No doubt uber-skeptic Joe Nickell will be on the program and tell us that the Flatwoods Monster was just an owl.
I saw it; have been looking forward to this episode ever since a producer from the show contacted me several months ago in preparing for the program. I think I put her off; for I went into an esoteric direction (a la Andrew Colvin, who, I noticed, the show did not mention) and she nervously-laughingly said she didn’t want the government following her, dismissing anything to do with all that. I didn’t think much of the program, even though Nick Redfern was on, which was great. But overall, didn’t think much of it and Coleman makes a good point: where was the historical background? However, of all the things that annoyed me the most was the inclusion of uber-skeptic (“I’m not a scientist, I have an English Lit degree, but I play one on TV” Joe Nickell) who smirked non-stop while gleefully cutting out plywood Mothman figures to test the accuracy of witnesses. This man has an intriguing fixation with owls; for, after all, not only are owls the explanation for Mothman sightings, owls are the explanation for the Flatwoods creature, and the Kelly Hopkinsville entities, says Nickell.
Here’s Coleman’s review on his blog Cryptomundo.
From Jon Downes across the pond, on Still on the Track, a report of a Mothman/Owlman sighting in Seaham, on England’s northeast coast from Davey Curtis. A couple were walking home from a pub around 10:00 pm. On that walk, they encountered something very unusual:
As they got to the end of the lane something caught their eye in the field next to the fence. At first they thought it was a Shire horse because of its size but it was definitely not a Shire horse. Phil and Kate both told me that it was man-shaped, at least 7 feet tall, jet black with piercing red eyes, and it just stood there, motionless.
Phil and Kate looked at it in disbelief for about 15 seconds, then it let out a scream like a fox before “disappearing straight down like it had fell down a well or trap door!”
That did it! Phil and Kate then ran like Hell onto the main road until they stopped near the recently built water treatment plant, exhausted and out of breath. Phil tried to phone a taxi but found his mobile phone was dead, although it was working fine back at the pub. So half running, half walking, constantly looking about them, they got back home, terrified out of their wits, unable to understand what they had just witnessed.
Curtis has known the couple for twenty years and believes their story. There’s more to the story; read the entire account here.
I’ve been feeling the urge to paint Mothman images — do a whole series of small paintings with UFOs and entities as the theme — and this is my first Mothman attempt. Just scribbling, really. This is a pen and pencil sketch I did, then manipulated it with the Photobooth tools. The original drawing has more color (didn’t have the tools I wanted, and too lazy to walk out to the studio in the back to get them) and I’ve cropped the image a bit.
I’ve recently received several e-mails from someone in my area (Lane County, western Oregon) whose friend saw a “batsquatch” on his rural property about ten miles from where I live. However, my intuition tells me the story isn’t reliable. And, as I correspond more with the “FOA” (friend of a friend) the creepy vibe I get remains.
I’ve written about this a bit on my Bigfoot blog Frame 352, and I’ll write more for my next Trickster’s Realm column for Binnall of America, which will be up next week.
The story of this 19 year old man working in his garage at 1:00 a.m. on his rural property off Lorane Highway, who saw a strange creature, follows:
The “thing” was about 15 ft. from the witness at about 1:15 A.M. behind his house. He accidentally locked himself out of his house while working in his garage late last night. He went around to the back of his house to climb in through a window. He heard something and used the light from his cell phone, pointing it in the direction of the sound. The thing had a human form only quite large over seven feet with red reflecting eyes and very large wings. It jumped into the air flying off with the sound of massive air displacement with each wing stroke.
Overall, I just had a red flag go up, especially given the way this first e-mail started out, with the man’s intention of sacrificing a live lamb, tethered by “shark hooks” in order to trap this so-called “batsquatch”:
Can it be baited with a lamb? I’m thinking of putting shark hooks with 3/32″ braided steel leader in the lamb’s fur along the back. I want to tether the lamb near the edge of a field near the woods. I am concerned about coyotes getting the lamb first.
I immediately e-mailed the person and told him I do not support any such thing. He wrote back surprised, thinking I would be all over this. Why he would think that I don’t know, I’ve written many times on-line I support a “no kill” policy on Bigfoot, I’m against trophy and canned hunting, exotic pet ownership and exploitation, etc.
Then things turned even weirder; turns out the batsquatch is, in this man’s opinion, a “demon” and so, must be dealt with. Both men are Christians, and he tells me only a strong faith in Christ can handle such a creature. I then wrote to him and asked him if that were so, wouldn’t an exorcism of sorts work, given his faith? In other words, instead of using a live animal as bait, try prayer, focus, intent, light, and so on.
His justification for using a live lamb, aside from the religious angle, was that coyotes, bear, cougar, and other predators kill lamb. His other justification was that the encounter with this creature needs to be proved. Yes, I replied, but they are predators eating to survive, not playing games with a supposed demon. Using an innocent creature to capture another to vindicate one’s experience of the strange is simply immoral in my world view:
There are coyotes, black bears, one lynx, and a couple of cougars in the area so the lamb may end up eaten one way or the other.
I replied with the following. At this time, this is the last e-mail received and sent:
So, very sad to say, it seems you intend to go ahead with this and sacrifice a lamb to gratify an ego-driven need to “prove” to the world such a “demonic” creature exists. The fact that bear, cougar, coyote, etc. kill livestock does not make this okay. One is the natural predation of creatures upon another; yours is an ego driven choice made out of a religious conviction a need to eat for survival.
By the way, if you really believe any of this, the fact (in your view) this thing is a “demon” — well, does it even need food? Why not try a sort of exorcism, without the lamb? Prayer, light, intent, focus, etc. — that might go a long way.
Also, if it’s a demon, do you really think such a creature would hold still within the confines of being held prisoner in a lab somewhere, especially a government lab? For no doubt the authorities would get involved such a fantastic find.
Do you really trust the Big Science Infrastructure (talk about demons) and government that much — that they wouldn’t kill this thing, cut it up, and hide it away after they’ve done what they’ve wanted? And how much credit or vindication do you think such authorities would grant you in regards to the proof of this creature? You’re really back at square one.
I don’t expect this to have any influence on this person, I was basically venting my frustration. I figure if he contacted me first he takes the responsibility of response to his plans.
My initial response to this was that this 19 year old man was either highly distracted or agitated to begin with — working in a garage at 1:00 a.m, locking himself out of the house on rural property? etc. — or a “tweaker” (meth head.) I realize the irony of this coming from me, after all, the pathological skeptic uses this excuse all the time to explain away witness encounters. Combine that with the superstitious form of their religious belief, and the symbolic nature of the sacrificial lamb . . . just adds up to an unwholesome scenario I don’t want to be a part of.
Besides which, I don’t know of any Batsquatch sightings in Oregon, though I know there are reports out of Washington state and Mt. Shasta area.
This drawing of a shadow person on the Coast to Coast site has a Mothman type feel to it. Glowing red eyes, black/shadow, night time, bedroom visitation . . . I’m not suggesting shadow entities and Mothman are the same but there is a similarity there that reminded me of Mothman encounters.
I’ve always thought of Mothman and Springheel Jack as being connected in some way. I’m not sure how I mean that but a vague relationship seems to exist between them. It could be nothing more than the combination of winged human like creatures popping up in unexpected places, along with the specific regional aspect of both anomalous creatures.
Here’s an interesting article
A Look at Springheel Jack and the Interdimensional by Paul Dale Roberts on Springheel Jack, who isn’t Mothman of course, but there is that distant, vague thread between the two. As Roberts points out, Springheel Jack sightings still occur. The first sighting was in 1837 in England, which predates Mothman in Pt. Pleasant here in the United States of course. But, while both are set in time, seemingly, both still appear to witnesses. Both also have been described as having glowing red eyes, and both give the appearance of being winged; in Mothman’s case, literally, with Springheel Jack, the cape like “wings” give the impression of wings, like Mothman. (Many illustrations of Springheel Jack depict him as having wings, or wearing some kind of winged shaped “cape.”)
Roberts, as does Keel and other researchers of the esoteric, consider that beings such as Mothman and Springheel Jack are interdimensional beings. This isn’t a new idea by any means but sometimes we forget about this idea, moving on to other theories. It’s funny for me to think that Keel, Clark, even Vallee, etc. are considered almost old fashioned now in some ways at times. When I started out reading about this stuff as a teenager those writers made a kind of sense to me; now, forty years later (!) those theories are moved aside for awhile. There are some who keep this idea going, Patrick Harpur, author of
Daimonic Reality: a Field Guide to the Otherworld, and George Hansen, author of The Trickster and the Paranormal for example.
I think we’re moving back to this idea, that all these things are connected in some way, including the UFO enigma. Even while being separate in their own right, including the idea there are aliens from space, and yet, somehow, they share a connection. Each is its own thing, its own manifestation, but of the same source.
Maybe. Don’t mind me, I’m just musing along here.
Anyway, back to Roberts: it’s a well written article, and the ethical and moral questions of being a narc aside, his experiences are worth reading about. There’s also an embedded YouTube video on Springheel Jack in the article which is nice.
Click here for a neat but creepy (to me) image of a giant red eyed moth. The photographer comments he took the photo while in Mexico. This is from the Coast to Coast site.
Here’s a very interesting and nice article by Jonathan Downes, author of
The Owlman & Others. (Thanks to Nick Redfern who alerted me to the link.) Of course, I’ve known about this book since it came out but haven’t read it. This is a reminder to go over to Amazon and order it right away.
The article is very interesting for a lot of reasons; just by itself, as a Fortean-cryptid piece, but also for its similarities to Mothman. Winged human type creatures, owls, the reaction of animals in the area, weird weather, red glowing eyes, all kinds of things.
Speaking of red glowing eyes, read Nick Redfern’s item at his Man-Beat U.K. blog. It’s not about Mothman per se, but still interesting.
And Kithra, of Kithra’s Krystal Cave and who is also a contributor to one of my blogs, Women Of Esoterica, has a good piece on glowing red eyes as well: Glowing Red Eyes.
Which reminds me, a Trickster’s Realm article for Binnall of America that I wrote a few weeks ago is also on red glowing eyes in Oregon. Sort of . . .
