Phantoms, Fairies, and Mermaids
After a considerable amount of soul-searching, I decided to include this slightly whimsical chapter, which addresses some of the spectral and otherworldly creatures I’ve come across during the course of my research. Admittedly, none of them deserve any consideration in terms of a possible affiliation to the natural or zoological world. Still, I offer them here not only for entertainment value but also because, in my humble opinion, the scientific process does not grant us the luxury of entirely ruling out any possibility. Who’s to say what can and can’t exist in our vast universe? Furthermore, contemplation, while not always resulting in definitive answers, often manages to teach us something … and it’s usually about ourselves.
Those Fishy Mermaids
Within the pantheon of mythical man-beasts, those alluring sea-dwelling sirens known as mermaids harbor a sacred place in our imaginations. While the notion of a piscine enchantress rising out of the watery depths is romantic, it contradicts everything we know about the evolution of hominid forms on our planet. Though, that certainly didn’t discourage one popular television network from producing two elaborate (and quite ludicrous) “documentaries” claiming to reveal never-before-seen evidence that mermaids actually do exist. While I am admittedly hesitant to endorse such a far-flung notion, at the same time I’m willing to acknowledge that anything is conceivable, particularly in the unexplored ocean depths. Furthermore, there is a measurable degree of antiquity in regard to the fishy ones. Thousands of years ago, the ancient Babylonians worshipped a deity known as Oannes, essentially a man-fish who would come ashore in order to impart his vast knowledge on the land dwellers. Encounters with merfolk were apparently plentiful in bygone days but have since entered the domain of popular fantasy. Fleeting modern accounts still surface on rare occasion, around every twenty years or so.
• In May of 1935, the crew of a fishing boat allegedly tried in vain to capture a ten-foot, bearded merman with glowing eyes off Redondo Beach, California.
• Sometime during World War II, a sailor named Rein Mellart claimed that he watched local fisherman on the Indonesian island of Morotai dredge up a mermaid in their nets. Mellart said he was able to observe the creature in great detail before it died on the beach while struggling in the net. He described the classic features: a female human torso with a flowing head of hair attached to a “bottom half like a dolphin.” However, Mellart also noted that far from being attractive, the entity possessed coarse features, a long nose, and two thumbs per hand.
• In August of 1949, local fishermen alleged mermaid sightings off Craigmore, Scotland.
• On a stormy night in November of 1958 at Mecklenburg Bay, Germany, two men aboard a fishing trawler claimed they were saved from certain disaster by a man-fish with green seaweed hair, who rose from the depths and guided them to safe anchorage.
• In 1962, an Italian magazine called La Domenica del Corriere published a story about a fisherman named Colmaro Orsini who alleged that he heard a beautiful song and looked up just in time to see a woman with green hair and a fish tail rising from the sea.
• During 1967, ferry passengers at Active Pass, British Columbia, Canada, supposedly watched a blonde-haired mermaid while she sat on a rock, eating a salmon. Though there were claims of a photo taken, as we might expect, details and sources are ambiguous.
• In perhaps the most dramatic encounter, during 1988 an Australian diver named Robert Froster reported to a Florida newspaper that while diving a few miles off Florida’s Gulf Coast, he was accosted by an exceptionally irate mermaid who chased him all the way to the surface. Froster characterized the creature as having long, flowing hair, smooth skin with human breasts and a scaly fish’s tail.
• Surprisingly there is even a spate of twenty-first-century sightings originating in the coastal city of Kiryat Yam, Israel. In August or September of 2009, a witness stated that he came upon a strange-looking woman writhing around on the sandy beach. In an instant, the being disappeared into the surf, displaying the fluidity of a native marine specimen. Other rumored incidents soon followed.
Despite the fact that mermaids could regularly be found in natural history guides mere centuries ago, it is now generally accepted that these accounts were based on encounters with real animals, such as dugongs, manatees, seals, sea lions, and walruses. From a distance, all of these marine mammals are capable of displaying quasi-humanlike features. It’s not hard to conceive that sailors on long and largely uneventful voyages would glimpse these round-headed beasts rising out of the surf ever so briefly on the horizon and let their fanciful imaginations take over. Or just maybe, deep below the surface in some inconceivable underwater kingdom, a race of fabulous merbeings reign supreme. Personally, I won’t hold my breath.
The Winged Ones
The airborne counterparts of mermaids are the myriad of flying humanoids that I explored in my previous book, Encounters with Flying Humanoids: Mothman, Man Birds, Gargoyles & Other Winged Beasts. Apart from West Virginia’s famous Mothman, England’s macabre Owlman, and the Houston Batman are two of the more familiar creatures of this order. It is an utterly perplexing phenomenon to be sure, and presumably with more of a connection to the supernatural as opposed to the corporeal—they are definitely not flesh-and-blood creatures. Since that book’s publication, I have received a handful of relevant accounts from seemingly sincere people.
One of the more extraordinary sightings I’ve heard of was related to me by a man named Trey. One moonlit evening during September of 2012, Trey and his wife were sitting outside their home in Big Spring, Texas, which is located in the extreme western part of the state. Their property is situated near a state park in a semiarid region peppered with many hills and mesas. That particular night, the couple was watching a storm that was brewing in the distance. At some point they both noticed something in the faraway sky approaching them silently. As the mysterious object came closer, it descended until it was only about thirty feet above their heads, at which point it became evident that the apparition was some type of winged man of giant proportions. The being eerily turned its head and looked directly at them as he flew over.
According to Trey, the entity appeared human, having long, flowing hair; slanted, solid black eyes; a powerful jaw; and slight nose with long nostrils. Moreover, in his estimation the apparition was a gray color, had a twenty-foot wingspan, and would have stood anywhere from ten to fourteen feet tall. Trey was also able to make out some other specific details. In addition to angelic, feathered wings, the figure had long arms that it held tightly against its body and what appeared to be normal-looking hands, though its feet had exaggerated arches. Interestingly, the humanoid did not appear to possess nipples, genitalia, or even a belly button, though its rib cage was prominent. The subject flew on for a few blocks until it was out of their sight.
Also in Texas, there was another disturbing encounter from roughly the same time period. I was contacted by a young woman who seemed understandably distressed by the entire affair and prefers to remain anonymous.
I live in the southeast side of Houston, in the North Shore/Cloverleaf area. I was waiting for my husband to get home … because he was running late that night. My dog and I went on the back porch … Initially my dog was barking with his hair raised, but I thought he [had] just smelled or seen a coon or possum. … When to shock and awe I looked up as a huge, man/bat thing swooped in at me. Its feet were about five to six feet from my head. I had my porch light on, but it was so massive it still cast a shadow over me and the lawn as it went away. It literally blacked out the sky beneath it. I felt animosity from it. My initial thought was it was trying to seize me or the dog up, so I … went inside my house. I am not crazy. It had skin not feathers. It looked extremely built or muscular but lean. … Needless to say, I am shaken by this. I don’t want to be ridiculed. I do not have hallucinations. I don’t do drugs or drink. This was as real as it gets … I know the area where I live has plenty of water and stray dogs. I lived out in the country for eight years and never was scared or seen/experienced anything like this. … It looked as if it could take on a big dog or a child … This is very dangerous.
During the course of follow-up correspondence with this young woman, she confided that a couple of nights after the incident she thought she heard something quite large landing in a tree in her front yard. Whatever it was had broken several large, dead tree limbs. It seems that these kinds of experiences often have lingering effects. Generally speaking, the flying humanoid problem is one that is very difficult to wrap one’s head around. Like mermaids, they simply should not exist. Furthermore, it seems there is no place that is immune to the strangeness, as evidenced by the following e-mail I received from a man living in the town of Richmond, Indiana. At the time of his encounter, he was driving home in the evening and along a deserted country road, as you might guess.
About one-third of the way down the dark road, I stuck my head out to have my face in the wind as I usually did … [and] looked up at the moon and pretty stars. I pulled my head in, and that’s when I heard a woosh sound … go by outside. It sounded like a big bird or something. … I thought owl, but kept driving as usual. Then something wooshed right in from of my car [through] the headlights, super fast. It took me aback because it was big. … I mean it seemed like the whole length of the front of the car or more. At that point I knew something was not right or different. I remember thinking, I just wanna get off this road and home. All the way down the road I heard weird noises and wooshes. I was thinking bats and birds and such don’t do this and follow you, because this thing was following me down the road. … So I floored the car and made it to the end of the road and around the bend where I saw some city edge lights. … Now I was in town and there were lights, so I looked out my window … [and saw] against the moon … a huge dark silhouette with flapping, bat-like wings. … I mean a wingspan of like seven to nine feet from tip to tip … and humanoid feet hanging down a bit. … My heart was pounding .… I couldn’t believe what I was seeing … so I just gassed it and got home.
Due to the often brief and heart-pounding nature of these kinds of encounters, we are usually left with only the faintest of descriptions. A curious secondhand account materialized on the popular cryptozoology website Cryptomundo following one of my appearances on the nationally syndicated radio show, Coast to Coast AM. The contributor’s name was William Myrkle, and he wrote,
My friend whom I had not seen in years recently told me about a black glowing thing that she has seen on two occasions. She saw it flying through the trees at the edge of the woods behind her house, about 10 feet or so off the ground. She didn’t recall seeing a head or wings, as she could only get glimpses of it through the trees as it passed by. She did note that the hind legs were very muscular and looked like that of a horse. She said that every dog in the neighborhood was barking, and her cats were also very aware of it, and quite startled. She had asked a neighbor if he had ever seen anything out of the ordinary, without telling him what she had seen, and he came back with, “Oh, you mean the glowing thing?”
Perhaps I am taking a bit of a leap by including this episode here, particularly in lieu of a more detailed description. However, I believe the characterization of the anomaly’s legs as looking “muscular” eliminates any possibility of bird or bat, not to mention the fact that the thing glowed! As far as the meaning behind all of it, I leave that for you to make sense of, my dear reader.
The following is a slightly more tangible report, though it’s frustratingly brief.
The sighting was related to me by Utah resident Karen, who was working a trucking route with her husband from California to Nevada during 2007 to 2008. The couple was motoring up I-15 North around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. one night. Without warning, some “thing with wings” landed briefly in the road ahead of them and then took off again quickly, as if sensing their truck barreling down on it. What struck Karen was that the creature was big—at least as tall as man, about six feet high or so, with a ten-foot wingspan—and that its hide was gray, leathery, and devoid of feathers. Its wings appeared bat-like and membranous. But the aspect that is really ingrained in Karen’s memory is the fact that the apparition displayed long, manlike legs, a clear indicator that this was no animal. In retrospect, she also felt as if the thing may have exuded a level of intelligence, based on its strategic movements.
Bayou Cyclops
One of the strangest creatures’ chronicles that I’ve ever come across involves a monstrous brute that seems to have stepped right out of Greek mythology and squarely into a swampy Louisiana parish. In my line of work, this juncture shouldn’t come as a total shock, since I’ve investigated contemporary accounts of other epic villains likened to satyrs and harpies, yet this narrative truly stands alone. The details come courtesy of the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization, which posts reports of weird encounters on their website. The event allegedly occurred near a wooded area around 9:00 p.m. one evening back in November of 1957. The identity of the author is not disclosed.
Three friends and I had been to a movie and dinner and were driving around talking. As we crossed the Tangipahoa River Bridge and were approaching the small bridge immediately after, we all saw someone walking up out of the ditch on the passenger side of the car. The height of this person made me think “GIANT.” We drove to the next available spot in order to turn around and go back and when we returned this person was still standing on the side of the road. We angled our car to make full use of the headlights and stopped in the road. This guy had to be every bit of 7½ feet tall and was pretty hefty. I’d say around 325 pounds. He appeared to be wearing a pair of pants and shirt that was very dark (bluish) in color and very tattered. We didn’t notice if he wore any shoes.
The most horrifying feature was the shape of his nose, which resembled a snout and instead of having two eyes, there was only one located off-center on his forehead. After a minute or two this guy turned and walked back down the incline into the woods and we sped away. When we reached the nearest town we went to the police and reported our sighting but were only scoffed away. My three friends and I have often discussed this night and our only conclusion is that it was a malformed person that had been kept locked up somewhere that had escaped. All four of us lived no more than 5 miles of this sighting and have never heard anyone else talk about it.
I must confess that cyclopean confrontations are exceptionally uncommon, as far as I know, though I am aware of a situation in 1966 when a couple in Newport, Oregon, reported to police that they spotted a group of cyclops-like entities leering at them. There are, I think, a couple of intriguing circumstances that could shed some light the origins of the cyclops in Greek mythology, one component being the discovery of pygmy mastodon skulls on Mediterranean islands. Elephant skulls bare a superficial similarity to human skulls due to a large frontal cranium, and the giant nasal cavity smack dab in the middle somewhat resembles a singular eye socket. It’s not hard to imagine ancient people postulating a one-eyed giant in order to explain these finds. There is also a rare genetic defect known as cyclocephaly, whereby the two orbits of a developing fetus ultimately merge and become one large eye. These genetic aberrations are typically stillborn, but on rare occasions they do manage to live for brief periods. Imagine the type of impact that animals and even humans born with one great eye would have had on people during ancient times.
Present-Day Fairy Tales
All over the world there are tales of magical, forest-dwelling beings who wreak mischief upon the world of mortals. Throughout the folklore of Western Europe, we hear references to an entire hierarchy of fairies, elves, pixies, gnomes, goblins, trolls, leprechauns, gremlins, and a host of other entities that exist in a mist-shrouded realm, where a veil of mysticism obscures their true nature. In other cultures, the vernacular is different, though the stories of little folk are familiar. It might surprise you to learn that accounts of these occult apparitions are not always relegated to dusty books and fairy tales. I offer these contemporary reports with no prejudice … and certainly no plausible explanation.
• Sometime during the 1960s, a resident of Victoria Road in Colchester, Essex, England, claimed that he watched a group of fairies dancing around an old tree trunk.
• On October 4, 1965, three panicked schoolchildren entered the headmaster’s office at the Liberator General San Martin School in Salta, Argentina, stating that they had been attacked by a gaggle of green, dwarflike beings.
• On October 29, 1979, in Wollaton Park, Nottingham, England, around dusk a group of eight- to ten-year-old children heard a bell ringing. When they went to investigate, they allegedly saw sixty tiny gnomes in a swampy area. The diminutive beings had wrinkled skin and long, white beards. They wore blue shirts, yellow tights, and floppy, red hats. According to the children, the figures were driving around in thirty little, magic bubble cars (two gnomes per car).
• In 1982 at Jaywick, near Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, two girls supposedly watched a pair of gnomes digging a hole in the playground of the Frobisher Primary School.
• During 1990, a resident of the village of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire awoke in the middle of the night and encountered what she believed to be an entity known as a pooka, sleeping over the pelmet of a landing window. The creature looked similar to a small piglet, but had a long, pointy nose and no visible tail.
• As recently as March of 2008, several teenage boys from General Güemes, Salta Province, Argentina, videotaped a short, gnomelike figure as it side-shuffled out of some tall weeds. Just prior to its appearance, the young men had heard sounds like stones being thrown in their direction. One of the youths was so traumatized by the incident that he had to be taken to the hospital. Witness José Alvarez stated that other locals had approached him later on and told him that they had also seen the macabre little being.
Hat Man
As an investigator of anomalous phenomena, I am often provided not-of-this-world scenarios that are very much on the fringe of what we perceive to be reality. I always tell those armed with a cosmic view that I am a “flesh-and-blood” guy, meaning that I am in my comfort zone while pursuing physical evidence, as opposed to contemplating highly subjective spectral claims. That said, due to the nature of my research, I am often approached by people who are desperate to find answers for inexplicable things they have experienced in their lives. Furthermore, it’s a common notion that ambiguous relationships may exist between seemingly unrelated types of phenomena, including Bigfoot, UFOs, ghosts, and the like. In truth, who can say if some of these enigmas may truly overlap? There is so much that our neural hardware cannot fathom. One example is the very strange saga of the nefarious phantom known as the Hat Man, said to be a “shadow person” that manifests out of the darkness, spooking his victims. A typical encounter was related to me by a San Antonio resident named Jessica.
I have seen weird shadows and figures of absolute darkness most of my life. However, not since 2007 have I witnessed any shadow beings. I always manage to ignore them by rolling over and going back to sleep—completely unafraid. I am now pregnant and last Saturday night woke up in the middle of the night feeling that someone was watching me. I rolled over and saw a man standing in my bathroom doorway. I wanted to scream but was halted by the sight of the figure. He was extremely tall [and] solid black, blacker than the darkest black you can imagine. A black that is devoid of any light or color. His outfit appeared to be a trench coat of some sort but I was more focused on his face. His face glowed faintly pale blue/white, and [it] was slightly turned to the side and was looking down, yet still at me. He was wearing a black top hat. I had this horrible feeling he wanted my child. It was as if he couldn’t tell if I were awake or asleep and moved back then forward, then back, then forward, until I lifted my head and blinked—[then] he was gone. I tried to recreate what I saw by closing my eyes for a long time, opening them and looking for reflections of light, etc. But I could just easily see the bathroom walls and floor, when a few minutes before I could only see blackness. I haven’t seen him since then, but now I sleep with the lights on … I am terrified!
Yet another creepy and disturbing encounter with the Hat Man involved a woman named Stacy Alejos. According to Alejos, when she was a very young girl living on the far west side of San Antonio, she was awakened one night by an uncomfortable sensation and felt eerily compelled to look out her bedroom window. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Alejos could clearly make out the outline of a manlike figure standing just behind the white picket fence that surrounded her yard. Though she couldn’t see much in the way of features, she could clearly discern what she interpreted to be a pork pie hat atop the dark figure’s head. As she watched fearfully, the being began to sidle in a strange sideways motion, all the while keeping his outstretched arms on the top fence.
When she heard the audible crunching of dried leaves beneath the entity’s feet, Alejos became convinced that she was not dreaming nor imagining things. Strangely, all attempts to wake up her aunt who was sleeping in the bed next to her were futile, as if the woman was in a trancelike state. Understandably terrified, the young girl dove beneath her sheets, trembling in fear until the morning. Of possible relevance is the fact that her parents had once claimed to have seen a disk-shaped UFO hovering above their property, potentially indicating a so-called window area (where strange things occur). Admittedly, Alejos later developed an interest in paranormal topics, including experimentation with Ouija boards. Without a doubt, some will perceive this as further evidence that an amorphous connection exists between all aspects of the metaphysical.
Hat Man encounters seem to be quite common, a fact that can be substantiated with minimal Internet research. Because many of the experiences seem to occur in the twilight state of consciousness when people are waking from sleep, it has been suggested that these episodes are merely a form of night terrors, essentially frightening hallucinations that the human mind is apt to construct when in a vulnerable, dreamlike state. For deep-rooted psychological reasons, the image of a tall, mysterious man draped in a trench coat and hat may be irresistible to us. However, for those who have seen him, the Hat Man is very scary and real, and it would be difficult to convince them otherwise.
Black-Eyed Children
Equally as spooky as the Hat Man are the spectral entities referred to as the Black-Eyed Children or Black-Eyed Kids (BEKs), which have only become fashionable over the past few years as a result of popularization on offbeat Internet sites. Granted there is every reason to believe that like their Internet counterpart, Slender Man, most of the stories can be chalked up to flights of fancy meant to inspire goose bumps. At the same time, experiences like those of truck driver John Jackson cause us to wonder.
Jackson was a black top veteran, having made long hauls for the past thirty-three years. He also came across as a no nonsense kind of guy who was going to call them as he saw them and admittedly had seen a lot of peculiar sights while making his countless cross-country runs. During April of 2015, Jackson had a troubling encounter that topped them all. It was between 1:00 and 3:00 a.m., and it was a soggy night; a sort of mist was swirling that teetered on developing into light rain. He was motoring east on Texas Highway 29, between the towns of Menard and Mason. This is an exceptionally desolate stretch of road surrounded by wide, open, scrubby ranch land sparsely dotted with homes and businesses. Suddenly, Jackson noticed what appeared to be three young people ambling towards him on the side of the road. He began to brake and wondered who in blazes would be out walking around in those conditions. Perhaps they were having car trouble, he reasoned.
As he got closer to the three figures, Jackson began to feel an uneasiness that quickly made his skin crawl. The beings were all wearing matching uniforms composed of dark-colored hoodies and were walking with their heads down, as if staring at the road in front of them. His gut was telling him that there was something really odd about the situation: “Something just didn’t feel right.” As he slowed to pass the figures, his suspicions were realized when one of the youngsters looked up at the very last second and pointed directly at him. It was then (in the glow of his side LEDs) that he noticed the apparition’s skin was a pale white hue similar to an albino’s and that its eyes were solid black. The ensuing chill that ran down Jackson’s spine convinced him to put his pedal to the metal and speed off.
Never having investigated a case involving the so-called Black-Eyed Children, I was not really sure what to think. Imagine my surprise when a quick scan of the Internet revealed that all of the components that Jackson had mentioned—a remote area, hitchhiking behavior, hoodies, pale skin, and, of course, those utterly perplexing peepers—were tantamount to the quintessential BEK encounter. Furthermore, the location is only one hundred miles due south of the city of Abilene, which is credited with the most notable BEK sighting to date. My interview with Jackson revealed that he was completely unaware of the BEK phenomenon and moreover had absolutely no interest in the unexplained or anything strange whatsoever. He had simply seen something that had frightened him despite a lifetime of experience, something that he could find no explanation for. Admittedly, I haven’t found one either.
Strangely and tragically, I was recently informed by a mutual friend that Jackson passed away quite suddenly just a few months after he and I spoke about his unsettling experience … and at time of writing, the cause of his death is somewhat shrouded in mystery. Could his BEK encounter have served as some kind of ominous warning? We may never know. At times, there appear to be things in this world that we’re incapable of fully understanding.