With all the ghost reality shows there is the
occasional TV show about monsters. Like "Destination Truth." I love ghosts, but
also enjoy a good monster story or legend. Who doesn’t like to learn if a
werewolf has been seen in their area, or if Bigfoot has been stomping his/her
way through the woods nearby?
Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is usually very
tall, maybe up to seven or eight foot, and covered in hair, mainly black. It is
supposedly seen only in the State of Washington,
maybe even Oregon, Northern California, and
other parts of the Far West. But that’s wrong,
for there have been sightings of Big Foot for more than four hundred years in
many of the other states too, including my own state of Virginia. In fact, Virginia
has the oldest sightings, some as far back as the 1800s. Take that Washington!
Similar to Asia’s Abominable Snowman, the history of
Bigfoot reaches far back into America’s past with the Indian people. In the
Northwest and west of the Rockies, Bigfoot is seen as a special being, all due
to close relationship with humankind. Indian tribe elders see him as a border
between animal-style consciousness and human-style consciousness, one that
gives him special powers. In Indian culture, animals are not looked upon as
inferior to humans. Instead, they are regarded as elder brothers and teachers
of humans. Interestingly enough, the Northwestern tribes never considered the
Sasquatch as other than a physical being. But to other tribes in the U.S.,
Bigfoot is perceived more as a supernatural or spirit individual. An appearance
to humans is meant to convey some sort of message. The Sioux called Bigfoot
Chiye-tanka. Turtle Mountain Ojibwe call the Sasquatch Rugaru, close to the
French word, loup-garou, which means werewolf.
They also associate Bigfoot with Windago, the cannibal-giant of their
legends. The Hopi see Bigfoot as a
messenger who appears in times of evil. Among the Iroquois, mentioned much more
often than Bigfoot are the “little people”—both are regarded as spiritual or
interdimensional. These are the Pukwudgies. They believe that these beings can
enter or leave our physical dimension whenever they wish to. Strange that these little people myths are
all over the world, like the little people known as fairies in Europe, for
example.
Sightings of the Sasquatch have been reported to this
day, even by credible people. To many, these facts suggest maybe the presence
of an animal, probably a primate that exists today in very low population
densities. Bi-pedal, unlike an ape, it walks with long strides and has a cone
shape for top of the head. If so, it has became very adept at avoiding human
contact through a process of natural selection.
Besides the U.S., it has been seen all over the world,
as was evident in "Destination Truth" first episode on July 10, 2012. So this
creature doesn’t just haunt the forests, mountains, and swamps of America, but
many other places worldwide.
Another furry being is the werewolf, known in legends
the world over, along with other shapeshifters that include leopards, lions,
elephants, snakes, tigers, bears, foxes, hyenas, jaguars, and I am certain much
more.
Werewolves, also known as lycanthropes or wolfmen, are
mythological humans with the ability to shapeshift into wolves or wolf-like
creatures. This can be either by being bitten by another werewolf or from being
placed under a curse. The medieval chronicler Gervase of Tilbury associated the
transformation with the appearance of the full moon; however, there is evidence
that the association existed among the ancient Greeks, appearing in the
writings of Petronius. Shape-shifters similar to werewolves are common in tales
from all over the world, though most of them involve animal forms other than
wolves.
There are traits that only a werewolf has. Like the
joining of both eyebrows at the bridge of the nose. Other indicators are curved
fingernails, low set ears, and a swinging stride. One method of identifying a
werewolf in its human form was to cut the flesh of the accused, under the
pretence that fur would be seen within the wound. A Russian superstition tells
of how a werewolf can be recognized by bristles underneath the tongue.
The appearance of a werewolf in its animal form varies
from culture to culture, though they are most commonly portrayed as being
indistinguishable from ordinary wolves save for the fact that they have no
tail—a trait thought characteristic of witches in animal form. They also retain
human eyes and voice. After returning to their human forms, werewolves are
usually documented as becoming weak, debilitated, and undergoing painful
nervous depression.
Historical legends describe a wide variety of methods
for becoming a werewolf, one of the simplest being the removal of clothing and
putting on a belt made of wolf skin, probably as a substitute for the
assumption of an entire animal skin (which also is frequently described). In
other cases, the body is rubbed with a magic salve. To drink water out of the
footprint of the animal in question or to drink from certain enchanted streams
were also considered effectual modes of accomplishing metamorphosis. According
to Russian lore, a child born on December 24 can become be a werewolf. Folklore
and literature also depict that a werewolf can be spawned from two werewolf
parents. In Italy, France and Germany, it is said that a man turns into a
werewolf if he, on a certain Wednesday or Friday, went to sleep outside on a
summer night, with the full moon shining directly on his face. In Galician,
Portuguese, and Brazilian folklore, it is the seventh son after six sons
(though sometimes it can be the seventh child, a boy, after a line of six
daughters) who becomes a werewolf. In Portugal, the seventh daughter is
supposed to become a witch and the seventh son a werewolf; the seventh son
often gets the Christian name "Bento" (meaning "blessed) as this
is believed to prevent him from becoming a werewolf later in life. There are
also those myths that say that the transformation is accomplished by satanic
allegiance, often for the sake of sating a craving for human flesh. And of
course, among the Native Americans there are the skinwalker stories.
For this blog, the last “monster” I will talk about is
Mothman. Who hasn’t heard about the Mothman?
The Mothman is a being seen in West Virginia, around Charleston
and Point Pleasant, mainly between November 12, 1966 (near Clendenin), and
December 1967. For thirteen months, the entire town of Point Pleasant, West
Virginia lived in a grip of dark terror culminating in a tragedy that made
headlines all over the world. Most observers describe the creature involved as
a winged creature the size of a man, with reflective red eyes and large
moth-like wings. The creature often appeared to have no head, with its eyes set
into its chest. A number of hypotheses have been presented to explain
eyewitness accounts, ranging from misidentification and coincidence to
paranormal phenomena and conspiracy theories.
It all began on November 12, 1966, when two young
married couples from Point Pleasant, David and Linda Scarberry and Steve and
Mary Mallette, traveled late at night in the Scarberrys' car. They had just
passed the West Virginia Ordnance Works, an abandoned World War II TNT factory.
They noticed two red lights in the shadows next to an old generator plant near
the factory gate. Stopping the car, they discovered that the lights were
actually the glowing red eyes of a large animal. Shaped like a man, but bigger,
it stood maybe six and a half to seven feet tall, with wings folded against its
back. Terrified, they raced toward Route 62, where the creature supposedly
pursued them at speeds exceeding hundred miles per hour. From then on, others
ran into this monster until the December 15, 1967 collapse of the Silver Bridge
spanning the Ohio River.
There are claims that Mothman is related to
parapsychological events in the area, including UFO activity, men in black
encounters, poltergeist activity, Bigfoot and black panther sightings, animal
and human mutilations, and precognitions by witnesses.
One of the early theories is that the Mothman was a
misidentified Sandhill crane, which, in the late 1960s, had been a problem in
the surrounding area. Sandhill cranes can reach a height of six feet, achieve
wingspans of ten feet, have the general appearance described, glide for long
distances without flapping, and have an unusual shriek. Other theories
suggested the possibility of the Mothman being a barn owl or perhaps a large
Snowy owl.
Funny thing, since then, this being has been seen in Virginia
by three friends in Prince William County during 1968-69. Lately,
sightings of a Mothman or maybe Mothmen have been seen in the Mid-West. Not
just in America, there has been an article I found online, mentioning about London
sightings of it. There is evidence that the Mothman case bears striking
similarities to a lengthy investigation carried out in London which dealt with
a supernatural phenomena dubbed by the British media ‘The Highgate Vampire’. Recent sightings happened in Seattle, Washington
in May 2012.
Mothman has moved into the realm of the paranormal, or
supernatural. That the one in West Virginia is due to a curse put on the Point
Pleasant area back in 1770s, called the Cornstalk Curse. You can read about
this curse at http://www.prairieghosts.com/cornstalk.html.
As a child when I first read about Mothman in West Virginia, I always thought
of it as maybe an alien (due to UFOs seen in the area at the same time) and
maybe this was a spacesuit that people mistaken for a creature. I still stick
to that this day. What is your opinion?
Today, I wrote about three different types of
monsters. Next week, I will blog about more monsters.
Next time, you walk through a spot of woods Bigfoot
has been seen, a park a werewolf has been claimed to been seen, or drive a
lonely stretch of road that there has been sightings of Mothman, take care.
Maybe it’s not a myth. Maybe you did see those red eyes in the dark, or heard
what might not been a coyote howling.
