The Trolls of Sorenson’s Woods

 The Trolls of Sorenson’s Woods

By Cole Herrold

In the world of faeries, there is a phenomenon akin to what demonologists would refer to as attachment. In the demonological concept, the idea is that a spirit or entity will attach itself to a person and follow them wherever they go. While faeries are often associated with specific places in nature, there are several examples of them being attached to families or types of people. In Russia, there are tales of the Domovoi, and in the United Kingdom, there are Brownies and Boggarts; these household entities are usually guardians of specific homes; however, they also have been in some accounts associated with families. This is noticeable as the creature's behavior or appearance is continued to be seen after a family moves to a new location. We see the same type of phenomenon with Banshees in Ireland. Banshees are almost always associated with a specific family, and they are believed to herald the death of a member of that particular family. Now typically these encounters are solely in the same country; however, when these cultures began to migrate to America during the 1800s during this wave, tales of Banshees and the like were brought over, but interestingly enough, accounts of these entities continued as though they too immigrated to the "New World."

From the 1850s to-1930s, the Swedish and Norwegian, much like the Irish and the British, made their way to America and so began staking their own settlements in the ever-growing country. While the immigrants spread throughout the country, there was a heavy focus on the Minnesota area. Apparently, these settlers were not alone in leaving their country; however for just like the Irish beforehand, there seemed to be a small group of inexplicable entities that too sought some potential better life in America.

In Northern Minnesota, a young Irish boy named Richard O’Donnell was born and living in a Scandinavian descended town. As with every town, there was one specific legend that everybody knew and that would be uttered in a whisper. A farmer by the name of Ulmer Sorenson owned an extensive patch of land north of town that was filled with orchards and grassy knolls. On this picturesque landscape, however, was a dark domain, a cave that was rumored to be the home of a family of creatures that seemingly followed the founders of the town to this bucolic land. Richard O'Donnell knew the story well and knew how many a fellow peer would wander onto Sorenson's land and stand outside of the cave. Those who were brave enough or foolish enough to approach the cave would throw rocks into the mouth of the cave, holler schoolboy threats attempting to get the beasts to come out and chase them off the property. Only a few of these young fools or overly brave children had managed to step a few feet into the cavern before returning back to the light of day. Yet while in these few times no creatures were seen, everyone who entered the cave would always comment about how the cavernous crack always smelled fierce. This odorous lair was worse than a skunk's or a civet cat's stench, and only those who knew the tale knew that the smell was only from the monstrous creatures known to those in the villager's motherland as Trolls.

While most of the tales Richard knew were of those who had entered the cave and experienced nothing except a horrid smell, there were a few times when some of his friends would rush him completely out of breath, proclaiming that they had actually seen one or a few of the creatures wandering not near the cave but in the open orchards and fields or the dense woodlands of Sorenson's land around dusk. The folks in town would also experience the loss of several of their livestock late at night, particularly chickens and eggs. The people knew it had to be these creatures as the animals were seemingly missing for no particular reason; there was no evidence of fox activity, and all the coops were undisturbed. Those who had seen the coops were certain that this was the work of the late-night working Trolls.

Richard had heard all of these accounts and was unsure of what to make of them, and so he proceeded in asking the wisest person he knew, which was, of course, his father. His father smiled when he asked him about the Trolls, and so he began to explain that the Scandinavian folks had tales of the wee people and other dark creatures as they did with leprechauns and the gentry. Yet he was certain that's all they were tales that were kept in circulation by Ulmer Sorenson to keep would be the young kids from the apples in his orchard during harvest time. Richard accepted his father's hypothesis and continued to keep it in the back of his mind as more and more reports of the diminutive beings came out. That is until summer came.

It was late in the afternoon on a particularly warm July day that Richard was walking towards his girlfriend's farmhouse when he was walking near Sorenson's woods. He noticed the embossed "No Trespassing" sign and, deciding to give in to the edginess of youth, decided to ignore the request and use the woods as a kind of shortcut to his significant other's house. He found a worn deer path and proceeded to use this naturally made highway to cross through the forest, and after walking for a short period, he happened to notice a short dark form coming towards him. The figure was too far to make out any significant features, but he thought that perhaps it could be a deer or a large dog, but as the two began walking towards each other, he could tell that this was most certainly not the case. As the figure was only a short distance away, he could tell that this was not an animal but a short, stocky guy. Expecting it to be another peer from school or some other child who also decided to give in to the angst of youth, he continued unabated, and so to did his path ward companion. Yet as he got even closer, he instantly realized in a look of disgust that if this was a child, it was the ugliest one he had ever seen. The "boy" had coarse black hair that seemed to just be jutting straight out of the skull. The "boy" had deep-set black eyes that were particularly unnerving, but this was not its most noticeable feature, for there just below these black pinpoints was a large proboscis that Richard described as an "enormous "honker."" Richard could not get over the "boy's" nose, for it was so abnormally large that it seemed to take up most of the individual's face. The boy was about the size of him he estimated about 5ft 4” and that he was built like a fire hydrant. Other than the "boy's" bizarre appearance, he was dressed rather shabbily it wore a pair of overalls that were seemingly several sizes too big for him, a very tattered work shirt, and had no shoes at all. While the “boy” walked around shoeless he had incredibly large black hair covered feet that Richard estimated to be well over a size 13 men’s shoe. Richard stopped short as the "boy" continued to approach him as it came closer it began to smile at Richard, and in doing so it showed him it's teeth which were caked yellow and jagged which Richard felt was "badly in need of dentistry."

This being a small town, Richard's first thought now that the figure was overly close to him was that he was surprised he had never seen the stranger in town or in school. The figure was only a few feet from him now and had slowed its pace, ultimately stopping directly in front of him. As the two stood there eyeing each other up and neither saying a word, the "boy" in front of him began to look down at Richard's jeans and boots, and a look of want came across the creature's face. Richard noticed this as a mischievous grin seemed to crawl across the creature's face. Richard was just about to back away from this bizarre boy when all of a sudden, this odd boy uncurled an animal-like grunt and lunged towards his waist and legs, ultimately toppling Richard over. Richard laying now on his back, could feel this person trying to reach its hands into the waistline of his pants as it attempted to pry the fabric from his body. Richard was only 5" taller than this figure but was 180lbs of muscle and what this person did not know was that he was the captain of the high school wrestling squad and that whenever someone had attempted to fight him he never turned down a scrap. Richard would describe what happened as the two began to roll on the ground in the following "The Ugly little guy was incredibly powerful, and he seemed very surprised when I did a reversal, escaped from his takedown, and flipped him over on his back." The two began an almost Olympic style tussle in the weeds and grass and Richard seemed to have the upper hand he had managed to get this would be thief face down in the grass and was putting its arm behind its back when something that seems straight out of the pages of a Marvel or Batman comic happened. The "boy" that Richard had almost pinned seemed to be quivering expecting him to finally be subdued Richard was about to let him go when he noticed that the figure seemed to be getting larger. Its limbs seemed to be stretching out growing in length and its torso seemed to become even more beefier. Richard could tell that this was the case as the once ill-fitting overalls were now tightly covering his attacker's body like a layer of skin and the work shirt that he was wearing was ripping down by the shoulders. Richard got off the figure which he now knew was not human and realized that the entity was 6ft 2" and had gained some 50lbs. It towered over him and outweighed him. This, however, was secondary to what the creature also gained, an increase of its terrible smell. Richard would describe it in the following, "And the smell of him became almost overpowering. He stank bad enough when he was a short little bugger but now he could win a fall by his smell alone. Of course, not being an idiot, I realized that I was up against something beyond my power of reasoning. This was no ordinary farm boy. Deep in the pit of my stomach, I knew that I would now be fighting for more than my pants and my boots".

The creature, now after transforming in an almost Hulk or Bane-like manner, loomed over the boy, and as the boy watched, the demeanor of the creature changed. Instead of the mischievous smirk or even the jagged tooth smile that greeted him on the path, the creature was noticeably angered by the boy's rebuttal to its attempt of clothing theft. The creature's enormous frown and proboscis were secondary to the boy's sight as the creature's black eyes started to change to a piercing red, almost as if it was some kind of living cartoon. The creature's chest heaved forward and back, and as it did this, it unfurled a low steady growl behind closed lips. Richard knew this was not a fight he could win or even survive, and so he began to run like hell. The thing was still roaring as he turned tail and sprinted back the way he came. As he ran, he looked back twice to see if the now colossal creature was coming after him but from what he could tell, he was in the clear, but he still did not slow his pace until he made it to town.

In town, he found several of his friends hanging around and began to tell them his experience in the woods between gasping breaths. His tale was convincing enough to his friends that a group of them began to follow him to the spot where he had encountered the terrifying Troll. The group looked at the overturned sod where clearly some sort of struggle had occurred, but there was nothing else; no footprints, hair, or Troll could be found. The group then decided that if this was one of the Trolls said to live on the property, they knew where it should be, and so they headed towards the dark and profusely odorous cave. One of the boys had brought his rifle along and aimed it at the mouth of the cave as though he was expecting the creature to come running full tilt towards him. The brave, albeit foolhardy boy began to yell several challenges into the cave and indicated that he had a weapon as a means of intimidating the trolls into giving up, yet none came out. No one in the party, even the boy with the rifle, however, wanted to enter the stalagmite-ridden abode, and the smell that wafted from the entrance was enough to make everyone in the party gag. For these reasons, the group decided that this was enough excitement for one day, and they all returned home.

Richard was sitting at the Dinner table with his family when he decided to let them in on his little misadventure. After telling the full account, his father began to laugh and said that “Ulmer Sorenson often hired temporary field hands from the pool of unemployed lumbermen from up north. A lot of those men are pretty rough and tough and a bit short on manners and they might take fancy to your new boots and jeans and decide to 'borrow' them without your permission. You best not tangle with any of them". Richard was a little downtrodden by his father's account and knew for certain that what he experienced that day was far from a down and out lumberjack; he was certain that the entity he encountered was one of the Trolls said to lurk in the lands of Sorenson's woods and from that day on he never again took a shortcut through Sorenson's land.

Now, this case is a pretty clear-cut and dry case of a faerie encounter. Unlike other cases where one can look at alternative views, there are not really many other options to point to. Cryptids typically don't wear clothes even though there are reports of Bigfoot and other hairy hominids occasionally wearing them, cryptids also typically appear as flesh and blood animals if they have anomalous properties most are things that can be attributed to scientific phenomena like bioluminescence or fluorescence, or enzyme expulsion or something along those lines but for a creature to seemingly grow excessively in height and weight in a matter of moments for combat purposes are not exactly something we see in nature. There are illusions of this when animals like frigate birds which will puff out their chests to appear bigger, but for something to actually grow taller and gain more noticeable mass is something else entirely.

It's pretty safe to say this entity is not extraterrestrial in origin as there's a history of these entities in the same area. They even have a specific cave where they are believed to live; this gets less into UFO encounters where a craft lands and entities are seen and gets into something native to the area and not an alien in the true sense of the word. Also, the fact that no craft or lights are associated with these creatures also seems to indicate that they are earth or interdimensionally bound.

Now it's also safe to say that this entity is not a ghost or a demon as it appears to be a physical flesh and blood entity even though it has anomalous traits and behaviors. It is not wispy or see-through, and the thing that solidifies this even more is the fact that Richard wrestled with this entity. There have been some encounters with spirits where they can inflict damage or even have sexual experiences with humans, yet in these cases, they seem to be almost a one-way street as the phantasms appear to be able to interact with us, but we cannot physically interact with them.

One almost has to include interdimensional as an option for entities like this because that's always a possibility since who knows where these creatures truly come from. The same goes for the Ultraterrestrial since their primary goal is to be trickster-like minor gods or entities that feed on fear or other human emotions. A tulpa is also a possibility since there's the chance that the population's belief in these creatures based on their homeland tales might have created a small population of these entities, but all of these other possibilities are speculation.

The most conclusive possibility is that this is another example of faerie. It has many of the hallmarks, as previously discussed in the intro and in other articles. These creatures have a connection to the environment, they have a connection to a population/specific individual, they are essentially "magical" or react in ways that we don't scientifically understand in their behavior, and the account follows an archetype of entity that has a rich history. Unlike other Troll accounts on the site, such as the Friendly Troll of Oslo or the Staffordshire Trolls, this is the first one I've covered that actually wears clothes. In folk traditions, however, Trolls constantly wore beaten, dirty clothes that seemed to mimic the appropriate clothing that humans would wear in a given environment. This Troll, however, intrigues me even more than the fact that it's wearing farmwear on a farm but the fact that baggy overalls are a classic clothing article that appears on trolls in Norwegian and Swedish wood carvings. So perhaps this is not simply a design for tourist trinkets but actually a common article of clothing worn by these entities.

Examples of the Traditional Troll Overalls in Norwegian Art/Tourism

One thing that aside from the clothes that fascinates me, needless to say, is the creature's ability to change size at will. Trolls are all over the map when it comes to reported sizes; the Oslo Troll was taller than trees, whereas the Staffordshire Trolls were about the same size as the Troll seen here before it grew to tower over Richard. If this is the case, it could explain a lot of Trolls seemingly based on folklore seem to grow much like humans, but just on a larger scale; this seems to dash that claim and implies that they can change their size as is. Other faeries are said to be shapeshifters like the Phooka, so it's not unheard of for a faerie to do this, but its important to point out this in the data for Trolls since the study of faeries is something that has not gained the same credibility or countless tomes from a serious standpoint as Cryptozoology or Ufology.

With all that said, while I’m extremely interested in a more scientific study of faeries, I have to admit it's extremely difficult to even comprehend how to go about doing it. Faeries seemingly have noticeable species like aliens or cryptids, but they clearly are neither. They behave anomalously; they have skills we would call magic but could be something we currently don't have the scientific mindset or tools to understand. They are not spirits in the sense of ghosts as they are physical and can be touched and are almost exclusively found in nature, with only a few exceptions. The final problem is compared to things like Bigfoot or lake monsters, they're relatively rare even though there are folkloric accounts dating back centuries, and some are most certainly normal cryptids when looking at these older accounts. I'm at a loss as to a methodology of study because of this and because there's such a wide gamut of potential species, locations, age ranges, and differentiations between folklores that finding some single method is almost impossible. As for this account, however, I think in terms of this kind of research its incredibly important as it is almost identical to a folktale even though it takes place reasonably in modern time; the exact year and day are not specified, but with the account appearing in Steiger's 2001 book it's safe to say it was well before then. Richard was also an adult when talking to Steiger, so it's safe to say anywhere between 20-40 years spanned between the time of his sighting and the publication of the book. So much like the other Troll accounts mentioned earlier and that appear on the site, this is a continuing phenomenon and one that definitely needs to be investigated further by Forteans, just once we figure out how.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal/Supernatural Entity

Location: Sorenson’s Woods, Minnesota

Sighted: July, year and day unspecified sometime before 2001 (probably around the 1950s -1980s)

Work Cited:

The Inhumanoids By Barton M. Nunnelly

Out of the Dark: The Complete Guide to Beings from Beyond By Brad Steiger

 

Mud Creek Road Monster

 Mud Creek Road Monster

By Cole Herrold

Sometimes in the annals of Forteana, a creature can be interpreted a certain way that matches an already existing category. These cases are sometimes accurate as of the incredibly large Hairy Hominid category, which includes everything from Momo, the Fouke Monster, the Honey Island Swamp Monster, Skunk Apes, and of course the quintessential Sasquatch; however, sometimes a case gets lumped into a category simply out of convenience because the entity's appearance when you look at the original case files is something entirely different, that currently makes it stand alone in a world where there's already a huge range of bizarre beasts reported. One such case that occurred on Mud Creek Road near Troy, Pennsylvania, is often lumped into the category of Werewolf or Dogman type creature, yet when you actually view the initial report, it clearly is something even more bizarre.

On November 20, 2011, a pair of travelers were driving down Mud Creek Road traveling west towards Highway 14. It was 11:05 that night, and the road was completely shrouded in darkness that could barely be penetrated by the beams of the headlights. The driver, a young man, stared blankly into the darkness, cautiously looking for deer or any other native species that might scurry out into the road. As he stared down the paved road, he noticed that near the edge of the bank was something moving. He could not tell what the object was, but he could tell it did not appear normal, and so he grabbed the attention of his friend. She was staring out the passenger side window, focused on the enveloping tree-shrouded darkness, and hearing his voice, she turned her head, staring then in the direction he alluded to. The driver proceeded in slowing down the car expecting that it could be some deer that they misidentified, and so slowed down even more to get a better look. As they came closer, the female friend staring at the anomalous object soon felt that what they were staring at was a naked human. Concerned that it could be someone hurt, the two slowed down even more until they realized that even this was certainly not the case.

The driver ended up stopping the truck in the middle of the road and directed the headlights at the bizarre form. The truck was about 30-40 ft away from the object and could now clearly tell that this was not a person but instead was a strange creature crawling on the ground. As they watched, the creature suddenly rose up on its hind legs in a squatting position, its back completely straight, which was similar to a kangaroo's. The creature in this position was about 5ft tall. The arms of the creature were held close to the body, and each hand had four long talons like that of an eagle's. Each claw was 8-10" in length except for one which was much shorter than the other one. The creature had a muscular body slightly covered in barely noticeable little black hairs and  was mostly covered in grayish black wrinkly skin that covered the entire body in bizarre folds of flesh, yet the most startling feature was the oversized head which appeared wolf like as it had pointed bat-like ears about 4-6” in length. As if this wasn't nightmare fuel enough, the creature had a mouth filled with razor-sharp fangs, and its eyes were a solid black, almost as though they were voidless pits. The witness would go on to state that these dark pits were the size of a silver dollar and that throughout the entire time of the headlights being on it, not once did they reflect with eyeshine.

The man stared at the entity for some time when a peculiar thought broke into his mind, which was that he felt that the creature should have wings, yet none were clearly apparent. The creature was slowly moving in this position, and it slowly worked its way to the road being only 1-2ft on the pavement. As the creature did this, it began to do something incredibly bizarre it began to what can only be described as stretching its body as the animal got down onto all fours. The witnesses would describe that as the creature stood up on its back legs, it fell forwards onto its front ones. It was in this position that the creature seemed to be about 6-7ft long. In doing the seemingly awkward stance of getting down on all fours, the creature, when its front paws hit the pavement, managed to span the road almost in the same way a tree falling would, and the creature's top half made it 2ft beyond the center of the road. This anomalous abomination which now took up more than half the road with its bewrinkled form, soon began to turn its head and instantly looked at the vehicle. The two travelers could tell its black-holed gaze was focused straight at them and not the mechanical transport they were in; a shiver ran down their spine as they expected the beast to come barreling towards them to rip them asunder but what happened next was beyond what they expected.

The creature's expression changed, and to the witnesses, the only word they could describe the face was "panicked." The creature appeared to be horrified of them just as much as they were, and it began to take a heavy deep breath as though to calm itself in this situation. The witnesses stared at each other, confused at this behavior as it almost was as though the creature had some sort of supernatural stage fright due to being seen. The driver would later comment that "he had the feeling the creature didn't realize it was being observed and when it did realized it was- it was like it was caught doing something." Just what would only be speculated later, but in the present, the creature soon began to move after freezing for that short duration. The creature started to lean back and then proceeded to reach forward with its claws; after doing what seemed to be a kind of a stretch, the creature then took an enormous leap which managed to clear the entire roadway from where it was and a seven-foot embankment which was on the other side of the road and ultimately disappeared out of sight all in the same length of time. The way the creature leaped, the man would later state, was that it made itself perfectly straight in position and held its front claws forward. As the creature did this grand leap, the back legs were more noticeable and were even more surprising as the creature's lower legs "were only slightly larger than broomsticks or about the size of a walking cane and were very long." The woman in the passenger seat also felt that as the creature jumped, it was almost 9ft tall, as though the process of jumping increased its height or length. Later it would be estimated that the total length the creature jumped was an incredible forty feet.

The driver and his friend were just trying to figure out what they had just seen when something just as bizarre happened as they waited in the dark road. A large bird, possibly an owl, suddenly rushed at the passenger side window, almost hitting the glass. Then took off and did not return. The witnesses frightened by this flying feather friend were unsure whether this avian anomaly was an owl, but they thought it was bizarre that such an airborne anomaly would come from the exact area as where the creature was meandering.

On April 11, 2012, the driver would later get ahold of Pennsylvania Paranormal Researcher Stan Gordon, and he would retell his experience to him as best he could. Stan then was able to interview the woman of the 26^th, but even after those few months, the effects of their creature sighting lingered on as the man would tell Stan that the creature "scared the hell out of us" and "I will never forget that night." Stan would later ask the two what their thoughts on the creature were, and both had some rather unique if not conflictory ideas of what the creature was. The two were both in agreement that the creature appeared to of changed form somehow. The driver stated, "Its shape was nothing like when it squatted." The driver, after his sighting, went online to see if he could find anything that matched the creature they were seen, but he came up empty-handed when later asked by Stan what the closest thing it looked like was, he later stated that it looked more like a gargoyle without wings. Whereas his female counterpart reluctantly and conclusively went on to say, “It shaped into another form…I think it was a man turning into a werewolf”.

Thus ends the account of the Mud Creek Road Monster, a brief encounter that took no more than 12 seconds but instantly changed the lives of two young people. This account is interesting for so many reasons; first of all, there's nothing truly like it, its safe to say it's not a black bear with mange since bears don't have incredibly long broomstick thin back legs; bears also have five claws as opposed to the four the Mud Creek Road Monster allegedly had. Mangy cats, dogs, foxes, wolves, and coyotes have four claws but also do not reach the height or lengths of the creature reported. Compared to other cryptids that are said to be endemic to the area, like black panthers, Bigfoot, Flying Humanoids, and even Dogmen, none of them truly match the creature. Another interesting factor is unlike other cryptid cases, there’s a point of scale with how much of the road the creature took up, so measurement is easier as opposed to an ambiguous photo or a sighting in an open field. This sighting has reasonable places where measurements, as opposed to spitball guesses, can be applied.

This entity is perhaps one of the most bizarre I've come across in Pennsylvania's Fortean history since there's so much to unpack in such a short encounter. I guess the first thing to discuss is the possibilities of what this creature could be. I've already discussed why it couldn't be a mangy native animal, so I'll branch over into cryptid territory and discuss some of the similar creatures that vaguely resemble this creature. The first that comes to mind, of course, is the Dogmen. Dogmen sightings are becoming extremely common in Pennsylvania, and this creature was described as being rather wolf-like in the face; perhaps Dogmen like Bigfoot can get mange. There’s a famous PA bigfoot case of a bigfoot with a short mohawk and patches of hair on a practically hairless body that many, myself included, feel is a case of Bigfoot with mange. If this is possible with dogs, bears, and Bigfoot, perhaps Dogmen are just as plausible to be subject to getting it. My only problem with this is that Dogmen usually have eyes that naturally seem to glow or reflect light; the creature's eyes seem to be devoid of any light as though it was to quote Sam Loomis "The Blackest Eyes the Devil's Eyes." This entity also was described as having four claws which is something that is different from dogmen accounts. Dogmen are described as having five digits, and some of the track evidence also verifies this.

Another Cryptid possibility is a recent phenomenon known as crawlers. Crawlers are described as pale humanoids that have small heads, long spindly arms and legs, and long, overly extended fingers; they also are sometimes described as having red or black eyes. These entities are very close to what the Mud Creek Road Monster was described except for a few points. Crawlers are typically pale white in color or light gray and completely hairless. The Mud Creek Road Monster, on the other hand, is dark grey to almost black in color with very fine black hair, almost like one would expect to see on a peach. The Mud Creek Road Monster also had one less digit than what is typically described with Crawlers, who usually have five long razor-sharp or skeletal-like fingers. The Mud Creek Road Monster also has a wolf-like head that is larger in mass than most of its body which is something that is completely opposite of what the Crawler phenomenon seems to indicate.

From there, the possibilities seem to of hit a brick wall; there was an alleged creature that was said to of been killed by some boys in Panama that does have some similarities to the creature. This particular creature was known as the Cerro Azul Monster and was a popular mystery for some time; however, the Cerro Azul Monster was later revealed to not be a new undiscovered animal but simply the bloated remains of a sloth. Yet even if this was a cryptid animal, it would still not exactly match.

The next possibility, even though it seems too ridiculous to even think about, is that this creature is a Squonk. For those who have no idea what a Squonk is, a Squonk is a Fearsome Critter (a creature folktale created by lumberjacks to entertain, frighten, or pass the time) that is often described as a kind of pig-like creature completely ugly to look at. Its usually described as having the overall appearance of a pig with long spindly back legs, a warty, wrinkled body, slight hair that covers the body, and a pig-like face. The creature's appearance, however, is not its most known attribute legend says that when this creature is seen or captured, it reacts in a bizarre way due to the fact that the creature is very self-conscious it hates to be seen even by its own species and so when spotted by another living creature it will begin to cry. Now, this might seem unimpressive, but its body has a bizarre reaction to this natural behavior as the more the creature cries, the creature begins to dissolve. This can continue for a short span of time before ultimately turning into nothing but a pool of tears. Clearly, this has to be a folktale; there's nothing in nature that would benefit from such a behavior; an organism's sole purpose is to live its life and continue its line by reproducing; you cant have a species that dissolves when another of its kinds around there would be no offspring. However, if you remove the anomalous behavior of the Squonk, the Mud Creek Road Monster has an incredible likeness to it; the only difference is the size and supposed leaping ability, but the creature's ability to leap is not referenced in any books on fearsome critters so perhaps it can. Perhaps a pig-like face could have been mistaken for a wolf-like one; they both have a snout and large semi-pointed ears. I could see how it could be mistaken, and to me, more interesting is that perhaps the legend of the Squonk could be based on this creature. Even the creature's shyness could be accurate when the Mud Creek Road Monster was seen it didn't attack even though it clearly could have done some damage, but it seemed to be panicked or upset it even took a deep breath as though to calm itself this is similar to anxiety that we could attribute to Squonk behavior.

While I want this creature to be the thing that inspired the legend of the Squonk or that it is, in fact, the Squonk, I seriously doubt it, but it makes me double think putting the creature in the harsh Folklore file. With that said, there's another option that needs to be entertained that ventures out of the realm of Cryptozoology and into the paranormal. The female witness was adamant that what she saw was a human turning into a werewolf; perhaps she's right. Humans turning into werewolves have been around since the Greek Myth of King Lycaon, and every culture around the world has tales of such shapeshifters. We chalk this up to man's attempt to understand serial killers, animal attacks, the animal nature of humans, and wishful thinking, yet what if these accounts are legitimate claims of people who, through some supernatural means, have been able to change their skins and become snarling monsters. In this case, if this was what was seen, the creature seemed to be deliberately doing it and not forced to by some curse or some lunar cycle as depicted by classic werewolf movies. Even the witness had the feeling that the creature gave them a look as though it was caught with its claw in the proverbial cookie jar. Now with that said, the creature seems to be halfway through transformation if this is the case as it was clearly devoid of one of the most iconic features of the monster, the overly abundant hair growth. And this image of the creature then does seem similar to the uncomfortable Rick Baker transformation scene in American Werewolf in London when David is in his lover's apartment, just a less hairy version.

Other options for what this creature could be is the infamous Ultraterrestrial, a creature that appears to simply mess with humanity or feed on their fears, but this seems unlikely as the creature seemed more afraid of the witnesses than them of it. The creature could have been an interdimensional being and could have popped in from another dimension hence why when the witnesses saw it, the creature seemed to of been shape-shifting; it could also explain why the creature seemed so disturbed by their presence since perhaps on its homeworld it had never seen or experience humans before. Or perhaps on its homeworld, humans hunted these creatures for some reason or another. This creature could also be a faerie, yet I cannot think of any that would exactly match what this creature is said to be, but like the previous possibilities, I cannot rule it out.

In conclusion, the Mud Creek Road Monster is an enigma that is totally unique. Pennsylvania has had tons of encounters from Thunderbirds, Albatwitches, Black Panthers, Giant Snakes, Bigfoot, Dragons, What-Is-Its, and Aliens and none seem to match this creature. There were some reports of small hairless badger-like creatures, but they seem to be an altogether different breed of beast. I have no conceivable clue as to the origin or identity of this creature, and part of me would love some follow-up; perhaps some other motorist along Mud Creek Road encountered something similar or had an even closer encounter, yet there's no way of knowing for sure. Until the time being, if you're on Mud Creek Road, look all around, for you just might encounter a broomstick legged monstrosity that defies all logic.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal

Location: Mud Creek Road, Troy, Bradford County, Pennsylvania

Sighted: November 20, 2011

Works Cited:

Stan Gordon "Three Mysterious Creature Encounters Reported From Pennsylvania” Stan Gordon's Anomalies Zone. https://www.stangordon.info/wp/special-reports/three-mysterious-creature-encounters-reported-from-pennsylvania/. Accessed October 5, 2021.