Farmersville Green Man

 Farmersville Green Man

By Cole Herrold

Our planet, over the course of countless years, has been home to tons of bizarre anomalous beings. Many of these entities tend to fall in one category or another, but as one delves headfirst into the mire of monster encounters, we find that there are so many different creatures that are completely unique or heavily inspired or pulled straight from the works of horror and science fiction. One such creature that appeared on a Texas farm in 1913 seemed to be a cross between Kermit the Frog and Galwyn the wizard/mushroom from the 1986 Horror Fantasy film Troll. While this creature sounds adorable, it, unfortunately, suffered terribly due to its chance sighting. It, unfortunately, did not make it.

In Farmersville, Texas, three boys were chopping cotton on a farm in May 1913. The boys were alerted by the sound of barking coming from the family dogs and, after listening to the ruckus for some time, proceeded to investigate just what was upsetting the dogs. The boys saw the canine companions encircled near a section of the property continuing to bark at a structure on the property. The boys, curious just what about the structure was upsetting the animals, peered beyond the animals, and as they looked, they saw a bizarre green figure. The figure appeared to be like a little person, but the being turned out to be something so different from what would traditionally be associated with a person. The being was only about 18 inches tall and was dark green in color with rubbery skin. The creature was completely nude; however, attached to the top of its fleshy body was a kind of hat-like structure that was reminiscent of a sombrero that seemingly grew from the skull. The boys watched in both awe and horror as the creature further caught the attention of the dogs and watched as the carnivorous canines began to run towards the strange creature tearing into the rubber skin with their fangs and as the horrified boys watched as human-looking organs and red blood came pulled out of the now-deceased creature. Afterward, the animals backed away, and the dogs avoided the spot where the remains continued to lay rotting in the sun. The dogs behaved this way the rest of the day and seemed to be frightened by these strange remains. The next day when the boys returned to the spot again to see what was left of the creature found that the remains were gone, and at the spot where the creature died, there was not even a bloodstain. It was as if someone had come and cleaned up the location.

This encounter was held up as a kind of family secret as well as a tradition that would be passed down from generation to generation that is until, in 1978, one of the grandsons wrote to CUFOs about the encounter. Silbie Latham was one of the main witnesses to the being and the attack on it, and it was specifically his grandson who wrote about the encounter. The grandson wrote, "My grandfather has a most solid reputation for truth and honesty but has never told of this because of fear of ridicule…He has agreed to tell this only after much prompting and encouragement from me, his history-oriented grandson. He would take a polygraph or be hypnotized or whatever you need. There is no question in my mind that he is telling the truth.” following the letter, Latham was later interviewed by Larry Sessions of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History who would describe the grandfather as "a remarkable man" and commented on his story thusly "There's no doubt he believes it happened, but that doesn’t mean it did happen. Maybe he has an overactive imagination. Or maybe his brothers played a trick on him, and he’s sort of unconsciously embellished the story over the years”. One of the things Mr. Lesson asked Mr. Latham was that could the creature have been some sort of frog, but Mr. Latham vigorously rejected this hypothesis and stuck to his guns about the description of the creature.

Now while bizarre green-skinned beings are frequently common in Fortean encounters, be it Cryptozoology, Ufology, or in Faerie encounters, this kind of entity seemingly has never been reported again. Yet that does not imply that there are no answers as to the identity of the enigmatic entity. When one starts off skeptically, there are several ideas as to just what they could have witnessed. Obviously, the one that was most embraced by Mr. Lesson was that what the boys saw that day could have just been a very large bullfrog or something similar. I personally think that this is a little bit of a stretch since Frogs do not have any sort of head structure that one would compare to a sombrero. Now it would be more plausible for a kind of reptile if one was to take this route for species of reptiles like Iguanas or Basilisk Lizards, for if the crest slants over it might give the appearance of a hat like structure, but even still, these structures are extremely flat and fold-like, so if one was to point to them as a possibility there is still that problem of blowing the description way out of proportion as a folded over crest just does not give off the appearance of a sombrero.

Cryptozoologically speaking, there's never been an exact match to the Farmersville Green Man. My first thought would be to compare it to one of the known semiaquatic cryptids reported as these entities are humanoid in form and bright green in color. Yet the most obvious suspects such as The Loveland Frogmen, The Mill Race Monster, Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp, Breckinridge Fishman, Charles Mill Lake Monster, but none exactly match. There is one which could, with a stretch of the imagination, be the same or similar, and that is the New Kensington Green Thing. The New Kensington Case describes a bipedal creature green in color with a human-like form, but the reason I mention it as a possibility is that the New Kensington Case involves both a head crest and two large floppy ear-like structures that one could describe as sombrero-like. Now the problem, of course, with this is that again, if we take a literal look at the description, it still does not match up. The New Kensington Green Thing has a tail, and also, the ears and crest are not the same as a sombrero-like structure growing from the skull of the creature. This, however, does not discredit the Cryptid hypothesis as this species is clearly biological in nature since it has internal organs and blood. Perhaps this organism is an incredibly rare species that only was chronicled at least once, and chances are now it is probably extinct. Yet all of this is speculation, and on the counter side of the coin, there's a chance this is not a cryptid since with cryptids, there is a history of sightings such as with lake monsters, Bigfoot, Thunderbirds, etc. even though that could just mean these species have a higher population number or that they exist in more accessible areas to humans allowing sightings to be reported, but if this isn't the case then this is a completely one-off encounter and therefore something else instead of a cryptid.

The next most plausible explanation is that perhaps this is an extraterrestrial of some kind. This could explain the biological aspects of the creature and could also explain why such a creature could have been reported only once. There are several reports of small, diminutive green-skinned or suited beings such as the Hopkinsville Goblins, Space Penguins of Tuscumbia, and the six to eight fingered green men reported at several different cases but most famously in the 1947 Villa Santina encounter. So, perhaps this entity was a species similar to it but with some particular growth or tech that could explain the sombrero shape feature. However, the main problem with this encounter being an extraterrestrial one is that there is no craft seen in connection to the account. While there is the possibility that a UFO could have landed, and this was its occupant, one would think that there should have been others seen in the vicinity or in a more morbid thought that the craft would still be lying in some field waiting to be discovered as its driver no longer lived.

A note that I feel should be included deals with the possibility that this entity could be connected to a group of creatures occasionally reported in both the annals of Cryptozoology and Ufology. The shape of the sombrero like head is not too far off from a mushroom shape which could imply that while this creature's internal structure is fleshy and something akin to a human's, the fact that this being is green and relatively mushroom-like could indicate either some super camouflage or that it is some kind of animal-plant. In the pages of Ufology and Cryptozoology, there are many examples of creatures that blur the line from animal and plant. The most famous of which is the infamous Vegetable Man. The Vegetable Man was a creature assumed to be an extraterrestrial from West Virginia that drained the blood of a man through its long needle-like fingers after communicating with him in a high-pitched record-like voice. Another case also hailing from West Virginia, which was called the Veggie Man as a way to distinguish it from the Vegetable Man, was a semi-tall figure that was green stalk-like with a big round head and arms that extended into two curling tendril-like appendages. These beings, especially the Veggie Man, is not too far off from the Farmersville Green Man and raises the question that perhaps there are organisms either from our own planet or another that intentionally or due to the course of evolution evolved either some super camouflage that they developed as a way to capture prey or that they are the next step in plant evolution organisms that possibly gained both sentience and mobility. While all this is possible, there currently is no specific species of this variety known to science, so again it makes this possibility just speculation.

Another possibility that one can offer up is that this entity is a member of the Fae. This same idea can be pointed to for other plant humanoids and bipedal plant organisms such as the veggie Man, Vegetable Man, and Moss Man. In the domain of the Fae, there are several plant-like organisms that have been cataloged over the years. The most famous example of the plant Fae is the Green Man. The Green Man is a forest spirit that often appears as a humanoid made up of or covered in leaves and acts in many ways as a kind of guardian of the forests and the seasons, specifically that of Spring and Summer. These beings are reported and inducted into many cultures around the world, some of which have had no discernible communication or connection to each other. Another example of a plant-like fae is the Stray Sod. Stray Sod is a lump term for two kinds of phenomenon that behave identically; the first is plain old grass that becomes enchanted by the Fae and causes those who step on it to lose their way. The second variety is a kind of entity that camouflages itself with grass and hides on the ground waiting for someone to step on it so that person loses their way. These beings frequently are reported in Ireland, France, and the United Kingdom. Yet again, as with aliens and cryptids, there's no matching variety of Fae to the Farmersville encounter reported, at least that I am aware of. It is important to note, however, that mushrooms are very important to the Fae as circular patches of mushrooms are believed to be gateways to the Faerie Realm. These circles known as Fairy Rings are constantly reported or claimed to be major areas of Faerie encounters and other anomalous phenomena. Perhaps there might have been a fairy ring on the farm that nobody seemed to take note of, and then on this day, the gate was open, or the veil was dropped, and this being was able to enter our world or be physically seen by humans.

The final possibility is that this entity is an interdimensional being. Much like that of an extraterrestrial or a Faerie, there is this idea that this creature could have come from some other place as currently there is no known creature that evolved on our planet in the same way the Farmersville Green Man did. Now with that said, there is the possibility that this creature could have popped in from whatever original dimension it came from and, unfortunately, either intentionally or unintentionally picked the wrong place and time. Perhaps this could also explain what happened to the body. I had not mentioned the mystery of the body's disappearance as that could be rationalized by being taken away by predators or scavengers or that if it was an alien or a fae, they picked up the remains and took them home or if it was a more earth oriented fae it could have simply returned to the earth that bore it. However, in the same vein, if this creature was an interdimensional being, perhaps this popping in and out is of dimension deals with the structure of the cells, and so if something is even torn apart or spilled out, it will when whatever controls this ability or force take every piece back to where it came from. Of course, all of this is speculation.

Just what this creature is, I'm sure we will never get an answer to it. This being, however, is interesting as it raises the question of whether other creatures of the unknown potentially were killed, and due to an unthinking mind or the body not being found, evidence for their existence goes completely unaccounted. I think it's important that we stay vigilant not just to check the skies for UFOs, thunderbirds, and Mothmen and the surfaces of the lakes and rivers for aquatic humanoids and monsters but also the ground around us for who knows what might be buried below us or on the ground rotting around us.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Reptile, Amphibian, Mammal, /Faerie/Extraterrestrial/ Paranormal Entity/

Location: Farmersville, Texas

Sighted: May 1913

Works Cited:

Fairies: Real Life Encounters with the Little People By Janet Bord

The World's Strangest True Stories By The Editors of Fate

Alex Evans “Encounters with Little Men” FATE Magazine November 1978, pp. 83-85

“Farmersville Green Man” Obscurban Legends Wiki. https://obscurban-legend.fandom.com/wiki/Farmersville_Green_Man. Accessed February 13, 2022. 

Skysquatches

 Skysquatches

By Cole Herrold

For the skeptics, the existence of Bigfoot is already a tall order. The idea that a man-like creature roaming the wilds of America when zoological statistics states we've discovered every large animal in the world is something they already have a hard time swallowing yet reports come in year after year in ridiculous numbers and at least the idea of a Bigfoot is something that is at least similar to what we know exists. However, there is a subset of accounts that seem to totally jump off the map of even the hardest believer's sanity, and one such type is interconnected with the forest giant. If these encounters are to be believed, it would seem that a group of these wood apes somehow, over the course of evolution, developed the incredibly uncanny ability to fly.

The phenomenon I’ve come to dub Skysquatches are a peculiar case as most reports come from modern time with only a few predating the late 2010s. I first came across this relatively unknown phenomenon while researching Pennsylvania sightings in Albert Rosales’s masterpiece Humanoid Encounters Series and then later Lon Strickler would catalog several of the Lake Michigan Mothman sightings in his book Winged Cryptids under a headline Bigfoot with wings? that clearly do not match typical Mothman descriptions but seem to be more examples of the same kind of phenomenon.

The first case that we can arguably say fits into this category occurred in January 1976 in Hidalgo County, Texas, which involved Manuel Perales and his 12-year-old son Danny. The two took their old beat-up pick-up truck on a rather cool day towards the woods of a friend’s ranch in Northern Hidalgo County to go hunting for the day. The two left the safety of the truck, guns in hand, and began to head to a spot Manuel had scoped out earlier and had set up a deer stand. The father and son clamored up the metal steps to the heightened hideout and proceeded to sit still and quiet, waiting for potential quarry. All went well until suddenly they saw movement; the father instantly put his rifle's scope up to his eye, and he could tell that it was an incredibly large buck. Manuel being the caring father, proceeded in nudging his son to give him the go-ahead to shoot the first deer of the day. Danny lifted his rifle aimed at the animal and stared through the site, yet as he did so and as he could see the oblivious nature of the deer, he felt a twinge of compassion for the animal and realized he could not take the shot. He turned to his father, shaking his head, implying he could not take the shot all for his father to in an angry turn lifted his own rifle and proceeded to take the shot. However, fate seemed to be with the deer, for just as Manuel pulled the trigger, his rifle jammed, and the deer, seemingly now aware of the potential danger it was in, bolted. The father, irritated and concerned, turned over to his son and asked him, "Why couldn't you take the shot?". The boy sat in silence for a minute and, as he was turning to go answer him had the shock of his life. Manuel was grabbed by some large creature by the shoulders and slowly was lifted up above the ground. Manuel, still trying to figure out what was going on, began to struggle and try to shake himself free from the vicelike grip of some unknown assailant. The creature, which seemed to be a cross between a bat and a bigfoot, was flapping its wings and was attempting to lift the man away. The hunter had become the hunted. The boy, in a moment of bravery, knew what he had to do and proceeded to grab his rifle and took careful aim at the creature. He raised the rifle and set his scope for between the creature's eyes and, when he was sure his father was out of the way, took the shot. As the rifle recoiled, however, his barrel moved slightly and, instead of hitting the creature's brain cavity, only managed to blow out one of the creature's eyes instead. The creature howled in pain and instantly dropped the father and began to fly off into the woods screaming in pain. Danny rushed down to his father, who was lying on the ground, and made sure he was alright. Everything seemed fine except for some cracked ribs, and the two quickly yet cautiously made their way out of the woods and back into town.

In the Sumer of 1993, another account of a Skysquatch occurred near Baker's Point in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Not much is known about this encounter except the following "A witness saw a six foot Bigfoot-type creature near Baker's Point. As he watched the creature spread a huge pair of wings and took flight, quickly disappearing from sight". This account I found in Albert S. Rosales mandatory Fortean catalogs The Humanoid Encounters series and was the first case I came across of such a phenomenon. Rosales credits Lena Griffith of New Jersey MUFON for the sighting, but other than that, nothing else is known about the encounter.

Sightings of these types of creatures appear to be incredibly rare as there are, to my knowledge, no other sightings until the late 2010s, many of which get lumped into the Lake Michigan Mothman encounters; there is specifically one account, in particular, that seems to be a part of this phenomenon. It is important to note, however, that the term Batsquatch which was utilized from the Monsters and Mysteries in America series where the first account comes from, lumps the cryptid Big Bird as one of these types of creatures, and most accounts mentioned in the show are of that variety. The inclusion of Big Bird as this type of creature is not the only erroneous thing the show did on this particular episode as even the name of Batsquatch is an already taken name for a Cryptid reported in Washington State that was described as having bluish fur, the head of a dog or wolf, and human-like hands or feet hence why I to make more of a distinction from this entirely lumped phenomena coined this particular subset Skysquatches to remove any potential confusion with already established creatures.

The final encounter with a creature that can be dubbed as a Skysquatch comes from Woodstock, Illinois, and occurred on February 22, 2019. A witness who is only known as TM, was driving home at 8pm in the evening from a trip to Walgreens. He turned onto Country Club Road, which was near the DuField Pond Conservation Area; as he was driving along, he noticed that something was crossing from the Conversation Area and was about to enter the road. Thinking initially it was going to be a deer, he proceeded to slow down and watched as the dark form began to make its way across the road. To his absolute shock, however, what crossed the road some 30ft in front of him was something entirely different than what should be reported in Illinois. It was in that moment he thought he was staring at something that clearly shouldn't exist; his first thought was that the creature working its way across the road was none other than the classic cryptozoological creature known as Sasquatch, but as the creature took up 1/3^rd of the road he noticed that attached to the back of the creature were some bizarre extensions that upon seeing this had him totally rethink his assessment. The creature, while covered in hair, also had extremely large protrusions coming from its back that he could tell were gargoyle-like wings. The body of the creature was covered with hair with well-defined arms and legs and was about 8-9ft tall and the wings attached to this hairy form were membranous and extended over the top of the head. He could make out incredible details from his headlights but surprisingly could not make out the face of the creature. Once the creature crossed the road and disappeared into the darkness, TM proceeded to tell his wife about the case. His wife had him draw the creature, and she the next day went out to the frozen area to look for tracks. She found tons of boot prints and a few tracks that she couldn't readily identify. The wife later proceeded in emailing Lon Strickler of Phantoms and Monsters about her husband's sighting, and Lon did a follow-up interview, and so to did Tobias Wayland and Emily Wayland of Singular Fortean, who would later also do a follow-up. A side note to this encounter is that there are three other winged humanoid reports from the area which Strickler connects to this encounter.

Area where the sighting of the 2019 Skysquatch Sighting occurred

This final account reels in the cases of winged humanoids that seem to be Skysquatches, and to my knowledge, no other sightings have been reported. It's interesting to think that the Bigfoot phenomenon has now dipped its toes into almost every facet of the paranormal. In the 70s, there were waves of UFO-Bigfoot reports, Disappearing Bigfoot, the Demonic/Psychic Bigfoot, in the 90s, and 2000s there were the spawn of the Interdimensional Bigfoot, the Cloaking Bigfoot, the Multidimensional Bigfoot, and now we have the Flying Humanoid Bigfoot its almost as though the paranormal is such a fan of the hairy hominid that it has to include it in every project it creates. Now while I make it sound as though the paranormal is some cosmic entity that seems intent to unleash horrors and confusion across America however perhaps this form is simply ideal for some yet unknown reason for a variety of this phenomenon to exist even though none of the cases are legitimately connected.

While there are countless cases of Paranormal Sasquatchery, this type of creature is not necessarily something supernatural but biological. There are several species said to exist around the world of primate-like flying creatures; however, most of these are incredibly small. One of the creatures reported in America is the Napa Rebobs, a group of flying monkeys that are said to attack anyone bold enough to enter their dark domain on Partrick Road. In Indonesia, an almost identical creature is reported known as the Orang Bati; these creatures are extremely dangerous and have been claimed to abduct and eat children. Now the big difference between these creatures and the Skysquatches is the fact that these creatures are incredibly small compared to the colossal giants seen in Illinois, Allentown, and Hidalgo County. So, unless these entities are juveniles that are left in regional nests before growing up and taking flight to other portions of the world, they seem to be entirely different creatures.

Yet even if the relation to the Rebobs or Orang Bati was solid, it still does not explain the Skysquatches biology. The Skysquatches back wings evolutionarily should not exist in nature. The only organisms with back wings are insects, bats, and birds; on the other hand, they evolved the ability of flight by modifying their hand phalanges and arms to become wings. This should be how these creatures look but having the wings on the back throws a monkey wrench into any known evolutionary line. This implies that we truly do not know every evolutionary outcome and line or that these creatures are not from this world.

One theory that many current researchers seem to advocate is all winged humanoid encounters are entities that are from another dimension or from the Superspectrum, the location where the Ultraterrestrials are said to reside. The multidimensional aspect, to me, would be the more plausible of the two, for there is the chance that these creatures evolved naturally on some different dimension, yet both options are still on the table. Another theory that can be thrown out with these hypotheses is the infernal origin of Sasquatch. Some evangelists claim that the Sasquatches are the sons of the Nephilim or the Nephilim themselves; if this is the case, the wings would be a suitable addition to a creature that at one point was said to be angelic. I do not think this is to be the case; however, it is worth noting that the witness who sighted the creature in 2019 did mention the Nephilim when describing his encounter.

These encounters are flabbergasting and seem to be very difficult to put into an already established box. These accounts are also difficult because there are very few, and most are extremely brief, and the details are almost always fuzzy as to behavior, so it's difficult to even glean as to whether these creatures are ostensibly cryptozoological entities or paranormal ones. For now, until more data can be gathered on these winged weirdos, all we can do is collect whatever accounts might be floating around and hope that any future encounters with these creatures are less aggressive than the one from 76'.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal

Location: Northern Hidalgo County, Texas, Baker’s Point, Allentown, Pennsylvania, Woodstock, Illinois

Sighted: January 1976, Summer 1993, February 22, 2019

Works Cited:

Humanoid Encounters 1990-1994 By Albert S. Rosales

Winged Cryptids: Humanoids, Monsters, and Anomalous Creatures Casebook By Lon Strickler

Monsters and Mysteries in America Season 2, Episode 8 "Winged Beasts: Flying Humanoid, Jersey Devil, Batsquatch." Destination America. 2014.