited:

Alien Meetings By Brad Steiger

Bigfoot!: The True Story of Apes in America By Loren Coleman

The Bigfoot Files By Peter Guttilla

Real Aliens, Space Beings, and Creatures From Other Worlds By Brad Steiger and Sherry Steiger

Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts From the Darkside By Brad Steiger

Lyon, Debbie “UFO Sightings at Presque Isle State Park, July 31, 1966”. Old Time Erie. July 2, 2012. https://oldtimeerie.blogspot.com/2012/07/ufo-sightings-at-presque-isle-state.html. Accessed December 4, 2021.

Swope, Robin "The Paranormal Pastor: The UFO landing on Presque Isle." The Paranormal Pastor. July 13, 2008. https://theparanormalpastor.blogspot.com/2008/06/ufo-landing-on-presque-isle.html. Accessed December 4, 2021.

Erie Daily Times. August 01, 1966.

Erie Daily Times. August 03, 1966.

Erie Daily Times. August 06, 1966.

Erie Morning News. August 01, 1966.

Erie Morning News. August 02, 1966.

Erie Morning News. August 03, 1966.

Erie Morning News. August 05, 1966.

Erie Morning News. August 12, 1966.

The Pittsburgh Press August 06, 1966

UFO at Presque Isle. YouTube. April 11, 2008.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO7-v10TG5Q.

UFO at Presque Isle Part 2-Solved!. YouTube. Apr 11, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjmQgDtDfZk.

Monsters and Mysteries in America Season 2, Episode 12 "Alien Bigfoot, Cajun Werewolf, Lake Pepin Monster." Destination America. March 14, 2014. 

The Trolls of Sorenson’s Woods

 The Trolls of Sorenson’s Woods

By Cole Herrold

In the world of faeries, there is a phenomenon akin to what demonologists would refer to as attachment. In the demonological concept, the idea is that a spirit or entity will attach itself to a person and follow them wherever they go. While faeries are often associated with specific places in nature, there are several examples of them being attached to families or types of people. In Russia, there are tales of the Domovoi, and in the United Kingdom, there are Brownies and Boggarts; these household entities are usually guardians of specific homes; however, they also have been in some accounts associated with families. This is noticeable as the creature's behavior or appearance is continued to be seen after a family moves to a new location. We see the same type of phenomenon with Banshees in Ireland. Banshees are almost always associated with a specific family, and they are believed to herald the death of a member of that particular family. Now typically these encounters are solely in the same country; however, when these cultures began to migrate to America during the 1800s during this wave, tales of Banshees and the like were brought over, but interestingly enough, accounts of these entities continued as though they too immigrated to the "New World."

From the 1850s to-1930s, the Swedish and Norwegian, much like the Irish and the British, made their way to America and so began staking their own settlements in the ever-growing country. While the immigrants spread throughout the country, there was a heavy focus on the Minnesota area. Apparently, these settlers were not alone in leaving their country; however for just like the Irish beforehand, there seemed to be a small group of inexplicable entities that too sought some potential better life in America.

In Northern Minnesota, a young Irish boy named Richard O’Donnell was born and living in a Scandinavian descended town. As with every town, there was one specific legend that everybody knew and that would be uttered in a whisper. A farmer by the name of Ulmer Sorenson owned an extensive patch of land north of town that was filled with orchards and grassy knolls. On this picturesque landscape, however, was a dark domain, a cave that was rumored to be the home of a family of creatures that seemingly followed the founders of the town to this bucolic land. Richard O'Donnell knew the story well and knew how many a fellow peer would wander onto Sorenson's land and stand outside of the cave. Those who were brave enough or foolish enough to approach the cave would throw rocks into the mouth of the cave, holler schoolboy threats attempting to get the beasts to come out and chase them off the property. Only a few of these young fools or overly brave children had managed to step a few feet into the cavern before returning back to the light of day. Yet while in these few times no creatures were seen, everyone who entered the cave would always comment about how the cavernous crack always smelled fierce. This odorous lair was worse than a skunk's or a civet cat's stench, and only those who knew the tale knew that the smell was only from the monstrous creatures known to those in the villager's motherland as Trolls.

While most of the tales Richard knew were of those who had entered the cave and experienced nothing except a horrid smell, there were a few times when some of his friends would rush him completely out of breath, proclaiming that they had actually seen one or a few of the creatures wandering not near the cave but in the open orchards and fields or the dense woodlands of Sorenson's land around dusk. The folks in town would also experience the loss of several of their livestock late at night, particularly chickens and eggs. The people knew it had to be these creatures as the animals were seemingly missing for no particular reason; there was no evidence of fox activity, and all the coops were undisturbed. Those who had seen the coops were certain that this was the work of the late-night working Trolls.

Richard had heard all of these accounts and was unsure of what to make of them, and so he proceeded in asking the wisest person he knew, which was, of course, his father. His father smiled when he asked him about the Trolls, and so he began to explain that the Scandinavian folks had tales of the wee people and other dark creatures as they did with leprechauns and the gentry. Yet he was certain that's all they were tales that were kept in circulation by Ulmer Sorenson to keep would be the young kids from the apples in his orchard during harvest time. Richard accepted his father's hypothesis and continued to keep it in the back of his mind as more and more reports of the diminutive beings came out. That is until summer came.

It was late in the afternoon on a particularly warm July day that Richard was walking towards his girlfriend's farmhouse when he was walking near Sorenson's woods. He noticed the embossed "No Trespassing" sign and, deciding to give in to the edginess of youth, decided to ignore the request and use the woods as a kind of shortcut to his significant other's house. He found a worn deer path and proceeded to use this naturally made highway to cross through the forest, and after walking for a short period, he happened to notice a short dark form coming towards him. The figure was too far to make out any significant features, but he thought that perhaps it could be a deer or a large dog, but as the two began walking towards each other, he could tell that this was most certainly not the case. As the figure was only a short distance away, he could tell that this was not an animal but a short, stocky guy. Expecting it to be another peer from school or some other child who also decided to give in to the angst of youth, he continued unabated, and so to did his path ward companion. Yet as he got even closer, he instantly realized in a look of disgust that if this was a child, it was the ugliest one he had ever seen. The "boy" had coarse black hair that seemed to just be jutting straight out of the skull. The "boy" had deep-set black eyes that were particularly unnerving, but this was not its most noticeable feature, for there just below these black pinpoints was a large proboscis that Richard described as an "enormous "honker."" Richard could not get over the "boy's" nose, for it was so abnormally large that it seemed to take up most of the individual's face. The boy was about the size of him he estimated about 5ft 4” and that he was built like a fire hydrant. Other than the "boy's" bizarre appearance, he was dressed rather shabbily it wore a pair of overalls that were seemingly several sizes too big for him, a very tattered work shirt, and had no shoes at all. While the “boy” walked around shoeless he had incredibly large black hair covered feet that Richard estimated to be well over a size 13 men’s shoe. Richard stopped short as the "boy" continued to approach him as it came closer it began to smile at Richard, and in doing so it showed him it's teeth which were caked yellow and jagged which Richard felt was "badly in need of dentistry."

This being a small town, Richard's first thought now that the figure was overly close to him was that he was surprised he had never seen the stranger in town or in school. The figure was only a few feet from him now and had slowed its pace, ultimately stopping directly in front of him. As the two stood there eyeing each other up and neither saying a word, the "boy" in front of him began to look down at Richard's jeans and boots, and a look of want came across the creature's face. Richard noticed this as a mischievous grin seemed to crawl across the creature's face. Richard was just about to back away from this bizarre boy when all of a sudden, this odd boy uncurled an animal-like grunt and lunged towards his waist and legs, ultimately toppling Richard over. Richard laying now on his back, could feel this person trying to reach its hands into the waistline of his pants as it attempted to pry the fabric from his body. Richard was only 5" taller than this figure but was 180lbs of muscle and what this person did not know was that he was the captain of the high school wrestling squad and that whenever someone had attempted to fight him he never turned down a scrap. Richard would describe what happened as the two began to roll on the ground in the following "The Ugly little guy was incredibly powerful, and he seemed very surprised when I did a reversal, escaped from his takedown, and flipped him over on his back." The two began an almost Olympic style tussle in the weeds and grass and Richard seemed to have the upper hand he had managed to get this would be thief face down in the grass and was putting its arm behind its back when something that seems straight out of the pages of a Marvel or Batman comic happened. The "boy" that Richard had almost pinned seemed to be quivering expecting him to finally be subdued Richard was about to let him go when he noticed that the figure seemed to be getting larger. Its limbs seemed to be stretching out growing in length and its torso seemed to become even more beefier. Richard could tell that this was the case as the once ill-fitting overalls were now tightly covering his attacker's body like a layer of skin and the work shirt that he was wearing was ripping down by the shoulders. Richard got off the figure which he now knew was not human and realized that the entity was 6ft 2" and had gained some 50lbs. It towered over him and outweighed him. This, however, was secondary to what the creature also gained, an increase of its terrible smell. Richard would describe it in the following, "And the smell of him became almost overpowering. He stank bad enough when he was a short little bugger but now he could win a fall by his smell alone. Of course, not being an idiot, I realized that I was up against something beyond my power of reasoning. This was no ordinary farm boy. Deep in the pit of my stomach, I knew that I would now be fighting for more than my pants and my boots".

The creature, now after transforming in an almost Hulk or Bane-like manner, loomed over the boy, and as the boy watched, the demeanor of the creature changed. Instead of the mischievous smirk or even the jagged tooth smile that greeted him on the path, the creature was noticeably angered by the boy's rebuttal to its attempt of clothing theft. The creature's enormous frown and proboscis were secondary to the boy's sight as the creature's black eyes started to change to a piercing red, almost as if it was some kind of living cartoon. The creature's chest heaved forward and back, and as it did this, it unfurled a low steady growl behind closed lips. Richard knew this was not a fight he could win or even survive, and so he began to run like hell. The thing was still roaring as he turned tail and sprinted back the way he came. As he ran, he looked back twice to see if the now colossal creature was coming after him but from what he could tell, he was in the clear, but he still did not slow his pace until he made it to town.

In town, he found several of his friends hanging around and began to tell them his experience in the woods between gasping breaths. His tale was convincing enough to his friends that a group of them began to follow him to the spot where he had encountered the terrifying Troll. The group looked at the overturned sod where clearly some sort of struggle had occurred, but there was nothing else; no footprints, hair, or Troll could be found. The group then decided that if this was one of the Trolls said to live on the property, they knew where it should be, and so they headed towards the dark and profusely odorous cave. One of the boys had brought his rifle along and aimed it at the mouth of the cave as though he was expecting the creature to come running full tilt towards him. The brave, albeit foolhardy boy began to yell several challenges into the cave and indicated that he had a weapon as a means of intimidating the trolls into giving up, yet none came out. No one in the party, even the boy with the rifle, however, wanted to enter the stalagmite-ridden abode, and the smell that wafted from the entrance was enough to make everyone in the party gag. For these reasons, the group decided that this was enough excitement for one day, and they all returned home.

Richard was sitting at the Dinner table with his family when he decided to let them in on his little misadventure. After telling the full account, his father began to laugh and said that “Ulmer Sorenson often hired temporary field hands from the pool of unemployed lumbermen from up north. A lot of those men are pretty rough and tough and a bit short on manners and they might take fancy to your new boots and jeans and decide to 'borrow' them without your permission. You best not tangle with any of them". Richard was a little downtrodden by his father's account and knew for certain that what he experienced that day was far from a down and out lumberjack; he was certain that the entity he encountered was one of the Trolls said to lurk in the lands of Sorenson's woods and from that day on he never again took a shortcut through Sorenson's land.

Now, this case is a pretty clear-cut and dry case of a faerie encounter. Unlike other cases where one can look at alternative views, there are not really many other options to point to. Cryptids typically don't wear clothes even though there are reports of Bigfoot and other hairy hominids occasionally wearing them, cryptids also typically appear as flesh and blood animals if they have anomalous properties most are things that can be attributed to scientific phenomena like bioluminescence or fluorescence, or enzyme expulsion or something along those lines but for a creature to seemingly grow excessively in height and weight in a matter of moments for combat purposes are not exactly something we see in nature. There are illusions of this when animals like frigate birds which will puff out their chests to appear bigger, but for something to actually grow taller and gain more noticeable mass is something else entirely.

It's pretty safe to say this entity is not extraterrestrial in origin as there's a history of these entities in the same area. They even have a specific cave where they are believed to live; this gets less into UFO encounters where a craft lands and entities are seen and gets into something native to the area and not an alien in the true sense of the word. Also, the fact that no craft or lights are associated with these creatures also seems to indicate that they are earth or interdimensionally bound.

Now it's also safe to say that this entity is not a ghost or a demon as it appears to be a physical flesh and blood entity even though it has anomalous traits and behaviors. It is not wispy or see-through, and the thing that solidifies this even more is the fact that Richard wrestled with this entity. There have been some encounters with spirits where they can inflict damage or even have sexual experiences with humans, yet in these cases, they seem to be almost a one-way street as the phantasms appear to be able to interact with us, but we cannot physically interact with them.

One almost has to include interdimensional as an option for entities like this because that's always a possibility since who knows where these creatures truly come from. The same goes for the Ultraterrestrial since their primary goal is to be trickster-like minor gods or entities that feed on fear or other human emotions. A tulpa is also a possibility since there's the chance that the population's belief in these creatures based on their homeland tales might have created a small population of these entities, but all of these other possibilities are speculation.

The most conclusive possibility is that this is another example of faerie. It has many of the hallmarks, as previously discussed in the intro and in other articles. These creatures have a connection to the environment, they have a connection to a population/specific individual, they are essentially "magical" or react in ways that we don't scientifically understand in their behavior, and the account follows an archetype of entity that has a rich history. Unlike other Troll accounts on the site, such as the Friendly Troll of Oslo or the Staffordshire Trolls, this is the first one I've covered that actually wears clothes. In folk traditions, however, Trolls constantly wore beaten, dirty clothes that seemed to mimic the appropriate clothing that humans would wear in a given environment. This Troll, however, intrigues me even more than the fact that it's wearing farmwear on a farm but the fact that baggy overalls are a classic clothing article that appears on trolls in Norwegian and Swedish wood carvings. So perhaps this is not simply a design for tourist trinkets but actually a common article of clothing worn by these entities.

Examples of the Traditional Troll Overalls in Norwegian Art/Tourism

One thing that aside from the clothes that fascinates me, needless to say, is the creature's ability to change size at will. Trolls are all over the map when it comes to reported sizes; the Oslo Troll was taller than trees, whereas the Staffordshire Trolls were about the same size as the Troll seen here before it grew to tower over Richard. If this is the case, it could explain a lot of Trolls seemingly based on folklore seem to grow much like humans, but just on a larger scale; this seems to dash that claim and implies that they can change their size as is. Other faeries are said to be shapeshifters like the Phooka, so it's not unheard of for a faerie to do this, but its important to point out this in the data for Trolls since the study of faeries is something that has not gained the same credibility or countless tomes from a serious standpoint as Cryptozoology or Ufology.

With all that said, while I’m extremely interested in a more scientific study of faeries, I have to admit it's extremely difficult to even comprehend how to go about doing it. Faeries seemingly have noticeable species like aliens or cryptids, but they clearly are neither. They behave anomalously; they have skills we would call magic but could be something we currently don't have the scientific mindset or tools to understand. They are not spirits in the sense of ghosts as they are physical and can be touched and are almost exclusively found in nature, with only a few exceptions. The final problem is compared to things like Bigfoot or lake monsters, they're relatively rare even though there are folkloric accounts dating back centuries, and some are most certainly normal cryptids when looking at these older accounts. I'm at a loss as to a methodology of study because of this and because there's such a wide gamut of potential species, locations, age ranges, and differentiations between folklores that finding some single method is almost impossible. As for this account, however, I think in terms of this kind of research its incredibly important as it is almost identical to a folktale even though it takes place reasonably in modern time; the exact year and day are not specified, but with the account appearing in Steiger's 2001 book it's safe to say it was well before then. Richard was also an adult when talking to Steiger, so it's safe to say anywhere between 20-40 years spanned between the time of his sighting and the publication of the book. So much like the other Troll accounts mentioned earlier and that appear on the site, this is a continuing phenomenon and one that definitely needs to be investigated further by Forteans, just once we figure out how.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal/Supernatural Entity

Location: Sorenson’s Woods, Minnesota

Sighted: July, year and day unspecified sometime before 2001 (probably around the 1950s -1980s)

Work Cited:

The Inhumanoids By Barton M. Nunnelly

Out of the Dark: The Complete Guide to Beings from Beyond By Brad Steiger

 

Ghost Werewolf of Northumberland County

 

Ghost Werewolf of Northumberland County

By Cole Herrold

During the span of the 1800s, a ton of bizarre accounts occurred. These accounts are filled with all manner of creatures, from yellow-skinned horned creatures to merfolk. One of the most prevalent creature accounts were reports of hairy upright dogs that seemingly were supernatural in origin. These entities, known colloquially as werewolves, have a tradition beyond time, and memorial tales of these entities can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece with tales of King Lycaon. Most of these accounts describe a human either condemned to shift in form from a man to a wolf-type creature. Other versions of this transformative beast describe a deal with the devil for power. These accounts were prominent in Europe, but when people immigrated to America, tales of werewolves came with them. These accounts unsurprisingly managed to continue on in Pennsylvania. The most famous case of a werewolf in Pennsylvania is sometimes known as the Line Mountain Werewolf or the Northumberland Werewolf, but this lycanthrope is different from other cases as it not only features a horrific shapeshifter but also the existence of the creature after its death.

During some time in the 1800s, May Paul, a 12-year-old farm girl who lived in the Schwaben Valley in Northumberland County. May, due to the fact that she lived on a farm in the country, had several chores that were more than just important for her to do. One of these tasks was to watch and tend over the sheep that her family had for the sole purpose of sheering for wool. This wool helped clothe as well as pay for the necessary supplies that the family needed to make it through each day. The area around the farm was not fenced in, and there was not a neighbor for miles, so oftentimes, she would take the herd and travel around looking for ideal patches of grass for the animals to graze in. Now while there were large areas of pasture, it was bordered by dark, secluded shadow shrouded woodland, and there in the woodland area lived a local hermit.

The hermit was very much disliked in town, and the man tended to keep to himself as he lived in a shanty shack in the forest. Now the man had no contact with just about anyone on the outside, but he did slowly develop a relationship with May. Now this relationship was nothing intimate, the two barely spoke a word to each other, but they did share some company on the times when the man would leave the dark embrace of the forest and would sit on a set of fallen logs that appeared as a natural fence from his property to hers. The man would watch the girl as she worked, and this would continue for the entire day until she ultimately would return home with her livestock.

May, as the time went on, soon started to speak to the man, and he would be both respectful to her and talk to her admiringly. The hermit and her continued to do this for some time until, eventually, the two became very close and ultimately became friends. The man was relatively new to the area, and even though Mary and him were close, the townsfolk could not help but gossip about the man. The people were extremely concerned for unlike May, who spent time talking to the man, so all they could think was that this man was outside of the natural order of what they felt was normal in their world. They knew not the man's name, where he lived, what he did for a living, and so the townsfolk were very suspicious about this man.

The townsfolk, however, while curious about the man, had other fish to fry as their area had been besieged around the same time as the man arrived a huge mass death of livestock in the area. The animals were torn apart, their flesh chewed and gnawed as though some large predator had come through the land decimating all that was in its way. The townsfolk expected the usual predators, mountain lions, bears, coyotes, but as time went on, they had their answer. Over the course of several nights, many of the farmers heard the eerie sound of their animals being slaughtered they would run out, and there standing near the bleeding husk of their livelihood, was an incredibly large wolf. This wolf which appeared to be the leader, was not alone as several other smaller wolves were also running around aiding its siege on the farms. The townsfolk were obviously concerned, and they seemed to be unable to stop this onslaught.

It was around this time that whispers of gossip became combined, and the memory of werewolves flashed in everyone’s mind. The townsfolk soon returned to the old hermit and felt that it was odd that the old man and the wolves seemed to of occurred at the same time. This connection was added to when it broke that the Hermit and May had a kind of friendship and that her livestock were the only ones spared from wolves assault. Rumors spread; some felt he was a witch, causing a curse on the area. Others felt that the old man himself might have been a lycanthrope. The villagers became on guard for the man, and word of the rumors reached May's parents.

One night when May arrived home from grazing her cattle, her parents were waiting for her. The group entered the farmhouse, and her parents strongly urged her to cease her friendship with the old man. The girl, however, could not see how the sweet old man that she befriended was the monster that the rumors seemed to indicate, and so she continued their friendship. May, however, could not shake the rumors from town and had information that the others knew not. She did have some experiences with the wolves in the area. On several occasions during the day when out her herd had been encircled by wolves, their forms skittering between the trees in the tree line. They were circling her and ready to pounce on multiple times. May had gotten her herding staff ready to protect herself and her livestock on multiple occasions as she waited for the worse, but she thankfully never had to. The wolves always would slink back and then disappear as if startled or spooked by something she was unaware of, and then almost instantly after that point, the old man would come from the woods.

These carnivorous attacks would occur for some years after they began, and no wolf hunt seemed to stop the almost coordinated assault. All the while, May and the old man continued to be friends, and her sheep remained unblighted by the creatures. All this would change, however, when one dark night, a tired old farmer had arisen from sleep after hearing the sound of something large in his barn. The old farmer grabbed a rifle and lantern and headed out towards the barn to investigate the sound. The farmer started to move the heavy doors and as he peered into the darkness with a lantern in hand and there in the barn was a huge grizzled grey wolf. The wolf began to charge towards the farmer; the old man could not even get the rifle to his shoulder by the time the creature was in front of him. The old man braced himself for the worst expecting the long fangs to pierce his flesh and render him asunder, but instead, the wolf ran straight past him. The old farmer, seeing he could live another day, regained his wits and, lifting the gun to his shoulder, took aim at the great grey form. The man taking a shuttered breath pulled the trigger, the projectile skimming through the air before ultimately taking root into the beast. The farmer could hear a loud whimper and knew that he had hit the beast as it ran off into the woods.

The farmer, now revitalized by the scent of the hunt, ran towards where he hit the creature and, shining his lantern, noticed a dark crimson on the green grass. The crimson was a trail leading him towards his quarry, and so he pursued; he followed the blood into the shrouded darkness and continued to do so for some time until his wits caught up with him. Realizing that it is overly dangerous to track a wounded wolf in the dark, he decided that he should return home and continue the search in the light of day. The following day the farmer returned to the spot where he shot the wolf and refollowed the still crimson carpet through the woods. During this time, there was a bounty on wolves, and a sum of 25 dollars a wolf was being paid for each brought in, so the farmer was more than driven to find the beast. He traveled the area for some time before ultimately finding that the trail ended in a large thicket. He could not make out anything detailed in the thicket, but he could see that a large still form was there. Holding up the gun on the chance that the animal was still alive, he cautiously moved the brush to the side, waiting for a head to turn or for the sound of a menacing growl, but instead, he got the shock of his life. There lying in the grass was the form of a man completely naked.

The farmer bent down, seeing this, and began to roll the man over. He recognized the man right away; it was the hermit everyone in town was talking about. He looked at the man's body, expecting to see claw or teeth marks thinking maybe after he shot the wolf in its wounded state, it attacked this man. This he found was not to be the case, for there in the man's chest was a large gaping bullet wound and around his body a pool of blood. He had bled to death. As the farmer stared at the man, he did notice that there were some unusual features that seemed different from when he saw him last; the hermit's body had hair on his palms and beneath his feet and on his ears. The farmer stared in disbelief and also noted that as he began to move the man's body, the corpse's mouth opened, revealing that the man had several large wolf-like teeth. The farmer, unbelieving what he saw, lifted the remains up and took it to a spot near the mountain ridge in the area to bury before ultimately returning and telling the town of the man's death.

Word spread around the town of the event that occurred the following night, and when May heard the news, she was completely overcome with sorrow. This sorrow, however, was soon replaced by hate as she heard that people still claimed that the old man was a werewolf and responsible for the events around the area. May continued to deny this even to her death, claiming that the man was kind and certainly not a horrendous monster. The villagers, however, did not care for her assertions as after the hermit died, the attacks from the wolves also began to dwindle to relatively normal rates as opposed to the sheer savagery that occurred over the years. While wolf attacks did occur after the hermit's death, May and her family continued to never have a problem with the canines, and whenever there potentially was a problem, a large gray wolf would appear from the woods near the area where the old man used to come from, and the other wolves would back down. Whenever May would look back over towards where the wolf was, however, it would simply vanish.

To this day, people still claim that the hermit's spirit resides in the woods and the area where May and him used to frequent. People will say that spectral old man will sit in the exact spot where the man used to, and on more frequent occasions, a large grey wolf will also appear in the area and will sit in the exact same spot. The area where the man was buried and where the apparition is said to still be seen has even been named after the event as the area is now known as "Die Woolf Man's Grob" or "the Wolf Man's Grave." 

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Spectral Transmogrified human

Location: Schwaben Valley, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: Sometime in the 1800s

Works Cited:

Hunting the American Werewolf: Beast Men in Wisconsin and Beyond By Linda S. Godfrey

Monsters of Pennsylvania By Patty A. Wilson

Supernatural Lore of Pennsylvania: Ghosts, Monsters, and Miracles By Thomas White

The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings By Brad Steiger