Fluorescent Freddie

 Fluorescent Freddie

By Cole Herrold

Some Sasquatch sightings are downright strange. Some are connected with UFOs like the Uniontown UFO-Bigfoot Incident or the Ohiopyle UFO-Bigfoot incident; some bigfoot seem to vanish or turn into balls of light; in between these more surreal encounters and classic sasquatch encounters, there are seemingly normal sasquatch encounters that are just one degree into the weird. One such encounter of a sasquatch of a different color was reported in French Lick, Indiana, and while it's not one of the most famous cases out there, this case is so rare it seems to only get mentioned in comparison to other cases even though there is more to the story.

At least a dozen teenagers and adults, while out driving and wandering around the woods along a road three miles South of French Lick near a municipal works, began to encounter something that they never would have expected. The creature was an astounding 10ft tall, but this was not the most bizarre feature of the creature as instead of the traditional brown, red, black, or even white fur that was so common in other accounts but instead a vivid green and its eyes glowed bright red. The first and only named witness from what can be gleaned from newspaper and book sources was a 16-year-old official named Steve Dixon, who was a Springs Valley High School Student at the time of the sighting, yet not much is known from this sighting. The creature was investigated by Police Chief Oral Carnes, who searched the area after the initial sightings and having heard that the high school youths were entering the darkened woods with shotguns and other weapons but came up empty-handed both in gun-toting teens and monsters and felt that the whole green-furred monstrosity was nothing more than a hoax. One high school teenager said in the March 17^th edition of the Indianapolis News, "You can't knock it if you don't go see Freddie yourself". The area where the creature was seen soon became known as "the Valley of the Jolly Green Giant". The road, over the course of several nights, turned into monster hunter central as cars lined the side of the road for the entire length of the "Valley of the Jolly Green Giant". Youths would enter the woods in pairs of two and three, calling out to the creature in an effort to coax the creature from hiding. One boy, a 16-year-old named David Noble, who had it would seem seen the creature during this time, had even called out to the creature saying, "We're your friends. Don't be afraid. We won't hurt you". Yet the creature never seemed to respond. After a quiet night with barely any interactions or sightings, most of the searchers left after 3 hrs. After this initial wave of sightings, the creature seemed to of dropped off the planet, and no one has since claimed to of seen the creature.

Now it is important to point out that French Lick, as well as Pope Lick and Big Bone Lick, makes up one of the corners of the Big Lick Triangle. This is an area of high strangeness similar to the Coudersport Triangle, Bridgewater Triangle, and, more famously, the Bermuda Triangle. So, it’s almost unsurprising that such a creature would be reported in this geographical Fortean hotspot.

While this case is exceptionally interesting, what are we to do with this creature in regard to an explanation. This creature could obviously be a hoax or a prank perpetrated by the unmotivated minds of high schoolers. The fact that there's only one officially named witness and very few details on this case adds a patina seen with other hoax cases or urban legends. Yet I must say that this case has a lot of other details seen in other Sasquatch cases that seem to indicate a wider range of phenomena.

One of the most comparable cases to this one is the Bishopville Lizardman case. Now the Bishopville Lizardman case is a mixture of two types of creatures reported the classic reptilian-type creature which attacked Chris Davies and the large primate-like creature seen around the same time. This primate-like creature also was reported to have grayish-green fur or skin, and some researchers feel even the reptile-type encounters might have simply been a Sasquatch-type creature covered in moss and with dried muddied fur which gave the impression of scales. Perhaps this is what we are seeing here as mud-covered sasquatch-type creatures have been reported before, and in these accounts, leaves and other debris often are reported clinging to the fur.

This case is one that I would love more information on. It's quick and brief, but it has all the earmarks of cases that are stone-cold classics like the Mill Race Monster, as it involves a strange non-traditional creature and a monster hunt. It's amazing that this case was not covered more intently, but perhaps at the time, the case was not treated as seriously or that the witnesses simply were not interviewed. Either way, this was a brief and obscure case that definitely needed to be brought to the attention of more researchers.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Primate/ Hominid, Mammal

Location: French Lick, Indiana

Sighted: March 15, 1965

Works Cited:

Bigfoot Exposed: An Anthropologist Examines America's Enduring Legend By David J. Daegling

Cryptozoology A-Z By Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark

Mothman and Other Curious Encounters By Loren Coleman

Sasquatch the Apes Among Us By John Green

Weird Indiana By Mark Marimen, ‎James A. Willis, and ‎Troy Taylor

The Indianapolis News, Indiana, March 15, 1965

The Indianapolis News, Indiana, March 17, 1965

 

Bluefield Frogoyle

 Bluefield Frogoyle

By Cole Herrold

Green seemingly reptilian or frog-like creatures are perhaps some of the most interesting cases in the world of the Fortean. Who does not love the Loveland Frogmen, either the wand-wielding parachute pants wearing 55' beings or the classic bipedal amphibians from 1972? There are tons of these reports, and each is unique in its own right. One such Cryptozoological Kermit occurred in Bluefield, West Virginia, and its visage and impact were so great that it affected the life of an at the time little boy for the rest of his life.

A boy by the name of Robert S. would write in 2004 at the now-defunct About.com Your True Tales Paranormal Phenomenon. This encounter occurred in Bluefield, Mercer County, WV, after he had moved to the area as a boy. His family had moved into a house on Longview Ave; as a boy, he was noticeably and surprisingly fearless and was exceptionally curious about his new home. One of the things that piqued his interest as a boy was his neighbor's house, which was located two homes down from him. The house had long and huge hedges that surrounded the perimeter of the backyard. One day his curiosity got the best of him, and he proceeded to squeeze his way under the hedge; as he crawled under the greenery, he soon noticed that there was a layer of barbwire intermixed within; due to his size and age, he had no problem maneuvering through the wire. When he entered the backyard, he found a pond that was surrounded by Witching Balls. These witching balls were also darting the yard, and as he examined the confines of the yard, he noticed that someone had seen him from the window and he realized that if he were caught, he'd have to face repercussions and began to run back to the bushes and as he ducked and worked his way through the boughs a man came from the house running towards him and proceeded to yell at him “get out, get out”. Robert would describe the man as looking like” Allen Funt from "Candid Camera” and that he had “a white birthmark on his skin that looked like paint dropped on his head, and a sneaky grin". Robert proceeded to run back to his home after evading the barbwire and low-hanging limbs from the hedge, hoping that the walls of his home would provide him safety from his trespassing. This would not be the case, however, as the man ended up coming straight to his home, knocking aggressively on his front door, and then proceeded to tell his mother to keep him out of his yard.

Robert, for a time, did just that, but he was curious about this strange man, and as time went on, he watched his neighbor intently. He discovered that he and his wife were rather odd, to say the least, his wife would wear a tank top around her waist to show off the scars from where her breasts were removed, and on one winter day when he was out climbing a tree, he saw both the husband and wife sunbathing naked on their property in the snow. During the night, he could hear the neighbors singing Christian tunes for hours, and it was not at all peaceful but instead reminiscent of what one could imagine what playing the piano with a hammer would sound like. The peculiar nature of his eccentric neighbors was not enough, however, to dissuade him from approaching their property, and on one particular summer day, he would come to regret not staying his distance.

One summer day, he decided to go over to the hedges with his matchbox cars. While playing with the small mechanical vehicles, he noticed a rustling in the bushes. Curious by this, he turned to look at the shaking foliage and was surprised to see a face pop out and glare at him. This was no normal face; however, its visage to the young boy would only be comparable to a gargoyle, yet each feature of the strange entity was more perplexing than the last. Instead of human-like eyes, the creature had solid black pointed eyes that were bulging from a face that looked eerily like a frog's except that it had both teeth and ears that "flexed outward like the side of its head two big green gloves on” and a body similar in shape to a bulldog's. Its skin was a vibrant green in color, and while its arms and legs were not described in any great detail, it was noted that the creature had webbed feet that pointed inward as it walked. As it stared at the boy, the creature began to open its mouth and uncurl a loud hiss. Robert would describe this action in the following "He held it wide open as if to taste the air". Robert, as he stared at the creature, was completely paralyzed with fear and attempted to cry out for help, yet not a syllable was able to be uttered. Eventually, however, he was able to get control of his faculties and, at a speed that would rival The Flash proceeded to run as fast as he could back to his home and run straight to his mother. Upon seeing her, he, in excited and terrified bursts of energy, attempted to tell her about the anomalous amphibian that he had witnessed, yet all she could do was point to a series of "Childcraft books" and say, "See if you can show Mommie a picture of the animal." Upon scanning through the various tomes, the closest he came across was even more peculiar as the animal in question was an Australian marsupial namely a Koala and only this because of how the creature’s eyes appeared. Seeing the animal her son had said was the closest in appearance, his mother only laughed and said, "Son, those animals are only in Australia. What you probably saw was a dog". Disheartened by his mother's comment, he never spoke of the creature again.

Several years later, after his strange and eccentric neighbors had left the area, a preacher and his wife moved into their house. Robert was then hired by the couple to do some maintenance on the property, like mowing the grass and taking care of the home in general and on one occasion, he had to go down into the basement of the home, and while there, he felt extremely terrified of being down there as though there was some dark energy in that room. Robert proceeded to tell the preacher about his experience with the previous owners of the house and about the time the husband chased him out. The preacher explained that the man did this because a little girl in the area drowned in the pond, and the girl's family proceeded to sue the family. Yet Robert felt that there was some strange connection to the previous owners, the strange creature, and the dark energy he felt in the basement, but he could not figure out just how or what it could be. Robert's final remarks on the creature, however, were the following “I have never seen a creature like the one I'm about to tell you about since the day I laid eyes upon it, and till this point, I have never seen it again… Because of that experience, I have always been scared of the dark because I know there are monsters. I saw one."

With this case, there are several avenues to go down in analyzing this case. Perhaps the most obvious is the possibility of a hoax, seeing as this was an online uploaded report with no follow-up. The strange details in the case could be examples of elaboration to make the case seem stranger, and there are certain details that definitely seem unrelated and raise the question as to why they'd include that in the report. This almost seems like a slight wink towards absurdity, something a hoax claim would usually do. Yet with that said, there's a lot in the description that seems to be reminiscent of other more obscure cases that, to me, at least seem to point to something more tangible than a wild false narrative.

The next possibility still on the skeptical side would obviously be a misidentification. One could point to an exotic pet such as an iguana or basilisk lizard as being the culprit of what he had seen. The barbwire could possibly have been some idea of the couple's to keep the animal inside the area of the yard. Yet, with most cases of a reptilian or frog humanoid, there are problems with this; for one thing, the boy got a very good look at the creature, and upon trying to find something similar in a book, the closest he came to and only because of the eyes was a koala. If this was a reptile of any variety that we are currently familiar with, he would have found something similar, so I have to say that a misidentification is extremely unlikely. This unlikeliness is added to the fact that similar types of creatures have been reported elsewhere, often times in and around water.

Now this curious creature does appear to be a cryptid as from the very brief encounter that was described, it seems to indicate something that can interact with its environment and has a kind of behavior that is extremely similar to reptiles and amphibians, especially when the creature opened its mouth wide and taste the air. This behavior has been reported in other seemingly reptilian and amphibian cryptids, such as Lizardmen reports and the Franklin Township Frogman case. In comparison to other reported cryptids, this particular cryptid is actually very similar to another cryptid reported in New Kensington, PA, on February 28, 1981. This being known as the New Kensington Green Thing was described as a green-skinned entity with strange ear-like protrusions and webbed feet. The creature was seen by a group of boys who attempted to capture it but were unsuccessful, and it ran into a sewer drain. There are other similarly described small frog or lizard-like creatures reported elsewhere, and with this and the New Kensington Green Thing cases, I have to wonder if what these creatures are is the juvenile versions of larger cryptids. As a researcher, we go off the assumption that cryptids are, for the most part, biological in nature and origin, and if this is to be the case, there must be both a decently sized population and young. While with some cryptids like lake monsters and sasquatch young are reported with reptilian and amphibian cryptids, there are seemingly no reports in the record. Yet looking at cases like this, it could be that is exactly what we are looking at, and it would make sense as well. In nature, there are what is referred to as r and K-selected species; in r-selected species, such as sea turtles, there is no care for the young due to the fact that in species of this variety they tend to release a ton of offspring at once and very quickly whereas K selected species tend to raise young for longer periods of time and have fewer numbers of offspring. Some species, like certain dinosaurs, had intermediate traits between the two types of r and K selection. With aquatic humanoids or reptilian humanoids, it would seem that they would be either in the intermediate category or r selected, and if their behavior is like frogs or sea turtles, this could explain why there are never any reports of juveniles with adult lizardmen or frogmen yet why there are tons of seemingly unrelated reports of lizardmen, frogmen, and these frogoyles and green things. Yet, of course, this is all mere speculation.

Now while this creature does appear to be a cryptid, it's not the only possibility of its origin of existence. The next possibility, as unlikely as it sounds, is that this entity could be some sort of demon or supernatural entity. While this seems like a clear departure from sanity, I say this for the following reasons, and it's entirely in regard to the Robert S. neighbors. In myths, there are entities known as familiars, and interestingly enough, familiars often take the forms of owls, crows, cats, and for this possibility, frogs. These entities often change into intermediate stages of a demonic entity, and the animal they appear as to the witch who owns them. Robert was quick to point out that the neighbor's behavior was rather eccentric, and so it's possible that some of this could have been due to practicing Magick of some sort or another. This, too, added to the strange drowning of a girl in the couple's pond, could all be connected to them summoning some sort of entity, and on this particular day, Robert had happened to see it. Or alternatively that the couple was attempting to rid their property of some malevolent entity as witching balls which were seen in their backyard traditionally were used by farmers to scare witches and other malevolent entities away. This could be the more likely option since if they were malevolent magicians of some sort, the husband would not have told Robert to get out, and he would be in the basement being used in some arcane ritual. Again, there’s not much to go on and certainly not much to connect without wild speculation, but it should be noted that even towards the writing of his encounter, Robert felt there was some connection to all the strange things with the couple, the creature, and the house. Or, more than likely, they are all separate phenomena.

The Bluefield Frogoyle is an interesting addition to a wide pantheon of seemingly aquatic-looking cryptids. The fact that it was seen so close to a pond, albeit in someone's back yard, is interesting as depending on the layout of the house and the yard, one has to wonder just how the overall setup of the area is. There is a hypothesis that I've been a firm supporter of proposed by Cryptozoologist Rob Morphy that aquatic humanoids may migrate from one watery locale to another. I find this extremely likely since oft times these creatures are not seen regularly in such locations and often disappear for exceptionally long periods of time only to occasionally reappear. Often times in some locations, there are islands and rocky areas that rise out of the water; these would be ideal locations for the creatures to live momentarily as they go from water source to water source, and it could also explain how and why similar creatures are seen in completely different locations in the US and if these creatures have life cycles like an amphibian then there will be all sorts of different stages reported hence why someone might see a frogman or Fishman and someone else in a different location might see an Armless Horror or Charles Mill Lake Monster whereas others might see Frogoyles or Green Things. Obviously, this is just a theory based on the pattern of sightings of these types of creatures, yet it's interesting to think about. Either way, this is a fascinating case and one that I'm sure we will more than likely never find a definitive answer to but until the day we know this is a hoax or a real creature, it's best to stay away from the strange property in Bluefield.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Reptile, Amphibian, Paranormal Entity

Location: Bluefield, Mercer County, West Virginia

Sighted: Undisclosed

Works Cited:

Monsters of Virginia by L. B. Taylor Jr.

Mack Maloney's Haunted Universe By Mack Maloney

Strange Tales from Virginia's Mountains: The Norton Woodbooger, the Missing Beale Treasure, the Ghost Town of Lignite and More By Denver Michaels

 

 

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

Washington DC Demon Cat

 Washington DC Demon Cat

By Cole Herrold

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

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

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

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

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

Photo of alleged Demon Cat prints- photo from Atlas Obscura 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Supernatural Entity

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

Sighted: 1862-at least the 1980s.

Works Cited:

America’s Very Own Monsters By Daniel Cohen

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

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

Phantom Animals By Daniel Cohen

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

Boy’s Life Magazine July 1982

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

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

Buffalo Courier December 04, 1898

The Akron Beacon Journal January 11, 1899

The Washington Post March 24, 1908

The Boston Globe July 04, 1909

The Washington Herald March 02, 1913

Home Talk the Star August 10, 1928

The Dispatch October 31, 1981

The Times October 31, 1989

South Idaho Press October 29, 1999