Abominable Chicken Man

My daily commute takes me straight through downtown Bishopville, SC. If that name sounds familiar to you don’t be surprised. The town was made famous, more or less, back in 1988 with the alleged sightings of the Lizard Man at the Scape Ore Swamp. I’ve written about the Lizard Man in the past here, if you need a refresher. Last week on my way to work, I had to stop my car as a chicken crossed the road. 

Recognizing a golden opportunity for a joke, I quickly went to twitter to announce this. I suppose that’s a commentary on our current social media obsessed society, but I digress. Because of my extremely witty joke, Theo Paijmans, linked me to an interesting newspaper report which I had not heard of before. It’s the strange tale of the “Abominable Chicken Man”. A primate of unknown origin which apparently had a craving for chickens and was roaming around the Oklahoma country side in the late 60’s early 70’s. 

Probably not what was seen

The story was reported in The Spokesman-Review by Dennis Montgomery on March 1st of 1971. This encounter had occurred the previous December. Montgomery relates how a local farmer located in El Reno, Oklahoma suffered some loss and damaged property at the hands of this “Chicken Man”. Montgomery writes:

An El Reno farmer walked out to his chicken coop one day in December and found its door on the ground, apparently thrown there after being ripped off the wall.

On the surface of the door, and inside the coop on the walls, were a number of strange hand prints - like none he’d ever seen before. They were about seven inches long and five inches wide.

The farmer initially contacted a local game warden/ranger who was also at a loss to explain the origins of the hand prints. So the local zoo was contacted to see if they could offer any insight on what may have attacked the farmer’s chickens. Montgomery tells us:

Zoo Director Lawrence Curtis says the prints appear to be like those of a primate. A primate is an animal like a gorilla or a man that can stand erect. The thumber of the print is unusual. Curtis says it crooks inside, as if it were deformed or had been injured.

‘It resembles a gorilla,’ he said, ‘but it’s more like a man.’

‘It appears that whatever made the prints was walking on all fours. There were some footprints on the ground outside,’ he said. Whatever it was was barefoot. Barefoot in December.

This farmer was not the only one person to have come across similar prints. Montgomery notes several other individuals across Oklahoma who were said to have discovered the same, or similar, hand prints as the original farmer did. As to what this creature could have been, Montgermery relates:

Oklahoma has only for native animals big enough to leave such prints: the black bear, the mountain lion, the wolf and man. Curtis has ruled out all but the last.

‘We’ve shown it to several mammalogists and several wildlife experts in Oklahoma and some passing through. All agree it is a primate,’ he said. ‘These prints were made by some sort of a man, perhaps looking for chickens,’

Check this link in order to read the full article. Montgomery goes on to draw parallels between this “Chicken Man” and other Bigfoot creatures seen throughout North America. The chicken farmer never claimed to have seen the creature, only the devastation it left in it’s wake. There are a number of sightings of bigfoot-like creatures reported in the area in and around El Reno, Oklahoma. Did this famer have an encounter with the Bigfoot? It’s possible. Those hand prints certainly do sound quite large and the fact that the creature got around on all fours could possibly rule out a human culprit. Unless they were up to trickery, a possibility which I can’t deny.

The ‘Abominable Chicken Man’ never seemed to show back up. Maybe he had enough chicken? Maybe he went on a diet? Who knows? Either way, it makes for yet another interesting wrinkle in the Bigfoot story.

Further reading:

El Reno’s Dermals - Cryptomundo

Oklahoma - a Bigfoot Hotspot - From the Shadows

Mystery of The Black Stick Men

I consider myself to be a fairly skeptical guy. Granted, I tend to take most paranormal encounter stories at face value.I generally believe that people have had an experience which is meaningful to them, whether that included a paranormal aspect is up for debate in my mind, but for the person the encounter was most certainly real. As such, I very rarely come out strongly on the side of paranormal phenomena being imagined or in some sense not “real”. I’m finding it hard to keep my open-mindedness about today’s relatively recent phenomenon which we are going to discuss. The Black Stick Men are paranormal creatures which, not entirely unlike the Black Eyed Kids, seem to have been born on the internet.

The origin or at least the modern fascination with this phenomenon seems to stem from a 2009 Listverse article entitled “Top 10 Modern Paranormal Phenomena”. All the usual suspects of the paranormal world make an appearance on this list; chupacabras, dog-headed men, shadow people, etc. Among the more normal, paranormal, menagerie the author snuck in a strange report of something he called “Black Stick Men”. From the site:

The black stick man is another entity encountered in modern times. Not to be confused with the shadow man, incredibly he is even stranger. Stick men are supposed to look like totally black, thin, stick figure drawings, such as teachers would make in kindergarten. They have been reported as between average height to impossibly tall. Their heads are just a black circle with no facial features being discernible. They are totally two dimensional, without any depth.

Usually they’ve been sighted walking along roads at night, or at transitional times such as twilight or just before dawn. Bizarrely, some have reported them wearing what appears to be a top hat.

Their walk is described as a weird “lolloping” gait. They are surprised when actually seen, and have followed unfortunate witnesses on occasion. Their pace remains leisurely as they approach. Obviously to be pursued by such an otherworldly creature would be anything but pleasant, and those who have encountered them have been understandably terrified. So far however, apart from being bizarrely frightening, they have done no physical harm, and ultimately just disappear.

Attempting to wrap my head around this “phenomena” is a whole lot harder than most of the paranormal creatures I’ve discussed here at Forteania in the past. Regardless of how bizarre the Black Stick Men might be, it doesn’t seem to stop people from having encounters with them. Author Martin J Clemens, at his Paranormal People Online site, has a great write up about this phenomenon which I recommend checking out. In his post, he points out that the comments section of the original Listverse article has a few examples of encounters with Black Stick Men. Clemens points readers to the following comment:

“In 1982, when I was a student nurse at Warley Hospital, Brentwood in Essex, England, I encountered a ‘stick person’ in the grounds of the Hospital as I was walking home one night. It lopped across the roadway having been, seemingly, pressed up against a wall. It stopped when it saw me and raised it’s arms in fright and quickly walked off into the undergrowth. It was very tall with very thin, extremely long arms and legs and a very small oval head. Totally black and no obvious clothing. I saw no face even though it emerged very near a street lamp and so was well illuminated. I was terrified and to this day, no-one believes me…”

Everyone’s favorite website AboveTopSecret, has a thread dealing with this topic. From the thread I was led to a forum posting on the Fortean Times message boards from 2003, predating the 2009 listverse article, where the anonymous poster reports a Black Stick Man encounter which was supposed to have occurred back in 1978. From the forums:

Simon

“The following account is slightly shortened but otherwise unchanged and comes from my diary record for Tuesday, 31st October 1978. Only the names have been changed. We were all aged between 15 and 17 at the time. The Loose Valley referred to is near Maidstone in Kent. My diary record also indicates that there was a new moon on that night.

"I will record a rather unpleasant experience which took place tonight. A group of about ten of us were sitting chatting in the Loose Valley at about midnight. After about 45 minutes Will leapt to his feet slapping his head saying there was a bee in his hair; he looked absolutely terrified. Both Dorothy and I saw the outline of a tall, thin figure wearing a hat dancing behind him. Will said later it was if a terrifically loud buzzing was coming-up through the top of his head. However only Rachel heard any buzzing.

We partially satisfied ourselves that it must have been a bees' nest, and so we moved a little distance away. As we moved away Dorothy and I saw a ring outlined in the grass which enclosed where we had been sitting. Eventually it started raining so we headed for Rachel's house. As we left I turned around and saw the same thin black figure walk across the opening between the trees to where we had been sitting.”

Here is another account from the same Fortean Times forum thread. Another anonymous poster recounts their experience with the Black Stick Men:

This is my first post. I wanted to share an experience that happened to me some years ago, for which I have no explanation but still to this day I'd like to see if anyone out there has any ideas to contribute. The fact that I stumbled across these accounts on the FT website of black silhouette figures confirms a lot to me, namely that myself and a friend are not alone in something we experienced. Please read on!

I was walking from a friend's house to my own, in the early hours of the morning after a night of general chat while I was at university here in London, UK – specifically, a relatively leafy suburb called Brockley in South-east London. I had drunk only everyday tea or soft drinks all night and had consumed no drugs whatsoever. I'd simply gone without sleep. The time was around 6am and dawn was literally breaking when a friend and I found ourselves walking down my street to where my apartment was located, when we saw a figure walking up the street towards us. The word we coined later to describe its movement was 'lolloping' - a kind of up-down bouncy walk. It took a few seconds for the two of us to realise this was no human being. I asked my friend: "See that man?" "Yes," was the reply. "It's not a man, though, is it?" I found myself asking. "No,' said my friend, sounding scared. "It isn't."

The creature was entirely black and like a cardboard cut-out, flat and one-dimensional. It had no features at all, and it had arms that hung down to its knees. It seemed to be ignoring us, then it seemed to realise we could see it and it began to 'lollop' faster towards us.

We ran to my front door and hid in the hallway as quiet and unmoving as possible when we saw the thing - we felt it was male - approach the front door and appear to look through the glass from the way its head moved up and down and around. It then turned away.

We didn't sleep for some time after that, discussing what we saw. It was shaped like many descriptions of 'greys' but both myself and my friend came away with the impression that what we saw was either of this world or from another parallel dimension. To all intents and purposes, it appeared to be sauntering along the road enjoying the walk before it became shocked to see us staring at it in horror. We instinctively felt this was not a creature to try and communicate with, this was not something that it was good to be near. We might have been wrong but neither myself nor my friend would ever like to see this creature or others like it again, though I'd love to get some ideas on what it was. We felt that if this creature had somehow gotten hold of us, we would not be around today to tell the tale to anyone who might believe us or at least give the story open-minded consideration.

The Fortean Times thread is full of other accounts of encounters with these mysterious entities. I highly suggest you check it out for some more creepy tales of Black Stick Men.  Just what in the world are these things? Even considering the things I’ve discussed on this blog in the past, these entities seem beyond the realm of the possible. I’m not discounting them, after all reality is far stranger than fiction at times. I can’t even begin to think what these creatures may actually be. Figments of the imagination of the witnesses? Sure, may be in some cases.

A part of me can’t help but be suspicious of their modern appearance. True, most of the stories you’ll read will be from the 60’s or 70’s. Yet people only began to relate these strange encounters recently. Could this be because the events were simply too bizarre for the people to recount. Fearing that they would be at best dismissed or at worst ridiculed? I can certainly see how that might be the case. I can’t help shake the suspicion that these entities might be a modern myth in the making, not entirely unlike our friend the Black Eyed Kids. As always, I’d love to know what you all think. Feel free to post your opinions in the comment section below.

The Elusive Shadow People

The idea that someone, or something, has invaded the sanctity of your house or bedroom is probably the epitome of nightmare fuel. Thankfully I’ve never had this kind of experience. Coincidentally (or maybe not) many denizens of the paranormal have a penchant for visiting people within their bedrooms. Today however I wish to focus your attention today to The Shadow People. Tracking down the origins of these entities is almost as elusive as sightings of them are. The first time I heard them mentioned was on one of a number of Ghost Hunting websites I used to frequent back in the mid to late 90’s, the URLs to which I’ve long since misplaced. At the time they were often described as a kind of haunting that people would experience. And many seemed to be described as emanating evil, if not outright evil in action or deed.

Accounts from Legend

It should come as no surprise that some cultures around the world have reported the same, or similar, creatures within their myths or worldviews. Just one example is of the Choctaw People, a Native American tribe which was originally located in the states of Mississippi, ALabama, and Louisiana, had a few different shadow-like creatures. Nalusa Falaya, which translates roughly to long black being, is a man shaped being which would frighten hunters and prefered to slither on it’s stomach like a snake in some accounts. Additionally, Choctaw believed that every person had both a shilombish (outside shadow) and a shilup (the inside shadow). Upon death, the shilup is said to go to the land of the ghosts. The shilombish,  is believed to hang around the earth after the passing of the deceased person. This particular figure seems to be more closely related to our modern concept of The Shadow People.

Examples of Encounters

Here are just a few of the more standard accounts of persons who have claimed to have had encounters with The Shadow People. The following stories come from Shadowpeople.org:

Melissa - I was asleep only to immediately wake up and look to the corner of my bedroom, there I saw the figure of a tall man standing and looking at me, I was scared beyond belief, to make things worse I knew he wasn’t human as not only could I make out his shadowy figure in the dark, but I could also see through him, I threw the covers over my head and screamed out in horror until my father ran in, I cried for him to turn on the lights.

Jonas - one night I woke up late and was just staring at the ceiling of the apartment when I began to feel that something just didn't feel right, or like I was being watched. I scanned the room and to my utter shock there stood a Shadow Hat Man at the end of my bed on the left hand side. I have never been so terrified in my entire life. I seriously thought I was going to die of fear. This black mass was a man and he was wearing a wide brim hat and what looked like a cloak of some sort. I couldn't move or speak because I was totally numb with fear.

unnamed person - Not being able to fall asleep, I opened my eyes and looked towards my open bedroom door. There stood a dark figure, about six feet tall with the build of an average sized man. The shadow seemed to be wearing a pea coat or a trench coat. The silhouette was completely featureless in all other respects. It did not move. It just stood there in the doorway, completely silent. I assumed my eyes were playing tricks on me so I felt rather silly when I called out, "Who's there?" and "Hello?" When I got no response, my confusion turned into the most intense and unexplainable fear that I have ever experienced.

The above encounters are only a few of the dozens you can easily find all over the internet. A great place to read similar encounters is Jason Offutt’s blog, From The Shadows.

Variety of Types

One of the interesting aspects of The Shadow People is the variety of types, shapes, and forms with which they are reported. In his 2009 book Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us, author and journalist Jason Offutt details roughly eight different kinds of Shadow People that had been reported to him by various experiencers. Here are just a few of them:

The Hat Man

Maybe one of the creepier shadow people, at least in my opinion. Why in the world is it wearing a hat?

Hooded Figure

Somehow a figure in a hood just doesn’t instil the same fear or creepy-factor in me as one with a hat does. Maybe I’m just desensitized by years of horror movies?

Black Smoke/Mist

Shadow People which are seen in this variety appear to be comprised of their namesake; black smoke or mist. To be fair, I doubt the veracity of the above photo but Google Image search was not kind to my query for "Black Mist Shadow People"

Science has the “answer”!

Modern science has weighed in on the Shadow People and seems to offer a compelling explanation for many, though not all, of the encounters which people have had. It is believed that Sleep Paralysis, accompanied by hypnopompic and hypnagogic hallucinations may account for some of these bedroom visitors. The idea is that during REM sleep, or the state of sleep in which dreams can occur, the body undergoes muscle atonia or a weakening of the muscles. This is so that the body doesn’t act out what is happening in your dreams. In the sleep paralysis state, the REM cycle has been disturbed or interrupted, so that a person is awake but their body is still paralyzed. During this state has been suggested that individuals might experience hypnagogic hallucinations in which they would then see “Shadow People” and really any other kind of nighttime visitor (such as Greys).

The Paranormal Community has an “answer” too! (well, a bunch of them)

Not to be outdone by scientists, the paranormal community has an opinion on what The Shadow People are. However like everything else in this field, if you ask 10 people for their opinion on The Shadow People, you’re going to get 10 different explanations. The usual suspects show up as you might imagine. For more religious-minded folk the Shadow People are clearly demons; they are literally black, usually described as devoid of light, give off “evil vibes”, and show up late at night. For those who spend their time looking up for all the answers, The Shadow People represent a race of ETs who are scoping out the situation and trying to figure us humans out. Ghost hunters see them as kinds of ghosts. Some think they may be time travelers. The list goes on. As with most paranormal things, your phenomenology or “reality tunnel” clearly colors your perceptions of this phenomenon.

Conclusion?

Given that many of the experiences involving The Shadow People  do seem to occur in the bedroom, usually after a person has been woken up from sleep, it’s not hard to see why this explanation is so attractive to scientists or anyone else who wishes to ignore “Damned” data. I could certainly see how some of the encounters with The Shadow People might fall under this explanation, I can’t see it accounting for all of the varied experiences. On the other hand, the paranormal explanations for The Shadow People are as varied as the field is. Aliens, Ghosts, Demons, Time Travelers, you name it, likely someone thinks that what The Shadow People are. Personally I don’t know what to make of these experiences. Regardless of their origin, they are certainly “real” to the people who undergo them. Maybe that’s the only important takeaway from all of this. Until I learn anything differently, I’m going to keep an open mind on The Shadow People. And hope I never encounter one myself, especially The Hat Man! Yeesh.

Beast of Gevaudan

One of the first books I purchased from the paranormal field was Brad Steiger’s The Werewolf Book. (Technically I purchased an earlier version, the amazon link there is to the latest edition). Within this fascinating book, is a story which I was reminded of while working on yesterday’s post.  Our tale begins in the mountainous region of France, called Gevaudan. Clark, in Unexplained!, tells us the following:

One day in June 1764, in a forest in the Gevaudan, a mountainous region of south-central France, a young woman tending cows looked up to see a hideous beast bearing down on her. The size of a cow or donkey, the creature resembled an enormous wolf. Her dogs fled, but the cattle drove the beast off with their horns.

This is the start of the beast’s reign of terror. Steiger offers readers a description:

The creature was described as a hairy beast that walked upright on two legs. Its face was sworn to be like that of Satan, and its entire body was said to be covered with dark, bristly hair. Those who were fortunate enough to escape the beast’s clutches always mentioned an “evil smell” that emanated from its foul hide.

Unlike many other paranormal creatures, the Beast of Gevaudan seemed to have a taste for human flesh. It slaughtered men, women, and children throughout Gevaudan. Though it did seem to have a predilection for women and children. The people, as Steiger writes, were convinced that they were dealing with a ‘Loup-Garou’ or Werewolf. A somewhat typical encounter with this “Werewolf” is told below by Steiger:

On the Night of January 15, 1765, a blizzard raged in the mountains. When his 15-year-old son did not return from tending sheep, Pierre Chateauneuf lit a torch and went in search of the boy. The horrified father discovered the mutilated body of his son near the bawling flock.

The grieving Chateauneuf carried the body down the slopes to their small farm home in the valley….

It was then, Chateauneuf later told the authorities, that he saw the beast staring at him through a window. The werewolf’s eyes were glassy, like those of a wild animal, and its dark face was covered with hair.

The angry farmer dashed to a wall, pulled down a musket, and fired point-blank at the creature. The black, hairy monster had apparently anticipated the man’s attack, for it dropped down before the musket was discharged. Chateauneuf testified later that as he reloaded the musket and ran outside, he saw the beast running across the snow toward his orchard. It looked like a man running in an animal’s skin.

That the people were dealing with something which seemed not to be a typical wolf seems evident from the accounts. Although even at the time some doubted the stories of “Loup-Garous” and believed that there must be a rational explanation for what was occurring. Eventually village petitions would reach Louis IX at Versailles. The King ordered that soldiers be dispatched to search the mountains of Le Gevaudan. The soldiers came up empty-handed, apparently failing to locate any kind of beast, whether normal or paranormal, which could be responsible for the deaths.

The attacks by the creature increased until it all ended in a rather dramatic, and perhaps difficult to envision, scenario. Steiger reports that a posse of several hundred men had succeeded in finally cornering the beast in some trees near the village of Le Surge d’Auvert. He writes:

Jean Chastel was given credit for the kill. According to Chastel's testimony, he had retired a short distance from his companions to read his prayer book. He happened to glance up from his devotions and saw the beast coming directly toward him, walking erect. Chastel said that he had prepared himself according to certain ancient traditions. His double-barreled musket was loaded with bullets made from a silver chalice that had been blessed by a priest.

The bullet from the first barrel of Chastel's musket struck the monster in the chest. It let out a fierce howl and charged its attacker. Chastel aimed the next shot directly for the monster’s heart. The werewolf dropped dead at his feet, the silver bullet in its heart.

With that final shot the end of the three year long wave of horror caused by the Beast of Gevaudan came to an end. A part of me can’t quite move past the almost “mythic” way in which the creature was killed. The ‘holy’ or ‘devout’ man kills the evil creature with a blessed object. I don’t know, perhaps I’m reading too much into the tale. Regardless if we assume Chastel’s account is correct, he successfully stopped a creature which had been terrorizing Gevaudan for nearly three years. What was this creature? By all reports it certainly sounds like it really was a werewolf. The people of the town were convinced, though there were skeptics of this story. Whether it was supernatural creature or some natural predator, it makes for a very interesting, if tragic, tale.

19th Century Chupacabras

While thumbing through one of my paranormal books the other night, I came across a familiar story. A group of sheep farmers were upset because something was attacking and killing their livestock. The creature was not, however, eating the sheep. According to witnesses,  it was biting their jugulars and, apparently, draining them of blood. If this sounds familiar to you, hold your assumptions for just a second. The above the story comes not from Puerto Rico in 1995, instead Charle Fort relates the account in his book Lo! (which I of course read in The Book of the Damned) written in 1931. Fort tells readers:

In the month of May, 1810, something appeared at Ennerdale, near the border of England and Scotland, and killed sheep, not devouring them, sometimes seven or eight of them in a night, but biting into the jugular vein and sucking the blood.

As far back as 1810, something  was roaming the countryside, draining livestock of blood. Fort goes on to describe how a large “dog” was killed. At which point the killings ceased. That this is anything more than a convenient explanation seems obvious to Fort. He has already spent much of Lo! showing readers how a satisfying answer to a problem, no matter how much data is ignored, is almost always preferable to a real mystery. He tells of more sheep killings in the same manner:

For about four months, in the year 1874, beginning upon January 8th, a killer was abroad, in Ireland. In Land and Water, March 7, 1874, a correspondent writes that he had heard of depredations by a wolf, in Ireland, where the last native wolf had been killed in the year 1712. According to him, a killer was running wild, in Cavan, slaying as many as 30 sheep in one night. There is another account, in Land and Water, March 28. Here, a correspondent writes that, in Cavan, sheep had been killed in a way that led to the belief that the marauder was not a dog.

This correspondent knew of 42 instances, in three townlands, in which sheep had been similarly killed—throats cut and blood sucked, but no flesh eaten. The footprints were like a dog's, but were long and narrow, and showed traces of strong claws. Then, in the issue of April 11th, of Land and Water, came the news that we have been expecting. The killer had been shot. It had been shot by Archdeacon Magenniss, at Lismoreville, and was only a large dog.

Other towns seemed to have encounters with a same, or similar, creature. This time it was a bit different in that no matter how many “dogs”, who were most assuredly the culprit, were shot it did not stop the killings. Fort tells us:

See the Clare Journal, issues up to April 27th—the shooting of the large dog, and no effect upon the depredations—another dog shot, and the relief of the farmers, who believed that this one was the killer—still another dog shot, and supposed to be the killer—the killing of sheep continuing. The depredations were so great as to be described as "terrible losses for poor people." It is not definitely said that something was killing sheep vampirishly, but that "only a piece was bitten off, and no flesh sufficient for a dog ever eaten."

The scene of the killings shifted.

Cavan Weekly News, April 17—that, near Limerick, more than 100 miles from Cavan, "a wolf or something like it" was killing sheep. The writer says that several persons, alleged to have been bitten by this animal, had been taken to the Ennis Insane Asylum, "laboring under strange symptoms of insanity."

It seems that some of the killings were simultaneous near Cavan and near Limerick. At both places, it was not said that finally any animal, known to be the killer, was shot or identified. If these things that may not be dogs be, their disappearances are as mysterious as their appearances.

The creature’s reign of terror was far from over. By 1905, similar attacks were occurring in England. Fort relates:

There was a marauding animal in England, toward the end of the year 1905. London Daily Mail, Nov. 1, 1905—"the sheep-slaying mystery of Badminton." It is said that, in the neighborhood of Badminton, on the border between Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, sheep had been killed. Sergeant Carter, of the Gloucestershire Police, is quoted—"I have seen two of the carcasses, myself, and can say definitely that it is impossible for it to be the work of a dog. Dogs are not vampires, and do not suck the blood of a sheep, and leave the flesh almost untouched."

It’s not hard to see the similarities between the nature of the attacks on these sheep and the later attacks by the ‘Chupacabra’. Is it possible that this could have been done by the same kind of creature? In some of the cases sighted by Fort, the mysterious phenomena went away without the “resolution” of having killed a dog or wolf. Ending as strangely as it began. This habit of mysterious phenomena starting and stopping suddenly is really par for the course. UFOs are often sighted in “Flaps” or “Waves”, so to is Bigfoot. Perhaps we are dealing with some kind of natural phenomena which is cyclical in nature? This idea is certainly not unique to me and in fact I believe I first read it in Keel’s books.

Could the above reports be of an actual Chupacabra in the 19th century? By all accounts it certainly bears a strong resemblance. As with most of this Fortean/Paranormal stuff, we are left only to wonder and marvel at the interesting accounts left to us.