Haunted Dolls

Few things in the world of the paranormal creep me out more than haunted dolls. Granted, giant killer rabbits are actually my number one fear, but haunted dolls are a close second. Maybe it’s their lifeless eyes. Perhaps it’s their creepy little hands. Whatever it is, whenever I read stories of haunted dolls I get the Heebie-jeebies. So I thought I would share my anxiety with you guys as we explore some of the more famous, or notorious, cases of haunted dolls. Perhaps this will be a cathartic experience for me? At the very least, it’s a chance to share some creepy stories. I leave it to you to decide the validity of these accounts as always.

Robert the Doll

Any discussion of haunted dolls is almost required to mention the most famous example in the United States; Robert the Doll. In the late 19th century, a wealthy family, surnamed Otto, moved with their children to Key West Florida. Their youngest child, named Robert Eugene Otto, was born in 1900. He was better known by his nickname, ‘Gene’. Gene serves as the focus of our tale.  The story goes that this family had many servants who looked after the house and the children. Mr. and Mrs. Otto were said to have been abusive towards the servants, particularly a Bahamian girl who was alleged to practice all manner of dark arts including Voodoo. For Gene’s 6th birthday, this Bahamian girl is said to have hand-made the doll pictured above and given it as a gift. After she placed a curse upon the doll as retribution for his parents mistreatment of her. Gene dubbed the doll “Robert” and began carrying the doll around with him wherever he went.  

It was said that Gene would often be found talking with Robert. Far stranger than this, his parents were supposed to have heard Gene’s voice and another slightly different voice answering. This was believed to have been Gene playing pretend. Or was it? Not long after receiving the doll, Gene began waking up in the middle of the night, screaming in fright. His parents would rush into Gene’s room in order to check on their son. They would generally discover all of the furniture in his room had been turned over and the room was in disarray.  Robert the Doll was said to have been at the foot of Gene’s bed, sitting upright. The parents naturally accused Gene of messing up his room, Gene maintained his innocence. He claimed that it was Robert the Doll who was making a mess of the bedroom.

This would became a pattern throughout Gene’s childhood. Whenever something bad was done around the house, Robert was to blame. As Gene grew, his relationship with Robert never changed. When his parents passed away, Gene was left his childhood home in Key West. Gene moved back into this house with his wife Annette. By this time, or perhaps a bit before, Gene had become known locally as an artist. In reality both he and his wife were involved in the Key West art movement; he as an artist/painter and her as a jazz musician.

Even as an adult, Gene was said to keep Robert around as a constant companion, much to the consternation of his wife. Gene was also said work alone on his paintings with Robert as his sole companion. It’s not hard to imagine that the relationship between Gene and Robert was a source of conflict between Gene and Annette. Annette reportedly felt uneasy around Robert. Really, who could blame her?

Eventually Annette would have enough of Robert. She put her foot down, Robert was to be resigned to the attic, in his own “room”. They lived this way for a time. After a number of years, Gene began to complain saying that Robert was mad. Robert didn’t like being in the attic, Gene would tell Annette. He should have his own room. The guest room overlooking the street was the perfect place.  

It was in this room where Robert would come to rest for the remainder of Gene’s life. As time wore on, Annette and Gene’s marriage slowly began to unravel. Gene would scream and shout at his wife. At the end of these episodes, Gene would apologize and blame the behavior on Robert. By the 1970’s Gene became ill and locked himself away with Robert in Robert’s “room”. Gene finally passed away in 1972, with Robert by his side. Annette sold the house and left not too long after Gene’s death. She left Robert behind and never looked back.

A few years later, a new family moved into the house. After they were there for only a  few weeks, the stumbled across Robert. Robert had apparently been “buried” beneath a number of boxes in the basement. The couple who moved into this home had a little girl who fell in love with Robert immediately. She soon added him to her large doll collection and all seemed well. Until, much like Gene so many years before her, she started waking up screaming in the middle of the night. The girl told her parents that she had seen Robert running around her bedroom and that it was trying to harm her. The family eventually got rid of Robert the Doll by donating him to a local museum where he resides to this day.

A blogger by the name of Timothy Clax did a great write-up of this case. Clax has the following to say about Robert’s current residence, the Martello Museum:

Robert is still at the museum, in his little sailor suit, holding a little stuffed lion that he,  appears to be attached too. Employees always remember to introduce new recruits of the museum to Robert. Some visitors laugh at the stupidity of being afraid of a stupid doll, but many change their mind....when they see Robert's angry look staring back at them.

Others try to take pictures of Robert in his case, and there cameras will not turn on. They replace the batteries thinking that was the solution, but the new batteries are not working either! When they leave the museum, there cameras turn on and the batteries fully charged.

One male visitor, who didn't believe the curse was true, videotaped his entire day at the museum. When they got to the area were Robert was, the sound on the camera turned off and couldn't be turned back on! He turned around to talk to an employee close by, and the sound on the camera was turned up all the way. Blaring in his ears.

There are a number of websites devoted to this case. If you’re feeling brave enough, you can even spend the night with Robert. I’ll personally be sitting out on that one. What are we to make of this tale? I honestly can say. The psych student in me thinks that perhaps it was Gene who had the issues rather than did Robert the Doll. It is interesting that the little girl would report the same kind of strange behavior from Robert that Gene had done. Assuming she had never heard the stories I have to wonder how she would have come up with similar stories.

Further reading on Robert the Doll:

True Tales of Haunted Dolls

http://www.robertthedoll.org/

Robert The Doll

Annabelle

Our next example of a haunted doll was made famous last year on the big screen. The Conjuring, a story based on the files of demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, opened with a 10 or 15 minute scene involving a haunted doll named Annabelle. In typical Hollywood fashion, the producers of the film decided to hollywood-ify the doll to make it scarier. I’d argue the original Raggedy Ann doll was plenty creepy as it was. In fact, the doll from the film looks a little silly in my opinion.

In 1970 a woman was searching for a birthday present for her daughter, Donna, who was a nursing student at the time.Donna lived in an apartment with a roommate named Annie who was also a nursing student. Donna was apparently happy with the present and placed it in her room as a decorations. The Warren’s website tells us what happened next:

With in that time both Donna and Angie noticed that there appeared to be something very strange and creepy about the doll. The doll apparently moved on its own, relatively unnoticeable movements at first, like a change in position, but as time passed the movement became more noticeable. Donna and Angie would come home to find the doll in a completely different room from which they had left it . 

Sometimes the doll would be found crossed legged on the couch with its arms folded , other times it was found upright, standing on its feet, leaning against a chair in the dining room. Several times Donna, placing the doll on the couch before leaving for work, would return home to find the doll back in her room on the bed with the door closed.  

I’m going to be honest, if I was having these experiences I probably wouldn’t have kept the doll for much longer. Present or not. Although I suppose it’s possible that Donna and Annie simply rationalized the experiences away. It would probably be easier to assume that they had moved the doll and just forgotten about it. Rather than the doll acting under it’s own volition. The doll’s activity persisted and began to manifest in new, and in my opinion much creepier, ways. From the Warren’s website:

About a month into their experiences Donna and Angie began to find penciled messages on parchment paper that read "Help Us" and "Help Lou". The hand writing looked to belong to that of a small child.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the Warren’s website relates another event which seem to have been the final straw for the girls:

One night Donna came home to find the doll had moved again, this time it was on her bed. Donna had come to find that this was typical of the doll but some how she knew this time it was different, something wasn't right. A sense of fear came over her when she inspected the doll and saw what looked like blood drops on the back of its hands and its chest. Seemingly, from no where, a liquidy red substance had appeared on the doll.

It was at this point in their experiences that Donna and Angie sought for help. Not knowing what else to do, they turned to a medium. The Warren’s website tells us:

Not knowing where to turn they contacted a medium and a seance was held. Donna was then introduced to the spirit of Annabelle Higgins. The medium related the story of Annabelle to both Donna and Angie. Annabelle was a young girl that resided on the property before the apartments were built, they were "happy times". She was a young girl of only seven years old when her lifeless body was found in the field upon which the apartment complex now stands.

The spirit related to the medium that she felt comfort with Donna and Angie and wanted to stay with them and be loved. Feeling compassion for Annabelle and her story Donna gave her permission to inhabit the doll and stay with them.

A friend of the girls, named Lou, had been with them since the doll arrived. From the beginning Lou had been against Donna keeping the doll, believing it to be evil. Lou had his own experiences in the apartment, though honestly to me they sound like examples of the “old hag” syndrome. The Warren’s website relates Lou’s experiences:

Lou awoke one night from a deep sleep and in panic. Once again he had a recurring bad dream. Only this time somehow, something seemed different. It was as though he was awake but couldn't move. He looked around the room but couldn't discern anything out of the ordinary and then it happened. Looking down toward his feet he saw the doll, Annabelle.

It began to slowly glide up his leg, moved over his chest and then stopped. Within seconds the doll was strangling him. Paralyzed and gasping for breath Lou, at the point of asphyxiation, blacked out. Lou awoke the next morning, certain it wasn't a dream, Lou was determined to rid himself of that doll and the spirit that possessed it.

At this point, Donna decided that they must not be dealing with a human spirit. Instead, “Annabelle” must have been a demonic entity of some kind. Enter the Warrens. Donna contacted an Episcopal Priest who in turn notified the Warrens of the activity. Ed and Lorraine were very interested in working on the case and agreed to assist Donna and her friends in ridding themselves of Annabelle.

Ed and Lorraine were also convinced that what was occurring in this situation was the beginning stages of demonic possession. Accordingly, the website states:

This spirit manipulated the doll and created the illusion of it being alive in order to get recognition. Truly, the spirit was not looking to stay attached to the doll, it was looking to posses a human host.

The spirit or in this case an inhuman demonic spirit, was essentially in the infestation stage of the phenomenon. It first began moving the doll around the apartment by means of teleportation to arouse the occupants curiosity in hopes that they would give it recognition.Then predictably the mistake of bringing a medium into the apartment to communicate with it.

The inhuman spirit now able to communicate through the medium, preyed on the girls emotional vulnerabilities by pretending to be a rather harmless, lost young girl with which during the seance, was allowed permission from Donna to haunt the apartment. Insofar as demonic is a negative spirit, it then set about causing patently negative phenomena to occur; it aroused fear through the weird movements of that doll, it brought about the materialization of disturbing handwritten notes, the symbolic drops of blood on the doll, and ultimately it even attacked Lou leaving behind the symbolic mark of the beast.

The next stage of the infestation phenomenon would have been complete human possession. Had these experiences lasted another 2 or 3 more weeks the spirit would have completely possessed, if not harmed or killed one or all of the occupants in the house.

Satisfied with their explanation of the phenomenon, Ed decided that it would be best to have the Exorcism Rite performed in order to cleanse the house of the activity. The priest who performed the ritual, Father Cooke, didn’t seem all too eager to exorcise an apartment. Upon the insistence of Ed and Lorraine, he relented and exorcised the ladies apartment. Donna insisted that Ed and Lorraine take the doll with them. That seems to have been the end of Donna, Angie, and Lou’s troubles. Though, apparently, Annabelle continued to lash out at the Warrens. You can read more about that at the Warren’s site.

What in the world are we to make of this story? Annabelle certainly produced far more activity than Robert the Doll did. Yet he’s the one with the museum! Where’s the justice in that? Seriously though, the Annabelle story is interesting and very creepy. I don’t know that I’m as convinced as the Warrens were that they were dealing with a demonic spirit. But to be fair, I didn’t investigate the doll so who am I to say?

A Haunted Doll of Your Own

If the two stories above weren’t enough to convince that haunted dolls are not great items to own, you can purchase one of your very own! First up is the Haunted Dolls Paranormal Research Group. The group, based out of England, says that they “offer free help and advice to people worried about unexplained activity in their home or workplace.” On top of this, the group offers the chance for you to own a piece of their paranormal collection. Here is one of the dolls that they have available for sale at the moment:

Spirited Doll Julia

From the website:

Very active lady, In her 40's. Fond of classical music and singing. Very laid back. Would suit a variety of homes as is very adaptable and friendly.

Julia could be yours for the low, low price of £55.00. If you’re in the market for a wider variety of paranormal dolls, AJ’s Haunted Doll Shop is your destination. Everything from haunted clown dolls to spirit children can be yours, for a reasonable price of course. It’s a bit of an understatement to say that I’m skeptical of these items and their validity. Of course, if I ever have the disposable income I’ll certainly try to pick one of these up.

Haunted dolls, while being super creepy and keeping me up at night, exist in that fringe part of the paranormal for me. I’m not entirely sure what to make of these stories. With Robert the Doll it would be easy to explain that as a combination of a child with an overactive imagination and an obsessive / anti-social personality disorder. Of course, I never meet Gene so all I can do is go based off of the accounts of his actions in childhood and later in adulthood.

Annabelle on the other hand is a bit of a different beast. If we assume that Donna, Angie, and Lou are telling the truth about the activity which they experienced, it’s a lot harder to chalk up handwritten messages as being indicative of an “overactive imagination”.  

At the end of the day all I can do is keep an open-mind about these kinds of stories. Haunted dolls will probably always creep me out. Yet they also fascinate me. Who knows? Maybe one of these days I’ll break down and buy one of my very own.

The Abduction of Pier Fortunato Zanfretta

The alien abduction phenomena is a tricky, tricky, thing. There are a variety of different proposed explanations for alien abductions. Many feel that they are completely fabricated events within the person's subconscious. Others are convinced that abductions represent a systematic biological program which is being performed by extraterrestrials in order to produce a race of alien-human hybrids.  Some believed that these experiences stem from sleep paralysis. Still others see it is as some kind of demonic activity meant to deceive and lead people from the path of righteousness.  I haven’t decided where I land on the topic yet.

Today I wish to take a look at an interesting abduction case which isn’t discussed too often. As an added bonus, at least in my mind, it doesn’t involve those pesky Greys. On the night of December 6, 1978 security guard Pier Fortunato Zanfretta was out patrolling his route around Torriglia, a village near Genoa, Italy. An Italian journalist named Rino di Stefano, who has done an extensive amount of research into the case firsthand, tells the following version of events which befell Zanfretta that fateful night:

As Zanfretta approached a client's uninhabited country-house (called "Our Home" by the owner, Dr. Ettore Righi), in the area of Marzano, his patrol car, a Fiat 126, mysteriously stopped dead. The car engine, lights and radio all failed seemingly for no reason. At the same moment he saw four strange lights moving about in the garden of the house and stepped outside of his car to investigate with gun and flashlight in hand.At first he thought that burglars were behind the house. So he walked through the open gate and crept along a wall in an attempt to surprise them. Feeling himself touched from behind, the security guard whirled around and saw something that filled him with terror: only inches away stood what he called: "An enormous green, ugly and frightful creature, with undulating skin, no less than ten feet tall". When he directed the beam of his flashlight on the being's face, he was so frightened that he dropped it, but quickly it up again and run away. While running, he became aware of a large and very bright light behind him. Turning around, he saw a huge, flat triangular form which was blinding in its brilliance.

At this point, I have to commend Zanfretta for keeping his senses about him and getting the hell out of the area. I’d like to think I would maybe stick around and check the situation out some more. Of course I’ve never come face to face with a 10ft tall anything. So who knows how I would actually react. Getting back to the account, Stefano continues:

Zanfretta shielded himself from the light with his arm. This thing which he assured was a flying saucer, ascended from the back of the house. It was bigger than the house itself, and produced a hissing sound. Later, Zanfretta said that he felt an intense heat. He made it back to his car and tried to call his security company's operations center in Genoa. It was 12:15 A.M. Carlo Toccalino, the radio operator, has testified that Zanfretta was speaking in an excited and disconnected way. He kept saying: "My God, are they ugly!". The operator then asked if "they" were human and if they were assaulting him. The answer was: "No, they aren't men, they aren't men". At that point, the communication were abruptly broken off

The radio operator called the chief of the security force and two other security guards were sent out to look for Zanfretta. Arriving at 1:15 am the two guards found Zanfretta lying on the ground apparently frightened and near hysterical. Stefano says:

When he saw them, he jumped up, gun and flashlight at the ready. Eyes bulging, Zanfretta didn't seem to recognize them, nor to understand when they told him to lower his weapon. The other patrolmen rushed and disarmed him. To their surprise, his clothes felt warm even though the December night air was quite cold.

The Italian police were said to have launched an investigation almost immediately following these events. During their investigation, they found that nearly 52 people admitting to seeing strange lights in the vicinity of Zanfretta’s encounter at around the same time it was alleged to have occurred. Stefano tells us the following in regards to the investigation:

Antonio Nucchi, the commandant of the Torriglia station, has stated that he was every confidence in the testimony given by Zanfretta. In fact, he has known the security guard for many years and, when I asked him what he thought about him, he answered: "I can state with certainty that he is a clear thinking man with no strange fantasies in his head. When we went to investigate the scene the next day, he almost didn't want to come, he was so scared. Only something exceptional could have frightened him so."

Per Stefano’s insistence, Zanfretta agreed to undergo hypnosis. According to an Above Top Secret thread:

Zanfretta agreed to be hypnotized by Dr. Mauro Moretti, a psychotherapist and member of the Italian Association of Medical Hypnosis, in Genoa on December 23. During that occasion Zanfretta said that he was abducted by "monsters about 10 feet tall, with hairy green skin, yellow triangular eyes and red veins across the forehead" who brought him to a hot, luminous place where they interrogated and examined him.

During the same session, Zanfretta also indicated that the creatures came from the "third galaxy" and that "they want to talk with us and that they will soon return in larger numbers." The aliens did not speak Italian to the guard, but used a "luminous device" to translate what they were saying.

To my surprise, Zanfretta was back to work only a few weeks after the event. I have to admit, I would probably use this encounter as an excuse for a vacation, but “to each his own” I suppose. Zanfretta may have later regretted this decision to return to work as these creatures from the “third galaxy” were not evidently not finished with him yet. According to Stefano:

At 11:45 PM on that night [December 23rd], Zanfretta was at work as usual, driving a Fiat 127 inside the Bargagli tunnel, near the Scoffera Pass. Suddenly he lost control of the car. On the radio, he reported that the Fiat turned on its own and came out of the tunnel. Terrified, Zanfretta tried to work the brakes and steering wheel, but the car continued on its own along the steep road uphill.

Speaking with the radio operator, the guard said that he was having difficulty with the patrol car, and couldn't see well because of the very thick fog. After going for about a mile, the car finally come to an abrupt stop, throwing Zanfretta's head against the steering wheel. He called the radio operator and this time, in a very controlled voice, said: "The car has stopped. I saw a bright light. Now I am getting out." Zanfretta and his car were found at 1:10 AM by other guards.

The first to see Zanfretta was sergeant Emanuele Travenzoli. Zanfretta was in a field near the road. His clothes were warm and dry, and so was his head, despite the rain. The man was very scared, he was shaking and crying. "They say I must leave with them. What about my children? I don't want to, I don't want to...". Again the Carabinieri were called.

During their investigation they found that, though the car had been in the cold and rain for a long time, the roof of the Fiat was as hot as if it had spent an entire day in the sun. The interior of the car was also said to be as hot as an oven.

All around the car were disproportionately large footprints. As measured by the Carabinieri, the tracks proved were 20 inches long by 8 inches wide, with a distinct empty spot between sole and heel.

In addition, the Carabinieri found that Zanfretta's gun, a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, had been fired five times. But the guard couldn't recall at whom he had fired the weapon.

Zanfretta would go on to have many other abductions and encounters with various “extraterrestrial” denizens, far too many to name here. Instead I invite those curious to learn more to check out the links below. Zanfretta seemed to not be too bothered by the actual encounters themselves, frightening as they may have been. Instead the majority of stress and negativity Zanfretta received was from earthly sources. After Zanfretta’s story got out, he received constant harassment via telephone. People calling him crazy or phony. However Zanfretta always maintained that the events he recalled were real and had truly happened to him.

What are we to make of Zanfretta’s account? According to all who knew him, he was a reliable, stand up guy. Co-workers described him as honest and most seemed to believe that something strange happened to him, if not necessarily an abduction. He never seemed to have profited from these experiences, although he did appear on television and Stefano would eventually write a book detailing Zanfretta’s reports. I’m reserving my judgement on this case for now. I will say that I do believe Zanfretta had a genuine experience. What that experience involved remains a mystery.

Additional Reading:

ATS Thread

UFO Research Network

Rino di Stefano’s site

The Valensole Incident

Stories of humanoid encounters are easily a guilty pleasure of mine. I have written on a number of occasions on this blog about the variety of strange tales of human interactions with non-human, apparently “extraterrestrial” creatures. As I was flipping back through the various bookmarks I’ve made over the years, I came across a particular incident which I wasn’t familiar with and don’t remember seeing it being discussed very often. I thought I’d take a moment today and share with you the story of the Valensole Incident.

Early on the morning of July 1, 1965 at around 5:45 A.M., farmer Maurice Masse was smoking a cigarette before he began working outside his home which is located near the French village of Valensole. As Masse was smoking his cigarette he heard a strange, whistling sound coming from overhead. Masse was apparently standing beside the ruins of a tall wall located on his fields, next to a vineyard, and had to step around the wall in order to find the source of the noise. Lon Strickler, at phantomsandmonsters.com tells us a version of the events which came next:

At the time, he was positioned next to a 7-foot-tall rubble pile at the edge of a vineyard, so he had to step out from around this to view the source of the sound. It was then that he saw something shaped rather like a rugby ball and about the size of a Dauphine automobile, resting on four legs some 200 feet away in his lavender field. Close to the curious looking object were two figures resembling “boys of about eight years.”

Masse was apparently more curious than frightened by this whole encounter and began to make his approach towards the entities. As he came near the creatures Masse could see they were hard at work collecting lavender from his lavender fields. When he got to about 15 or 20 ft away the creatures apparently noticed Masse and immediately stood up from their “work”. Masse described the entities as such:

less than 4 feet tall, as dressed in gray-green overalls with smooth, bald, pumpkinlike heads, large slanted eyes, and with little holes for their mouths. They made grunting sounds between them, although their mouths did not change appearance, and Masse was not sure where on their bodies the noise was coming from. (source)

Apparently upset or annoyed by the interruption to their flower picking, one of the creatures raised up a long, thin, pencil-like object and pointed it at Masse. This brings to mind the countless similar reports that Jacques Vallee discussed of entities waving pencil-like wands at witnesses in order to paralyze them. Here to, Masse found himself completely stricken and unable to move. At this point, the creatures entered their craft and flew away into the morning sky. One can infer that they were “frightened” by Masse’s interruption of their flower picking and had to flee the scene immediately. Personally this whole thing reeks of the “staged event” vibe. This idea was speculated on by researchers like the late Mac Tonnies, in his writings and in his posthumously published work, The Cryptoterrestrials.

Once Masse found himself able to move again, he went to the spot where the craft had landed. The landing spot had impressions in the ground from the craft and some kind of material which allegedly hardened into something like concrete days later. It was said that nothing would grow in the spot for some time. Many researchers, including Jacques Vallee, conducted interviews and investigated this case. They all came to the same conclusion; that the witness was reliable and was reporting what he believed to be a real event. An interesting little note to end this tale on is that Masse would later report to investigators that he had had some kind of communication with the entities, though he would never reveal the details of this communication. Strickler notes that:

Though he hinted that there had been some sort of communication between himself and the beings, he never revealed the particulars to investigators. He told Vallee that one was best off not sharing such encounters with anyone, even family. “One always says too much,” he added.

What are we to make of this incident? Assuming that the witness is telling the truth, and I see no reason to doubt him, why would these creatures go through so much hassle to obtain lavender? Is there more to the flower than we know? Somehow I doubt it. In my mind, this incident seems to lend credence to the idea that someone is staging these events in order to perpetuate a meme. Of course, that’s only how I feel about the case today. Who knows what tomorrow might bring? I’d love to hear your opinions on this case. Was it an expedition from some distant planet to gain specimens? Did Masse have a weird hallucination? Let me know in the comments below!

Further reading/sources:

Lon Stricklers’ write up

Educating Humanity

ATS thread Started by Kandinsky

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.