The Awful

 The Awful

By Cole Herrold

Flying cryptids are perhaps one of the most mysterious entities reported. Be it the strange flying invertebrate-style organisms such as the Sky Amoebas or Atmospheric Jellyfish or the seemingly Predator teched-out Hampton Sky Rays or the colossal Thunderbirds, they have captured the imaginations of millions and expanded the perspectives and mindsets of those lucky enough to have encountered them. Yet of these creatures, perhaps the most unique is the chimeral critters that appear to of been pulled straight from the pages of Myth. One such creature in the dawn of the 20^th century was said to frequent the skies and roofs of countless buildings in Richford and Berkshire, Vermont, and proceeded to strike terror and eldritch-style nightmares onto the towns' populace. The wave of terror this creature caused was added in strangeness only by the description of this creature which, just like its name to those who had the fortunate or unfortunate enough chance of encountering it, was just plain Awful.

Rumors of the Anomalous airborne apparition first gained fruition in the early 1900s and was initially sighted at dusk by two to three sawmill workers who, upon crossing Main Street Bridge near the Canadian border, noticed a strange figure spotted atop the Boright building at the corner of Main and River street. As the group looked up at the building, expecting to see a robber at worst or a maintenance man at best, they were instead greeted by a strange-looking avian abomination that they would describe thusly "a very large Griffin-like creature with grayish wings that each spanned ten-feet." The creature possessed "a serpent-like tail that equaled its wing length" and "huge claws that could easily grip a milk can's girth." The creature, from its perch, stared down at the men as the men stared up at the creature, and it was at that moment that panic ensued. The men had no words for the creature except that it was Awful; as they stared in utter terror at the monstrous mutant, one of the men felt a sharp pain issue up his arm and chest, ultimately collapsing to the ground. This alerted his companions, who, upon looking at their friend, realized he was suffering from a heart attack. The group, no longer concerned for the strange creature which was still leering at them from the top of the building, reached down and proceeded to lift up their friend and, as quickly as possible, returned to his home. The man managed to survive the heart attack, but he had not escaped from that moment near the Boright Building. For weeks afterward, his wife and children woke up in the middle of the night to hear him screaming in his sleep as though his dreams were being terrorized by some sort of eldritch abomination. What these dreams were about, no one really knows as either the man never spoke of them, or they were lost over time.

Right after this encounter, the creature was seen by countless farmers and villagers, and it was during this time that the creature officially received its name, The Awful. The villagers were in utmost terror by the sight of this creature and its strange, bizarre behaviors. The creature frequently flew over the farmer's fields and would land on the farmer's roofs and watch them as they worked throughout the day or would look through windows at those who were not out doing chores or errands.

Two weeks later, after the initial sighting, the Awful was seen flying about 50 feet above a Berkshire field near Lost Nation road. As those lucky or unlucky enough to have seen the creature this time noted, they heard a strange crying sound accompanying it that they knew was not from the creature. The creature during this flight was not alone, for there, wrapped in the creature's talons, was a small wailing baby. An immediate search of the area for a missing child in the area, however, turned up empty, and so the villagers felt that they must have been mistaken and what they most likely heard and saw was a small animal of some sort; most felt a sheep.

The Awful's reign of terror would not end there, however, as the next major sighting of the creature would occur just a short time after this potential child abduction. Farmwife Oella Hopkins was out hanging her laundry out to dry in her yard when she began to hear her dog bark madly behind her. Curious at just what was disturbing the animal, she looked up to see what her dog was barking at, and upon looking towards the direction of where the dog was faced, she saw the Awful perched on her porch roof gazing down at her. Terribly frightened by the horrid visage of the grinning Griffin, she ran into her house and proceeded to, in childlike and slasher victim style to, hide under her bed. When her husband came home, the creature was gone, and having discovered his wife under the bed, he attempted to coax her out, but she refused to come out for several hours. After this sighting, the Awful seemed to make itself scarce, and sightings that were once so rampant started to slowly dwindle away to a mere trickle.

In 1925 while reports of the Awful were practically nonexistent, word of the flying freak of nature spread and eventually reached the ears of non-other than the infamous cosmic horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. H.P. Lovecraft heard about the monstrosity while visiting with some friends in Southern Vermont and, upon hearing about the creature during this visit, decided to go and take a quick road trip up to Richford and Berkshire to investigate the claims. While there, he managed to talk to many of the eyewitnesses, and he was convinced that the locals he had interviewed were "not in the least mistaken about what they had witnessed." Lovecraft would later return to his friends in the southern portion of the state but hearing about this bizarre beast was enough to put his imagination and writing prowess into overtime. Lovecraft would later write, "The Awful became ample sustenance for my imagination" and "over time, the creature became the basis for many of my own fictional inventions." In 1927 Lovecraft wrote, "entering Vermont for the first time, there is a sense of mystic revivification." He continued, "Something in the contours, something in the setting, has the power to touch deep viol-strings of feeling which are ancestral if one be young and personal if one be old.". It's from this that Lovecraft, upon pondering the beast, felt that there certainly was some sort of esoteric reason for the creature being there, be it a pre-concept Keelian Window area or some other supernatural methodology not unlike that which he would write about extensively. Yet while the creature gained the attention of one of the greatest minds in horror literature, it had almost immediately after 1925 vanished, there were no more sightings of the creature for countless years, and many had thought that the creature had either died, moved on, or if this was mass hysteria that the towns had returned to their senses. None of which would forever be the case, as, at the beginning of the 21^st century, sightings of the creature would return with a fury not seen since the original 1900-1925 flap.

On October 19, 2006, H.P. Albarelli wrote an article entitled "Has the Awful Returned to Berkshire & Richford," and in it, he detailed a second flap of sightings of a similar or the same flying monstrosity that was reported almost 80 years prior. Most of these witnesses had startlingly similar interactions with the creature as it seemed once again primarily focused on flying around local buildings and watching any in its path. A few weeks prior to the publication of the article, a man Albarelli claimed was a "solid citizen" who chose to remain anonymous out of fear that people would have thought him insane “reported seeing an unbelievable-looking winged monster. The thing swooped down from nowhere and plucked a huge black crow from the upper branches of a tall pine tree. I didn’t believe my eyes, but when the thing circled my house…well, then there was no denying it." On this occasion, the creature reenacted its most famous habit of being an observer, at best a stalker, at worst a predator of humans as once this witness returned to his home and the creature began to fly around his home, the creature continued to do so at least three times as though it was looking for the man. Yet another witness to the creature said, "I remember my grandfather once talking about that thing, but I thought it was just a story, a tall folk yarn…What I saw was no yarn. Yarns don't fly, and stories don't look like that. What I saw was real. And I hope to high heaven I never see it again."

A follow-up article entitled "The Awful sighted again; relic produced" was then released on November 30, 2006, with even more sightings, some modern and some which took place years in between the original flap and this sudden resurgence in Awful sightings. Lisa Maskell, a former resident of Montgomery Center, said that when she was 10 or 11 years old, she saw it near the Trout River while out with friends. The colossal cryptid creature, she said, was nestled in the boughs of an old tree near the river, and as the group approached it, they noted that the creature was looking right at them. They described the creature initially as being incredibly large with huge wings and a long, strange beak. She also would go and describe the creature as “Big, Scary, and Fascinating” She says when she saw a picture of a pterodactyl a few years later, she immediately thought it resembled The Awful.

An unnamed "60-something-year-old man" claims it has been seen often and recently in the Gibou area of Montgomery. He says that the creature had been seen in the area for about 25 years and was well known to residents. The man also felt that the creature was not particularly aggressive towards humans as the residents of the area developed a unique approach to the creature stating, "We don't bother it, and it don't bother us, maybe with a few exceptions."

Edith Green, a dowser in Richford who approached Albarelli after the initial report, told him that the Awful was reported well before the article and after the initial sightings from the early 1900s and 1920s and that "folks were very nervous about it." Another longtime resident of Richford also came forward about the creature; this witness claimed that he had seen the creature recently around Slide Road and said the following about the beast "You can usually hear the thing before you see it. It makes a low screaming sound. When it's close enough you can hear the flapping of its huge wings which sounds like fat blankets being shook out".

Unlike other chimeral cryptids, the Awful potentially does have some evidence for its existence. A logger from Richford approached Albarelli upon reading his article and proceeded to hand him what the logger claimed to be a petrified jawbone of an Awful. While no photos of the jawbone were released, Albarelli stated that the object was stone hard and appeared to have several large teeth. While nothing conclusive has been released about the object so far, nor has any further development been made on it, Albarelli did state that he is attempting to have an "expert from the University of Vermont" to come and study the object but as far as we know this has not occurred yet.

Now sightings of the Awful once again have seen to of dropped off to nothing. There have been no reports of the creature since 2006, at least to my knowledge, and so we are left to wonder just what was flying around the towns of Richford and Berkshire. Breaking down this case, the best way to start is to look at the possibility of a hoax and go from there. In this case, the hoax possibility is certainly likely as while rumors of the creature are claimed to of existed going back all the way to the 1900s, there has been, at least to my knowledge, no written record of the creature in newspapers or in journals since Albarelli wrote about the creature in 2006. The fact that Albarelli wrote about and seems to be the only person to of written about the creature in some 106 years tends to lend to the idea that the Awful was nothing more than a kind of hoax, specifically a piece of yellow journalism. This would make sense when looking back at the colossal history of news-oriented cryptid and monster sightings; even the most mundane creatures made the papers going all the way back to the 1700s as monsters of any sort were big news, and if the Awful was as rampant as Albarelli claimed it was it should have at least once been included in some document before 2006. Albarelli also claimed Lovecraft wrote about the creature in the mid and late 20s again; I have been unable to find the original source, so there are two ways to interpret this one either there is such a source, and its just difficult to find, or viewed as the most likely it was just yet another layer to the story to give the creature more background and what better way than to have a famous horror writer track down and investigate a unique monster.

Now with all that said while the possibility of a hoax does seem likely. An email interview with Albarelli claimed that he did not perpetrate a hoax and that he, outside of the fact that Lovecraft did mention the creature, had no reason to include him. Which, if he's being truthful, means that the Awful was kept very much under wraps in the local area; this is something we do see with local folklore, so I'm willing to entertain that possibility.

So if Albarelli did write about actual accounts, just what exactly was the Awful. Now going the Cryptozoology route, Griffins have been reported elsewhere, so the Awful is not exactly original. The most famous example of this is the Brentford Griffin which I had recently covered and has many of similar traits to the Awful, but unlike the Awful, it was primarily seen in the 80s with some possibilities of being around much earlier. There have been other flying quadrupeds that one would compare to a griffin or a hippogriff reported over the years, such as a flying lion reported in West Orange, New Jersey, in the 1920s. Another similar creature would be Scotland's tri-legged Beast of Barrisdale.

Now I must say that some of the reports of the Awful and some details do not seem to indicate a Griffin-like cryptid, but other species of cryptids reported. There are two to be specific; the first would be the Jersey Devil, and the reason I include it into the fold of possibilities is the following details. The Jersey Devil during January 1909 plagued New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and also allegedly New York though sightings are slim. Now the timing of this colossal flap of sightings is in a perfect window of time for when the original Awful sightings took place since they started in the early 1900s and continued into the 1920s. Interestingly enough, when looking at Jersey Devil reports matches the amount of sightings of other flying creatures seen in other states, almost following a pattern. There are also details in behavior such as the watching people from rooftops and the landing on rooftops in general that is a frequently described Jersey Devil behavior. Even some of the descriptions of the Awful, which would be strange for a Griffin, would make sense when comparing it to the Jersey Devil, such as a serpentine tail, since this is something that we hear in those reports and even the pterodactyl imagery is something that occurs with Jersey Devil sightings as well.

The other cryptid also that could be what the Awful is, is a classical Thunderbird. The classic Thunderbird, which is a colossal eagle or condor-looking creature, is a common cryptid reported in almost every state, yet the name now also has come to take in pterodactyl and pterosaur sightings too. Yet, for the sake of the Awful, with the exception of Lisa Maskell's sighting, most if not all of the sightings involve more traditional bird-like features such as talons, beak, grayish feathers, and aside from the serpentine tail and assumed secondary set of legs there's nothing to indicate anything more extraordinary than a colossal bird. Even the abduction of a small child or animal, depending on your viewpoint, is something that has been reported countless times in Thunderbird encounters and legends, so perhaps the Griffin description was a more exaggerated telling of just what the witnesses saw.

As for other Fortean possibilities, the next major possibility is that if the witnesses are accurate in their description that this creature is a Griffin is that it could have come from another dimension or be a faerie animal. These possibilities are sort of catch-alls to explain the absolutely strange description of the creature, and with these possibilities, just a simple answer as to the countless esoteric/magical and/or evolutionary lineages in which this creature could have been created from. For if this creature is a faerie animal, there are countless appearances such creatures appear as, and flying creatures are exceptionally common, whereas with other dimensions, evolution is infinite, and some of the restrictions that exist in our world's evolutionary lines are completely removed in others.

Now there's one final possibility, and I touched on this with the Brentford Griffin as well, and that is a demonic connection to Griffin-like creatures. Now in one case, a man by the name of John Luck had cursed himself and, upon doing so, was assaulted by two colossal griffin apparitions which lifted him into the air before promptly dropping him on the ground upon which he was taken into the home of a neighbor to heal. As the day continued, however, he became wild and aggressive and began to growl, and this grew into such a violent outburst that a priest was called in to exorcise whatever evil had attached itself to Mr. Luck. This did not end the same way as how films like the Exorcist or the Conjuring would depict such an action, and the next morning Mr. Luck had died, his body contorted into countless positions and his face in a state of absolute terror. Now I mention all this not just because of the entities in Luck’s case description are almost identical to Griffins but also that in the Awful case, the man who suffered the heart attack and survived had continuously been plagued for weeks by nightmares seemingly caused by his interaction with the Griffin something that might be evidence of the creature's supernatural and nefarious origin.

Griffins and Griffin reports, in general, are fascinating and perhaps the most bizarre as they are just a portion of encounters with creatures ripped from the pages of Myth. What are we to make of these sightings as the Griffin is part of a full pantheon of other mythological beings like dragons, Cyclops, Minotaurs, Centaurs, Satyrs, and Pegasus that have been frequently reported not only in the United States (though there does seem to be a higher concentration) but around the world? Is it that what we are seeing is some lifting of the veil and that such creatures are denizens of the faerie realm, or are we seeing some window into another dimension where the old gods, titans, and monsters live and breathe? It's hard to believe that these could be cryptids from our world as with Griffins; they defy the natural evolutionary processes that we build the foundations of organisms on, yet science is an ever-changing medium for what once was considered laughable, or heresy was soon discovered to not only be possible but a fact and perhaps if Albarelli is truthful and the jawbone of the Awful is real we just might be on the verge of a whole new understanding of how our earth and its fauna can be and is something that I look with great interest for.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal or Avian

Location: Richford and Berkshire, Vermont

Sighted: 1900s to 2006

Works Cited:

Chasing American Monsters By Jason Offutt

A Guide to Sky Monsters By T.S. Mart and Mel Cabre

The Vermont Monster Guide By Joseph A. Citro

The Weiser Field Guide to Cryptozoology By Deena Budd

H. P. Albarelli “Has the Awful returned to Berkshire & Richford?” The County Courier October 19, 2006

H. P. Albarelli "The Awful sighted again; relic produced" The County Courier November 30, 2006

Northfield Pigman

 Northfield Pigman

By Cole Herrold

Cryptids come in all shapes and sizes, from colossal ape-men to slithering serpents to winged entities, but there's one variety of these anomalous animals that seem to pop up around areas known for romantic rendezvous, and these creatures tend to resemble human versions of barnyard beasts. The most famous of these farmyard fiends are the infamous Maryland Goatman and the trestle walking Pope Lick Monster. These caprine creatures have the heads of a goat and the body of men and are known to attack would-be lovers or any who would dare enter their dark domain. In Northfield, Vermont, a similar creature is reported, but unlike those creatures seen in the Billiwack Dairy, Pope Lick Trestle, or Prince George County, this creature is an entirely different barnyard breed.

Northfield is a small college town in the middle of the state Vermont that many would feel upon first glance that nothing truly happens outside of a potential frat prank or some other youthful misdemeanor, but much like almost every small town in America, be it Enfield, Loveland, Bishopville, there is rumored to be a resident whose behavior is much more eccentric than the incoming student body. This resident has been rumored to of prowled around Northfield and the eerily named Devil's Washbowl area since at least 1971, with some whispering dating back to 1951. The entity is something that seems to echo other residents reported around the country is that it seems to be a cross between a known animal and a human but just what this human side is to be crossed with is something much rarer than the goat, ape, or wolf type creatures that plague the hills and hollows of the united states. This creature is said to have the peculiar feature of bearing the head of a pig.

The Northfield Pigman, also known as the Vermont Pigman, is a creature shrouded in a lot of legend with few official facts about the case; most of what we do know about the creature comes from a flap of sightings during the 1970s and into the 1980s, but details regarding witnesses and even some of the events are secluded in anonymity or altered via folkloric retellings, yet some points remain constant. The origin of this creature, at least from a traceable standpoint, starts in Spring 1971 with the disappearance of a young man. This young man, as the account would state, was about twenty-one years of age and was the son of a group of farmers. From what can be pieced together, he had his own pig farm on Darby Hill but proved to be a sadist towards his swine, often abusing the plumped porkers to the point of bleeding. It was said that on one specific night, while out slopping the animals that he began to poke at them and cause them pain to the point that they began crying out into the night. Their squeals could be heard for miles and, in turn, reached the ears of some secluded savior in the dense woods around the Devil's Washbowl. As the man continued his assault, he soon heard a peculiar sound that seemed to bellow behind him as the man turned as legend claims he encountered the Pigman who proceeded in killing the man in a gruesome enough fashion as not to be reported. Now the man seemingly disappeared off his property, never to be seen again, his parents began searching the area for the man, but no sign of him could be found in either the Devil's Washbowl or anywhere north of Northfield. Some whispers of the time claimed that the man's body was devoured by the very pigs he abused, whereas others felt that something they had yet to decipher the identity of took the man's body away to the woods to devour.

After this alleged disappearance about six months later, farmers and residents around the area soon began noticing that something was taking their pets and small livestock. Cats, dogs, chickens, rabbits, and geese were all going missing in the night their enclosures smashed or the doors hanging wide open as though something had gone and opened the cages with hands. While the identity of this abductor plagued the community, it would soon be revealed one late night when a man whose home was on nearby Turkey Hill heard the heavy clanking sound of trashcans being knocked over and the scuffling sound of them being rummaged through. The man expecting stray dogs, raccoons, opossums, or cats simply meandered over to the outside light switch and turned on the flickering exterior porch light. He peered out of the window on his door and saw something kneeling down by his trash can, yet he could not make whatever the figure was. He stepped out of the house and stared at what seemed to be a large pale object that was too big to be a typical animal from the area. The man instantly felt this must be some homeless man or some drunkard searching for something in my trash. He stared at the shape and soon yelled, "Get the Hell out of Here!". As he yelled at this form, there was a brief silence as the form turned its head towards him and slowly began to rise. There standing in front of him was something that was clearly not human. It was covered in long whitish hair and was noticeably naked (it can be assumed that genitalia was seen). The figure appeared man-like in almost every respect, including its height, except that as the man scanned the creature over, he realized that the creature had instead of the human-like head one would expect ahead, which looked identical to a pig's. The creature he had seen was apparently eating out of the trash can and was kneeling down much as a man would have. The creature, in a fight or flight instinct, soon began running down the driveway and down the hill entering the adjoining woodlands as though it thought the man might take a shot at it or simply out of concern of being spotted. The man would later claim that "it was definitely naked" and "It ran on two feet." Thus, eliminating the usual suspects.

Several days after the trash can incident, the creature was seen in one of the most unassuming of locations, the local Northfield High School. Four unnamed teenagers decided to leave the sobriety of the dance and venture off behind the school to go and party on in the fashion of angsty teens. The group had gone near the school's sandpit, which was near the cemetery, an area that was not too far from the local woods, and had begun in passing out the beer that they managed to score for this night. The group had heard some strange sounds coming from the woods, which they would describe as a kind of squealing. The group began to walk over towards the darkened forest. One friend had the foresight to bring along the flashlight as the group meandered over towards the cropping of trees. The flashlight beam bounced over the bark and the expected foliage of the area, but after a little while, it hit something they never would have expected. There kneeling down on the ground, was a white form that seemed to be eating something in its hands. The group stared in amazement as there was the creature feasting on what they were sure was fresh roadkill. The creature seemed to notice them as they stared and continued shining their light at it. The group who was still in the non-wooded section of the area watched as the creature rose it's human like form appearing more and more in the soft glow of the flashlight. The creature continued to stare at these voyeurs as it tentatively began approaching them. As the creature came closer, they could see it clearer; it was a bipedal creature with the face of a pig. This is all the teens needed to see, and in the heat of the moments left their brews behind and raced back to the safety of the school, the 15-16yr olds physically crying in front of their peers about the monster they had witnessed.

Everyone in attendance knew that these fellow students had to of been telling the truth. In a time where showing off one's masculinity and maturity was overly important, crying in front of everyone had to mean that what they were saying was true. As a group gathered around to listen to the group's tale, several of the students left the dance to go and search for the Pigman. One of these investigators would be Jeff Hatch, someone who would forever be entwined with the case. Jeff and the other students searched the area, and Jeff, when he came to the area, would later state, "The grass was beat down. Something had been there". Yet this evidence simply piqued his interest even more to the point that he rallied the students and any who would believe the tale or listen in a good old fashion monster hunt. It was also from this sighting that the name Pigman took root for the pale predator that appeared in the woods around the area.

Jeff knew the area and knew that this creature had some alternative connection to swine outside of its appearance. So, Jeff decided to search a very specific pig farm near Union Brook that had since been left abandoned in the hills around Northfield. When Jeff arrived at the farm, he saw the dilapidated barn and the several outlining buildings that made the farm. The area was in dire need of repair and certainly needed some excessive maintenance. Yet as he mosied around the property searching for anything unusual, he noticed that the farm was not entirely unoccupied. There wandering around were countless numbers of pigs. These pigs, however, were not small or even wild boars but what appeared to be farm-raised pigs of gigantic stature, some seemingly 500-600lbs. These animals seemed unperturbed by their visit to the farm and simply went about their business as Jeff and those with him searched the area. Jeff instinctively went to the largest barn on the property, and as soon as he entered, he noticed that this was not a place of life but of death. There, on the ground littered around him, were countless bodies of dead semi-eaten animals and countless bones. The area stank of death, yet as he wandered into the abattoir, he could tell that something had been living there. In one section, there was an area of hay that was formed and laid out, not unlike a bed that he claimed, "Seemed to be sleeping here in the same room as the dead animals." There was even the impression that something relatively recently had been nestling there. Jeff was bamboozled by this and, when retelling this account in the book Weird New England, could not help but get goosebumps even in recounting it.

While this was an eerie development, Jeff felt that the creature no longer lived on the Union Brook farm and had since moved elsewhere, probably in the Devil's Washbowl. The Devil's Washbowl had tons of caves and caverns that were suitable places for something large and bizarre to remain hidden. So, gathering as many as he could, he proceeded in getting a full-on assault of the Devil's Washbowl. For those unfamiliar, the Devil's Washbowl is a bizarre natural area that has various anomalist effects adding to the sinister name. The Washbowl has a single dirt road that passes through, which ultimately as if mercifully ends in a U-turn returning you from whence you came. The area of the Devil's Washbowl is pure darkness; it's completely covered by the canopy of trees along the road. These trees make it so that even natural lighting like sunlight, starlight, and moonlight are completely unnoticeable. The area, however, even though this lack of light where one would think would chill the area down, is actually warmer than anywhere else in the area while still maintaining the moistness of a wetland.

The group of teenagers clamored into their cars and began driving towards the dirt road of the Devil’s Washbowl. The group in pure James Whale Frankenstein or Invisible Man fashion began beating and searching every inch of the Devil's Washbowl in pure angry mob fashion, and this led to the mountainous region and its infinite caves and caverns. As the group searched the dripping caves, one group led by Jeff Hatch came to one of the largest caverns in the Washbowl. The area stank to high heaven, but as the group looked around, they noticed that this area was almost a mirror image of the farm that they had previously investigated. The area was filled with the dead remains of countless animals, and more noticeably, the middle was filled with a hay bed that was almost identical to what they had seen in the Union Brook Farm. Jeff holding his nose felt that this was evidence of the fact that the creature had since moved since last they investigated. Jeff would reflect the following about the site "There was no sign of fire, but there was bedding in the cave-hay, probably from the pig farm."  This was not the only evidence found at the site, however, as there in the soft soil in the area were bizarre impressions that seemed to be like cloven hooves. Jeff Hatch, in the Weird New England book, readily admitted that he was not a skilled tracker, but the footprints definitely gave off the impression of being either cloven or hoofed.

Since the search in the caves, the Pigman had since staked out an official claim of the Devil's Washbowl as most of the sightings after the search almost entirely occurred in the area. Rumors that howls and screams could be heard in the Washbowl have occurred that since been reported implying that something anomalous had been claimed to reside in the area. Drivers along the Devil's Washbowl would report claiming to see a white form cross in front of their cars which almost always seemed to get away before they could make out the figure entirely. Rumors of the cavern findings spread like wildfire, and it was because of this other groups decided to go and search for the elusive entity in the caves and caverns of the Washbowl. It was on one such occasion that a couple out on a little romantic evening went with a group up into the caves and, in pure horror movie fashion, proceeded to split up to cover more ground. The couple did not get far as they entered a particularly large cavern when they noticed a ghostly white form coming closer to them from the surrounding shadows. The creature leapt on the boyfriend, who was closer to the creature, and the two began tussling on the ground. The creature was apparently evenly matched with the young boy and perhaps might have been taken in if the creature's horrendous hands happened to reach down alongside its body and feel the cold hard form of a nearby rock. The creature, in its porcine grip, proceeded to grab the stone and, lifting it up to the boy's head, began striking him until he ultimately was knocked away. Clearly wounded and weakened from the fight, the boy could do nothing as the pale predator proceeded in grabbing him and taking him deep into the cavern from whence it came. His screams echoed through the caves, and his girlfriend, who was so terrified by this event, merely curled up into a ball on the ground and was screaming and sobbing. The sounds of fear caused the rest of their group to stop their search and come to their aid, but it was too late; nothing could be found of the boyfriend except the bloody rock that laid near the entrance to the cavern's path. The boy nor his body were ever seen again.

While this encounter is perhaps the most aggressive encounter of the Pigman, it would not be the last, and the incident surprisingly did not stop anyone from traveling the Devil's Washbowl. Cars frequently traversed the narrow path, many of whom were curious of this porcine phantom. Many of them ultimately seeing something cross the road that was ghostly white in color and would only be noticed for a brief second as the headlights hit the creature as it crossed the road. While most of these sightings were far away on one especially dark night, a man would have an all too close encounter with the beast. The man was driving down the dark road thinking all about the events that currently had been happening in Northfield and his life. These thoughts swirled in his mind preoccupying his attention, and so it was in this moment of oblivion that as he glanced back at the windshield, he noticed some pale white figure was only inches away from being struck by his car. The figure, however, before ultimately being a victim of a hit and run, proceeded in leaping onto the hood of the car and stared at one can only think was rage at the man behind the wheel. The man stared right back at the entity and noticed that it was the same creature said to of stalked the Washbowl. Its appearance matched it to a T, for it was completely naked yet covered in long blonde or whitish hair. It looked human-like, however, except for the face, which looked exactly like that of a pigs. The creature continued to stare until, eventually, it shifted its body and vaulted off the car, running away from the road and into the woods.

While sightings of the Pigman became almost regular in frequency and rumors of the creature's violent behavior were well known in the town, this did not stop romantic rendezvous to the area, and the area of the Devil's Washbowl became another infamous Lover's Lane. Much like Partrick Road in Napa or the TNT Area in Point Pleasant, the area was a hotbed not just for monster reports but for a place that young lovers could go "parking." These youthful rituals were almost always followed by whispering tales of the mysterious creatures that were said to roam therein. Northfield resident Dick Severy would state that during this time, "young fellas would take their girls up there and tell 'em about the Pigman. So, the girl's would cuddle up a little closer". While this can be a pleasant evening of amore for some would-be monster hunters, on one occasion, there was a third wheel to the evening that not only destroyed the mood but also almost destroyed one of the wheels.

Another unnamed high school couple was out parking in the Devil's Washbowl; the two had sat there for a while and so it's not implausible to suggest what had been going on. Halfway through the session, the couple's embrace was ultimately ended by nature's call. The boyfriend had to go relieve himself and left the girl in the car to go by a tree near the trunk of the car. As the boyfriend had assumedly finished, he felt the strong hands of something grab him by the shoulders and begin to throw him around like a ragdoll. The creature let him go flying straight into the bramble and brush. Yet this would not be the end as the unseen assailant began unleashing squealing sounds and began coming towards him again, grabbing him once more and throwing him into the opposite direction. The boy's form, however, did not hit the soft earth or plants around, but his wounded frame went barreling into his car. The boy slumped on the ground and finally saw his assailant there coming towards him was a 5'8" to 5'10" creature it was covered in long whitish hair, it had a human-like body, as opposed to hands or hooves it had two long razor-tipped talons for claws that were dripping with blood from its earlier assault. The creature's head was, however, like that of a pig. The creature charged at the boy again and proceeded to lift him up, scratching the boy's chest and arms and causing deep gashes, all the while throwing him repeatedly up against the car. The girlfriend still in the car could hear the sick thudding of his body against the car and his cries of anguish and help. She peered out the window and saw the porcine phantom pounding her lover to a pulp, and so she let out a scream. The creature, hearing this unexpected sound, seemed to of been startled and frightened by the noise and instantly dropped the boy before running away back into the darkness of the woods. The boyfriend slowly got up and noticed the various hoofprints around, and began to head back towards the driver seat bleeding from his chest and arms. He began as soon as he sat down to start up the car and head straight back home. The police eventually were called, and now with someone actually physically hurt that claimed the injuries were caused by the creature, felt the need to investigate. The officers searched the hills and hollows of the Devil's Washbowl but did not find anything.

Sightings of the Pigman as time went on became more and more sporadic after the police searched the area. Perhaps this was out of fear of the creature after the attack on the boy or that the creature itself wanted to be left alone, becoming more and more secluded. Yet occasionally, a sighting or strange occurrence linked to the creature would come forward; Chad Clarke and three of his friends Jesse, Pete, and Mark were just some of the last people to officially come forward and claim to hear the Pigman. Chad was from South of Montpelier and lived in a rural town near Northfield in the 70s. He managed to go and convince three of his closest companions to go and look for the Pigman in the Devil's Washbowl. The group drove the long winding desolate road and came into the heart of the Washbowl. The group proceeded to pull off the main road and started to go and look around the area while not going too far from the car. The crew then, after a short time, began to lean against the car and began smoking cigarettes. As they smoked in the darkness, they seemed to realize that the area was deafly silent, much quieter than it should be. It was at that moment that the group decided to go and do some classic ripping on each other. "You know, he could be watching us right now," said Chad. "yeah he could be perched up on any of these hills. Just trying to figure out a way to take us down one by one," said Jesse. "Screw that, wed take him down and make bacon out of him!" said Mark. "I don't know about that they say that he's faster than a man," retorted Jesse. Pete, obviously perturbed by the eeriness of the conversation, went and said, "Why don't you all shut up." Pete proceeded to get back in the car; he was noticeably terrified, and of course, the others noticed. The group, now grinning ear to ear, began to mock him out of his cowardice, and this went on for some time until Pete said, "Shut the Fuck Up!". As if on cue, a large high pitch bellowing squeal rang out in the area. The group sat there listening until it stopped and, in a matter of three seconds, began driving back as fast as possible. Chad, driving, looked down at the wheel and noticed he was so terrified his knuckles had turned white while holding onto the steering wheel. The group raced back home, and everyone's face, much like Chad's knuckles, was white as a sheet. That night and for the next couple of weeks, Chad would have nightmares about the Pigman and would never enter the area ever again.

While Chad and his friends did not see the source of the sound which they felt came from the Pigman, the same cannot be said for Amanda Paulger and her friends who, in a similar fashion, also went out to search for the sinister swine. Amanda was 16 and at a party with several of her friends. While at the party, the group had talked about going to go look for Pigman at the Devil's Washbowl. The group was only a short walk from the Washbowl, and so they decided to head out and walk the dark canopy-covered area. It was around the middle of the night, and they had only wandered about a mile into the Washbowl when they began noticing that tree branches had suddenly seemed to of been dropping right in front of them. One of her friends joked, "oh it must be the Pigman!" and the group chuckled at this, but there was a slight breeze, so the group had truly felt that this was caused only by the wind and nothing more. Yet, almost every 30 seconds, another branch would fall directly in front of the group. The group soon started to feel uneasy; these branches were too thick and long to of been knocked down from the trees by the wind alone, and there were certainly no animals that would throw branches. As the group contemplated what was going on, one friend soon spoke out, saying that she just heard a pig's squeal, but the others denied hearing anything, yet this added to the mystery causing the group to wonder whether their presence in the area made the Pigman angry and what if he came after them and what if the creature put these branches in front of them to stop them or even harm them. The group decided that they could not risk an encounter and began to turn around to return back to the party. Just as they were starting to leave, one of her friends, in a manner of hysterics, bursts out, "I swear I just saw him!" the girl was noticeably upset and tried to get the others to go faster, and just as she said that out of the woods loomed a strange figure, Amanda would describe the figure in the following "It looked like a man, except for a pig head, and he came out of the woods, and he was naked, and he was white, like really really pale white, and its terrifying." Amanda and her friends did not wait long to see what would happen with this creature and began running back, back to the party where they sat there breathing hard and trying to rationalize the hog humanoid that appeared before them.

While there are no more official accounts of the Pigman to the point that some researchers feel it has since died or moved ideas of what the creature was seemed to never end. One of by far the most interesting theories to what the Pigman is comes from several online sources who have given the creature an altogether different name. Upon doing research, I came across the name Sam Harris several times on some articles on the Pigman, and the name is used to explain the identity of the creature. Sam Harris was a boy who, on October 30, 1951, allegedly went missing around the same area as where the Pigman was now cited. Sam had gone out with a carton of eggs for some pre-Halloween tricking, and when the morning light came over the trees on the 31^st, his parents found that he never came home. Now, like almost all legends, there are variations to this story; the most popular one is that Sam was never found and, as time went on, became feral and became the infamous Pigman. The second variation is a more supernatural take on the story; this version states that Sam was indeed found, but on that October 30^th night, he became possessed by the Devil. How or why this occurred is anyone’s guess, but the story goes that when Sam came home, he was fixated on slaughtering animals, specifically pigs; he would go and eat them raw, eating everything but the bones. He also would hollow out the heads of the pigs and wear them as a kind of mask. His mother apparently was unaware of this new macabre habit her son developed until one night she ventured onto her porch, and there squatting down was Sam slurping up the bloody entrails of a recent kill. She saw him eating it with a look of glee that made her sick to her stomach and so horrified that she never recovered. Ultimately her son's behavior drove her to kill herself, and her son, now without a family, wears the hollowed-out pig's head around the Devil's Washbowl and causes the havoc that is reported in Northfield. Another variation of the Sam Harris legend states that the Devil did not just possess Sam but that he also transformed him physically into the Pigman.

The Sam Harris legend is interesting, but I believe it is just that a legend. I have searching newspaper articles never found any reference to a missing boy of that name in 1951 or even 1952, and the tale itself is similar to countless other folklore stories that are interconnected with many other cryptids. The Maryland Goatman was said to of been a scientist who experimented on goats and, in a freak lab accident, became the axe-wielding monster, the Napa Rebobs of California also had at one point been said to of been man-made or even super-soldiers who became flying primates or semi-cyborgs. The tale is also similar to the account from 1971 in which the 21-year-old pig farmer went missing, so perhaps these accounts are the same, and there is some problem with the timespan. I have, however, also tried to find a missing person by the name of Sam Harris during that time as well and came up empty-handed. Now searching back further, there was a grocer by the name of Sam Harris whose mules had died from eating a delivery wagon in the December 3, 1901, edition of the News and Advertiser newspaper from Northfield, but that was the only reference to a Sam Harris I had been able to find. So more than likely, the Sam Harris aspect to the Northfield Pigman case and probably the missing 21-year-old pig farmer in 71' are just additional folklore to the actual encounters.

While Sam Harris is most likely fictional, the Pigman is still in limbo as to its authenticity. So, if this creature is real, there are plenty of avenues to take. One of the most favored ideas is that the Pigman was someone who was born with physical deformities and, being shunned by society, began living in the Devil's Washbowl. There are tons of accounts of towns in the woods where individuals with deformities are said to dwell. They range from everything from the Melonheads to Albino Pigmen, who also happen to be cannibals, to midget and dwarf communities to those communities caused by inbreeding. In Sellersville, Pennsylvania, there are rumors of the pale albino pig-nosed cannibals that live in the mountains abducting travelers. These accounts have in some cases been confirmed, whereas others have firmly been rooted in folklore, so it would not be too far off the board for the Northfield Pigman to have been a human with albinism or some other kind of genetic disorder. Close in hand to that theory is that the creature might have been a feral human that simply from living the harshness of that kind of lifestyle developed some deformities through an accident or something along those lines.

Another hypothesis is that the Pigman might be some kind of mutated human much like the genetic defects that we are aware of something be it pollution or radiation or even natural mutation that caused a child to be born with features associated with a pig. Much like the other hypotheses, this could have caused the offspring to run into the woods to live a feral lifestyle and, depending on the age, not have the same social skills that a typical person raised in society has. Much like the other theories, this is pure speculation but a hypothesis that has been brought up several times.

One of the all-time classic explanations for any barnyard beast cryptids is that they are the results of farmers getting too friendly with their livestock. This version, unlike the classic goat or sheep seen in cases like the Billiwhack Monster or The Sheepman of Waterford this version features an apparently overly promiscuous pig and a farmer going hog wild. While in most cases this is certainly an impossibility, I will say that pigs and humans have many features that are similar to a human's, and some researchers have proposed that early pig ancestors might have mated with chimpanzees causing the modern human line to occur. Now there is very little to support this theory which has come to be known as the Hybrid Hypothesis and has been mostly researched by Geneticist Dr. Eugene M. McCarthy, but it is interesting how some cryptids could be explained by this hypothesis if it is accurate, especially in this case.

While theories abound from satanic possession, feral humans, nature has gone completely wrong, and interspecies breeding. There is, outside of the belief that the whole thing is a hoax, a more plausible answer even though it itself is just as scrutinized as any theory above, and that is that the Pigman is, in fact, a Bigfoot. The reason this hypothesis appears is that the Pigman, outside of it having a pig's head and long talons, does appear like a typical bigfoot, albeit its one of the first times where one notices the genitalia, but the long hair and the bipedal form are all quintessential bigfoot traits. One thing that always interested me is that too hoof prints were often found at the bedding sites, but when witnesses would encounter Pigman, hooves were never reported, so perhaps the creature had typical bigfoot feet, and the other tracks were misidentified moose or deer or elk tracks. The pig's face too is often ambiguous when you really break it down since the creature is never exactly described, nor are there any eyewitness sketches of the creature to get a true feel of what was seeing perhaps the creature had an upturned pig-like nose which is a trait sometimes seen in primates. Witnesses do not tend to elaborate on whether it had pig-like ears or if the nose jutted out or if it had a snout, so it's possible that this creature could be simply a very strangely nosed bigfoot. The behavior of the Pigman is also consistent with those who have encountered bigfoot as there are many similarities between the two. The throwing of branches seen in the Amanda case, the cave-like lifestyle including the bedding, the stealing of farm life, the sprinting across the road, the howls the bigfoot is said to release sometimes sound pig-like, and so on and so on. If the creature did not have the name Pigman, it would almost be an exact copy of a bigfoot. Yet while this answer is much more plausible than the others, it still does not explain the two long talons only on the creature's hands, as well as the possibility that the creature did, in fact, have more pig-like features compared to ape-like.  

While I'm a big fan of the Bigfoot hypothesis, there is another possibility to the identity of the creature, and that is the theory I've come to call the bipedal boar hypothesis. This hypothesis is the same as Linda Godfrey's hypothesis for the indigenous Dogman; the concept is that through years of evolution, some species had developed the ability to walk upright because this, just like with us, proved advantageous, and in doing so, other features began to change with it. This concept could be applied to perhaps a group of wild boars who became less reliant on being quadrupedal and, through the shifting of the pelvis and vertebrae, managed to become what today we could call Pigmen or Boarmen. There are several accounts of cryptids in the United States as well as overseas that seem to be similar or of the same species. The Georgia Pigman, Elmore City Pig Man, Salina Pig Man, Oklahoma Boarman, The Cannock Chase Pigman, and the Kinchafoonee Creep all seem to be similar or the same type of creature. Now, of course, this hypothesis is pure speculation, and there’s no fossil evidence or a biological specimen to confirm this theory, but there’s still the chance that this could realistically happen in a small population and then spread over the United States in small pocket areas.

With all that said, there has never been a conclusive end to the creature; in fact, the creature has slowly been weaseling its way up to cult cryptid status as it gained tons of attention from online sources as well as a brief segment on Monsters and Mysteries in America. Yet as with many cryptids, the sightings seemed to of stopped or at least continued to of gone unreported and even the cases mentioned except for the few where actual witnesses came forward seem to be examples of variant cases of folklore such as the boyfriend who was attacked case is similar to the Hookman, Cropsy, or any of the dead boyfriend lovers lane legends which themselves originate from New England. This case is so difficult to get a clear feel of because there are so many unknowns to the point that coming up with an official status of whether this is folklore, a cryptid encounter, or a hoax is almost impossible. With that said, however, it is a fascinating case that is something that I would love to investigate some time in the future. Until then, however, the Pigman will remain as one of New England's most infamous cryptids and a legend that will go down in the Fortean literature for some time to come.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal/ Hominid

Location: Devil’s Washbowl, Northfield, Vermont

Sighted: 1971-Present Day

Works Cited:

Weird New England By Joseph A. Citro

The Vermont Monster Guide By Joseph A. Citro

Eugene M. McCarthy, Ph.D. "The Hybrid Hypothesis” http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html.

Megan Borchert “The Pigman of Northfield, Vermont” Werewoof.  https://www.werewoofs.com/monster-stories/pigman-northfield-vermont/. Accessed September 5, 2021.

“Sam Harris” https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Sam_Harris. Accessed September 5, 2021.

Monsters and Mysteries in America "Vermont Pigman, Bridge Where I Died, Project Stargate” Season 3 Episode 5. Destination America. 2015.