The Headless Dog of the Susquehanna Valley

 The Headless Dog of the Susquehanna Valley

By Cole Herrold

Now it isn’t often that I stumble across a legend or entity that occurred literally in my general area that I hadn’t heard about before, yet I recently got a book entitled The Headless Dog: and Other Extraordinary Far-Fetched True Tales of Central Pennsylvania By Beverley A Conrad and Gregory T Burgess. The title caught me instantly as I tend to investigate Central Pennsylvania more than any other part of the state mainly because of how close to home it is. I also strive to point out that Central PA is just as active in phenomena as say Westmoreland County or Lancaster County which are known for areas like Gettysburg and the Chestnut Ridge. Central PA has a ton of incidents and events that are associated with major phenomena Williamsport was for example one of the way-stops of the Jersey Devil during the 1909 flap. Williamsport a couple months back was the site also of several square UFOs. Harrisburg the state capital was hit with a major UFO flap over the course of several days and sightings of UFOs are reported all over the state to this day. Northumberland County where I live is home to a variety of legends many of which I have covered previously like the Ghost Werewolf of Northumberland, the Northumberland Mystery Beasts, and the Susquehanna River Monster. Sunbury where I grew up also was a major Fortean landmark as UFOs were reported in the area during the 70s, bigfoot sightings were reported in the wooded game areas outside the city limits, a case of Spontaneous Human Combustion occurred on Race St, A large home located by the Mansion hospice and nursing center was an incredibly haunted location involving violent poltergeists who harassed the crew of Herrold and Son Masonry as well as the resident and were so violent that they pushed the owner of the home down the stairs crippling him. The most famous haunted location in Sunbury however would have to be the Edison Hotel and its resident ghosts. Needless to say, the area is seething with phenomena yet very few focus on the area as a Fortean hotspot.

Now with all that said in the area of Snyder County which lies just north of Selinsgrove there is an area known as the Bloody Triangle. This area starts at the High Hill of Penn Township a mountain ridge that runs along RT 204 to Fair Oaks and from this location it connects to the ridge south of it. This area forms a wedge-shaped valley which leads to the triangle title. This area is home to several strange reports often associated with the ghosts of Native Americans many who feel cursed the area or put some sort of spell on the land. Yet of all the apparitions and phenomena associated with the area the one that intrigues me the most to the point I’m planning an investigation into the case is that of the Headless Dog. The origin of this dog is unknown it simply seems to of just materialized to haunt the area. Something that is common in ghost canine reports, particularly of the shuck or hellhound variety as these entities tend to manifest in areas known for tragedy or high strangeness. Reports of this canine are few and far in between however reports do occur one of the oldest accounts comes from Foster Kreamer who told local historians about his experiences with the dog. Foster experienced the dog back when he was a boy at the Fisher’s School House which was west of Rolling Green Park. He and another boy were standing at the front of the building by the main doors when suddenly a huge coal-black dog without a head manifested in between them. The spectral animal did not make any noise but simply began to walk through the doorway and into the school. Kreamer’s fellow schoolmate ran terrified away from the building to his home which was within reasonable running distance. Kreamer realizing that such a run for him was impractical proceeded to bravely enter the school whereupon he did not see any evidence of the animal. Kreamer walked around the building and searched for some other verification and asked the teachers and students if any of them had seen something strange or a big black dog yet all of them responded in the negative. This sighting happened many years ago and by 2017 the old school was then an Ice Cream Parlor and as far as what was known no one had reported seeing the dog.

The headless dog is reported in other locations within the Bloody Triangle however and one of the more recent reports is also one of the more violent ones. In the area around Fair Oaks, there is a crossroads that is north of the Village of Salem and it is here that the Ghost Dog is said to frequently haunt. Motorists and those who choose to walk or bike the area often report seeing the headless dog crossing the road and ascending the bank of High Hill which is a 70-80 degree climb. In the area around this location, there is also an old oak tree that the Ghost Dog is said to manifest in. The dog in these situations typically is violent and will shake the branches and make terrifying noises. Maria Stahl was one such person to experience this side of the ghost dog's behavior. Maria was an elderly woman who lived in a house that would later be owned by Mrs. William Bingaman and was returning home from a visit with friend Hiram Smith. The steps to her house led her past the old oak tree and as she passed under the branches she suddenly felt a heavy weight fall on top of her. Unable to get a good look at what this being was she was even more terrified but what she could make out was that the creature was awkward in appearance and that it had furry hands or paws that were now tightly wrapped around her throat. This black shapeless entity continued to hold on to the woman until she managed to get to the border of her property. The woman finally losing strength and out of breath collapsed and touched the gate of her house. Wherein the beast removed itself from her back and throat and disappeared. The woman could not describe the creature clearly but knew the legend of the ghost dog and felt that it was just what she experienced. For some reason, she felt that if she could not have made it home that she would have been killed by her supernatural assassin.

Another sighting that occurred in the area of the oak revolved around a man bicycling at night. As he reached the area of the tree and the hill he suddenly saw that there in the center of the road was a colossal black dog that was preventing him from going any further. The man saw that this spectral dog was different from the legend as in this case it did have a head but was nonetheless terrified. The dog however did not harass him and instead proceeded to continue across the road and up the nearby hill without making a sound even as it entered the leaf-littered hill.

Now, this is all that has been reported seemingly about the ghost as attempting to find any further information on the apparition has been fruitless. This might be a very localized story and so a huge thanks to Gregory Burgess and Beverly Conrad to collecting the sightings. Oft times these localized ghost stories are more urban legends than anything else and are told to entertain or to deal with boredom in places where not much happens. The Headless Dog stories can be interpreted in a variety of ways the first account could very easily be a true encounter there’s not much outside of an outright fictional story to explain that case. The case of Maria Stahl however could be explained away as a natural animal attack or even a child in a costume pulling some sort of shenanigans. A large cat could easily have dropped on her back and with her flailing the animal could have held on for dear life or a child could have dropped down to scare the old woman. Granted the latter if true is extremely malicious and dangerous. These explanations are justified as possibilities as Maria did not get a good look at the creature and because of that it honestly could be just about anything. Then when we get to the bicycler we could just be dealing with a large dog crossing the road and a person associating a legend with it as there’s nothing exactly supernatural with what he witnessed outside the quietness of the animal.

Now while I may seem to be dismissing most of this phenomenon there is that first case which clearly seems to indicate something Fortean. Classically headless dogs are associated with a few different Fortean phenomena that sort of overlapped. The first is the faerie hound these large dogs were reported in Celtic countries and these dogs typically were believed to be omens of death and that hearing their baying three times no matter how close or how far away you are is enough for them to kill you. Not all faerie dogs were malicious however and some served faerie folks in the same way humans would earth-oriented hounds. The other type of phenomenon is the hellhound or shuck these entities traditionally were savage killers of people either by supernatural means such as appearing three times or as in a case where one attacked members of a congregation, physically with its teeth and claws. These entities can burn victims and there are even scorch claw marks on an old church door claimed to have been caused by one. These legends extend and mirror those of black dogs which again are omens of death yet they are not as violent as the case of the Black Dog of Hanging Hills of Connecticut which states that if you see the dog once it actually gives you good luck and is always described as being playful and not malicious in the slightest.

Now I bring these three options up as they tend to fit the appearance of the ghost reported. If the Maria Stahl sightings are accurate then the first two types are also possibilities of just what type of creature this would be. This area of Pennsylvania is filled with Irish and German descendants and often it does appear that phenomena from other countries like fae folk or family ghosts will follow those they attach themselves to and in doing so will haunt the area. An interesting point to these sightings is that this dog haunts both crossroads and an old oak tree so while it does seem to have some mobility in its reach it is very much localized to certain points something we see in Hellhound reports. Yet the Kreamer and bicyclist sightings could fit in that what was witnessed was just a ghost dog. Often in cases of headless ghosts, there are reports of ghosts such as say Anne Boleyn who will alternate in appearance from headless to having their head and so perhaps this is the case with this dog if all the sightings are authentic and not misidentified.

Ghost animal cases are so difficult to peg down because they mesh into all sorts of other phenomena outside of just ghosts. Witches are said to take the forms of animals that are almost spectral in their ability, familiars are said to appear as animals, then there are faerie animals, there are ghosts of humans who now appear as animals, there are ghost animals, and then there are supernatural animals either demonic or heavenly that cause and do all sorts of different actions. Needless to say, trying to rationalize the phenomena becomes difficult when there are so many other similar and identical types of entities out there. My personal thoughts on this is based on historical cases that this is something more than a traditional ghost yet without a back story I can't be certain. The roads of PA are desolate and dangerous and its entirely possible some pet was killed along the road and it now haunts the location. Yet until someone comes forward with an origin to explain this hound haunting we're left to mere speculation.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Ghost Animal, Paranormal Entity, Faerie

Location: Bloody Triangle area of Monroe Township, Penn Township, Fair Oaks, Snyder County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: Unspecified

Works Cited:

The Headless Dog and Other Far-Fetched Extraordinary Tales By Beverly Conrad and Gregory Burgess

The Headless Cow of Johnstown/The Headless Pigs of Adamstown

 The Headless Cow of Johnstown/The Headless Pigs of Adamstown

By Cole Herrold

Spectral animal cases are perhaps my favorite type of paranormal encounters. They to me are much more interesting than the common human ghost report. Ghosts are in general are a historian's forte as when one delves into ghost lore it deals more with the history of the location that the ghost is said to roam and the history of the believed identity of the apparition witnessed. A lot of this is very interesting and ofttimes depressing or romantic. When it comes to ghost animals there usually is an underlying tragedy that calls into play the reason of why they are earthbound much like their human spirit counterparts yet often they tend to behave or appear in forms more bizarre than just the dislocated spiritual form of say a dog or cat. One of the most common forms is typically that of a headless animal. Often these can be linked to accidents or direct death of the animal via slaughterhouse or as in the case of entities like Black Shuck evidence of their supernatural origin. One such case which comes from my home state of Pennsylvania, and which is a mere hour away from my home is a strange apparition of a ghost cow that is both headless but is still seen with a head nearby.

The best way to describe this apparition is the bovine equivalent of “Nearly Headless Nick” of Harry Potter fame except that unlike Nick whose head is basically still attached this paranormal entity’s head is reported to fly through the air disconnected from its spectral body. This spectral cow was first reported in literature through a newspaper article entitled “Ghost of a Cow with Severed Head-The Frightful Spook that has Alarmed Residents of Cambria County PA- Fearful Noises Issue From Its Throat” With a Second title reading “Terrifying Ghost Cow seen near Johnstown, PA. With head separated from the body the apparition cavorts over the country with greenish fire shining from its eyes and mouth”. While this may sound like the call of a carny barker trying to pull would-be customers into some old obscure freak show tent this was indeed the titles published in the August 9, 1896 edition of The World newspaper along which the paper created a magnificent rendition of the spectral steer.

The paper stated that the sightings were cataloged by an Elmer Person an editor of the Pennsylvania Grit claimed to be a paper run through Williamsport, Pa. A city not too far from both myself as well as Johnstown. Person claimed that he had spoken to several witnesses in the area of Johnstown who all claimed to witness the ghost cow running as fast as a train from the abandoned slaughterhouse that had seemingly taken its life. The apparition is described to follow a particular fence and stone wall and upon reaching a specific spot it will turn around and head back into the slaughterhouse. The area of which is known as Climber’s Hill.  The description of the ghost is always the same according to Person who states that the ghost seems to hover along the course of the fence or above the stone wall and that its head which is dislocated from the body floats above the ground away from the torso on its own accord. The ghost apparently releases several haunting bellows which both come from the mouth and the body of the ghost as its throat is still slightly attached to the torso. The severed floating head of the ghost also is claimed to release a greenish fire from its mouth and eyes and the severed portion of the cow's neck and torso. He claimed that the area was avoided by many including even the bold attempt of curiosity by children, he even quoted a man who said that during the day the cow was something of a joke yet at night it was a haunting reality that few would want to experience. This elderly man who offered this advice claimed that even he had witnessed the apparition and will not venture into the area during the night.

Headless Animals in Pennsylvania especially those of the barnyard variety are fairly common in Pennsylvania. One case I had stumbled upon which unfortunately had barely any information for its own entry was the headless pigs of Adamstown, Pennsylvania, yet I am captivated by it enough to make it essentially a two-for-one article. The legend states that the Adamstown Abattoir was exceedingly successful and that it led to the deaths of countless pigs who were extremely large in stature. The reason for these pigs getting larger was that the farmyard in which the abattoir and home of the pigs was located was buttressed up against Echtenanch distillery. The grain remains from the distillery viewed as waste was dumped into the nearby barnyard and in doing so became a meal for the pigs. These pigs grew and fattened to an incredible size and of course, gave the slaughterhouse plenty of business. So many hogs were slaughtered that the town almost became blotted by the death and the result was that these now headless swine are reported to litter the streets of the town. They allegedly are reported regularly by locals as they traverse around Adamstown.

Headless Ghosts have always been in the realm of folklore and many could easily peg these entities into just that corner. Yet one must understand that there needs to be a reason for the folktale or folklore to exist be it the dark history of a location that involves some need for a vengeful ghost or a romantic end to the tale. Animals unfortunately do not seem to fit this category. One would be hard-pressed to find a need to express a haunting by farm animals outside of one's creative outlet or some propaganda unless the haunting actually occurred. Which, while it may seem cruel the vegetarian propaganda in Pennsylvania as native is something that practically was nonexistent until recently so the need to express animals as something other than food in the 1800s and early 1900s was unheard of. If this was to say something to show the horrors of the food processing industry it truly would be well beyond its time. I’m of the opinion based on this that if these stories are folklore or hoaxes they are simply creative stories to be different from the countless human ghost stories that exist. Or that what was described was exactly what people were reporting. For me, there are no other options. People do not mistake a cow ghost whose head goes flying along with its body unless someone sees a cow with a piece of black fabric in-between its head and assumes its headless which is possible but truly idiotic or exaggerated than in the telling. This of course only applies to the Johnstown Ghost Cow.

The Adamstown Ghost Pigs are a totally different story as there can only be two true possibilities outside of one of the most complex hoaxes I ever heard. Either this account is pure folklore to tell of the horror of mass pig slaughter or some way of commemorating history or that people really did report headless swine. The option of a hoax of that magnitude seems to the point of impossibility for if someone was to put countless pigs into some sort of harness to give the appearance of headlessness it would require more than one person and that there would need to be pig wranglers and all sorts of other accouterments that would be listed in some of our greatest hoaxes and not a case that we are still debating and talking about today.

One thing I find interesting as I grow older is the lack of animal ghosts. The only animal ghost cases I seem to come across anymore are those of cats and dogs. Yet back in the day farm animals and wild animal ghosts are incredibly common. It was normal to come across ghost apes such as the Serial Killer Orangutan of La Rue Croissant (see entry for more info), or the semi-plucked Ghost Chicken of Highgate or the Phantom Bear of The Tower of London, or even Gef the mongoose though he seems to be more complicated than any of these apparitions. So, I have to ask where have all the ghost animals gone? Is it that with such more positive movements like veganism and vegetarianism or more humanistic zoos that it put the need for these spectral species to rest. I doubt it since one can argue with industrialization we are finding more ways to process animals and at times in ways that some would consider it a holocaust. Its from this that I wonder if there was something in the human essence or the world’s structure that allowed such apparitions to exist. Is it that we created these entities from some suppressed guilt, or that the apparitions were showing that they were just as sentient as us which lead to the whole movements we see now and therefore a lack of need to manifest their spectral forms or is it something that the earth put forth herself as a way of showing how extreme and cruel to our fellow co-dwellers we are? With these possibilities I’m unsure yet it’s interesting that as I searched I could find no further encounters as those. These hauntings winded down farther than what we're used to. Ghosts do have a habit of seemingly abandoning their haunts or their behavior over the years loses their potency. Perhaps with animals, this is lessened or whatever meaning their hauntings were meant to convey was understood and therefore the hauntings need not happen anymore. This is all speculation for a field that has less of an understanding than say cryptozoology or ufology and I say that as there is no noticeable hard science outside of maybe chemistry or physics behind but none of which can truly explain hauntings or ghosts in an academic peer-reviewed research sense.

Ghost animal cases are clearly a mixture of a lot of phenomena and philosophies. Many will point to folklore and many will point out that the existence of animal ghosts will be evidence that we all have souls and that there is electrical and chemical existence of life after death even in species we view as inferior. Others will view this as some earth-oriented or human-oriented phenomena created by our own or by some higher intelligence. My thoughts are the following life and death are the only truths of life. It makes sense that once things die be that for a little or a long while that they remain. This can be either through memory or stories. Sometimes this is enough. At other times we may need to push beyond and if your something so removed from what is dominant you’ll find all sorts of ways to do so and not necessarily to convey some sort of message. Some will call these psychic impressions entities that do not “exist’ but are recorded in the environment. What though if there was something in-between that something that is trying to reach out through where it once was in life but only able to re-enact what it previously did. This seems to be the case in many hauntings as they venture between intelligent types and recordings. Yet again this is mere speculation and that we have no true idea as to why such phenomena occur.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Spectral Bovine (Johnstown Ghost Cow) / Spectral Swine (Adamstown Ghost Pigs)

Location: Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania/ Adamstown, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: 1896/ undated sighting reports

Works Cited:

The World (New York, New York) August 9, 1896

Pennsylvania Dutch County Ghosts Legends and Lore By Charles J. Adams III

 

The Green-Haired Monster of Trout Run Road

 The Green-Haired Monster of Trout Run Road

By Cole Herrold

Strange cryptid creatures are rather common when one digs deep into the pages of old newspaper articles. These encounters can be clearly fabrications of the writer's imagination, misidentifications, or, more interestingly, honest to god encounters with the unknown. These sightings range from mundane to grandiose, so it's difficult at times to wade through all the information. As time goes on, however, these cases eventually, which for a time seemed lost, are rekindled due to supernatural sleuths and Fortean researchers who then cull the accounts into books for all to enjoy. One such account describes an extremely aggressive encounter with a colossal creature that, while brief, is entirely captivating and, in such, leads one to ask more questions than what we can currently glean from the information available.

On Saturday, December 1, 1973, eighteen-year-old Michael Lee Findley was out on Trout Run Road in Hellam Township, York County, at 5:00 in the morning when he experienced an aggressive assault from a creature seemingly ripped from the pages of a Marvel Comic. The creature, which the December 4^th article of the York Daily Record described as a "green-haired monster," proceeded to go and attack the young man. Findley would note that the creature was bigger than any man and was covered in shaggy hair and ran and walked bipedally. Findley was able to survive the assault and had managed to work his way to the York Hospital, where doctors had found long scratch marks on his face and a serious head injury that led to some memory loss which prompted an investigation by police. Upon telling the police about the attack, the officers proceeded to search the area but found nothing and would be quoted saying their investigation "did not reveal any facts relating to the same" in regard to Findley's testimony. The police coming back to him after finding nothing would attempt to convince him that his attacker was nothing more than a man in furs, but Findley knew that what he encountered was not that, and if it was," it was the largest man who had ever lived on the entire planet ."Findley also, as a boy, lived on a farm and was aware of the natural fauna of the region and was able because of this to rule out the usual suspects for such a case like a bear and cows, as some of the officers had claimed it could be. This account would seemingly be lost to Fortean history if it was not for the incredible research by Pennsylvania Fortean Researcher Timothy Renner, who would initially include this encounter in his mandatory book on Pennsylvania High Strangeness Beyond the Seventh Gate. Timothy Renner would later reach out to the witness and would discuss the encounter and, surprisingly, discovered some discrepancies between what the witness said happened and what the newspaper reported. One of the major discrepancies involved the appearance of the creature, which Findley would say the following, "I can’t tell you what it looked like," upon which Renner replied, "you can’t tell me what it looked like, or you don’t want to tell me what it looked like” Findley responded “oh I can’t” yet during the interview the witness would give little pieces of details describing just what he had seen, but the one element that he does not remember from his encounter is the creature's green hair. Renner noted that the witness was still disturbed by this encounter and that he, to this day, has the occasional nightmare that replays involving the attack, and that he was seemingly resistant to wanting to dive back into that morning. Renner would also go on to hypothesize that the newspaper added the description of the creature as green-haired as a way of dismissing the story.

Now with breaking down this case, we have evidence that something did happen to Michael Findley on that road, so an overall hoax or lie is unlikely to impossible, especially since the encounter caused serious head trauma, not something one would endure if they were perpetrating a hoax. Misidentification is also unlikely, seeing as with Findley's background, he is very much aware of the local wildlife and how they behave. We can rule out a bear also, as well as the attack seemed to simply stop, and if this was a bear, we would have more wounds and damage from the attack. So, we can see from this that the more skeptical or mundane answers are unlikely in this case.

While mundane answers do not exactly hold up in a case like this, there is another possibility that seems to be the conclusive answer to the encounter. This encounter is just one of the countless cases of aggressive sasquatch. This idea is also held by Timothy Renner after talking to the witness and seeing as York County is surprisingly high in the number of hominid sightings in the state, it would make sense. While the original newspaper source is clearly questionable based on what Renner gleaned from the interview, we do know that what the witness encountered was a colossal hairy man-like creature that walked bipedally essentially; this describes a sasquatch. Just why this creature seemed to attack Findley is anyone's guess, but it would appear that this could have been because the creature viewed Findley as a threat to its territory. If the creature viewed Findley as food, the creature clearly could have killed him, and this encounter would not have been published. Another interesting thing is the region that was attacked by the creature; in the behavior of primates such as chimps, when they attack, they tend to go towards the face and extremities, which is exactly what occurred here in this case. We have seen this behavior in other bigfoot reports when the creature becomes aggressive such as the case where a sasquatch slammed a woman's face into a car door. This behavior lends more towards the great ape theory of sasquatch and less towards a hominid origin.

One thing I feel that does need to be included in this breakdown is the claim of green fur. While Findley does not remember the creature having it, and Renner feels that the green fur was included solely to discredit the sighting, it is important to point out that sightings of green-furred sasquatch are not new. In French Lick, Indiana, there were sightings of a red-eyed green-furred sasquatch called Fluorescent Freddie, and many southern sasquatch reports often describe a greenish tint to the fur seemingly caused by moss, algae, or other plant life clinging to the creature's fur. This idea has even been used to rationalize sightings of the Bishopville Lizardman, seeing as some sightings depict the creature as having ape-like features but a greenish coloration. This is not a far-fetched idea as we have seen this in other animals; in March of 2022, a video surfaced showing a green furry slithering object trapped in a bucket in Thailand. This object turned out to be a snake that had moss growing along its body which gave it an altogether bizarre and Muppet-like appearance. So perhaps Findley had encountered a green-furred creature and, due to the trauma, had forgotten that piece or is trying not to remember the full depiction of the creature seeing as how the event affected him.

While this case appears to be entirely cryptozoological in origin, one cannot remove the other Fortean categories from the table. Perhaps this entity was some extraterrestrial who had wandered farther from his ship to the point that its origin seemed more earthbound. Perhaps this entity was some variety of faerie, seeing as the location the sighting took place has a reputation for supernatural and esoteric phenomena. Perhaps this being popped in from another dimension and, in its confused and terrified state, proceeded to attack what is conceived as a threat. All of these possibilities, needless to say, need to be included, and most of this comes entirely from the lack of information. Perhaps Findley saw more that morning than what was reported some strange light in the sky or the woods or heard some strange sounds or some other anomalous interaction that went unreported. While I'm inclined to believe this case is Cryptozoological in origin, there is a chance, as with most cases, that there just might be more to it. Yet until more information can come to light, all we really can do is speculate and hope that the next time the creature is encountered, it will be on much friendlier terms.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal, Primate, Hominid

Location: Trout Run Road, Hellam Township, York, Pennsylvania

Sighted: Saturday, December 1, 1973

Works Cited:

Beyond the Seventh Gate By Timothy Renner

York Daily Record December 4, 1973

Where did the Roads Go? Podcast. Seriah Azkath. “Beyond the Seventh Gate With Timothy Renner”. December 6, 2016. 

The Night Grabbers

 The Night Grabbers

By Cole Herrold

Original Sketch I did after the incident in late 2017

Now, this case, I must stress, is a bit of a testimonial. This is an incident that occurred to me in the summer of 2017, and it has been with me for a while. For those who don't know, I, aside from writing as complete as possible articles on old cases, do fieldwork in investigating claims and areas said to be home to cryptids, aliens, and ghosts. Over the course of my time investigating such cases, I’ve had several strange occurrences. While following up a Bigfoot encounter in Bald Eagle State Park, I heard a strange set of bipedal footprints that stopped when I looked in the direction of the noise and started when I looked away. I've, while investigating haunted locations, recorded several possible EVPs and had strange sensations when encountering allegedly haunted objects. Yet of all the encounters over the years that I've experienced, this is perhaps the most unsettling. This encounter is one that I had not talked about openly for a long time simply because one of believability and two because it honestly bothers me. I, however, recently opened up and talked about it openly for the first time, and upon talking about the experience, I felt that I had to have some sort of written account of the incident.

Most people know about the beginning of this incident, but the follow-up is something that I have kept private even to my family. I was a delivery driver at the time of this, and I was driving down Snydertown Road on the outskirts of Sunbury, Pennsylvania. I have a tendency as I drive to look out into the woods and fields when I drive because I love nature, and I always hope to see an animal like a turkey or fox. As I was doing this, I looked to my left, where there was a telephone line, and my attention was drawn to a strange object hovering above. The object was small; I would estimate something about the size of an ottoman. It was a pulsing object of white light. The best way to describe it was like a strobe, but there was some form behind it that was noticeable. My initial thought was maybe it was a down line or some sort of electrical discharge but being as this was still day, I could see the area clearly and noted that there were no downed lines. My next thought was maybe this was ball lightning, but from what I knew about ball lightning, it tended to form close to the ground, and none seemed to, at least to my knowledge, pulse-like the object I saw. I continued to drive because I was in the middle of a delivery, and while perplexed, I decided I'd continue with the delivery and id come back to check the area on my way back. The drive to the delivery and back to the location took about 5 minutes, and upon returning to the location, the object was gone. I slowed my car down and looked for any further evidence of the object but could find nothing, and while looking, I could see that the light would not have been reflected or come from some home or similar structure. Realizing that there was nothing more I could do at this given time, I returned to the store and went on working.

That night I woke up at around 2:00 in the morning and noted that my arm was stretched up above my body. I sleep on a futon, and I have woken up and found myself sitting and laying in all sorts of positions, but this time it was different. I lifted my head up and noticed that my arm was attached to something dark in color. As I stared at this, I looked up and noticed what was attached to my arm. There were three dark black figures. The figures were about 3-4ft tall, and they had heads the shape of peanuts and wiry thin bodies. There were no noticeable facial features as I stared at the beings. All three beings had their arms extended and had grabbed my arm at the exact same point. I could not move initially, and they too did not move, but eventually, as I got a full realization at just what I was seeing, the trio vanished. This was exceptionally odd because they seemed so physical in their form. They were not like shadow men or ghostly, but they seemed to simply disappear. As if they realized I was aware of them. I stared in utter disbelief and managed to put my arm down and, almost in an uncharacteristic response, proceeded to go straight back to sleep.

The following day I woke up having thought it was a dream, but upon looking down at my arm, I found a large black and blue mark in the area where the beings grabbed me. I was still reeling from what I had just experienced the day and night prior. I, as a researcher, felt completely unnerved. It's one thing to be interested in the unknown; it's something completely different when it happens to you. In Fortean research, there's an idea that if you open yourself up to the phenomena, it becomes aware of you, and this is a terrifying prospect. During this time frame, I did not pick up a book or watch a tv show on the paranormal for fear of a possible recurrence. As I thought hard about this incident, I began to wonder whether this was something psychological in origin. I personally am an avid believer in the plausibility of a lot of Fortean phenomena, and this branches over into general acceptance that this is a normal and real phenomenon. Yet the Keelian aspects that I alluded to I do not think are plausible. The universality that all phenomena are the same to me just seemed to be an easy out at best or a lack of critical thinking at worst, and that with the ideas I was treading on, it was very selfish as if I was putting myself into the center of this world. It's from this that I took a step back and attempted to think about it from a more skeptical and open view.

My first thought was that there was nothing clearly that could explain the object seen earlier that day, and so I do believe it is unexplained and fits the initial criteria of a UFO. I’ve gone to that location countless times, and I have never found a rational answer to the object. I’ve told the UFO account many times because it was so unique. The beings I've come to call the Night Grabbers, however, I have come to think we're probably an example of Sleep Paralysis. I’ve never had an incident of sleep paralysis before or after this account, but a lot of what I experienced that night was very similar to sleep paralysis. The fact that this occurred while lying in bed, waking up and seeing a strange figure, and that at first, I had no control of my limbs was very similar to what is normally described with sleep paralysis. Now the reason I think this occurred was because of my initial UFO sighting; it would be easy to say that this was a failed abduction attempt or something similar but its also possible that my mind created this scenario in a dreamlike state because of the fact that the UFO was so prevalent in my thoughts that day.

Now, of course, to give the devil his due, I will say that there is the possibility that what I experienced was something Fortean there are a lot of similarities to what I experienced and to what others have over the years, and it does not only fit the traditional extraterrestrial encounters but also a phenomenon that is known as bedtime visitors these entities are also often associated with sleep paralysis even though the entities I possibly encountered do not match the shadow man, Hatman, grinning men that are frequently reported but countless other types are also said to occur and are known as other bedtime visitors. The same goes for faeries, as faerie abduction is something that has been reported from time to time, and in many ways, how the creatures behaved and grabbed seemed more unskilled than what one would think of something that's used to interacting or possibly taking humans. Even though I feel what I experienced was not something unknown, and in a way, this comforts me, I also have to accept the possibility that what I experienced could very well have been something of this caliber.

So this is the end of my account. I have no clear idea of what happened that day. I'm sure what I experienced in regard to the Night Grabbers was simply an example of sleep paralysis, but as for the UFO, that was something else. I saw it during the day; it was a pulsing orb; it seemed to have some sort of physical form behind the pulsing that I could tell was there but could not exactly make out what it was made of. The relation between the two clearly is anyone's guess, and its something I deal with every day as I often wake up in the middle of the night expecting to see these beings again if they were real, but they never returned, which at times is even eerier as it makes me wonder was this a one-off encounter that I experienced in actuality or was it my only time having sleep paralysis. I have no idea. I guess the end purpose of this is to have some official record of this experience as well as if someone else experienced this specific type of entity or had a similar experience, some kind of corroboration not only of mine but their experience as well. So if there's anyone else out there who had an experience like this, definitely comment or let me know.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: unknown

Location: Sunbury, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: Late Summer 2017

Pittsburgh Mothman

 Pittsburgh Mothman

By Cole Herrold

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Avian species, or Paranormal Entity

Location: Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: Summer of 1966 to Fall of 1966

Works Cited:

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

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

The Derry Township Fog Humanoid

 The Derry Township Fog Humanoid

By Cole Herrold

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Paranormal Entity

Location: Derry Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: September 10, 2018

Works Cited:

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