London Flood Troll

 London Flood Troll

By Cole Herrold

In February of 2014, London was starting to prepare itself for the oncoming deluge from Storm Ruth. During this time, the city was hit with a massive onslaught of rainclouds that, on several occasions, seemed to overtake the city. On one of these days, the rain hit hard and resulted in excessive flooding in London as well as the rest of the Southern portion of the country. During this time, many people were active in preparing not to be dislocated during the storm. Apparently, all were not so lucky as a 25-year-old student would find as the storm seemed to of not only affected the people in the area but at least one Fortean beast that had made itself seen during the deluge.

An unnamed 25-year-old student was visiting his parents in a rural area and assumedly was helping in any way to stop any damage to his parent's property or simply to make sure that they were safe and prepared for the incoming storm. He had initially planned to stay with them for a little bit but realizing the possibility of the trains to London being stopped due to the weather decided against it and upon finishing his visit with his parents. Proceeded to head towards the train station to book a train to get back to his home in London. This trip home was a long one, and during the ride, he proceeded to fall asleep several times; and on one occasion of waking from deep sleep, he happened to look out the window and had an almost Twilight Zone-esque surprise that would shock him for the rest of his life. It was getting dark out, and as he began to gather his bearings from waking up once more from a restful nap, he, upon looking out the window to his left, saw a strange dark figure running next to the train at a rather close distance. He at first thought that this figure was a person, but as he stared at the strange runner in the flooded landscape that the train slowly trudged through, he soon realized that this was not the case. As the figure came exceptionally close to the train, he was able to note that the being was an astounding 9-10ft tall and that it was running in a strange erratic fashion, not like how a person normally would. He also noted that the figure was exceedingly large and notably "fat" in form, and the man noticed that the water from the flood barely touched the being’s knees. This, however, was not the strangest part of the creature's appearance; as the man peered closer at the figure, he could see that the creature bore no clothes but was covered in long shaggy hair all over its body with the exception of its face and chest. As he stared at the figure's head, he noted that its eyes reminded him of a gorillas, but this would be the end of any similarity to a primate as the creature also bore two short white horns and had large and long wolf ears. As he stared at this anomalous apparition, he had wondered whether he actually was awake and whether this whole scenario was not some dream within a dream. Yet as he looked over to his fellow passengers, he noted that others had seemingly noted the strange being yet were hesitant to openly draw attention to the being running alongside the train. Even if those who did see the creature spoke up, however, it would be for naught as there was barely anyone on the train, and so it was a secret they all must share.

The 25-year-old witness would, during the event, talk to two other witnesses who were in the same car, a young boy and his mother, but just what they discussed went unreported. As they sat, however, the train started to speed up, and they could tell that this new acceleration was too fast for the creature to keep up with, and so he watched as the creature was left behind to waddle in the flooded mire. When asked about his encounter further and asked why there were no photos, the witness said the following “No, I wasn’t dreaming, mate. I also know what a bear looks like, and it looked more like a troll. Remember, from the Lord of the Rings?...” Well mate, I was quite surprised, like I said. You just don’t have got any time to reach your phone and take a picture. Things happen fast, that’s what people don’t get. So, unless you are a trained journalist or similar…and you are expecting something to happen, you’ve got nothing,… “Friends and other people say it’s rubbish, but I know what I saw,”.

As far as this case goes, this is all we have. None of the others on the train seemed to of come forward with their sighting. There were no photos or any other follow up outside of the initial report, which the anonymous witness had that was later uploaded onto Cryptozoology News. Yet the encounter at least has enough information for us to attempt to break down his sighting. Obviously, starting off skeptically, it could be possible that this was some internet hoax. This is fairly common with creature reports of all kinds, and we see more of this now arguably than ever before. Another reason one might point to the hoax angle is even the description of the creature. The witness said that the creature reminded him of a troll and that it specifically would be reminiscent of one from the Lord of the Rings. Now clearly, as a Tolkien fan, I would at first venture and say that this depiction makes no sense as being compared to trolls or any of really the other creatures in Tolkien's World. The Trolls in the book are more or less giant humanoid creatures that, much like the folklore they’re based on, turn to stone when in contact with sunlight. Other than that, there's not much of an official description, yet early artwork in Tolkien books tends to show them as giant human-like creatures with sharp facial features. In the Peter Jackson films, trolls are hairless, colossal, and have unique, almost pug-like faces. This is very different from the gorilla-furred horned creature reported, and while this could lend credence to an actual sighting, I offer this other option the witness might have gotten the wrong Tolkien creature to describe it as. In the animated sequel to both Rankin Bass's The Hobbit and Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings, Rankin Bass once more returned to the helm and directed The Return of the King. In this animated classic, as well as the original Rankin Bass Hobbit, even though the presence of them is not as prevalent in that one, there are creatures that bear a strong resemblance to the creature seen by the witness; these are the Orcs and Goblins. In the film, they had large bulky gorilla-like forms, they were incredibly fast, they had no hair on their faces with some exception on the top and sides of their heads, and also they had large protruding horns. The only major difference between these creatures and the troll reported in this case is the excessive amount of hair reported, which could have been an extra detail placed to remove the overall fantasy appearance of the creature that it could have been based on.

Top image Orcs From the 1980 Rankin Bass Return of the King

Bottom Image Goblins From the 1977 Rankin Bass The Hobbit

Now while I've really gotten into how this case is possibly a hoax inspired by the classic film adaptations of Tolkien’s work, there is always the chance that what was actually reported in the account did occur. If this is to be the case and not the ramblings of an animated Tolkien fan, then what are we to make of this account. My first thought would be that this creature would be a cryptid as the timing of the sighting and the storm would seem to indicate that this creature might have been displaced by the storm or that the overall storm would increase the creature's activity as it searches for food. Horned sasquatch-type creatures, which would be the closest type of creature that would match the entity reported, do occur, yet oftentimes they are lumped in or misinterpreted as other cryptids. One of the most famous horned cryptids I covered, which gets lumped into the bigfoot category, for example, is the Wood Eating Amish Country Goose Grabber, which is more of a horned Were-lion as opposed to a bigfoot. Yet let's say for argument sake that Sasquatch can get the same or a similar disease as the Shope papilloma virus (SPV). This disease creates growths that one could compare to as horns and is primarily found in certain types of rabbits, and is most likely the inspiration for the lore of Jackalopes. Now we do know that Bigfoot-type creatures are reported in England; there have been several interesting cases and findings primarily in the area of Cannock Chase, so perhaps if SPV is applicable to other species in the same way that Rabies is, then its possible that reports of Goatmen and other horned humanoid cryptids could be examples of bigfoot with SPV. Yet, of course, this is also speculation.

Another possibility in the Cryptid department is that this could be an example of a Goatman with mange or old age. Now Goatmen are a highly debated cryptid, and the phenomena, in general, sits at the tri corners of both the cryptid, Faerie, and Demon categories as there are reports that are reminiscent of each different category. Now when one looks at how a witness describes any phenomenon, it is always important to remember that the witness is putting their encounter together in their words the best way they can, and that does not always mean that what they are describing is 100% accurate hence why we have some issues with descriptions with even famous cases like the Flatwoods Monster where multiple witnesses described the creature as mechanical whereas others felt it was a completely flesh and blood being. So perhaps, in this case, the witness humanized the creature more than it actually was, or perhaps the creature was seemingly more primate-like or human-like, but that this was caused by a disease like mange. This could explain the ultimate lack of hair on the face or chest and the bizarre behavior of chasing a train. Now granted, if that's the case, then this would be the first case, at least to my knowledge, of a Goatman with mange as unlike Sasquatch, where we do have reports with mange, there has never been a Goatman one, so if that's accurate, this is a revolutionary report in the annals of Goatman research.

Now other options for this creature are seemingly lessened as opposed to other cases as this does appear to be a very physical creature, at least from the description. If this is the case, one could always entertain extraterrestrial, but this case does not have a UFO, or any other element that one could point to that would indicate that this entity comes from off-world. There is no history, at least to my current knowledge, of this entity or a similar one being reported with UFO or alien cases, so it's safe to say it does not match that category. I would argue the same for some sort of paranormal entity in the way of a demon or ghost; the fact that this being seemed physical and that it interacted with its environment in a very tangible way does not seem to imply something supernatural in the way that we associate ghosts or spirits with.

With that said, though, there are some other options; the first and, to me, most important is the Faerie category. Now I’ve covered the Fae extensively in other articles, and they are something that constantly keeps coming up with these stranger cases hence why I feel its an option we as researchers need to focus more on but let's say that the witness was not using the word troll as semantics but that the witness either had some insight or knowledge that what he was seeing was from beyond the hidden veil. Now I've covered countless Troll cases from all over the world, and I will say this entity has many features reported in other troll cases, but the horns are new. Trolls typically are described as humanoids of varying sizes and shapes, and they are excessively hairy and are connected to people of a certain pagan origin or the landscapes they are connected with. They have many abilities that involve growth, weather-controlling, disappearing, and that is simply from what has been reported over the years with other cases. Now, as stated, I’ve over the years only found one official case of a Troll with horns, and that involved, interestingly enough, another case where the creature was seen in water, this time in America. So perhaps River or water trolls have this feature; yet again, I will say I have never come across any reference to this outside of modern artwork of Trolls from individuals like Brian Froud or other artists.

Another possibility is that this creature could be from another dimension, Ultraterrestrial or tulpa, as they are sort of the answers which function as the ultimate answer for how any phenomenon could occur. Now, needless to say, there are problems with all of these topics, especially since they are also the most difficult to gather evidence or data of. Also, of them all, the only one that would make sense would be an interdimensional being since on another world or plane of existence, there are countless evolutionary possibilities that are out there, and therefore, it is almost impossible to claim that at least in one of these worlds that one did not create a creature like this. If this is an Ultraterrestrial, it really did not seem to do what the traditional Ultraterrestrial is known for, as the entity did not exactly attempt to generate fear in a more aggressive manner or attempt to confuse or make the witness out to be ridiculous in some insane scenario as how some felt Woodrow Derenberger was made out to in his encounters with Indrid Cold. It just seems that this encounter is purely random and bears no true significance, and that, of course, would be if this entity is an Ultraterrestrial.

This case is interesting on multiple levels, both in not only the analysis of witness testimony but also in general data regarding other Fortean phenomena. Just what this entity is and whether this is a true case or not is obviously debatable. I tend to lean more towards the skeptical on this case simply due to just how the creature was described and the mention and focus of Tolkien in the original testimony, yet that does not obviously mean it's a hoax by any means. The world we live in is stranger than fiction, and so it's very possible that this witness had access to a once-in-a-lifetime experience with the unknown yet just what that being might have been is truly anyone’s speculation.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal. Faerie, Paranormal Entity

Location: Outside London, England

Sighted: February 2014

Works Cited:

Humanoid Encounters 2010-2015 By Albert S. Rosales

“British student comes forward with close-range account of troll-like creature chasing train” Altered Dimension. February 12, 2014. https://www.altereddimensions.net/2014/british-student-reports-troll-creature-chasing-train. Accessed March 22, 2022.

"The Troll of London" UFOlogy and More. April 7, 2014. https://ufohotspot.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-troll-of-london.html. Accessed May 24, 2022.

"Troll Runs After Train in Flooded London" Before Its News. February 13, 2014. https://beforeitsnews.com/paranormal/2014/02/troll-runs-after-train-in-flooded-england-2464210.html. Accessed May 24, 2022.

“Troll Runs Train Flooded England” Cryptozoology News. February 2014. http://cryptozoologynews.com/troll-runs-train-flooded-england/. Accessed March 22, 2022.

“Strange creatures that people report seeing.”. MissionQuest. February 12, 2014. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/missionquestfpb/strange-creatures-that-people-report-seeing-t1176-s220.html. Accessed March 22, 2022. 

The Toven Troll

 The Toven Troll

By Cole Herrold

It should be no surprise by now that I'm a huge film buff, and one of my favorite films ever made was a Norwegian film about the existence of Trolls. The film called Troll Hunter mixed both Cryptozoology and Faerie folklore in a perfect creature feature film that hypothesizes on how these creatures could exist in a particular environment system and, more importantly, how they've "evaded" detection by the majority of the public. Ever since I watched the movie sometime in the early 2010s, I began to study potentially real encounters with trolls. Trolls are from a folkloric standpoint, a muddied term the word Troll initially in the original term of the word simply meant any kind of malevolent magical being, and in classic old Norse, there are two variations of the spelling, each meaning widely different terms; however, there was always one connection, and that was whatever was described with the term was defined as being malevolent. It wasn't until 1852 that folklorist Jon Arnason would go and taxonomically sort out all of the different creatures in Scandinavian folklore and determine what creatures typically would fit that category. This is where we get the concept that Trolls are hairy humanoids, often with hunched backs and long protruding noses. These creatures also sometimes were described as bearing long ox or cow-like tails and had a great repulsion to sunlight and churches. This category then was broken down into several different species of trolls such as Forest Trolls, River Trolls, Mountain Trolls, etc., with each one slightly different in description, behavior, and size.

Now with all that said, finding authentic Troll sightings is rather difficult as many tales involving the creatures revolve around parables or mythology and are heavily associated with bardic tales. I've managed over time to come across several, however ostensibly real Troll encounters, three of which I've already covered: The Staffordshire Trolls of Slitting Mill, The Friendly Troll of Oslo, and The Trolls of Sorenson's Wood and while doing research for another project I came across another account. This account originally appeared in the November 12, 1937, issue of the Norwegian newspaper the Nordlands Avis and describes an encounter that occurred in Toven in Nordland County, Norway.

The encounter began when two boys from Leira were searching for stray sheep for sheep breeding on the high hills and steep cliffs of a Norwegian mountain. The two boys were exceptionally tired, for they were walking all day and had managed to get all the way over to the other side of the mountain and were now returning home since it was getting dark. The pair was approaching Toven when they suddenly noticed a large creature down in a scree (a mass of small loose stones that form or cover a slope on a mountain) not too far from them. At first, the boys were unsure of what the creature was, but as they came closer and closer to where the figure was, they could tell that it was not an animal that they were familiar with but instead something that seemed to of stepped out of folklore. The two boys saw a creature that to them resembled both a troll and man, and they noticed that the peculiar beast was staring at them from its rocky stoop. The pair, while fairly certain that this was not a human, felt that they had to be 100% certain, and so the pair began to shout at the creature to see whether the creature was human or not. The creature seemingly did not understand or was unable to answer the inquiries; the boys hollered down to it and gave no reply. One of the boys had a shotgun with him assumedly for protection in the frigid and potentially hazardous environment, which was the mountain they were on, and they shouted once again at the creature and threatened to shoot the being, but again the boys received no answer. The boy then fired a warning shot over the head of the creature, and the creature seeing the potential danger it was in, started to sprint down through the boulders. As the creature continued to clamor down the rocky outcroppings, the entity made loud noises as it ran out of sight down the mountains. The boys terrified by the creature they had just witnessed ran home as fast as they could and would never see anything similar to the creature for the rest of their days.

While this encounter is exceptionally brief and less extravagant than the other Troll cases I covered, it is very interesting. For one thing, this encounter is the first time I've come across a creature described as a cross between a troll and a human outside of folklore. Troll human hybrids have been written about for some time, but oftentimes they are seemingly at least from the stories that are written about them indistinguishable from either Trolls or humans depending on appearance, but most tend to be more troll-like. It's also particularly interesting because Trolls typically are described as overly large or small humanoids, just extraordinarily hairy ones, so it's a rather odd description when one tries to decipher what was more human or more troll-like about it or even what the boys meant by including the term troll to describe the creature. As stated previously, trolls were placed in an accepted taxonomy in 1852, and this encounter took place some 85 years later, so the idea of what a troll essentially is should be ingrained in the cultural zeitgeist of the time. Some for me, this is both particularly interesting and particularly confusing.

While I mention that this is a Troll encounter, there is also another possibility as this creature could be something other than a fae. This creature, based on its description and the added human element to it, could be a child’s way of describing a Bigfoot-like creature. A similar creature from Denmark, another country in Scandinavia that some scholars feel to be such a creature, has been cataloged by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe in their book The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates. This book's first European reference is of the fictional monster Grendel from the epic poem Beowulf which Coleman and Huyghe, and other researchers see as a potentially undiscovered hairy hominid and that the tale of Beowulf. These researchers feel that the story of Beowulf could be based on several actual events that were dramatized and that the encounter with Grendel, in particular, was a potentially real interaction with an unknown species. In the epic poem, Grendel is described as a descendent of Cain, the first murderer according to the Bible. While an official description of what Grendel looks like in the poem is not stated, the poem does state that Grendel was "a creature of darkness, exiled from happiness and accursed of God, the destroyer and devourer of our humankind." And while I would love to delve more into the Anglo-Saxon epic and the various in-depth alternative interpretations of the tale from Tolkien to Zemeckis, it is important to note for simplistic sake that many folklorists and scholars, as well as artists, tend to draw and depict Grendel as a large-eared hairy humanoid typically of gigantic stature. Now, if this is to be the case, could it be that the creature seen in Toven could be the Norwegian Sasquatch.

Now the Troll/sasquatch hypothesis I've never been a huge fan of for most Troll encounters typically have some sort of supernatural element to them such as incredible growth like in the Sorenson's Wood Trolls case or Weather control in the Friendly Troll of Oslo case or weird time loss like in the Staffordshire Trolls of Slitting Mill case. This tends to be the majority of reports, unlike the Sasquatch, where the supernatural element is in the minority. This case, however, does seem to smack of something more biological as the way the creature behaved one could associate its reaction with an animal or something that knew it was reasonably in danger. Something that seemingly supernatural would not care about.

While I can only speculate as to whether this creature could be a cryptid or fae, a lot of the issues with this account is that there was no follow-up. The account was so short, and that there were no quotes from the witnesses makes any sort of truly in-depth analysis of the encounter incredibly difficult. For someone who is deeply interested in the fae and cryptid encounters, it is extremely frustrating as upon reading this encounter, I'm left with hundreds of questions with no real hope of a follow up as the case which now is almost 84 years old, and the chances that the witnesses are still alive are unlikely, and of course, the language barrier would be an additional problem. I managed to find the initial article, and I had attempted to translate it, but even then, I only managed to loosely translate it, and there was barely any additional information from the article. So this case, it would appear, is simply going to have to remain a brief mystery which is unfortunate, to say the least, but as with most cases, that is the nature of the beast.

The original text of the article from the November 12, 1937, Nordlands Avis.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Hominid/Faerie

Location: Toven, Nordland County, Norway

Sighted: November 1937

Works Cited:

“Troll på Toven!” Nordlands Avis November 12, 1937

Humanoid Encounters: The Others Amongst Us: 1930-1949 By Albert S. Rosales

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

Beowulf By Anonymous

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

 

The Friendly Troll of Oslo

 The Friendly Troll of Oslo

By Cole Herrold

I had purchased the book Trolls: An Unnatural History some time ago when I was really starting to expand my collection of Fortean books, and upon the initial read of it, I discovered that it was more focused on the folklore and cultural importance of trolls and less on ostensibly real accounts. However, when looking at the introduction, there is one alleged encounter that the friend of the author had sometime either before or in the 1970s. This encounter is unique for several reasons for one, it is not typically what one thinks of when describing a troll in terms of behavior, and two, because of the general size of the creature, which is outstanding.

John’s friend and the witness of this encounter was waiting for the last tram in Oslo on a rainy September night. The wind was howling ferociously, and the rain beat down on her soaking her to the bones. She was a foreign exchange student attempting to gain citizenship and had just come back from an exceptionally fun and enjoyable evening in town as she had dinner with some of her newfound friends. How distant the warmth of that dinner was as she waited for the glowing light of the scheduled tram. She began out of boredom to look out into the surrounding Norwegian forests, which loomed around her like great pillars of green. As she looked at the bucolic beauty that encompassed her, she noticed that there was something looming above some of the trees, and it seemed to be moving. As she peered into the darkness, she saw what she could only describe as a Troll. It was covered in shaggy hair and seemed to not be wearing clothes, but it was too dark for her to be certain. The creature had very little neck and seemed to rely on the weight of its massive head on its shoulders. She could not take her eyes off the colossal creature and certainly was terrified by the prospects of what this creature could do. Trolls typically from legends she knew were not something to encounter on a dark and stormy night. The creature was a few hundred meters away, and it seemed to notice her. She, however, was unable to move and felt compelled to watch this bulging behemoth, but as she watched, she noticed that it seemed to do something that some could only call out of character as the creature began to bow its head almost in recognition and proceeded to lift its massive left hand out of the thick canopy and wave slowly at the petrified girl.

As the creature began to do this, something incredibly bizarre began to happen; the wind seemed to die down to nothing as though the creature's hand controlled the wind in some unknown way. She continued to watch the creature as the creature seemingly continued its waving, and the pair continued this bizarre yet slightly pleasant interaction for three minutes. At the end of the three minutes, she could see that the tram was starting to come to the stop, and almost as if the Troll wished to not be seen by others, it vanished. As soon as the Troll was gone from her sight, the winds returned, and the rain continued to pelt down. The rest of her trip after she boarded the tram was uneventful, but she could not get the hairy giant out of her head, and as soon as she got home, she opened her diary and wrote in Norwegian, "experienced a troll while I was waiting for the tram."

The following day she ran into her friends and, knowing they were natives, began to tell them of the experience that she had. Her friends listened to her story and did not try to dissuade her story but seemed to believe her story outright. John Lidow, when he asked her about it, did report that she said that if it wasn't a troll, it could have been a tree.

John would later offer up a hypothesis as to why she saw what she saw. This hypothesis originates from folklorist Lauri Honko and is a lump explanation as to why supernatural encounters occur in some locations. Her outlying theory details with cognition "a person who is under some kind of stress or in a state of conflict or a conductive psychophysical condition (induced, for example, by fatigue or consumption of alcohol) and operating within a certain frame of reference, is confronted with an incomplete 'releasing' stimulus, usually involving only one sense. Using traditional means of cognition, the person complements the stimulus- creates, as it were, complementing stimuli – and experiences a vision". In layman's terms, basically, people can experience phenomena when they are under extreme exhaustion, stress, psychological problems, alcohol, or other stimuli, and that this in certain locations known or associated with some phenomenon such as graveyards could make people see a ghost or in this case a Norwegian forest a troll. He points out because of his friend's stressful transition to Norwegian citizenship, a few beers she had at dinner added to the dark rainy night caused her to visualize a troll. Lidow points that this encounter was primarily a visual phantasm and that the lack of wind can be attributed to her seeing something unknown and that the wind actually had not increased or decreased. The illusion thereafter was broken was by the light of the tram, revealing that it was a trick of the mind.

I have so much beef with this explanation, even though I'm certain this does occur on occasion. As someone who has partaken far beyond my limit on many a night, I can say that the hallucination aspect does not happen as often as researchers would have it. Most of these banters are usually spawned by some stress-oriented reason, and I've never encountered Trolls in the kitchen or gremlins on the lawn or some other paranormal entity in connection to it. So, bah humbug to the hypothesis on those grounds, I also think the fact that she had a fairly decent length of time with her sighting that she could clearly point that this was something physical and not just a trick of the light or a phantasm of the mind. As even she said, it could have been a tree, and the theory he suggests is something more mental than tangible, so even just based on her account, I sincerely don't believe this to be the case. Now with that said, there is always the tree angle, but something about this does not seem to be a tree.

The biggest element that the tree hypothesis seems to be missing is the fact that the branch would have had to of been raised to give the appearance of a hand coming up and waving. Even if it was some deciduous tree, it would have had to of lost its leaves to give the appearance of a hand or had enough foliage on it to give it some sense of mass that it wasn't just the skeletal hand like branches that would ultimately be the only thing the tree would appear like. On top of that, the witness noticed that the hand seemed to appear after the creature began to bob its head, so if it was a tree, it would have had to have its branches hidden behind another one and was only noticed later for some reason. Then there's the fact that the creature seemed to disappear once the tram approached; if it was a tree, it should have remained in the same spot giving her a point of reference for her encounter. When you really look at it, this hypothesis does not exactly work either for all of those reasons, especially since I am assuming she would have taken the tram in the area many times before and therefore should be familiar with the area that the landscape should be normally discernible.

So with that said and all the skeptical answers, while not impossible but unlikely, where does that leave us. Well, I think it's best to ascertain some direction of possible hypotheses its best to take some notes of what occurred In the encounter. The first thing I think we should take note on this if this is a creature, its approximate size based on the types of trees around it. Now the most interesting aspect of this is the colossal appearance of this creature; the largest tree recorded in Norway in 2020 was The Grand Fir Tree at about 167 feet tall, and the country is known for its silver birch, Scots pine, downy birch, Norway spruce. Scots Pines can reach heights of about 40-60 ft, Silver Birch can reach about 49-82 ft, Norway Spruce can reach 40-60 ft, and Downy Birch can reach 33-66ft tall, so even assuming that the creature was slightly taller than the smallest mature height of these common tree species it still would be a staggering 40-55 ft tall at least. From a cryptozoological standpoint, there's almost no way that this could be a biological creature; it would have been discovered already. A land-dwelling creature assumedly a mammal since it has hair about, let's say, 45-50ft tall is almost impossible to of existed this long without documentation or capture. This is not a Bigfoot where the largest is like 12 ft tall; even though there are occasionally tales of 20fters, this creature is 5 times the size of the typical Bigfoot (about 8ft) it should have been found. This is highly as likely if you look at the biological necessities of animals, such as the 50-500 rule where a species needs a population of 50 to stop inbreeding and 500 to reduce genetic drift, and if you had 500 of these creatures near Oslo, we should have reports almost daily, or some impact in the local fauna since these creatures clearly need a large caloric intake.

Now there's another element of the encounter aside from the size, which, as stated clearly, cannot be from a biological land animal. When you look at this case, it seems to be clear when the creature seemingly has the ability to control the forces of nature. When the Troll waved, and the winds and rain seemed to slow and almost subside, this seems to be more indicative of what traditionally these creatures are associated with. Trolls in folklore are often associated with the environment, and tales of more civilized trolls did not start occurring until the 1500-1600s; before that, they were forces of nature creatures that seemingly were carved from the woods, oceans, and mountains. Now with that said, there are very few paranormal entities with these kinds of abilities. We can eliminate extraterrestrials as there's no UFO, nor has there ever been, at least to my knowledge, a 40-50ft tall Alien. Cryptids, as stated, are unlikely since, unlike lake monsters, sea serpents which could reach that length, or hairy hominids, the Troll of this size is biologically almost impossible, whereas other cases such as the Staffordshire Trolls of Slitting Mill could be a cryptid. This leads in reality only a few answers, the first being an interdimensional being that these creatures pop in and out of our dimension and could have some abilities that could explain its anomalous abilities, which may be perfectly natural in its world. In some ways, this could explain most faerie lore as faerie land is a place that does not exist on our plane it seems and seems to only be accessible at certain times or by these entities; this could be that these entities are aware of doors or portals to other dimensions and happen to just come over to our dimension for some reason or another.

The end possibility is that this creature is a faerie. I had already briefly discussed the idea that faeries are interdimensional beings entities that pop in and out of their dimension to ours but canonically, that is not what faeries are supposed to be, and faerie land is a side piece of lore to a much larger mystery. Faeries are ofttimes especially in Scandinavian folklore linked to the environment we see something similar in Ireland, and the United Kingdom as faeries are connected to specific mountains, moors, bodies of waters, there are noticeably different kinds of faeries like with water sources there’s the Kelpie of Ireland, or the Nokken or Fossegrimen of Scandinavia, but Trolls at their core have always been connected with deep woodlands and mountains so following this logic the sighting is almost perfect. From this, we can see faeries as almost elementals, and some of the early Christian lore is that they are the Sons of Earth, the idea that they were created from nature and not God or in some version entities formed by God but not blessed in the same way humans were now I must stress this is from folklore and no indication of true accounts, but perhaps nature has spirits or an avatar form. They don't need to be like Swamp Thing, where he is the avatar of the green (plant life), but perhaps these entities are specifically the guardians or spirits of specific trees or waters or something similar. Many cultures had similar ideas, such as the Shinto religion in Japan and the Greeks as well with the idea of Naiads, Dryads, Nereids, and satyrs perhaps there's some regionality to it, and these entities appear in specific forms depending on the region. Hence why, as opposed to a beautiful Dryad maiden, the witness saw a 40ft troll, but this is just speculation and a phenomenon that needs to be more thoroughly studied.

With that said, there are countless reasons this case could have been misidentified, even though I seriously doubt for the reasons Lidow claims. Yet, I am fascinated by this case. I wish the witness would have sketched what she saw, and I would love to pick her brain about it, but I'm sure there would not be a follow-up. Even without her follow up however it's a compelling and interesting case for a phenomenon that rarely is ever broached by true Fortean researchers and usually scoffed or thrown into another category without truly looking at the case. I cannot say for certain what she saw, but I am firm in my thought that she saw something more than a specter of the mind or the shambling branch of a tree.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal/Unknown

Location: Oslo, Norway

Sighted: September, Sometime Before or in the 1970s

Works Cited:

Trolls and Unnatural History By John Lidow

Staffordshire Trolls of Slitting Mill

 The Staffordshire Trolls of Slitting Mill

By Cole Herrold

As a researcher I've always been fascinated with cases that seem to echo accounts that happened years ago. Whether the account is an identical sasquatch type entity or a series of lights that seem identical to others across the globe its consistent accounts from geographically different locations that really help assert my belief that these accounts are genuine. Of all the seemingly geographically similar phenomenon there’s one in particular that really piqued my interest since the entities in question are of a bizarre place in the paranormal spectrum. Faeries and their ilk have reports that are found all over the world yet most paranormal and fortean researchers seemingly have no idea with what to do with these claims. Some can be pegged in the hairy hominid file under proto-pygmies, or aquatic apes, others can be interconnected with the UFO and extraterrestrial phenomenon, and yet other accounts seem to be of something that can only be defined as magical.

In Staffordshire, England an account occurred where several eyewitnesses encountered the more rugged and loathsome form of faerie known colloquially as trolls. Troll sightings are not unheard of in fortean circles even though they are considerably rarer than encounters with merfolk and the flying faerie variety or leprechaun type yet the most interesting thing to me is that this encounter happened in an urban area whereas other troll sightings tend to take place in the Scandinavian wilderness.

Two witnesses known as Elaine and Barry a married couple in their late twenties who had a home near Staffordshire were returning home with their two children one late December night after a Christmas party in Peckridge. They had gotten into Staffordshire when Barry started to notice that the car was starting to act up. The engine seemed to sputter soon ultimately cut out as they coasted down the road to a safe spot. Barry being the dutiful father and certainly cursing his luck exited the warm automobile and worked his way to the front of the car. Barry popped the hood open and soon began to examine the vehicle’s motor “even though I’m mainly useless at mechanical stuff” as he would later say. Even though he was not an expert on car repair he had some points to look for and proceeded to check the cars wires, radiator, and fuses and none appeared to be loose or overheated. So, Barry simply shaking his head was at a loss for what the car’s ailment might be. He looked down the road as he shut the hood of the car and began to assert how far they were from the home and figuring that they were only half a mile or so and so began to plan accordingly he would later describe his plan thusly: “We had a picnic blanket in the boot (trunk) of the car and I got it out. I got back into the car, and I said to Elaine something like ‘lets cover you up and the kids with the blanket’. They were in the back sleeping and (were) only four and six at the time. So, I said to (Elaine) ‘you stay with them, and I’ll run back home and get your car, pick the three of you up, and then we’ll leave my car here, and we can get someone out from a garage to look at it tomorrow”.

Elaine now nestled in the warm trunk blanket was agreeing to her husband’s decision and was beginning to wait till her husband returned but as he was just about to turn around and head up the frozen winter road she saw something run by exceptionally quick in front of the car. Seeing this bizarre figure startled her enough for her to uncurl a loud scream. Yet soon this singular figure would be followed by several other dark figures that seemed to of stepped from the furthest realms of imagination. Elaine would describe the scene “I just about saw it at the last second, and then another one followed it, and then a third one. The best way I can describe them to you is like a hairy troll or something like that. We had some moonlight, and they were like little men, but with hunchbacks and big, hooked noses and not a stitch on them at all. Not a stitch, at all; just hair all over them. I’d say they were all four-feet-tallish, and when the third one crossed by us, you could see them at the edge of the trees – wary, or something, anyway.”

The events that followed are anyone’s guess for the family seemed to have a period of time that appeared fuzzy to say the least. The family seemed to blank out as though their memory was spliced by some cosmic editor as the figures they encountered seemed to seemingly disappear and their car suddenly revved back to life. The family confused by what had just occurred but more determined than ever to simply get home led the family to stop any would be investigation and instead continue the half of a mile drive back to their house. In the safety on comfort of their home however they felt uncomfortable about the events, and they seemed to be missing some time from when they sighted the creatures and when their car returned to life. These memories however would return in time as what happened at the car once they seen the diminutive denizens would happen in flashes. Barry would later say “We both know from memory that they came forwards, towards us, very slowly to us, and I’ve thought since that they were interested in us or wanted to know who we were. They came very slowly, and it was a bit like we were being hunted, to me. Elaine was hysterical; and with the kids with us, I wasn’t far-off, either”. “But that’s all we remember. The next its all gone, nothing. Neither of us remembers seeing them go, and the next thing it was about two o’clock and the car started fine, then. It felt like something had happened to us, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on, you know, what I mean? But the memory thing is the biggest problem, even now, what was it? I did have a dream later about them surrounding the car, but that’s it really. But they were there, and we did see them, right up by the Stone House”.

Barry and Elaine now in their mid-60’s to this day feel uneasy about their loss of memory but is certain that their encounter did happen stating “I know, and we know, that we both saw them. The kids don’t remember a thing, thankfully. They were horrible little things. All that hair: Trolls, Goblins, something, but they were there, and they were real”. Barry and Elaine later would state that they never had any paranormal encounter before or after, but they were certain the encounter happened.

This case is extremely interesting, and I wish I had more details on it, I would love for an eyewitness sketch or some one on one discussion with Barry and Elaine on some of the other details with this case, but unfortunately I don’t think that will come into fruition. With this case it has so many hallmarks to other cases that its difficult to point to specifically one category for these creatures. I guess to begin with we could look at these creatures from the realm of cryptozoology as these could be a kind of hairy hominid. These creature’s height is realistic for an organism to remain hidden now a days as opposed to the 6-9ft tall Bigfoot reports that are also said to have occurred in England and Ireland. From this it could be plausible that the creatures seen are some offshoot of hominid evolution especially since there’s a phenomenon called Island dwarfism which caused organisms that are typically large on other continents to be smaller on islands to help deal with competition of resources. There’s a very good chance that this is a possibility.

The Norwegian Film Troll Hunter dealt with the idea of Trolls being biological creatures as yet undiscovered by mainstream science

The next possibility is that these creatures are extraterrestrials. There have been several sightings of creatures similar in appearance that have been seen in connection to UFOs. The most famous is the rash of hairy dwarf sightings or as we here at the New World Explorer’s Society call them Space Morlocks. These creatures are about the same height and the first sighting which eyewitnesses Jose Ponce and Gustavo Gonzalez experienced on a road near Caracas in Venezuela is eerily similar to what Barry and Elaine had witnessed. Now the big difference between the two is that in the Caracas case the two witnesses saw a large oval shaped object hovering in the middle of the road and when one went to investigate happened to run into one of the hairy entities. While similar these entities feature wise are also different in the Venezuela case the entities were essentially featureless aside from a pair of glowing eyes set in a round head whereas the trolls had hooked noses and other human like features. The Caracas aliens also wore loin cloths as opposed to the nude trolls and these space entities also wielded “wand-technology” (cylindrical shaped machinery that emits light) whereas the troll case featured no reference to any kind of machinery or tool use. Also, there was no confirmed UFO sighting in the area that these entities assumedly would travel on so that is also another issue with this hypothesis.

Sketch of the Hairy Dwarf from the Caracas case

To me the most obvious answer to these creatures seems to be the most absurd and that is that they are faeries in the truest sense of the word. Faeries are a variety of creatures that are deeply connected with both nature and historical sites. These entities have many of the same elements associated with extraterrestrial encounters including time loss and in some cases memory loss. These entities are not fond of being sited in fact there are several accounts of faeries scaring people away, chasing them, causing great emotional distress, or in more aggressive cases like the typical Scandinavian Troll or Kelpie eating those they encounter. These entities are interconnected with green places and that seems to be the one consistent element to all reports as faeries are found in areas with high concentrations of trees, grass, flowers, what the exact connection to this is, is cannot only be speculated but the most common belief is that they are the avatars of nature if this is the case it would make sense as to why these creatures were seen in England even though it is a decidedly more urban area than most of the other reports out there.

With that said there is very little modern research on the phenomenon. There’s tons of accounts that can be found in old books and some modern day podcasts feature some eyewitnesses but other than that there’s no “Faerie Quest” or some other research oriented study of the phenomenon. The last big one was the Fairy Investigation Society which for more information definitely read Seeing Fairies by Marjorie T. Johnson. So, it’s difficult to speak with any certainty that these entities really do belong in their own category and not in the trinity of paranormal (Cryptozoology, Ufology, and spirit research/Demonology).

With this case its resonated with me for some time when I first came across it in the Monster Book by Nick Redfern and it is perhaps to me one of the most interesting ostensibly fae encounter. These creatures are entirely unique only in that they seem ancient as though they have leapt from a John Bauer painting yet the thing that haunts me is their motives. In a sinister take on their sighting one has to mention the phenomenon of changelings how trolls and other faeries will kidnap human offspring and swap them with their own and it is very eerie that Barry and Elaine’s children were asleep in the car and the couple had memory problems afterwards. Perhaps their children were given the old switcheroo and now their real children are down in the faerie kingdom somewhere. I do not know and this is just a hypothetical based on legends but it is important to say about that time loss for who knows what really happened during that time maybe they were given a tour of the land or the great Seelie courts or perhaps nothing happened at all and the Trolls used the time loss as a kind of blanket for them to get away but its all speculation and something that we will never more than likefully know the answer to.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Hominid/ Mammal

Location: Slitting Mill, Staffordshire, England

Sighted: December 1975

Works Cited:

Beasts of Britain By Andrew M. L. McGrath

The Monster Book: Creatures, Beasts, and Fiends of Nature By Nick Redfern

Combing, Beach “Trolls in Staffordshire (in the 1970s!)”. Beachcombing’s Bizarre History Blog.  June 13, 2012. https://www.strangehistory.net/2012/06/13/trolls-in-staffordshire-in-the-1970s/. Accessed October 12, 2021.