Washington DC Demon Cat

 Washington DC Demon Cat

By Cole Herrold

There are always cases that stick with you; for me, there are some cases that I would rank as one of my top 10 favorites. Most of these cases are the very first ones I've ever read, such as Mothman, Flatwoods Monster, and Oscar, the Colossal turtle of Churubusco. One of these early cases Id stumbled upon is perhaps my favorite spectral apparition case, but its importance in Fortean lore is primarily founded on the location in which the entity was said to reside. This location is none other than one of the most important historical buildings in the United States, the Capitol Building. Yet while this hallowed hall is well known as a haunted hotspot, the apparition in question is not John Quincy Adams or Abraham Lincoln, but a shapeshifting black cat known as the Washington D.C. Demon Cat, the Demon Cat, the Grimalkin, or more affectionately D.C.

Rumors of the Demon Cat can be traced back to before the mid-1800s, yet the first documented report allegedly occurred in 1862. As with all hauntings and ghostly apparitions, there is a beginning point to such occurrences. The Demon Cat came about allegedly when, in the early 1800s, the Capitol Building began to be overrun with both rats and mice. The pest problem in the building became so rampant that cats were brought in to be "mousers ."These cats were primarily loosed in the lower halls and the basements and, as time went on, proceeded to die out as the need for them began to lessen. The feline death count, however, would see a slight rise when on August 14, 1814, during the War of 1812, when several British soldiers proceeded to light the Capitol Building on fire. Many of the cats in the building were burned alive, especially those that were on the second floor, due to the material being used. After the conflict during the prospect of rebuilding the Capitol, the masons upgraded the original wood floors with concrete ones, which they then covered in marble and tiles. This is where the first inkling that some supernatural entity now resides in the structure. After the Masons put the floor together, they noted a strange pattern had emerged that was not there when they initially put it together. The pattern which spread from one stairwell on the floor to the next was a series of pawprints. The men had no rational idea as to how these prints got there, and they served as the beginning of a calling card from a being who would make itself known in the years to follow. Now by the mid-1800s, cats utilized for mousing were down to only a handful, and instead, guards and police officers were put in their place to protect the ground from assault or break-in. Once this replacement occurred, tales started to spring up about a spectral black cat with bright yellow eyes that seemed to of been pulled from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe or from such cinematic delights as Tales from the Darkside the Movie or Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat. Yet, unlike other cases of freaky felines, this black cat had one important and horrifying aspect as those who encounter the apparition will state it will as soon as it sees the guard begin to run towards them, and as it does this, the animal's eyes begin to change color from yellow to red, and it begins to swell this swelling goes to every part of the body causing the animal to grow. The size of the spectral feline has been reported to grow from the size of a tiger about 10ft to the size of a small elephant and as it gets within a few feet of the witness proceeds to pounce claws out toward the guard or officer. The animal usually would unleash a hideous hiss, and as it sprung in mid-air, it would seemingly disappear before making contact with the witness.

Sightings of this colossal apparition seem to serve a supernatural purpose. Many of those who encounter this apparition feel that it is a warning or an omen of doom and not some sort of residual haunting. This apparition allegedly has been sighted before major problems and conflicts in the country. While many of these precursor to tragic events sightings appear in literature and newspaper articles, there is not really any more information on them. Some of these events the cat was said to of prognosticated were the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, JFK, the crash of the Stock market, the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the night before we first sent men over to Vietnam during the war, 9/11, and even Hurricane Katrina. Also, there are some conflicting reports that the cat was seen before the assassination of James Garfield and William McKinley, but most sources try to say that it was not.

The first documented report of the Demon Cat occurred in 1862. Not much is known about this early sighting, and it usually appears as a precursor to later sightings, which made their way into the papers in 1898, 1899, and the early 1900s. Yet what can be gleaned from the newspapers of the time is that a watchman, while prowling the lower corridors and catacombs of Capitol Hill, encountered a small black cat which the witness at first thought was one of the last surviving mousers yet as he called out to the animal. The animal began to run towards him and proceeded to grow in size with each bounding step that it took. The papers and assumedly the witness would claim the creature stopped growing once it reached the size of a small elephant. The watchman, in this case, was well-armed and, taking his weapon, proceeded to shoot at the apparition to no noticeable effect; the animal continued its stampede towards the man and proceeded to spring up into the air jumping at him with its long claws out. The man, completely terrified, attempted to cover his major extremities and waited for the final blow from the creature. The creature, however, never made contact with the man, and it seemingly vanished in mid-air.

In 1898 another guard who was working in the lower corridors of the building also encountered the demon cat. This officer, however, proceeded to stop the creature from assaulting him by way of brute force. The officer proceeded to take his gun and shoot at the creature, which upon doing so, dissipated from view as if made of mist. Now during this time frame as well, the Capitol Building was damaged by a gas explosion, and in some of the sections of the area where the masons were working on, there are now small cat footprints that appear near the Rotunda. The clearest of these prints, which there are 6-8 of them, appear along the Old Supreme Court Chamber. Some feel that these footprints could have been caused by a traditional cat, but in many ways, it would be very difficult for a cat to do so. In another section, a less compelling piece of evidence for the cat is claimed where a patch of concrete had the letters D.C. imprinted in this. Some argue that this is merely some human at work and not the supernatural, and while in this case, Id have to agree it is something that needs to be included.

Photo of alleged Demon Cat prints- photo from Atlas Obscura 

On December 7, 1941, a police officer was found dead of a heart attack. Now, this would have been left as an unfortunate accident except for the fact that the officer was found in one of the main areas where the Demon Cat was said to run and vanish. This secondary lair of the Demon Cat was not the basement near the Catafalque Storage Room, but the hallways connects the senate to the house meeting rooms. This encounter which occurred 7hrs before the bombing of Pearl Harbor began, and so knowing the legend of how the Demon Cat is said to appear before a national disaster, as well as the fact that this guard died in one of the creature's major path that the guard had suffered a heart attack after this creature's traditional manifestation behavior. This sighting was almost forgotten about assumedly in part because of how soon the national tragedy occurred but was put together after another sighting that occurred in 1981.

In the 1975 book Ghosts: Washington’s Most Famous Ghost Stories by John Alexander, there is a reference to what at the time was an increasingly fresh encounter with the Demon Cat, which the author claimed took place in January, sometime before the publication of the book. This encounter which echoed many of the older sightings involved a policeman who, upon prowling the area, sighted the small black cat that appeared to be made of shadows in the lower halls of the capitol building. The officer rubbed his eyes as he could not believe what he was seeing as not only was this cat seemingly formed from shadow but also that it seemed to be swelling. Upon relooking at the animal, he could tell that it truly was swelling in size and that now he felt seemingly paralyzed by the creature’s glistening eyes. The animal in this encounter proceeded to walk steadily toward the officer, and the creature had begun to purr. As the creature continued to grow larger, however, the purring began to change as well; it deepened and bellowed and became almost like the roar of a lion. The creature, which now grew to the size of a large tiger, began to get into a crouching position, and as the paralyzed officer looked on in horror, the animal pounced with its claws extended. He watched as the animal got within a mere couple of inches of him, and just as he uncurled a scream, the creature disappeared right in front of him. The officer then, having looked around the area, refused to finish his rounds of searching and inspecting the halls and went straight to his desk and did not leave it until daybreak.

Another sighting of the Demon Cat would show up in one of the most unassuming pieces of literature out there, an edition of Boy’s Life Magazine. In the July 1982^nd issue of the magazine, there was an article discussing the idea of the Capitol Building's haunted reputation and, surprisingly enough, featured the only named witness to the Demon Cat in any media. The sighting, which occurred in the Spring of 1977, was witnessed by a Fred Twoby, who during the time of the encounter was a guard at the Capitol Building. Twoby was walking along an upper corridor and had just entered a side hallway when he noticed a dark figure peering at him from the end of the hallway. Fred stopped dead in his tracks as the glinting yellow eyes of this would-be trespasser caught his attention, yet as he looked, he saw a small black cat leave the surrounding darkness and slowly begin to approach him. He watched certainly more curious than anything else at the cat, but as he watched the animal, he soon noted that with each thudding footstep, the creature seemed to get bigger. The animal proceeded to then pick up its pace, almost sprinting as it kept growing, and with each motion, the growth also increased till the creature was the size of a tiger, some 10ft long. Once the creature got relatively close to him, the creature proceeded to spring at the now petrified night guard, and Twoby, in a terror-induced sense of flinching, lifted his arms up above his head as though his arms would protect him from the creature's assault. Yet as he waited, arms overhead, eyes closed, an eerie quiet and stillness rung out throughout the halls, and time seemed to drag on as he waited for some sort of blow, yet it never came. Mustering up the courage, he opened his eyes and put down his arms and, looking around the halls, noticed that the colossal phantom was nowhere to be found.

A sighting I had mentioned earlier was the next documented sighting, and it appeared in the October 29, 1999 issue of the South Idaho Press. This encounter was written by Idaho senator Larry Craig for Halloween and discussed the classic legend of the Demon Cat. Yet instead of doing just a classic rehash as other newspapers had done going back to 1898, he added an encounter he had heard about from a friend who was told by the police officer who witnessed the apparition. This officer was patrolling the capitol building and was beginning to head to the second floor. As soon as he had wandered up the staircase to the floor, a large black cat proceeded to wander out of a room on the same floor. The cat proceeded to approach the officer, who was so perplexed as to how it got there that he barely noticed that the animal was growing in size. Once the creature was within 3ft of the officer, the officer realized that the creature was the size of a tiger with burning red eyes. The creature then proceeded to run and jump at the officer, which disappeared a mere 2-3" from the officer's chest. The man looked and realized where he was at, for this was the same hallway that bore the spectral pawprints that appeared in the concrete when the building was under construction in 1814. The officer proceeded to leave the area screaming and began to run out of the building and ran to the Police headquarters, where he reported what he had encountered to the police chief. He half expected the Chief to laugh him out, but that is not what happened. The officer looked as the Chief turned to a safe nearby and, upon opening it, pulled out a black leather-bound book that was covered in dust. He opened it up, and taking a pen, he began to write down the bare bones of the officer's encounter, stating that he was the 58^th encounter to be included in the book. The police chief then, upon placing the book down, proceeded to reach over and grab the phone on his desk and began to call both the White House and the Pentagon and told both of those who answered the phone about the encounter with the Demon Cat and that they needed to be on high alert. Yet no one believed him, but within the next couple of hours, they would. This encounter which occurred on March 30, 1981, at 6 in the morning, was a precursor then to the assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan, which occurred precisely 8hrs after the officer had his sighting with the entity. The officers involved in this sighting, both the police chief and the officer who witnessed the entity, then proceeded to look through the black book of sightings and, out of a morbid sense of curiosity, proceeded to search for sightings of the cat in other historical events. They found that sightings occurred during Kennedy's assassination, the night before we first sent men to Vietnam, yet curiously they found no sighting before Pearl Harbor, but upon investigating, they found that 7hrs before pearl harbor was bombed, an officer died of a heart attack in the same area as where the demon cat had frequented. They found this to be a smoking gun and the only time the creature seemed to of been responsible for the death of a person.

Now there have been no Demon Cat sightings since, but the legend was so prominent that in 2018 and 2020, both Atlas Obscura and the Washingtonian wrote articles wondering as to whether the spectral feline might return due to both the incoming election at the time as well as the rise of Covid. Yet officially, nothing has been reported. It is claimed, though, that in-between the 1981 sighting and now that other members of the staff of the Capitol Building and members of Congress having seen a glowing red-eyed shadow cat in the corridors and hallways, few have chosen to come public with their story due to the possibility of public ridicule at best and a chance of losing their job at worst. Yet unfortunately, further details on these encounters are nonexistent and so too ends any further encounters at least documented of the Demon Cat.

Now the Demon Cat is one of the most beloved paranormal entities in regard to Washington D.C., and in doing so, it has garnered a love/hate relationship with many who work within the Capitol building. Its from this, when trying to rationalize the encounter, a lot of interesting bits of information in regard to the history of the building can be found through these individuals. Going skeptically first, Steve Livengood of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society was one of the first to bring forward the idea that the Demon Cat was nothing more than an optical illusion caused by a drunken worker. Livengood feels that during the original 1800s encounters that the witnesses of the entity were relatives of more important political figures who, in turn, because of their relative's status, did not take the job as seriously as they should have. They resulted to drinking on the job, and it is from here where the legend he feels begins. Livengood proposes that on one such occasion, one of these early witnesses was drunk, lying on their back, and was awoken by one of the still-functioning mouser cats who was licking his face. Upon waking, the drunkard would not see a small tabby but a colossal cat, and in the state, he was in would still believe he was standing. It's from this point that once this account came out that other less willing workers would utilize the story in the same or similar way to get out of working. Then the story simply exploded from there with the idea of the cat being involved with misfortune. Another possibility in regard to the creature’s changing voice from a meow to a roar came from the March 02, 1913^th issue of the Washington Herald, which hypothesized that during the winter, cats from the city would find a way into the basement or lower halls of the Capitol and would when yowling or meowing have these sounds be amplified by the overall acoustics of the building. Thus, creating the illusion that they are from a much larger beast than a small cat.

Another possibility for the answer to the Demon Cat is unsurprisingly natural cats and shadows. According to the History, Art, and Archives: The United States House of Representatives article “The Haunting of Capitol Hill's House, Debunked," cats, aside from being brought in specifically for mousers, were allowed in and welcomed all the way till the late 1920s. The article stated that "At one point, guards reported bands of cats roaming the Capitol in 1892. "At about 10 o'clock every night, they begin a mad racing through the empty corridors,” and that “The acoustic effects produced (by the cats) are astonishing…Let a single grimalkin lift up his voice in statuary hall, famous for its echoes, and the silence of the night is broken by a yell like that of a damned soul, as loud as a locomotive whistle.”. In 1927 two of the last remaining cats, known as Dirty and Mary, were written about in an article due to their incredible skill at depopulating the mice in the building. Yet by the 40s such cats were long gone, and they were instead replaced by dogs and B.B. Guns. It's from this that, much like Livengood's hypothesis of a cat licking a drunkard's face, that theory arose that drunkards hearing the cats and seeing the shadows of the cats rose to the idea of a more spectral shapeshifting apparition.

Now for those of a more skeptical mindset, that would be the nail in the coffin for the Demon Cat and added that over the 200 years since the cat footprints appeared in the concrete on the second floor that there’s only been one witness who came forward with a name whereas all the other witnesses were anonymous or told from a friend who knew the individual who encountered the creature that is enough for firmly place the Demon Cat as a piece of folklore, but I think there's enough to it to warrant not only an official investigation but also a possibility of something more real. I say this because of primarily the encounters which took place in the 70s and 80s, as this is the first time we do have someone coming forward without being anonymous, as well as the strange set of tracks forever apart of the Capitol Building. Another piece that supports the existence slightly of the entity comes from Captain Allen P. Powers, a night supervisor at the Capitol who worked there for more than a decade, said "We have men on the force who are so uptight about the Demon Cat that they won't patrol the building alone at night. The more superstitious ones consider the cat an evil force that desperately stalks its victim, making sure they are alone. No one, however, has ever been harmed; nevertheless, many of the Capitol force are certain the building is haunted".

Now clearly based on the nature of this entity, it is not a cryptid or alien. It does not fit in the physical Fortean category at all, and Id have to argue that the main if not only possibility is some sort of paranormal entity, either a demonic apparition or the transmogrified spectral apparition of a cat. The demonic identity of the entity clearly is the one that most would point to with this being, and obviously, earlier witnesses felt the same. Yet if this is a demon, then the origin story of a dead mouser cat does not make much sense, but that opens up another possibility that is involved with the creation of the Capitol Building itself. Engineer John Lenthall, who worked on the construction of the capitol building, was crushed under a collapsed archway in September 1808. He ended up in this scenario after he pulled out a support arch to show to the supervising architect that the arch was unnecessary; this proved to be his undoing, however, and as the structure collapsed on him, it ultimately cost him his life. Yet before he took in his last breath as he was slowly crushed to death, he cursed the Capitol Building, and it is possible that in doing so unleashed the demonic feline into the walls of the home. In many ways, this could also explain why there seem to be at least 14 other apparitions said to be in the building; some of these apparitions include John Quincy Adams, a wounded Union soldier, and William Preston Taulbee, who was shot to death by a reporter for The Louisville Times as well as the general arguments and general negativity that seems to emanate from that location. 

Now another possibility is the transmogrified cat spirit. There have been several cases over the years of ghosts of humans and animals that seem to change form. There's a famous case of a spectral white tiger that behaves much in the same way as the Demon Cat, including with lunging at victims before disappearing, except that the White Tiger was, if the legend is to be believed, a human who upon death came back to seek in revenge as a leprosy carrying spectral white tiger. This account occurred in Elliot O’Donnell’s Animal Ghosts, so there are legends or at least a history of spirits becoming super-powered or super-charged after death.

Now, as stated earlier, I've loved this case since I was a child; it was one of the first paranormal cases I ever heard of, and so it holds a special place in my heart. Now in many ways, I wish there were more sightings and more information on this case since, to me, this is the political representative of the "American Monster" since almost every state has a state cryptid or monster, it would seem only fitting that while there’s plenty of human monsters in D.C. that there would have to be some supernatural one that even still would not be so terrible as the human ones. The Demon Cat mystery is one that will not go away; its something that is ingrained in the local lore and history, and I'm sure for years down the line, whenever its an election year or in the middle of some skirmish that people won't look towards the Capitol Building and wonder if D.C. was seen or will be seen during this time.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Supernatural Entity

Location: Capitol Building, Capitol Hill, Washington D.C.

Sighted: 1862-at least the 1980s.

Works Cited:

America’s Very Own Monsters By Daniel Cohen

Ghosts: Washington’s Most Famous Ghost Stories By John Alexander

Monsters of Virginia: Mysterious Creatures in the Old Dominion By L. B. Taylor Jr.

Phantom Animals By Daniel Cohen

Weird Virginia: Your Travel Guide to Virginia's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets By Jeff Bahr, Troy Taylor, Loren Coleman, Mark Moran, Mark Sceurman

Boy’s Life Magazine July 1982

Grundhauser, Eric “Why the U.S. Capitol’s ‘Demon Cat’ Legend Is So Persistent” Atlas Obscura. March 13, 2018. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/is-there-a-demon-cat-in-the-us-capitol. Accessed June 24, 2021.

History “The Haunting of Capitol Hill's House, Debunked” History, Art, and Archives: United States House of Representatives. October 29, 2019, https://history.house.gov/Blog/2019/October/10-29-Haunting-Debunked/. Accessed March 24, 2021.

Buffalo Courier December 04, 1898

The Akron Beacon Journal January 11, 1899

The Washington Post March 24, 1908

The Boston Globe July 04, 1909

The Washington Herald March 02, 1913

Home Talk the Star August 10, 1928

The Dispatch October 31, 1981

The Times October 31, 1989

South Idaho Press October 29, 1999

Brentford Griffin

 Brentford Griffin

By Cole Herrold

In the annals of Cryptozoology and Fortean studies in general, there are creatures that appear to of been ripped straight from the pages of classical mythology. There are countless cases, many of which I had covered in the past, from Blackwood, New Jersey’s Pigtaur and Centaur, to the Tangipahoa River Cyclops and, of course, the countless reports of more human-looking Goatmen, which are mirror images of their faun, satyr, and Pan mythic counterparts that seem to indicate if these reports are accurate that there may be more to our myths than just tales to explain natural phenomenon or simply to entertain a group when things like film or Dungeons and Dragons were not around. It is interesting to note that a lot of these beings are reported not in the country from which their tales originated but instead in areas with little to no real direct connection with these legends. Of all of these entities from the Mythic Menagerie, there is one in particular that had for a time captured the attention of a nation and remains one of the most interesting cases in Fortean history simply from the fact that this heraldic beast is one of according to legends the noblest albeit aggressive flying freaks ever written about since the early epic poems and playwright days.

In the middle of 1984, 28-year-old telephone technician Kevin Chippendale had left his home on Brooke Road South and was strolling along Braemar Road. Upon this walk, Chippendale, out of boredom or complete adoration of the current state of weather, proceeded to look up into the sky but upon doing so, he was greeted not just with the marshmallow mists commonly referred to as clouds but also a strange dark form that was beating its way through the azure sky. He could tell that whatever this dark form was, it seemed to be some sort of animal flying some hundreds of feet up in the air and was coming from an area known as the gasworks and was just about to pass a group of tall apartments which coincidentally was known as the Green Dragon Towers. Chippendale, as he strained to make out just what the creature exactly was, could soon tell that this being was far from the traditional fauna said to inhabit, at least to his knowledge, the United Kingdom. The creature was about the size of a large dog, yet an exact height and length were difficult to the distance the creature was seen, and he said there was a likelihood the creature was larger. He noticed that this creature could not have simply been a bird because while he noted large feathery wings flapping in the wind, the overall morphology was off as they appeared to come from the shoulder area and that the way the creature flew was almost as if it was in slow motion. Chippendale could soon see why there was a noticeable displacement of the wings, for dangling below the body of the creature were four legs that appeared to end in features similar to paws. As Chippendale followed up the creature's neck, he noted that the creature had a strange head similar to a birds in most respect, except that there was no noticeable beak but instead a kind of muzzle that had some sort of strange nose at the end. The creature's skin also was not what he expected either as he watched, for there were no feathers on the body itself but what appeared to be a smooth texture to it that made the creature look aerodynamic in flight. Kevin could not make out any further details from this creature but did feel that he had seen the creature’s eyes as well as a kind of tail.

Chippendale was completely flabbergasted at just this strange flying anomaly and had no clear indication as to just what it was that he saw, but he remained quiet about his sighting for fear of being labeled “unbalanced” and moved on with his life until several months later in February of 1985 he was out walking, and upon looking up again into the sky near the Green Dragon Towers he saw the same creature flying again. This time Chippendale, however, had an inkling as to just what the creature could be. During both of these walks, Chippendale passed a pub known as the Griffin Brewery and, upon thinking about the design of the creature on the sign, felt that this creature was fairly close, if not identical, to a Griffin. He would say the following "The first time was last summer when I saw something flying low across the ground in the gaswork. At first, I thought it might be a plane, but it was too low and made no noise. I was intrigued to know what it was and, as I walked past the Griffin pub, realized it looked like the animal on the sign. I saw it again a couple weeks later in exactly the same place". Chippendale realizing he was not crazy due to his second sighting, felt comfortable enough to open up about his encounters but even then, only to his close family and friends, yet as time went on, he would be put into the center of the storm of reports that would flood and engage the area throughout this time period.

Word soon spread about Chippendale’s sighting even with the discreteness of who he told, and it was then that a short time later, one of Chippendale's coworkers, a woman by the name of Angela Keyhoe, would go to him and also claim that she too had seen the strange creature. Angela claimed that she had seen a large, winged animal perched on top of the gasworks, a colossal utility tank that has served as a Brentwood landmark. She had seen the creature while seated on the top floor of a No. 65 double-decker bus, and apparently, she was not alone as others seated allegedly also had seen the flying freak of nature. Angela could not withhold her excitement after her encounter and as she began to tell several local arts center workers about what she and those on the bus had witnessed.

Also, during this time, a psychologist by the name of John Olssen came forward and said that he too encountered a strange flying creature. He encountered what he described as a colossal bird-like creature while out jogging along the Thames River in the early morning hours. It was from this that many felt that the creature was living on one of the many islands that darted the river, Thames. And John Baroldi of the Waterman's Art Center would come forward with several firsthand accounts from people who told him that they too had seen the creature. One of these sightings involved a woman who came from a nearby park along the street of the Art Center who he noticed was in a terrified state. When he asked her what was troubling her, she said that she had seen a large dark-colored bird in the park that scared her so bad she couldn't stop shaking during the sighting.

During this time, the press had picked up the stories, and for several months recounting of the sightings would be told along with several artistic renditions throughout the millennia of just what the creature was supposed to look like. During this time, the interest of the Griffin even led to a Griffin Spotting Club that searched the area of the sightings for any evidence of the creature as well as attempted to catalog any further sightings of the creature. During that time, only one sighting came forward, and there was barely any detail or information on that encounter.

Robert Rankin, the towns poet in residence at the Waterman’s Art Center and writer, took great interest in the Griffin, writing about it in the May 1985 edition of the Magonia Newsletter. He also started to organize a UFO symposium upon which he discussed the Griffin and stated that reports of the creature could be traced back to at least pre World War II. Yet he did say all of the sources that mention the creature was ambiguous at best.

After 1985 sightings of the Griffin completely disappeared, and it remained a strange little chapter in the colossal book of Fortean subjects. Until in 1995 when Robert Rankin came forward attempting to claim that the Brentford Griffin was a hoax perpetrated by himself and several other friends of his and members of the Waterman's Art Center. For many, this killed the idea of a Griffin in Brentford, and so history became legend, legend became myth, and the creature stayed in the shadows of lore for a time. The creature, in fact, was practically forgotten about until a man by the name of Martin Collins wrote a letter which later appeared in an issue of  Fortean Times (specifically issue 110 from May 1998) He wrote: “I first encountered the story of the Brentford Griffins while I was at St John’s School in the 1950s (note: some thirty years before the first sightings!). St John’s in those days sat in the shadow of Brentford’s football ground, Griffin Park. Inquiring why there were so many griffin references in Brentford, I was told that it was due to the family of griffins that lived on Brentford Eyot, an island in the Thames.

The story of how they got there was that the first Griffin was brought to Brentford by King Charles II as a gift for his mistress, Nell Gwynn, who had a house in the Butts at Brentford. One day the Griffin was playing on the banks of the River Brent, which flows past the Butts, and fell in. The hapless creature was washed down the Brent into the Thames, finally being washed up on Brentford Eyot. As it was assumed to have been killed, it was left alone and was able to live on the Eyot for many years – griffins having a lifespan of centuries.

Then Sir Joseph Banks brought back a griffin from a Pacific island where he had been with Captain Cook. This Griffin was originally housed in the Pagoda in Kew Gardens, which is on the opposite bank of the Thames from Brentford Eyot, where it found a mate awaiting it.

There was soon a whole colony of griffins, and they spread out from the Eyot all over the town of Brentford, where they can still be seen to this day if you look closely enough.

This story has stayed with me…it is a nice bit of Brentford mythology.”

With this letter, the story of the Griffin was much like another mythical bird, the Phoenix reborn from the ashes of the alleged hoax, and many speculate now that there might have been some truth to the legend and hoax after all. Even Rankin though his testimony needs to be taken with a grain of salt, to say the least, wrote about other Griffins or Griffin like creatures in the area that appeared in his Magonia article:

This is the Magonia Article in its Entirety

 “Throughout history, the gryphon has been a symbol evocative of power and majesty. As an emblem, it is employed by nearly 200 companies in the UK alone, from the Midland Bank to Fuller's Brewery. Jung once stated that "it is a subconscious symbol of such encompassment that it is unlikely to be the product of mere myth; we are dealing with something born from folk memory." Although a seemingly impossible hybrid of eagle and lion, there now appears little doubt that the gryphon is a Jiving reality. Up until a few months ago, zoologists would have ridiculed the possibility of such a chimera, but the recent spate of sightings coupled with the gryphon skeleton currently on exhibit seems to have added the flesh of reality to the bones of myth. "I went along suspecting hoax," stated Attenborough, "but came away convinced. This discovery has set the zoological world upon its heels."

Reports of gryphons crop up with startling regularity throughout the pages of history. Dr. Johnson records one he saw at Brentford's Bull Fayre: " ••• it was somewhat smaller than I had expected, but the proprietor assured me that it was 'yet young'... it had the body of a lion cub and the neck, head, and forelegs of an eagle ... curiously formed wings issued from its shoulders." Johnson was in no doubt that the beast lived "and was not the product of the gypsies' craft ."No further mention of is made of the gryphon in his writings, and one is left to wonder what became of it. Possibly it was the same live specimen my father saw at Olympia before the war. He was informed that it was several hundred years old and was shown old showman's posters as proof. From the substantial body of information, I have on my own files alone, I am inclined to place the Brentford Gryphon alongside the Yeti and the Loch Ness Monster 'as yet unsolved'. The local sightings have been too widely reported to require further mention here, and I have no cause to doubt the testimony of the witnesses I have interviewed. Having been scrupulous in discounting sightings which might be misinterpretations of natural phenomena, we are still left with statements such as "unlike any living creature I have seen •.. ", "rising from the Thames on outspread wings. •• ", " the front half looked like an eagle, I saw a long tail and claws like a cat." London Weekend Television's 'spoof send-up' on 15th March fell flat on its face, with Cockney 'personality' Danny Baker openly admitting before an audience of several million that the witnesses he had interviewed were genuine. Such unprecedented honesty on his part seemed more than at odds with LWT's obvious intention to send the whole thing up. Since the television coverage, Brentford has found itself playing reluctant host to all manner of fringe elements. Andy Collins of 'Green S tone' notoriety arrived hotfoot, with ghetto-blaster, Instamatic, and the usual bevy of nubile lady acolytes. Viewpoint Aquarius stated that it was a 'genetic mutation' escaped from a government establishment, and the Chiswick Wildlife Trust offered the considered opinion that it was noth1ng more than a four-legged vulture blown off course! In fact, Speculation on all sides led to such an astonishing plethora of 'logical explanations' (the logic of which defies all explanation) that one is left to consider the indisputable fact that it is a gryphin pure and simple - a species of animal as yet unstudied and therefore considered non-existent. One can certainly discount John Rimmer's recent ' authoritative article,' which suggests that it is Brentford's old friend, the giant feral Tom, making yet another of its unwelcome nocturnal appearances. Mr. Rimmer would do well to explain how the famous 5-foot pussy manages to grow upwards of 8-foot, sprout wings and fly across the Thames. I note with growing alarm the plan of some local stalwarts to instigate a gryphon hunt one night in the near future. I hear talk of a flotilla of small boats, tracker dogs, powerful searchlights, steel nets, and tranquilizing darts. The plucky Brentonians would do well to exercise extreme caution, as the beast is notorious for its ferocity and love of human flesh. It is my feeling that the matter should be placed in the hands of the experts. But I am sure also that it will require private backing, as the local council has shown its customary reticence in raising the necessary funds, even for so worthy a cause. Whatever the eventual outcome, I cannot contain the thrill that rises at the prospect of a successful capture. Such would be a rare achievement indeed. I look forward with great interest to future developments. Magonia welcomes any correspondence on this interesting subject and is eager to contact anyone who has had a personal experience with a gryphon or any other form of creature previously believed to be mythical”.

Skeptically speaking, there are many ways to interpret this case. Robert Rankin, one of perhaps three main players in the saga of the Brentford Griffin and the one who wrote the most about the case, was a comedic fantasy writer best known for eleven books known as the Brentford Trilogy, which deal with all sorts of paranormal and supernatural events that affected Brentford. It is known that Robert Rankin, who focused heavily on publicizing the Griffin, came forward in 1995 and said that most if not all of the reports of the Griffin were perpetrated by him as a kind of joke. So taking just that report at face value, most if not all the information on the Griffin straight out, is a hoax. The reason for this hoax was said to be that Robert Rankin and several other locals had planned to hold a Festival in the Waterman's Art center on July 13, 1985. Yet this date would coincide with Live AID, which was taking place at Wembley Stadium, and to raise awareness of their event, they concocted the story about the Griffin being seen around the arts center with all of the witnesses being involved in Rankin's joke and Rankin then proceeded to write a historical background of the creature. Now, this would seem to be the final nail in the coffin for the Griffin, except that in 1985 during these sightings, Andrew Collins investigated and interviewed as many eyewitnesses as he could and felt that they were indeed truthful. He ended up publishing his findings in a 42-page pamphlet entitled The Brentford Griffin: The Truth Behind the Tales. So, it’s possible that at least the initial encounter with the Griffin was based on an actual sighting.

Another possibility is that at least with Chippendale's sightings, if they are not a part of Rankin's acclaimed joke that perhaps he predisposed the image of the Griffin on a natural bird or plane or kite having passed by the Griffin Brewery, which also is near the Griffin Stadium where Brentford's football team play and also that two Griffin's are on Brentford's coat of arms so perhaps he had Griffins on the brain and affitted the description to something mundane. Or even possibly hallucinated the creature due to all the surrounding Griffin influence but this seems less likely compared to being either interconnected with a hoax or having seen a real creature since a lot of Chippendale’s description while Griffin like is not 100% how a griffin is supposed to look and if one were to generate a hoax why wouldn't they go full out and describe the creature as the classical depiction? This, too, would, of course, add to the joke hypothesis even more if one was to say they saw a classic regal griffin and not the more flying canine or lion-type creature. Yet, of course, this still does not rule out Chippendale being interconnected with a hoax.

Now assuming that, at the very least, Chippendale's sighting is authentic, what are we to make of it? Well, the most obvious answer would be that this would have to be some sort of cryptid. There's nothing really to indicate any other major categories, such as there's no UFO sighted in connection with the creature as it quite is its own Unidentified Flying Object, so it's safe to take an extraterrestrial angle off the table. Griffins, from a folkloric or mythological view, first appeared primarily in the literature of the Greeks but first appeared in Aristeas’s lost epic poem the Arimaspea in 675 BC and then showed up repeatedly in the works of Greek playwright Aeschylus in his tragedies like Prometheus Bound. Griffins also showed up in Scythian artwork and gold dating from 3000-100BC, implying that these creatures, if real, were well known or prominent in Mediterranean and Asian culture for countless years. Griffin-like creatures are not entirely unknown in the world of cryptozoology; one of the most famous examples would be the 1925 flap of sightings of a creature that has come to be known as the Vermont Awful. This creature terrorized the towns of Berkshire and Richford as it tromped on rooftops, stole milk cans, and stared at residents through their windows. The creature even reached the ears of cosmic horror author H.P. Lovecraft who was so interested in the creature that he went to the area and interviewed the residents who had seen the creature.

A similar creature was reported sometime later, but this time it was lumped into a different cryptozoological identity, and that was the Jersey Devil. In the late 1920s, there was a report of another quadrupedal flying creature that the press were quick to call a "flying lion" that was seen in West Orange, NJ. This encounter led to the creature being chased by several would-be monster hunters who allegedly not only chased the creature away but also found and captured one of the creature's offspring. Yet further information on this case is scant, to say the least. It is interesting, however, to point out that a flying lion is very similar to what was reported in Brentford, as well as in the Griffin lore, the Griffin is half eagle and half lion, so this report might very well be another example of a Griffin sighting. And as a sidebar, note the fifth example, at least to my current knowledge, of a creature from Greek Myth being reported in New Jersey.

Another creature slightly similar to what was reported in Brentford is the Beast of Barrisdale. This tri-legged flying Waterhorse tormented the area of Loch Hourn on the land while a colossal black serpent frolicked in the lake. The Beast of Barrisdale was described as about the size of a horse or ox and with a myriad of similar features to what we see on the Brentford Griffin, such as large wings attached to the shoulders, smooth skin, a long muzzle like feature, pawed hands and a long tail so perhaps they may be the same species or a related one. For more information on the Beast of Barrisdale, definitely check my February 2, 2021 article on the creature.

Now, of course, while all of these creature reports seem to indicate a biological flesh and blood animal, and while there always is the chance something evolved to be like what these creatures seem to be, the problem with this is that we have nothing in the fossil record or known zoological record that matches. Wings are essentially modified arms and hands to allow the capacity of flight with creatures like the Beast of Barrisdale, the Awful, and the Brentford Griffin; this is not what we're seeing, as this would imply that all of these creatures would have evolved with 6 limbs four which evolved like legs and two that were modified as wings. This is something unheard of in vertebrates as it goes against everything we know about how evolution works. The only way something like this could exist is if these creatures were not mammals, birds, or reptiles but instead colossal insects, which totally goes against their descriptions. So, needless to say, there are some problems with the earthbound cryptid theory.

Now the next possibility for the existence of the Brentford Griffin would be if this is an interdimensional entity. This theory is sort of an extension to the cryptid theory, but instead of them coming from our world, these creatures somehow, through some fluke of the universe or dimensions or whatever, somehow end up entering and being seen in our world. This theory could explain just how a creature like this could exist as with multiple dimensions, there are an infinite amount of possible evolutionary lines and "worlds" where a creature like this could exist.

The next possibility seems kind of slim, but it's one that I speculate all the time about with such strange cases, and that is the Fae option. Faeries are a mixed bag of phenomena and involve creatures of an animal nature like the Cu-Sith or Cat Sith as well as the Kelpie and Each Usiage and even the Dobhar-Chu. Now some folklorists and faerieologists will include the Griffin as well as Dragons and Unicorns into the classification of Fae due to the alleged mystical and magical abilities they are said to have and the fact that they occasionally are seen with, in service of, or in some connection to more traditional Fae like Elves or Dwarves. Now with a creature like a Griffin, if this is an example of a faerie beast, they would have some of the same abilities seen with others, like the ability to vanish. Now there's nothing exactly to indicate that with this case, nor is there any direct faerie connection, such as in the case of the Bridgemont Gnome Race where the faerie horses are seen with gnomes.

Now there’s one possibility that seems so off the track for a phenomenon like this but does occasionally become interconnected, and that is the demonic. Irish paranormal investigator Elliot O'Donnell in his book "Dangerous Ghosts," wrote about a curious encounter with a pair of homicidal supernatural griffins from around the 1660s; he wrote the following regarding the incident where a Mr. John Luck encountered the entities:

“(Mr John Luck) a farmer from Raveley, set out on horseback one morning to the annual fair at Whittlesea. On the way he met a friend, with whom he had a drink at a wayside inn. After drinking somewhat heavily Mr. Luck became very merry and perceiving that his friend was getting restless and desirous of continuing on his way to the fair, he said, "let the devil take him who goeth out of this house today ."The more he drank the merrier he grew. Forgetful of his rash saying, he called for his horse and set out for the fair. The fresh air seemed to have a sobering effect, for he had not travelled very far before he remembered what he had said. He was naturally superstitious and became so perturbed that he lost his bearings. He was endeavoring to find the way home- it was getting dusk and far too late to go to the fair- when he espied ‘two grim creatures before him in the likeness of griffins’. They handled him roughly, took him into the air, stripped him, and then dropped him, a sad spectacle, all gory, in a farmyard just outside the town of Doddington. There he found himself lying on the harrows. He was picked up and carried to a house which belonged to a neighboring gentleman. When he had recovered sufficiently to talk he related what had happened to him. Before long, he 'grew into a frenzy', so desperate that the inmates of the house were afraid to stay in the room with him. Convinced that Luck was under evil influences, they sent for a clergyman of the town. No sooner had the clergyman entered the house than Luck, howling like a demon, rushed at him and would have torn him to pieces had not the servants of the house come to his rescue. They succeeded with great difficulty in overcoming Luck and tying him to the bed. No one was allowed to enter his room, the door of which was locked".

The following day Luck was found dead. His body was contorted, and his neck was snapped; he was covered in black and blue marks, and his tongue was dangling from out his gapping maw. A scene not unsimilar to what those seeing Anneliese Michels had seen. Now, this is the only official instance I found of a demonic griffin, but the idea of a mythological creature as a demon is something that has been referenced time and time again by some religious Forteans. So, needless to say, it is a hypothesis we need to include.

With creatures like this, we are left wondering just how could something like this exist in our world. It would be easy to accept the whole series of encounters as hoaxes, but there's so much gray in this encounter that I'm open to saying that there probably was something there, at least in regard to the Kevin Chippendale sightings. Just what this being could be, I have no conclusive idea, but I would lean more towards the cryptid hypothesis seeing as similar creatures have been reported elsewhere, but even then, there's nothing to confirm that hypothesis either. Perhaps the interdimensional route is the more appropriate. I've mentioned that there have been several creatures seemingly ripped from the pages of myth; perhaps there is a dimension where all of these entities originate from, and it is a world where mythology as we know it is reality, yet as with everything this is just speculation. In conclusion, I feel that the story of the Brentford Griffin will continue to be told as long as people still hold mysteries in their hearts and as long as there are researchers to write and keep the story alive, but the answer to this mystery will never truly be discovered.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal/ Bird/ Possible Hoax

Location: Brentford, England

Sighted: Mid 1984-1985

Works Cited:

Encounters With Flying Humanoids By Ken Gerhard

London Urban Legends By Scott Wood

Mysterious Creatures Volume One by George M. Eberhart

Paranormal London By Neil Arnold

Shadows in the Sky: The Haunted Airways of Britain By Neil Arnold

Fortean Times Issue 110, May 1998

Magonia 19, May 1985

Acton Gazette (Ealing, London, England) March 15, 1985

Acton Gazette (Ealing, London, England) August 16, 1985

Ealing Gazette (Ealing, London, England) March 22, 1985

“The Brentford Griffin” Beasts of London.April 6, 2007.http://beastsoflondon.blogspot.com/2007/04/brentford-griffin.html. Accessed May 25, 2022.

“The Brentford Griffin and Other Mysteries”. St. Margarets.7 May 2009. https://stmargarets.london/archives/2009/05/the_brentford_griffin_and_other_mysteries.html. Accessed May 25, 2022.

 

 

The Derry Township Fog Humanoid

 The Derry Township Fog Humanoid

By Cole Herrold

The Chestnut Ridge is a place that is littered with UFOs, Ghosts, Cryptids, Bizarre Sounds, and anomalous phenomena that seem to be honed to this bizarre stretch of land. Just what is the reason for this concentrated area of high strangeness is anyone's guess, but it is an area where just when you think you've seen the weirdest thing imaginable, something else will come a short time later to top it. This is just the case when in 2018, a motorist had a brief encounter with a shambling humanoid that seemed to have the same ability as Rachel from Nightbreed or Johann Krauss from Hellboy, in other words, could turn itself into or is made up of fog or mist like structure.

An unnamed man was driving down a stretch of road late at night on September 10, 2018, in Derry Township. It was raining, and the man, due to the dim visibility, had to turn on his high beams, and as he traveled along the road, he noticed that there was something moving in the road some 75 ft down the road. Due to the potentially hazardous conditions, the driver was watching the road and his surroundings very carefully and did not seem to notice any movement come from the side of the road, implicating that whatever was in the road seemed to just appear out of nowhere. The object, however, while he was unsure as to just how it came to the center of the road, was moving. The figure seemed to move from left to right. The man thought that at first, just what he was seeing was a cloud of fog, but as he looked out into the darkness, he could tell that there was no other fog in the surrounding area and so that whatever he was seeing it could not have been that. As he stared at the object, he could soon tell that whatever it was, it appeared to be almost in the shape of a human figure but did seem to be made up of either white mist or fog. The man as he approached the figure in his car, he noticed that this moving fog humanoid was about 6 ½ to 7ft tall, and he noticed that as this ethereal entity moved across the street, it seemed to be slouched over as it moved, and he was able to notice notable arms and legs. While the figure had less defined arms and legs, the being did not seem to have feet and seemed to move in a walking fashion above the ground as if it was walking on air. The most noticeable features, however, were that the figure had massive muscular shoulders and an incredibly small waist. The figure did have a head, but unlike the well-defined body, the head was wispy, and he was unable to see it clearly. The creature moved across the road in a matter of seconds, and as he watched the ambling anomalous being walk into a nearby field where just as quickly as it came, it seemed to disappear. A short time later, the witness got a hold of paranormal Pennsylvania researcher Stan Gordon who would go and write an article about the bizarre sighting.

This encounter is exceptionally brief, and there's not a lot to go on, but the bizarre nature of the being seen is, I feel, enough to at least warrant some attention. This figure is truly an anomaly, and with such, one must look at the case a little bit differently than one would with a bigfoot in regard to a skeptical answer as well as a Fortean answer. From a skeptics viewpoint, this being could just be a pocket of fog that drifted across the road, and the man misinterpreted it or wildly imagined that it was a figure moving. Fog forms when cold air moves over warm water, so perhaps what was seen was a quick cold snap that created just enough fog to make a form and was then carried off where it evaporated. The form of a human being could be an example of Pareidolia, such as when one sees shapes in clouds or Jesus on a loaf of bread. The fact that it was raining could easily have attributed to all of this; however, I will say that while not impossible, it would be unlikely as when fog occurs, there are usually areas that would be hit first with the formation of it such as fields, and the fact that this phenomenon occurred exclusively in the center of the road and not in any of the other areas around makes it slightly unlikely that traditional fog or normal weather conditions could cause this phenomenon let alone create the motion of a figure ambling along especially since it did this by walking on air.

Unlike other cases which venture off into categories like Cryptids or Aliens, there are not too many things this being could be. There's nothing biological in nature to this creature, and instead, it would have to get into some of the more ethereal categories of entities. The first possibility is that perhaps this being is a ghost. Spectral apparitions are often described as misty or fog-like, and that on occasion, they seem to be missing portions of their body, usually feet. Now while ghosts are anecdotally reported everywhere, a quick peruse through what resources I have and those I checked online, I was unable to find any written or documented cases of ghosts in Derry Township outside of one which has no association with any road in the area. However, a quick search into the history of Derry Township in regards to vehicular deaths and deaths on the roads does show that there were several in recent years of people of various ages that could attribute to this entity appearing; however, this is entirely speculation. Now I will say there is a problem with the ghost identity for this being as the fact that this entity was 6 1/2 to 7ft tall which while not exactly out of the ballpark of normal human height it is still less likely, and when one points to how this entity seemed to be without clothes and having less defined features like the head, arms, and legs it almost seems that the ghost angle is much less likely.

Another possibility is that perhaps this entity is solely supernatural, being either a demonic figure as such entities are also described as misty figures much like ghosts or a supernatural entity like a Djinn, which also has occasionally been described as being mist-like in form. While these figures are often tied to Abrahamic religions like Christianity and Islam, it is interesting to note that they do bear strong similarities with some minor differences from each other, and while the existence of the religions themselves is an altogether different topic, I've always felt that the entities described therein could be representations of a phenomenon that is misaligned.

A final possibility as I seemingly grasp onto whatever possible paranormal outlet I can is the idea that perhaps this entity is an elemental. Elementals are spirits that represent different forces of nature; some of these are often included in the Fae, but in many ways, elementals are their entirely own categories. In folklore and myth, there is an entity known as sylphs or sylphids, which are described as invisible entities that live in the air. The sylphs brethren of elementals are the salamanders for fire, the gnomes for earth, and the Undines for water. These beings have a variety of abilities depending on their element and often have shape-changing abilities or the power to disappear. Perhaps the entity seen in Derry Township was one of these beings that might have for a very brief second was able to be seen either accidentally or because of the weather condition and that it could also explain if this being is a Sylph, especially why it suddenly disappeared as these entities tend to almost always be invisible. However, as with all of these possibilities, it's just speculation.

Cases like this I'm perplexed by because if this is an authentic case and the being seen was not some misidentification or wishful thinking, it just opens a whole ethereal box that does not match what we currently know about how the world is. This entity is more than likely not a ghost which is a little more acceptable in terms of "traditional" science as there have been countless cases of photographs, recordings, videos, temperature changes, and the like that can be attributed to ghost activity and knowing that our body is essentially an electrical machine with gases and liquids to make it function it's not too far out of the way to think that once someone dies that energy and chemical makeup simply transfer out of the body, yet with something like this and part of this also goes to the briefness of the encounter as we are left entirely to speculate as to the origin and nature of this being, it just is impossible to decipher how and why it exists. If it's an elemental, there's nothing for us to understand how or why that would come about, and the same goes for demons or djinn as unlike with a ghost where there's a transfer of energy and chemistry, these entities just seem to exist with no discernible origin unless the religious routes are to be believed. As a researcher, I'm open to all kinds of cases even though my preference is with Cryptid and Aliens, and I'm a firm supporter that the Fae are a viable phenomenon for research, yet in cases like this, I scratch my head and do put me out of my normal comfort zone. However, it's because of this that I think cases like this need to be studied further as this could mean that there are potential aspects to the universe that still need to be realized and with such whole new plateaus of science for us to climb which, to say the least, is not only exciting but also important for us collectively as a species.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Paranormal Entity

Location: Derry Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: September 10, 2018

Works Cited:

Gordon, Stan “Misty Humanoid Creature Observed Moving Across Road in Derry Township Pennsylvania” Stan Gordon’s UFO Anomaly Zone. October 24, 2018. http://www.stangordon.info/wp/2018/10/24/2625/. Accessed February 12, 2022. 

The Talking Devil Dog of Pittsburgh

 The Talking Devil Dog of Pittsburgh

By Cole Herrold

When it comes to Fortean phenomenon, there is an almost geographical grid in which such entities seem locked. Cryptids are reported in the woodlands and murky lakes and pollutant-free skies; ghosts are home to antediluvian structures or locations that have a great history to them; Aliens prefer the picturesque farming communities or locations where human interaction is lessened, the faerie kind and their ilk much like the cryptids tend to spend their days in nature and avoid humans at all cost. Yet on occasion, there are cases that seem to break these artificial ley lines, and when these cases occur, they are the most unique and sometimes most downright disturbing cases on the books. The most famous case when one mentions highly populated areas and the unknown is Spring-Heeled Jack this malevolent fire vomiting fiend would bound around London in the mid-1800s and would later be reported elsewhere, such as America. In January 1909, during Phenomenon Week, the Jersey Devil frequented the streets of many a New Jersey and Pennsylvania town but perhaps one of the weirdest encounters during this flap of sightings was on Thursday the 21st  when the creature was seen in the backyard of a Mrs. White in Philadelphia where it’s alligator skinned dragon-like visage spewed flames at a woman folding her clothes before her husband beat the creature with a clothes prop resulting in it clamoring over a fence and almost getting clipped by a motorist driving down 16th street where the creature was still breathing fire. Almost half a year before the Jersey Devil was causing terror in Philly on the opposite side of the state, an altogether different kind of Devil was reported, but unlike the Jersey Devil, this creature had the unique capacity that we rarely see in more animalistic mystery beings as this creature bizarrely enough could talk.

On July 29, 1908, there was a heavy amount of Police Officers in the area of Lincoln Ave, in Pittsburgh. The reason for this was that over the course of several weeks, there had been many petty thefts that were plaguing the area. The police, exhausted by the constant reports of missing objects and shady individuals, began to flood Lincoln Ave for the sole purpose of putting a stop to these kleptomaniacal individuals. On the day in question, a pair of the boys in blue were on their way to the avenue and had decided to take a quick detour through one of the city parks. As they were wandering through the concrete divided greenery, they happened to notice a small black dog whit short hair walking towards them. As they met the animal halfway there, the three seemed to stop, and as the animal looked up to the men of the law, it opened its mouth and said, “Good Morning!”. The voice seemed to talk as if to initiate a pleasant chat, but the men seemed to be confused as to where the voice seemed to come from as it sounded so close, and yet while there were people around, nobody was as close as the voice was. Looking once more at the dog, the two wondered whether they were being duped and felt that perhaps this was some act of ventriloquism from some hidden perpetrator or some other hoax. The pair were still debating this back and forth until the dog spoke once more as it aggressively wagged its tail. "I speak for myself," it said in an offended tone and then began to trot away. The men realizing then that this was not some gimmick or parlor trick, then began to run after the cordial canine and sought to capture the curious critter. The dog was not far off as the men came up from behind the creature, and just as one of the officers bent to pick up the animal, it sidestepped to avoid being manhandled and growled out, "Don't touch me." This command was ignored, and as the officers continued to chase the creature one eventually did manage to grab hold the animal's leg. As the officer enclosed his fingers around the canine's slender leg, a strange thing happened an intense pain shot into his hand. This pain caused him to drop his quarry, and looking down, he noticed that there imprinted on his hand was the burned impression of the dog's leg. The burn-in that matter of seconds went extremely deep and was exceptionally raw. The men stopped their pursuit after this and watched as the animal once more ran off, and as it did, it began to turn into a vibrant green mist. They watched as this vaporous varmint slowly dissipated until nothing was left. The officers began to tend to the wound caused by the caustic creature and, after bandaging the wound tightly, continued to their route; the pair were debating on whether they should keep the story to themselves, but after seeing another officer on their way to Lincoln Ave they felt that they had to tell someone. So, after telling the officer and showing him the wound, word of the devilish dog spread like wildfire and was eventually covered in the New York World. One would think that this would be the end of the tale of the Talking Devil Dog of Pittsburgh, but there is an important epilogue to this case. This case would be mentioned rather briefly and heavily debated in the 1932 book Wild Talents by the infamous founder of Fortean studies, Charles Fort. In his book, Charles Fort heavily dismissed the case of the Talking Devil Dog and said that the reason for this was the overall lack of similar accounts as he states that he was aware that the phenomenon of dogs “speaking” was common and that he had seen one such dog who would say “thank you” when given candies but that this phenomenon combined with some sort of illuminated or spectral leaving was not in any of his files and therefore unlikely to be real. He would say further on this “if say, sometimes in the year 1847 a New Orleans Newspaper told of a cat who said: "Well, is it warm enough for you?" and instantly disappeared sulphurously, as should everybody who says that; and if I had a clipping, dated sometime in 1930, telling of a mouse who squeaked "I was along the way, and thought I'd drop-in" and vanished along a trail of purple sparklets and something similar from the St. Helena Guardian, August 17, 1905; and something like that from the Madras Mail, year 1879- Id consider the story of the polite dog no marvel, and Id admit him to our fold”. For many Forteans, this would be the nail in the coffin for this case, but some researchers have kept the account alive such as Patty A. Wilson in her book Totally Bizarre Pennsylvania. Yet now that we're 90 years further down since Fort wrote those words in Wild Talents and with the now countless Fortean cases collected since that time, are there any cases that are similar and would if Fort was still alive might cause him to reconsider? I think the answer is yes.

The very first case I had not heard of until Rob Morphy, Marc Storrs, and Chris Carnicelli brought the case to the limelight in their Cryptonaut Podcast episode “The Radiant Raccoon, LSD, and the Nobel Laureate” in this incredible case Chemist and Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis encountered late one night a bizarre bright green glowing raccoon who upon seeing the scientist cordially said, “Good Evening Doctor." This case I mention for two reasons, the most notable being that in this case, the animal talks and also that there is a green seemingly supernatural feature associated with it, but that's about it when it comes to connections. Needless to say, however, while these similarities are small, they are interesting. Another talking animal case that also is important to note is the Millville Insanity Bird; this colossal creature also spoke to the person who saw it inquiring as to where his trash can was and, upon not getting a response, proceeded to attack the witness. The Millville Insanity Bird, much like the Talking Devil Dog, also has a curious body chemistry or at least build for while the devil dog can burn those who touch it and also turn to a green vapor the Millville Insanity Bird's body when hacked at by Dan was described as a wooden like substance that appeared to break into splinters. The creature's eye, which was removed, was also described much like a lightbulb, and the creature, much like the Devil Dog, proceeded to leave in an altogether bizarre manner as it ballooned up and floated away. The final and perhaps most interesting of all these cases of talking animals is Gef the Mongoose. Gef was a spectral mongoose reported on the Isle of Man that was exceptionally vocal and did a variety of poltergeist-like activities around the house. The entity was seen on a few occasions, and even footprints and teeth marks were found and made into plaster casts. So, such seemingly supernatural talking creatures have occurred since Fort wrote about the case in 1932.

Aside from the talking angle, there are reports of phantom hounds such as Black Shuck, who have features that one would associate with the Talking Devil Dog. While most cases of phantom hounds, hellhounds, and black dogs do not involve the capacity for speech, they do often have a feature that is seen in the case in Pittsburgh, and that is the ability to burn people or objects that touch them. One of the most famous examples of this can be seen today and was caused by the infamous Black Shuck. On August 4, 1577, at Blythburgh, the spectral hound killed several members of a congregation at the church thereupon unleashing such carnage, the creature clawed the North door of the building and, upon doing so, left scorch marks as though its claws or feet were hot or on fire. This is almost exactly what was reported in the Talking Devil Dog case, and so perhaps this entity is one of Black Shuck's relatives or perhaps if such an action is possible for these entities' offspring. 

The Talking Devil Dog of Pittsburgh is a case that really needs to be re-brought to the attention of the Fortean community as now that the years have gone by and there are many similar cases, it might be worth another look. However, while there are similar cases, there's still the problem with just what the creature could be, and in all reality, there are only a few possible answers. The first and most likely is a demon or some type of supernatural entity; the fact that the black dog figure is often associated with the infernal kingdoms is something we have to keep in mind, and with such cases, these creatures often do things that typical dogs cannot and often leave people injured or cause disasters. The fact that not only does this creature talk but also that it disappears in a mist is something we currently have to attribute to the supernatural realm, and with all the legends and lore connecting black dogs, burning paws, and demonology, it's almost the easiest answer for this mystery. 

While it's clear that this creature is not a cryptid and more than likely not an extraterrestrial, there are other possibilities for it than a demonic entity. While unlikely, the next possible category to put this entity in would be the Faeries. In Faerie Lore and taxonomy, there are several fae that are associated with dogs and black dogs in particular. The Cu Sith or Faerie Hound, for example, is a faerie that behaves very much like the traditional black dog of folklore, as hearing its bark three times can cause the hearer's demise. These dogs typically appear as bright green in color, but in some tales, they appear as a motley of colors or strictly black. Another faerie associated with the black dog is the Phooka, also spelled Puca or Phouka; this shape-shifting fae is a trickster that, much like the Kelpie, will often change into the form of a horse to lure people into riding it, however, unlike the Kelpie the Phooka will not kill those who ride it but will take the individual on a wild hair raising ride instead. Phooka, much like Brownies, will occasionally work for families, and while tricksters can be pleasant and helpful. Phookas, aside from black horses, are also known to transform into black-haired men, black goats, black cats, black hares, and of course, and most important for this discussion, black dogs. However, Phooka's are traditionally associated with nature and wild places, so if the Talking Devil Dog was one, why would it be walking down a potentially crime-filled street?

In this case, there are not too many other possibilities for just what the creature could be. This is both simpler and more confounding as the possibilities are by far some of the hardest to swallow when it comes to Fortean studies. A Bigfoot is one thing as primates, and hairy hominids like the Australopithecines did exist, but faeries and demons are figures that we have very little evidence for aside from anecdotal tales and a few images from videos and pictures that are entirely up for interpretation. As far as I know, there are no other talking dog cases outside of classic faerie interactions and certainly nothing, at least that I'm aware of in modern times, but I'm hopeful that maybe somewhere trapped in some attic or basement is a journal where some other individual had a bizarre encounter with a member of man’s best friend who also was gifted with the ability to speak in a totally different way of the traditional phrase we tell our four-legged buddies every day. 

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Faerie, Demon, Supernatural Entity

Location: Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: July 26, 1908

Works Cited:

Charles Fort: The Man who Invented the Supernatural By Jim Steinmeyer

Totally Bizarre Pennsylvania By Patty A. Wilson

Wild Talents By Charles Fort 

Cryptonaut Podcast Episode #225: “The Radiant Raccoon, LSD, and the Nobel Laureate”