Medford Shmoos

 Medford Shmoos

By Cole Herrold

Cryptids and aliens come in all shapes and sizes, but some of these beings are so peculiar in form that one has to wonder whether some evolutionary joke was pulled by the cosmos. Some look like sloppy space brains, others look like living tombstones and coke machines or Michelin men, yet some are even weirder not because of their details but because of their simplicity of form. In Medford, Oregon, in the 50s, a trio of creatures that to the witnesses seemed to be ripped from the pages of a family-friendly comic were encountered, and their bizarre appearance has led many to wonder just what these entities are.

An unnamed woman, her husband, and their 12-year-old daughter were driving at about 10 o clock one night in the summer of 1953. The trio who lived in the wooded outskirts of Medford were on their way home. They had turned off Old Stage Road to Scenic Avenue, which was near their home, when they noticed something strange moving along the side of the road. There illuminated by the car's headlights was much like them, a trio of figures, but unlike them, these figures were anything but human. The family stopped their car upon seeing them and watched in awe as the creatures, instead of walking as one would expect, seemed to glide across the road in front of them. It was at that moment that they were able to get a clear look at these enigmatic entities; they were white and shaped very much like geese with a long neck and small "head" but were unlike a bird covered in a satiny white fur. The creatures also were missing wings, arms, legs, or anything else that would appear to be an appendage. The creatures were about 6ft away from their car, and as the group looked, they noticed something else odd about these creatures; as the trio looked at the creature's head, they noticed that it had no beak or muzzle, and they could not see any additional facial features. As the trio of beings crossed the road, the family gauged that their size was about 4ft high, with the last creature trailing behind being just slightly smaller than the other two. The family watched as the creatures moved into the surrounding woodlands, and the family continued to stay stopped in their car for a little longer until finally starting again and driving the ¼ of a mile to their home. Upon returning home, the group discussed their sighting, and the family agreed that these shaggy bowling pin-like beings very much resembled the Shmoo characters from the Lil’ Abner comics and associated stories, except that they were much larger and bore longer necks than the Shmoos of the comic world. The following day they searched the area for any evidence of the creatures but found nothing, and upon asking the neighbors on whether they had seen any strange creatures in the area, the group only managed to scare them and found that no one else in the area had seen the creatures. The family, after that, kept their encounter to themselves until they moved to Galt, California, and sent a letter to CUFOs in July of 1983. In the letter, the wife of the family sent both a sketch of the creatures, which appeared in the April-May edition of the 1984 CUFOS Associate Newsletter, and a map of the area where the creatures were seen, which CUFOS did not publish in the article. The sighting had such an effect that upon writing to CUFOS, the wife stated the following "My daughter is 42 years old now and still remembers the incident plainly" and "But, I've always wondered who or what they were, and from where?".

Eyewitness Sketch of the Shmoos

These creatures are perhaps some of the most perplexing entities out there. With these entities, there are a lot of things to discuss, but perhaps the best way to do so is to speculate as to just what they are. Skeptically speaking, there is always the possibility of a hoax; while we don't know who the witnesses are in this case, as they were anonymous for the article, one could venture and say that someone is pulling a gag and using a known comic book character as a template to fake an encounter claim. This added to the fact that there is no evidence for the Shmoos in Medford, such as matted down grass where the creatures were, tracks, hair, photographs, etc. there's nothing to prove that anything did occur. Now an interesting thing about the encounter based on the information given by the wife in the article is that there are specific roads listed and a general idea of where the house would be where the witnesses lived, and perhaps it may be possible to check and see who lived in the area at the time of the sighting and see if one may be able to find the witness and verify whether this was a hoax or a real event. Yet it's also from this that these little references to roads and such tend to seem, at least from the article, that the encounter did occur as it was not some generic tale of driving down a nameless road at night or something along those lines in the account.

Shmoos

Another possibility I feel I need to mention is the possibility of misidentification. In an article on the Shmoos by Martin Kottmeyer, he proposes that what was seen by the witnesses was actually the white underbelly and flank of a deer with the white tail sticking up. He describes how he came up with what he feels to be the answer to the mystery in the following: "I was driving down the lane leading from my home, and four deer jumped out of a neighbor's cornfield across the road. They ran across 80 acres of open field towards a forest following a curved arc. As I watched, the viewing angle gradually changed so that I was seeing them directly from the rear. Two of the deer had white haunches and white tails which were short and sticking straight up. The light brown portion of the hide, including the legs, blended into the color of the open field and suddenly I was observing a pair of white blobby smoos gliding sideways across the landscape. The smoos even tilted off the vertical as in the drawing. This was because of the curved nature of their path across the field and their leaning into the curve as they ran. What seemed so unexpected was how the haunches did not bounce up and down, but simply glided. Everything fit: the shape, the color, the motion, the size, the satiny fur, the direction to a wooded area, and the brevity of the experience. Only two things were different. The Medford witnesses were closer. The deer were over a hundred yards away when I recognized the smoo shape. But their encounter was also at night, where mine was during the day. Presumably the darkness would have been conducive to such an illusion at closer quarters". This is an interesting point to the mystery of the Shmoos, but it does have a problem the witnesses, when they saw the Shmoos saw them some 6ft away this makes mistaking a deer in a field much less possible. Plus, these creatures crossed the road in front of the witnesses, so at least one should have been able to see the full deer as it was not blending in with the color of a surrounding brown-colored field. So it's an interesting possibility but, again, unlikely.

When first reading about these creatures, it's easy to initially want to jump into the cryptid category; they have white fur, something relatively common in unknown animal reports like Sheepsquatch, the Albino Giant Ground Sloths of Sherman, or the Murphysboro Mud Monster cases. Yet things get difficult when one sees that these creatures are devoid of appendages that would allow some sort of locomotion. These creatures possess no arms or legs, and they are not even described as having other features such as eyes, ears, a nose, or mouth. They seem to simply be hairy bowling pins. Yet they move and not by hopping like some sort of overgrown jumping bean or hoppity hop, but they glide above the ground. This is something one does not necessarily associate with cryptids. Cryptids are, by and large, animals, and they are supposed to behave as such. Yet Gliding cryptids or floating cryptids, or flying cryptids without the aid of wings or skin flaps are reported, and perhaps the Shmoos are some species that are capable of this motion. It is important to point out that the Shmoos do bear interestingly enough to a flying white-haired shaggy cryptid from West Virginia called the Abominable Albino Aerobeasts. These creatures are described as large white shaggy-haired creatures with the ability to seemingly fly without any form of propulsion. They are often by eyewitnesses mistaken for clouds until those brief occurrences when they come relatively close to vehicles. Perhaps the Shmoos are a population of these creatures that made their way from the Mountain State to Oregon. The biggest problem with the shmoos being Abominable Albino Aerobeasts is that the Shmoos are small and hover a little bit off the ground; seemingly based on the report, Aerobeasts are described as having heads some 3ft wide and flying high off the ground rather than hovering or gliding. Yet with the unknown nature of all these creatures, anything is technically possible, so perhaps the shmoos could be juveniles or that Aerobeasts can come closer to the ground than previously thought; again, however, this is all speculation.

Another Cryptid that interestingly bears some resemblance to the Shmoos is the Fresno Nightcrawler. These creatures, which appear as white entities with small heads attached to long legs, have taken the cryptozoology world by storm due to the several pieces of footage captured over the years. While one originally would not think to compare a floating pinball-shaped creature to a jolly bounding two-legged head creature, there is a possible connection. In the original video of the Fresno Nightcrawlers, there are two creatures reported, one of which is the one most are familiar with or have ingrained in memory, but many forget that before that creature walked along the lawn, there was a strange entity best described as a living Q-Tip which slowly seemed to move across the yard. It did not do the long strides as associated with the Nightcrawlers but instead seemed to move with either its legs together or by hovering. Another thing to note is that the Shmoos might not have actually glided, but they may have simply seemed to do so; as the witness said when describing their motion that they "seemed to glide," there was no official confirmation of that particular ability that means that they could have had feet unseen under their bulbous lower half or that the witness did not focus in on that section of the body as much or that they did legitimately glide. Shmoos and Nightcrawlers also are also both white in color, and California and Oregon are not relatively far from each other, so what the Shmoos might have been was the very first Nightcrawler report.

First Fresno Nightcrawler (Center) Recorded Bears a Strong Resemblance to the Shmoos

While I've strongly brought up the possibility that the Shmoos might have been a cryptid, one cannot also ignore the possible Extraterrestrial possibility. These creatures, while no UFO was reported in the case or in the area, could still have been from another world, be it another dimension or another planet. With many similar cases, there is always the chance that a craft of some sort was nestled in a nearby brush or that it was located somewhere further, and these are some visitors. The bizarre anatomy and possible abilities that are described could completely be possible in a world where evolution occurred differently than here, and in fact, it would seem that if the Shmoos were ETs, they perhaps would be some of the most possible and authentic as they are so alien and not humanoid like in the slightest.

Other possibilities of just what the Shmoos could have been seems unlikely. There’s nothing exactly similar in faerie lore to the Shmoos except for when one looks at Japan's Yokai, and even then, there are none that are the right color or behave the same way, and most of the Yokai that are similar have eyes or other features that the Shmoos as far as can be perceived do not. In spiritualistic studies and demonology, there again is nothing similar, so it seems unlikely that it would be an example of this. It's from this that if this is an authentic encounter, it would have to be either a cryptid, extraterrestrial, or interdimensional being.

The Shmoos are an interesting case, albeit an exceptionally brief one. With so many bizarre, overly designed creatures reported, its kind of refreshing to have a creature that seems exceedingly simple as though it had escaped from the imaginative scribblings and doodles of a toddlers piece of paper or as if some sort of bean bag chair suddenly came to life and stretched itself out. It's something that is so simple and so weird that a creature like this is truly unforgettable in the pages of Forteana.

Species/Potential Species: Mammal/ Paranormal Entity

Location: Medford, Oregon

Sighted: Summer 1953

Works Cited:

CUFOs Associate Newsletter April-May 1984

Martin Kottmeyer "TRN - Mar/Apr 1996 - What's Smoo?" - REALL. http://reall.org/newsletter/v04/n03/smoo.html

Old Yellow Top

 Old Yellow Top

By Cole Herrold

In the annals of sasquatch research, there are tons of cases involving evidence or behavior that seem to indicate a biological species. These behaviors and features are so specific that they match known scientific examples of other animals. One of perhaps the most interesting features reported in some sasquatch reports is what seems to be examples of piebald individuals. Piebald in organisms is simply having two alternative patches of color fur, and it is something seen in a variety of animals. So its extremely interesting and adds a unique patina of credibility in this series of sightings.

The first reports of this manimal, known as Old Yellow Top, Yellow Top, or its original name PreCambrian Shield Man appeared in the North Bay Nugget but were made famous through John Green’s Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us after Rene Dahinden gave him the clippings. The very first sighting of the creature occurred either in September 1906 (some reports state 1907), where it was seen by a group of men building the headframe at the Violet Mine near Cobalt, yet further information on this initial sighting went seemingly unreported or was lost over the course of time. During this time, however, the creature continued to roam the area, being seen by the countless miners who worked in the area. All of the accounts of the time, which were more like whispers, described the creature in the same way as approximately 7ft tall with dark brown/black body hair and a mane of pale yellowish head hair.

On July 27, 1923, the second documented sighting of the creature was reported in the Nugget. On this occasion, Mr. J. A. MacAuley and Mr. Lorne Wilson claimed that they had seen the creature while working on their mining claims which was located Northeast of the Wetlaufer Mine. The two prospectors were taking test samples from the area when they encountered what they initially thought was a bear picking at a blueberry patch. Wilson wanting to scare off the animal, proceeded to go and throw a stone at the creature and expected it to simply wander away, yet this was not the case. “It kind of stood up and growled at us. Then it ran away. It sure was like no bear that I have ever seen. Its head was kind of yellow ad the rest of it was black like a bear, all covered with hair”.

On April 16, 1946, the creature was seen once more roaming around the cobalt mining camp. The creature was seen by a woman and her son who lived near Gillies Depot while they were walking the railroad tracks on their way into Cobalt. The anonymous woman said that she spotted a dark hair-covered creature with a "light head" lumbering off the railroad tracks into the woods near Gillies Lake. She was unable to get a clear look at the creature but did notice that it walked like a man. It's from this sighting that it was believed that if this was the same creature as seen in 1906 that it was over 40 years old.

On August 5, 1970, 27 miners on their way to work the graveyard shift at Cobalt Lobe were riding a bus when the bus suddenly went out of control and almost plunged down a nearby rock-cut. The bus driver Aimee Latreille who had been driving this bus route for 4 months, said that he was startled by a dark form that walked across the road in front of him. None of the miners or the driver were hurt in the accident. Latreille would comment, "at first I thought it was a big bear. But then it turned to face the headlights, and I could see some light hair, almost down to its shoulders. It couldn't have been a bear". Mr. Latreille said he did not know if he would continue to drive the bus after the incident. "I have heard of this thing before but never believed it. Now I am sure". One of the miners on the bus got a brief glimpse of the creature, and Larry Cormack said that the creature “looked like a bear to me at first, but it didn’t walk like one. It was kind of half stooped over. Maybe it was a wounded bear, I don’t know”. Mr. Cormack initially did not believe in the existence of the creature even though his father had talked about it when he was younger. Throughout this time, there were two other occasions where the creature was said to of come out of the woods and scared bus passengers; when it does this, it waves a club in the air. The creature (if the same one) was nearly 70 years old when it was last seen in the area.

While these are all of the official documented accounts that appeared in the newspaper, there was allegedly a photo taken on July 18, 1923, of the creature. The photograph shows a dark fur-colored being standing in a wooded forest. The creature has a yellow fur-covered head which gives it a rather Muppet look. Not much is known about this photo, and outside of it appearing on the Encyclopaedia of Cryptozoology Wiki, I have not been able to find the original source from which it originated. There are some concerning elements of the photo that do seem to indicate that it is a hoax, but until further information can be found, the photo remains inconclusive. This colored photograph, if authentic, would be one of the earliest photographs of a sasquatch, second only to the 1894 photo and captured right before a 1940s photo.

Some theories for the creature from the time were that it was a Pre-Cambrian man who lived in a cave near the area. Another theory, one of which was popularized by the author of the August 5, 1970, article of the North Bay Nugget, was that this entire encounter was a hoax either by the driver or from some "reveller from the Open Cut Saloon working off a big head." The problem obviously with this is that while the 1970 encounter might have been a hoax yet, it is unlikely since there's been a history of a similar specifically described creature in the area for at least 70 years, as well as the fact that there were multiple witnesses of the creature as it crossed the road.

This case is an example of what Cryptozoologists Loren Coleman and Mark A. Hall would refer to as Marked Hominids. These creatures are similar to the traditional sasquatch in overall appearance, yet they have more human attributes than ape-like features. These types of creatures tend to exist in the subpolar regions of the world. The main feature that distinguishes them are different colored patches of fur, arms that do not reach below the knees, flat buttocks, visible genitalia, and protruding stomachs with splayed-toed feet which reach 10-14 inches long and 3-5 inches wide with a narrow curving impression.

This is, to me, one of the most interesting cases of a sasquatch-type hominid, for it's similar to what biologists experience with natural animals. Occasionally in nature, a team of biologists or ecologists will encounter a piebald animal or an animal that they would nickname or have some special relationship with, and from this, they can track and study the species more. The fact that almost 70 years Cobalt sighted Old Yellow Top is akin to animals of that kind. It's a shame that there was not more research done on the creature before its death since no reports of this particular creature have been sighted in the area since then. If researchers and scientists had the chance to do more research in the area and the chance to follow the creature and monitor its behavior, perhaps some of the problems researchers experience now in regard to the study of these creatures, but unfortunately, its something that will remain in hindsight and the past.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Primate/ Hominid

Location: Cobalt, Ontario, Canada

Sighted: 1906-1907, 1923, 1947, 1970

Works Cited:

The Bigfoot Book By Nick Redfern

Cryptozoology A-Z By Loren Coleman

Sasquatch the Apes Among Us By John Green

The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe

Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology - Volume 2 By George M. Eberhart

“Old Yellow Top” Encyclopaedia of Cryptozoology. cryptidarchives.fandom.com/wiki/Old_Yellow_Top. Accessed July 2, 2022.

"Pre Cambrian Shield Man Seen by Two Prospectors" North Bay Nugget, 27 July 1923

 "'Old Yellow-Top' Reported Seen in Coleman Township" North Bay Nugget, 16 April 1947

 "Third Appearance by Pre Cambrian Shield Man" North Bay Nugget, 5 August 1970

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.