The Awful

 The Awful

By Cole Herrold

Flying cryptids are perhaps one of the most mysterious entities reported. Be it the strange flying invertebrate-style organisms such as the Sky Amoebas or Atmospheric Jellyfish or the seemingly Predator teched-out Hampton Sky Rays or the colossal Thunderbirds, they have captured the imaginations of millions and expanded the perspectives and mindsets of those lucky enough to have encountered them. Yet of these creatures, perhaps the most unique is the chimeral critters that appear to of been pulled straight from the pages of Myth. One such creature in the dawn of the 20^th century was said to frequent the skies and roofs of countless buildings in Richford and Berkshire, Vermont, and proceeded to strike terror and eldritch-style nightmares onto the towns' populace. The wave of terror this creature caused was added in strangeness only by the description of this creature which, just like its name to those who had the fortunate or unfortunate enough chance of encountering it, was just plain Awful.

Rumors of the Anomalous airborne apparition first gained fruition in the early 1900s and was initially sighted at dusk by two to three sawmill workers who, upon crossing Main Street Bridge near the Canadian border, noticed a strange figure spotted atop the Boright building at the corner of Main and River street. As the group looked up at the building, expecting to see a robber at worst or a maintenance man at best, they were instead greeted by a strange-looking avian abomination that they would describe thusly "a very large Griffin-like creature with grayish wings that each spanned ten-feet." The creature possessed "a serpent-like tail that equaled its wing length" and "huge claws that could easily grip a milk can's girth." The creature, from its perch, stared down at the men as the men stared up at the creature, and it was at that moment that panic ensued. The men had no words for the creature except that it was Awful; as they stared in utter terror at the monstrous mutant, one of the men felt a sharp pain issue up his arm and chest, ultimately collapsing to the ground. This alerted his companions, who, upon looking at their friend, realized he was suffering from a heart attack. The group, no longer concerned for the strange creature which was still leering at them from the top of the building, reached down and proceeded to lift up their friend and, as quickly as possible, returned to his home. The man managed to survive the heart attack, but he had not escaped from that moment near the Boright Building. For weeks afterward, his wife and children woke up in the middle of the night to hear him screaming in his sleep as though his dreams were being terrorized by some sort of eldritch abomination. What these dreams were about, no one really knows as either the man never spoke of them, or they were lost over time.

Right after this encounter, the creature was seen by countless farmers and villagers, and it was during this time that the creature officially received its name, The Awful. The villagers were in utmost terror by the sight of this creature and its strange, bizarre behaviors. The creature frequently flew over the farmer's fields and would land on the farmer's roofs and watch them as they worked throughout the day or would look through windows at those who were not out doing chores or errands.

Two weeks later, after the initial sighting, the Awful was seen flying about 50 feet above a Berkshire field near Lost Nation road. As those lucky or unlucky enough to have seen the creature this time noted, they heard a strange crying sound accompanying it that they knew was not from the creature. The creature during this flight was not alone, for there, wrapped in the creature's talons, was a small wailing baby. An immediate search of the area for a missing child in the area, however, turned up empty, and so the villagers felt that they must have been mistaken and what they most likely heard and saw was a small animal of some sort; most felt a sheep.

The Awful's reign of terror would not end there, however, as the next major sighting of the creature would occur just a short time after this potential child abduction. Farmwife Oella Hopkins was out hanging her laundry out to dry in her yard when she began to hear her dog bark madly behind her. Curious at just what was disturbing the animal, she looked up to see what her dog was barking at, and upon looking towards the direction of where the dog was faced, she saw the Awful perched on her porch roof gazing down at her. Terribly frightened by the horrid visage of the grinning Griffin, she ran into her house and proceeded to, in childlike and slasher victim style to, hide under her bed. When her husband came home, the creature was gone, and having discovered his wife under the bed, he attempted to coax her out, but she refused to come out for several hours. After this sighting, the Awful seemed to make itself scarce, and sightings that were once so rampant started to slowly dwindle away to a mere trickle.

In 1925 while reports of the Awful were practically nonexistent, word of the flying freak of nature spread and eventually reached the ears of non-other than the infamous cosmic horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. H.P. Lovecraft heard about the monstrosity while visiting with some friends in Southern Vermont and, upon hearing about the creature during this visit, decided to go and take a quick road trip up to Richford and Berkshire to investigate the claims. While there, he managed to talk to many of the eyewitnesses, and he was convinced that the locals he had interviewed were "not in the least mistaken about what they had witnessed." Lovecraft would later return to his friends in the southern portion of the state but hearing about this bizarre beast was enough to put his imagination and writing prowess into overtime. Lovecraft would later write, "The Awful became ample sustenance for my imagination" and "over time, the creature became the basis for many of my own fictional inventions." In 1927 Lovecraft wrote, "entering Vermont for the first time, there is a sense of mystic revivification." He continued, "Something in the contours, something in the setting, has the power to touch deep viol-strings of feeling which are ancestral if one be young and personal if one be old.". It's from this that Lovecraft, upon pondering the beast, felt that there certainly was some sort of esoteric reason for the creature being there, be it a pre-concept Keelian Window area or some other supernatural methodology not unlike that which he would write about extensively. Yet while the creature gained the attention of one of the greatest minds in horror literature, it had almost immediately after 1925 vanished, there were no more sightings of the creature for countless years, and many had thought that the creature had either died, moved on, or if this was mass hysteria that the towns had returned to their senses. None of which would forever be the case, as, at the beginning of the 21^st century, sightings of the creature would return with a fury not seen since the original 1900-1925 flap.

On October 19, 2006, H.P. Albarelli wrote an article entitled "Has the Awful Returned to Berkshire & Richford," and in it, he detailed a second flap of sightings of a similar or the same flying monstrosity that was reported almost 80 years prior. Most of these witnesses had startlingly similar interactions with the creature as it seemed once again primarily focused on flying around local buildings and watching any in its path. A few weeks prior to the publication of the article, a man Albarelli claimed was a "solid citizen" who chose to remain anonymous out of fear that people would have thought him insane “reported seeing an unbelievable-looking winged monster. The thing swooped down from nowhere and plucked a huge black crow from the upper branches of a tall pine tree. I didn’t believe my eyes, but when the thing circled my house…well, then there was no denying it." On this occasion, the creature reenacted its most famous habit of being an observer, at best a stalker, at worst a predator of humans as once this witness returned to his home and the creature began to fly around his home, the creature continued to do so at least three times as though it was looking for the man. Yet another witness to the creature said, "I remember my grandfather once talking about that thing, but I thought it was just a story, a tall folk yarn…What I saw was no yarn. Yarns don't fly, and stories don't look like that. What I saw was real. And I hope to high heaven I never see it again."

A follow-up article entitled "The Awful sighted again; relic produced" was then released on November 30, 2006, with even more sightings, some modern and some which took place years in between the original flap and this sudden resurgence in Awful sightings. Lisa Maskell, a former resident of Montgomery Center, said that when she was 10 or 11 years old, she saw it near the Trout River while out with friends. The colossal cryptid creature, she said, was nestled in the boughs of an old tree near the river, and as the group approached it, they noted that the creature was looking right at them. They described the creature initially as being incredibly large with huge wings and a long, strange beak. She also would go and describe the creature as “Big, Scary, and Fascinating” She says when she saw a picture of a pterodactyl a few years later, she immediately thought it resembled The Awful.

An unnamed "60-something-year-old man" claims it has been seen often and recently in the Gibou area of Montgomery. He says that the creature had been seen in the area for about 25 years and was well known to residents. The man also felt that the creature was not particularly aggressive towards humans as the residents of the area developed a unique approach to the creature stating, "We don't bother it, and it don't bother us, maybe with a few exceptions."

Edith Green, a dowser in Richford who approached Albarelli after the initial report, told him that the Awful was reported well before the article and after the initial sightings from the early 1900s and 1920s and that "folks were very nervous about it." Another longtime resident of Richford also came forward about the creature; this witness claimed that he had seen the creature recently around Slide Road and said the following about the beast "You can usually hear the thing before you see it. It makes a low screaming sound. When it's close enough you can hear the flapping of its huge wings which sounds like fat blankets being shook out".

Unlike other chimeral cryptids, the Awful potentially does have some evidence for its existence. A logger from Richford approached Albarelli upon reading his article and proceeded to hand him what the logger claimed to be a petrified jawbone of an Awful. While no photos of the jawbone were released, Albarelli stated that the object was stone hard and appeared to have several large teeth. While nothing conclusive has been released about the object so far, nor has any further development been made on it, Albarelli did state that he is attempting to have an "expert from the University of Vermont" to come and study the object but as far as we know this has not occurred yet.

Now sightings of the Awful once again have seen to of dropped off to nothing. There have been no reports of the creature since 2006, at least to my knowledge, and so we are left to wonder just what was flying around the towns of Richford and Berkshire. Breaking down this case, the best way to start is to look at the possibility of a hoax and go from there. In this case, the hoax possibility is certainly likely as while rumors of the creature are claimed to of existed going back all the way to the 1900s, there has been, at least to my knowledge, no written record of the creature in newspapers or in journals since Albarelli wrote about the creature in 2006. The fact that Albarelli wrote about and seems to be the only person to of written about the creature in some 106 years tends to lend to the idea that the Awful was nothing more than a kind of hoax, specifically a piece of yellow journalism. This would make sense when looking back at the colossal history of news-oriented cryptid and monster sightings; even the most mundane creatures made the papers going all the way back to the 1700s as monsters of any sort were big news, and if the Awful was as rampant as Albarelli claimed it was it should have at least once been included in some document before 2006. Albarelli also claimed Lovecraft wrote about the creature in the mid and late 20s again; I have been unable to find the original source, so there are two ways to interpret this one either there is such a source, and its just difficult to find, or viewed as the most likely it was just yet another layer to the story to give the creature more background and what better way than to have a famous horror writer track down and investigate a unique monster.

Now with all that said while the possibility of a hoax does seem likely. An email interview with Albarelli claimed that he did not perpetrate a hoax and that he, outside of the fact that Lovecraft did mention the creature, had no reason to include him. Which, if he's being truthful, means that the Awful was kept very much under wraps in the local area; this is something we do see with local folklore, so I'm willing to entertain that possibility.

So if Albarelli did write about actual accounts, just what exactly was the Awful. Now going the Cryptozoology route, Griffins have been reported elsewhere, so the Awful is not exactly original. The most famous example of this is the Brentford Griffin which I had recently covered and has many of similar traits to the Awful, but unlike the Awful, it was primarily seen in the 80s with some possibilities of being around much earlier. There have been other flying quadrupeds that one would compare to a griffin or a hippogriff reported over the years, such as a flying lion reported in West Orange, New Jersey, in the 1920s. Another similar creature would be Scotland's tri-legged Beast of Barrisdale.

Now I must say that some of the reports of the Awful and some details do not seem to indicate a Griffin-like cryptid, but other species of cryptids reported. There are two to be specific; the first would be the Jersey Devil, and the reason I include it into the fold of possibilities is the following details. The Jersey Devil during January 1909 plagued New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and also allegedly New York though sightings are slim. Now the timing of this colossal flap of sightings is in a perfect window of time for when the original Awful sightings took place since they started in the early 1900s and continued into the 1920s. Interestingly enough, when looking at Jersey Devil reports matches the amount of sightings of other flying creatures seen in other states, almost following a pattern. There are also details in behavior such as the watching people from rooftops and the landing on rooftops in general that is a frequently described Jersey Devil behavior. Even some of the descriptions of the Awful, which would be strange for a Griffin, would make sense when comparing it to the Jersey Devil, such as a serpentine tail, since this is something that we hear in those reports and even the pterodactyl imagery is something that occurs with Jersey Devil sightings as well.

The other cryptid also that could be what the Awful is, is a classical Thunderbird. The classic Thunderbird, which is a colossal eagle or condor-looking creature, is a common cryptid reported in almost every state, yet the name now also has come to take in pterodactyl and pterosaur sightings too. Yet, for the sake of the Awful, with the exception of Lisa Maskell's sighting, most if not all of the sightings involve more traditional bird-like features such as talons, beak, grayish feathers, and aside from the serpentine tail and assumed secondary set of legs there's nothing to indicate anything more extraordinary than a colossal bird. Even the abduction of a small child or animal, depending on your viewpoint, is something that has been reported countless times in Thunderbird encounters and legends, so perhaps the Griffin description was a more exaggerated telling of just what the witnesses saw.

As for other Fortean possibilities, the next major possibility is that if the witnesses are accurate in their description that this creature is a Griffin is that it could have come from another dimension or be a faerie animal. These possibilities are sort of catch-alls to explain the absolutely strange description of the creature, and with these possibilities, just a simple answer as to the countless esoteric/magical and/or evolutionary lineages in which this creature could have been created from. For if this creature is a faerie animal, there are countless appearances such creatures appear as, and flying creatures are exceptionally common, whereas with other dimensions, evolution is infinite, and some of the restrictions that exist in our world's evolutionary lines are completely removed in others.

Now there's one final possibility, and I touched on this with the Brentford Griffin as well, and that is a demonic connection to Griffin-like creatures. Now in one case, a man by the name of John Luck had cursed himself and, upon doing so, was assaulted by two colossal griffin apparitions which lifted him into the air before promptly dropping him on the ground upon which he was taken into the home of a neighbor to heal. As the day continued, however, he became wild and aggressive and began to growl, and this grew into such a violent outburst that a priest was called in to exorcise whatever evil had attached itself to Mr. Luck. This did not end the same way as how films like the Exorcist or the Conjuring would depict such an action, and the next morning Mr. Luck had died, his body contorted into countless positions and his face in a state of absolute terror. Now I mention all this not just because of the entities in Luck’s case description are almost identical to Griffins but also that in the Awful case, the man who suffered the heart attack and survived had continuously been plagued for weeks by nightmares seemingly caused by his interaction with the Griffin something that might be evidence of the creature's supernatural and nefarious origin.

Griffins and Griffin reports, in general, are fascinating and perhaps the most bizarre as they are just a portion of encounters with creatures ripped from the pages of Myth. What are we to make of these sightings as the Griffin is part of a full pantheon of other mythological beings like dragons, Cyclops, Minotaurs, Centaurs, Satyrs, and Pegasus that have been frequently reported not only in the United States (though there does seem to be a higher concentration) but around the world? Is it that what we are seeing is some lifting of the veil and that such creatures are denizens of the faerie realm, or are we seeing some window into another dimension where the old gods, titans, and monsters live and breathe? It's hard to believe that these could be cryptids from our world as with Griffins; they defy the natural evolutionary processes that we build the foundations of organisms on, yet science is an ever-changing medium for what once was considered laughable, or heresy was soon discovered to not only be possible but a fact and perhaps if Albarelli is truthful and the jawbone of the Awful is real we just might be on the verge of a whole new understanding of how our earth and its fauna can be and is something that I look with great interest for.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal or Avian

Location: Richford and Berkshire, Vermont

Sighted: 1900s to 2006

Works Cited:

Chasing American Monsters By Jason Offutt

A Guide to Sky Monsters By T.S. Mart and Mel Cabre

The Vermont Monster Guide By Joseph A. Citro

The Weiser Field Guide to Cryptozoology By Deena Budd

H. P. Albarelli “Has the Awful returned to Berkshire & Richford?” The County Courier October 19, 2006

H. P. Albarelli "The Awful sighted again; relic produced" The County Courier November 30, 2006

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.

 

 

Pittsburgh Mothman

 Pittsburgh Mothman

By Cole Herrold

On November 15, 1966, a strange anomalous entity would be reported between Ohio and West Virginia. This entity would wreak havoc throughout the area of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and would terrify the region for over a year in the area. The city was a grip with terror as a black or gray figure with glowing red eyes was seen chasing cars on large bird-like wings at speeds matching 100 miles per hour and causing conjunctivitis in some of those who had the chance to witness this flying monstrosity. Now some have stated that the tale of the Mothman as the creature has now been coined started in that November of 1966, yet further research indicated that large man-like birds most commonly resembling owls were frequently reported by earlier witnesses. Association with UFOs, however, and other anomalous lights would not be written about until the infamous Point Pleasant flap; that is until Stan Gordon, who just before Point Pleasant was in the throes of terror, began hearing about a similar creature in his hometown of Pittsburgh several months before West Virginia's infamous Fortean flap.

Not even a year after the infamous Kecksburg Crash of December 9, 1965, Stan Gordon was still on the search for mysteries, be it of the existence of Sasquatch or on the trail of UFOs; he was slowly collecting several encounters and investigating countless claims. During the Summer of 1966, he began to hear rumors around town of a bizarre, monstrous being that was dark brown in color with a small, almost unnoticeable head attached to an excessively muscular frame that hung around the local lover’s lane. This creature, however, was different from the typical Bigfoot as there was nothing noticeably mammalian about the entity; while muscular in place of arms, it had long wings which extended down almost to the ground and a featureless face with one noticeable exception a pair of large glowing red eyes. These rumors reached his eager ears, and so he began his attempt to catalog these bizarre encounters.

The first of these encounters came to his attention most appropriately for the time at a local hamburger and shake restaurant, and while one could imagine the Grease or Archie Comic-esque antics that would have gone on there on one particular night, a group of teens in a black convertible had pulled into the parking lot and as they pulled in other teens noticed that the occupants of the car were anything but calm. The teens looked panicked and seemed to be extremely upset, and as the patrons approached the vehicle, the occupants began to tell them what had happened. The driver explained that they had gone up to a dirt road that was off the beaten track. This was one of the teenager lover's lanes and hangouts; as they were traveling down this road, they heard a large thump on the back of the car; as they turned, they could see that in the window was a figure standing on the back of their car. The driver, completely terrified by this monstrous hitchhiker, proceeded in doing the only thing his mind could think of, hitting the gas and trying to shake the creature off the vehicle. The driver was successful at doing this and noted that the group could see that the creature had fallen off. When the driver pulled into the restaurant, he showed the patrons where the creature was and, upon looking, found an oily yet noticeably juicy white material that appeared in streaks along the trunk.

Rumors of their encounter soon broke out, and other strange things began to occur in the area around the creature's haunt. Perhaps the most interesting was reported by the local farmers as they were discovering their cattle being killed and that on one occasion, a steel door was bizarrely bent. Yet this, of course, was not the end of eyewitness sightings of a bizarre creature.

A few days after these dead cattle and the strange oily juicy hitchhiker encounter, another group of teenagers had gone out to the wooded area where the creature had been sighted, and having reached a certain portion, the group decided to park and, of course, wait and attempt to see if they could find any sort of creature. Two of the boys jumped out of the car and began to walk out into the woods and, in a joking and albeit misguided attempt, began to call out to the creature. Now the only members of the initial party were a boy and girl, and the two seemingly sat on the hood of the car and proceeded to listen to their foolhardy friends call out to the creature. The two proceeded to look out into the darkness with bated breath and anticipation, waiting for just some sort of bizarre interaction. Upon looking into the inky black, they saw a bizarre light in the darkness; it seemed to be like a kind of flame. The two at first thought that this was simply from the boys lighting up their cigarettes. Then almost on cue, they heard the sound of crumpling grass and weeds by something heavy coming near them from the other side. As the two looked over in the direction of the movement, they saw something incredibly tall and dark standing right next to their car. Peering over, they saw a dark figure that towered over the vehicle next to them, which they could tell from this made the creature some 8ft tall. As they stared at the figure, they noticed some other features about the figure, the first being that the being had a noticeably small head on a huge, massive muscle-bound body that seemed covered in short feathers. Where the creature's arms should have been, the witnesses noticed that in place were large, colossal wings that seemed to nearly touch the ground and as the creature stood there. The couple proceeded to jump off the hood of the car and maneuver over as quickly as possible to the safety of the vehicle, and as they watched, the creature just as quickly began to shuffle off into the nearby woods. The girl was hysterical at the sight of the creature and was crying and cowering in the back of the seat. The friends were seemingly oblivious of the large creature that came very close to them as they proceeded to return nonchalantly back to the vehicle. Once the fellows came to the car, their friend proceeded to tell them of the anomaly they had just witnessed in quick, barely unintelligible sentences, but through the stuttering and breathing, they were able to decipher that they had seen the creature near the car. At first, they thought he was playing some sort of prank or joking, but then they looked at the girl and could tell that he clearly was not joking.

As they were just about to leave, they noticed another car coming towards them from the opposite side of the road. The driver slowed just a bit to yell to the car's occupants in an excited and terrified tone that they, too, had seen the creature. It was at that moment that they sped away, leaving the woods and the anomalous entity behind them. During this same night, a group of teens proceeded to head to the local police department to file a report about the same creature, and they were so noticeably shaken that the police believed them and revealed to them that they had been receiving reports and hearing tales of monsters and UFOs in the area for weeks now.

Perhaps the most bizarre encounter with this being occurred sometime later when a group of would-be monster hunters were searching the area for the creature. The group had heard a strange sound of commotion that broke the uneasy silence of the woods and that the noise seemed to be coming some 25-30 yards away from the party. Upon turning and focusing their beams on the area of the motion, they caught in their beams a bizarre creature which at first had its colossal muscley back facing them. The figure had noticeably chiseled, almost Atlas-like shoulders that were 5-6 ft wide, and the creature's total height was a noticeable 8ft tall. The creature was covered from top to bottom in a dark black or brown feathers, and in place of arms once again were seen incredibly long wings. The group noticed that the creature's legs were closer together than the rest of the body, which seemed much further apart, and Gordon notes that the witnesses claimed the creature was seemingly odorless. As the group watched this seemingly avian anomaly for some time, they soon noted that the creature began to move but how it moved was seemingly contradictory to any familiar locomotion they were aware of. The creature using its seemingly talon or extended toed feet, began to grip the trees some two feet off the ground and began to fling itself from tree to tree. The group watched in disbelief as the creature slowly began to disappear from sight, but the group had followed the creature's movements with their flashlights for at least another 60 feet as it worked its way uphill in this fashion. After the creatures tree oriented parkour was no longer visible, the witnesses began to run away from the area.

Over the course, others would claim to encounter this anomalous apparition, but further attempts to investigate were halted. During a rather short period of time, several of the roads, especially the ones where the creature was frequently reported, were blocked. These blockades were not from some natural source like downed trees but, interestingly enough, bright blue blockades with the US. Air Force logo attached. However, as far as been reported, there had been no official reason for them to be there, nor were there any reported members in the area.

Now, this flap ended as abruptly as it started, yet sightings of this creature, especially during this time, still occasionally come to light. One of the most recent cases that came to light from that time was given to Stan Gordon during April of 2010 by mystery book author C. William Davis III. During the BORU Paranormal Conference in Butler County, Davis came up to Gordon and told him about how a friend had encountered the creature during that 66' flap. Now his friend had been up in late Fall to a local lover's lane with a girl he had been dating at the time for a night of "parking ."This particular area was on a dark, desolate wooded area on top of a hill that looked over a small town southwest of Pittsburgh. There were no homes in the area, so it was frequently used by many for such purposes. The pair had only been there for about 10 minutes, conceivably still time for some action to of been made but not enough for a lot to of gone on, but as they were engaging, they noted that the car was suddenly bathed in an ominous red light. At first, Davis's friend had thought this glowing light may have been from the lights of a police car that happened to discover them, but as he looked in the back window, he could see there was no car around. It was as he was beginning to look around more thoroughly that he noted that the light was seemingly moving to the driver's side of the car, and as his eyes followed the moving light, he soon saw that there was some strange figure standing outside of the car door. The figure was exceptionally tall, some 8ft tall, and was standing at the car door looking in at the couple with a pair of glaring glowing red eyes. Davis's friend noted that as he stared at the paranormal peeping tom, he could feel an intense heat, almost as if the globular cells which were the being's eyes were made of some intense fire. He could feel this heat intensify on his face, and he was so terrified by this monstrous mutant that he could only barely hear the screams of his girlfriend. He, during this, wanted to reach for the keys still in the ignition to start the car but was so terrified that he felt that he couldn't move. The being continued to stare there, and as he did, so he continued to feel the heat intensify, and after a time, the creature finally began to move; the creature began to open its arms wide, which the witness said was almost like wings and lifted off the ground and over the trees in front of them. It was at that moment that the bright red light and was gone, and his girlfriend stopped screaming. Sometime after this, he managed to turn the car on and drive the girl home; however, he would state he never remembered driving the girl home. As he pulled up to the girl's home, she screamed at him while he halted the car to a stop, her hand on the door handle, "I will never go out with you again."

Davis’s friend continued to drive in a daze to his friend and his fiancée’s house and stood on their porch knocking on the door.

Davis and his fiancée Linda were sitting in the living room listening to records and talking when they heard his knock at the front door. Upon answering the door and seeing their friend, they knew there was something wrong as he was supposed to be out on a date this night, and so they proceeded to invite him. Yet his friend just stood there zombie-like Davis realizing there was something even more wrong, began to take him by the arm and began to help him inside, noting that his shirt was soaking wet from sweating. The two managed to get him inside and sat him down on the couch; he stared straight forward, almost oblivious to everything to all that was going on. The two tried to talk to him, but he spoke seemingly gibberish speaking and began to cry and say, "I was so scared, I was so scared," over and over again. Davis looking at his friend, noticed that aside from sweating, he had a red sunburn-type coloration that took up most of the left side of his face that was not there when last he saw him. Linda eventually got up and told Davis that he was going to get her mother and proceeded to leave the room where Davis attempted to decipher more into what happened; his first thought was that he might have been in an accident, but upon asking two times all his friend did was look at him with a stare that indicated pure terror something he had never seen on his friend's face before. When Linda and her mother came into the room, the mother took one look at their friend and instantly said, "we need to get him to the dining room and get him warm with a blanket and a hot tea''. The true cure for any ailment, to be sure. Upon doing this and leaving him to sip his teeth, he began to call his friend's parents, but there was no answer at their residence. They were so concerned about their friend that they were going to call an ambulance, but upon hearing this, their friend spoke something coherent for the first time; he said "no!" and then stated that he was beginning to feel better and simply needed to calm down and compose himself, but it was well over an hour before he was able to do so. It was during then that he began to tell of what he had experienced that night, and throughout his telling, he was trembling as if he was reliving every part of his story. Afterwards, they had called his parents again and told them simply that something had happened and that he was there safe. Once his parents came, they drove him home and left his car at Linda's house overnight. His parents then took him to the hospital the next day, yet the doctors, outside of the redness on his face, could not find anything else wrong with him. As to the redness, the doctors were perplexed as to the only thing they felt that could have caused it was something like a radiation burn. This redness disappeared some days later, and he talked to Davis about the encounter; he seemed to be more focused on what people thought of him and felt back to normal in other respects. As the years progressed before his death, his friend never discussed his encounter, but if it was ever brought up, he never denied his experience, and his story never changed.

Now, this is the reported end of the Pittsburgh Mothman, yet I would not be a true Fortean if I did not mention an interesting footnote while reports of Mothman type humanoids are still being reported, and that word Mothman is being used liberally as very few match other Flying Humanoid type reports have been reported in Allegheny County. One which occurred on August 24, 2016, involved a strange, winged humanoid that was seen in the Y of a tree by a man and his dog. Now, this report is lumped in with the Butler County Gargoyle (see entry for more information), yet the description was so ambiguous that perhaps what was seen was something more akin to the Mothman as opposed to the gargoyle type flying humanoids which seem to be becoming more common in flying humanoid reports.

Now with this report, there's a lot to decipher because, in many ways, people will immediately compare it to the Point Pleasant Mothman, which there are a TON of interesting parallels which I will get to, but for the beginning, let's start with this being a totally separate phenomenon. First off, from a skeptical standpoint, it can be said that there might have been one sighting and the rest are examples of mass hysteria or misidentifications or people simply trying to join the bandwagon. Now with this case, there’s no evidence at all; we have Stan Gordon collecting testimony, but honestly, that's the extent of it; there's no evidence in regard to feathers, tracks, photographs, or even in the Davis's friend encounter photographs of his face during the encounter, so all we have is testimony which leads to us either believing outright the encounter or that the encounter is almost entirely a hoax.

Now I will say from a not so skeptical standpoint these encounters are not unique cryptids looking inside vehicles or frequenting lover's lanes are not uncommon, and there are countless cases outside of the classic Mothman I could bring up, such as the Murphysboro Mud Monster, Mill Race Monster, Maryland Goatman and the fact that all of these creatures are different but seen in places removed from typical observation would aid to a place for them to remain elusive and in particular winged humanoids are frequently reported in such areas. Now I will say outside Mothman, no other reported cryptid even loosely matches aside from perhaps the Skysquatch (see entry for more information), yet the Skysquatches typically follow the traditional flying humanoid layout in arms, legs, and wings adjoined to the back. This does not seem to be the case with this creature as the arms appear to be exceptionally muscular bird-like wings without the traditional feather placement we see on birds as there are noticeable arms, just no displayed hands which would fit bird morphology if the wing feathers line up correctly.

Now in cryptozoology, there was a theory that Mark A. Hall put forward about the Bighoot, which is essentially described as the thunderbird equivalent of the owl. Now such cryptids have been reported elsewhere, such as the Owlman of Mawnan, which was described as a kind of megafaunal giant owl but with a gaping mouth that could have been attributed to a dark section of feathers. The Kikiyaon is an African creature that is important to mention is also involved heavily in the beliefs of Gambia tribes, who place a supernatural significance to it akin to La Lechuza, the owl witches of Mexican lore, but a lot of the reports seem to be akin to colossal owls similar to the Bighoot hypothesis. Another example a little closer to Pennsylvania is the Wooo-Wooo which is a colossal owl reported from New Jersey; these creatures get their name from the sound they allegedly make, sort of how the Ahool the colossal monkey-faced bat got its name. So colossal flying large-eyed bird cryptids are not unknown, and should this be a bird, it more than likely would be some sort of owl or nightjar type creature but just a megafaunal version of such a species. Needless to say, however, this is only speculation, and unlike reports of colossal vultures or condors, there's nothing in the fossil record even close to a species of giant owl-like what is reported here, let alone one capable of flight.

Now the UFO angle is something to look into a bit as similar creatures have been reported, such as the Bat Beast of Kent; however, I will say the chances of a creature with no thumbs and no noticeable supernatural abilities like telekinesis flying a craft is unlikely as an initial owner of such a craft. However, if this type of creature is some sort of pet or even some sort of biological experiment, it could be possible. Now, of course, as with all such alien pet reports, it comes down to either the owners care not for us or our world or that they truly are some of the worst pet owners ever to leash an animal since they are never seen in the same area as their fur and feathered legged addition to their family. It's from this that I think it's one of the least likely answers to this connection, especially since while craft was reported in the area, there was no direct connection with such an object.

The aspect of this creature being something paranormal really comes from, I'd argue, one account, and that would be Davis's account which I will get into a bit when I discuss Mothman in regard to this case. But should that testimony be authentic, then this creature would have to fall in some sort of supernatural gallery since nothing has naturally glowing eyes that intensify heat, nor does any organism that we know of lift off the ground without flapping its wings. Let alone the fact that staring into the face of this creature caused the face burn seen in such film classics as Close Encounters of the Third Kind or the Mothman Prophecies now, this is something reported with crafts of UFOs or after an abduction, but to have that reaction from the creature itself is something practically unheard of. Now oftentimes, with reports of flying humanoids, religion is brought up as such experiencers will compare their encounters with demons or angels, and such intense experiences are often associated with facial distortion, such as when Moses returned from Mount Sinai, and his face was so disturbing from seeing the face of God that he needed to wear a veil to calm those around. Perhaps there's something about supernatural encounters that causes this effect. Yet, of course, while Davis's friend's testimony is the most supernatural, it is also the really only noticeable and, of course, the most controversial and in so needs its own breakdown.

Now, after covering all the non-Mothman possibilities, I'm going to discuss the comparisons between the Pittsburgh flap to the Point Pleasant one. Now, of course, the first outside of similar descriptions is that both encounters took place around the same general time, with the Pittsburgh sightings occurring slightly beforehand. Now from a biological standpoint, if this is a physical creature, it would need to unless its one of those rare exceptions that need to adhere to the 50-500 rule where there needs to be 50 organisms for a short term in an area or given population to avoid inbreeding and 500 in the long term so perhaps what we are seeing is an example of migration of Bighoots. Just why is simply speculation but let's say that during the years of 1966 and 1967, they were traveling along with the water sources since Point Pleasant is along the Ohio River and Pittsburgh is along both the Monongahela River and the Allegheny River that the species stopped for a short time there before ultimately ending in the Ohio/West Virginia area. Now there are a lot of accounts of sightings of these creatures on certain nights, so this does lend to more than one member of the species unless a single member can travel at speeds unheard of for normal animals, and this always seemed to indicate more than one Mothman in the area, so this adds more towards this possibility.

Now, of course, there are other possibilities like the Ufological or Ultraterrestrial angle; there was one example of a flying figure entering a UFO that was attributed to Mothman, and that several of the witnesses experienced conjunctivitis from seeing Mothman outside of Davis's friend's account there's nothing similar in the Pittsburgh Mothman sightings, in fact, the UFO sightings are rather commonplace throughout Allegheny County to the point that they’re almost mundane.

Now looking at the Davis's encounter, I will say the following he is a mystery writer by trade. The account he describes with a now-deceased friend was officially told some 40 years after the account allegedly happened, and almost 8 years after the film, the Mothman Prophecies came forward, which also, interestingly enough, was filmed in parts in Pittsburgh and throughout Pennsylvania. Now I am extremely skeptical of Davis's claim because, for one, this is a friend's account now dead, some 8 years after the films' release, which was and still is a big deal, and that the account he gives of his friend experiencing the creature is almost exactly the same as one of the couples that were featured in the film. Now that's not to say that the account did not happen, but the fact that what he described could easily have been concocted after watching the movie just once since its one of the more impactful scenes, including an example of conjunctivitis on the boyfriend, not the girlfriend it just cannot be ignored. Another noteworthy element that is pulled from the film is the fact that only the left side was burned; in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the main character Rory was also burned on his left side in the same way, so again, as a writer, it would not be hard to pull these two famous pieces of film inspired by real events together to create an encounter. So, I leave that encounter entirely up to the reader, but in doing so, it totally changes how one interprets the creature as well as there's now more chance of a biological organism as opposed to a Ufological or supernatural one since outside of the overall bizarreness of the entity there is nothing to indicate otherwise.

Looking at the overall description of the creature in comparison to Mothman, there are a lot of similarities. Mothman, for example, is often described as being devoid of a head or having an incredibly small one; this is something we see with the Pittsburgh case. The fact that this creature is dark in color with more bird-like attributes is also something associated with Mothman, which of course, is seen here even before individual's imaginations took off with the name Mothman was simply called "the Bird" because that is exactly what it bore a similarity to. The short close together legs is also something reported in classic Mothman sightings, and this feature is often seen when one looks at owls as well; again, more evidence for the Bighoot hypothesis.

Now with all that said, there's more speculation than science since, with a case like this, there's nothing to compare it to that's known. This case depending on your interpretation, is either its own case or comparable to the wider Fortean lore that is out there, and as one interprets this case, there are more possibilities that I opted to not divulge in with this article simply because, aside from it being all speculation it gets into just how wild and weird such accounts can get. With that, I leave the case at that. I let you decide just where you want to cut the chord since there's no clear answer and tons of evidence for both a biological and a supernatural origin for such a creature, and while I always tend to lean more towards the physical, perhaps this is something unknown or ethereal it's one of the great riddles of such cases since all are options are valid in their own right. And who knows, perhaps you might decipher the truth to this enigma; you might find a colossal owl in the woods or broker some treaty with the Ultraterrestrials; until then, this is just another mystery in a gaping abyss of similar cases.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Avian species, or Paranormal Entity

Location: Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: Summer of 1966 to Fall of 1966

Works Cited:

Astonishing Encounters: Pennsylvania’s Unknown Creatures: Casebook Three By Stan Gordon

Creepy Cryptids and Strange UFO Encounters of Pennsylvania: Bigfoot, Thunderbirds, Mysteries of the Chestnut Ridge and More: Casebook Four By Stan Gordon