I thought that, today, I would share with you what sometimes goes down in the world of a writer on matters relative to the paranormal, the supernatural, the occult, and the UFO phenomenon. This undeniably strange example of many took place on February 28, 2016, but it’s still just as relevant. On checking my email around 8:30 a.m., I saw I had one from a woman named Belinda. She had a traumatic dream two nights earlier. And, she encountered a Man in Black wearing shiny black gloves. In the dream, the MIB pursued her along an old railroad track – one that was seemingly never-ending. Only when the MIB was within a few feet of her did Belinda wake up with an ear-piercing scream. Something which Belinda’s husband attested to. Over the years, a few reports have surfaced of the menacing Men in Black wearing black gloves, but certainly nowhere near the extent to which they are associated with black fedoras and old, 1950s-era black cars. Between October of 2015 and the early part of 2016, however, I received what I can only describe as a “cluster” of reports of the MIB wearing black gloves. In other words, Belinda’s case was not alone. There were others, too.

(Nick Redfern):

not a bad car at all!

Now, if I got – let’s say – a report or two every couple of years of gloved MIB, I probably wouldn’t have given the matter much thought. But, that was not the case: I received eight such accounts across a handful of months, not even including that of Belinda. And, from varying parts of the United States. Admittedly, at first, I thought this might have been some curious kind of MIB “spam.” Or “fake news.” Namely, a group of people deciding to get together and waste my time with a bunch of bogus, concocted tales. But, having spoken on the phone with six of them, and having had extensive email exchanges with the others, I was quickly one hundred percent sure that this was not the case. Of the group, six had experiences with the gloved MIB in what were classic states of hypnagogia. For those who may not be aware of the phenomenon, it is “the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep.” It’s a stage in which people can hear voices and unclear mumbling. Loud “bang”-like noises are not uncommon. Nor are the sounds of a door knocking or a doorbell ringing. Visual hallucinations can occur, too. Sometimes, such events are traumatic. On other occasions, however, they’re uplifting. The phenomenon of “sleep paralysis” can also be a factor in hypnagogia, but certainly not always.

Now, the down to earth explanation for hypnagogia is that it’s purely a product of the brain, provoked by that aforementioned hazy state of being semi-awake and partially-asleep. Over the years, however, I have spoken with more than a few people who are absolutely sure in their minds that there is something else to all of this: a belief that paranormal entities can literally “invade” our dream-states. And, perhaps, our semi-dream states, too. Of course, there’s no hard evidence for this, but that hasn’t stopped such a theory from persisting. And particularly so in so-called “alien abduction” experiences, and also with regard to encounters with the likes of the “Old Hag,” and Incubus– and Succubus-type creatures. It seems that now we can now add the Men in Black gloves to that list. As controversial as it may sound, I’m quite open to the idea that what many people assume to be internal experiences may have an external “Fortean” aspect attached to them. One of the reasons being when I get these “cluster”-style reports. Now, I’m not saying that an entire bunch of people – spread all across the United States and unknown to each other – couldn’t share weirdly similar experiences. But, across just a few months? And all with the imagery of MIB wearing black gloves? And they all decide to contact me? That’s when I begin to think that we’re not dealing with just hypnagogia. We’re dealing with entities from other realms and that, for the most part, appear when we are in the sleep state. Of course, that’s when we are at our most vulnerable. As all the above shows, these “things” know exactly when and where to launch their attacks. And, “attacks” are exactly what I call them.

(Nick Redfern)

Strangers in the night

Ever since we became aware that the universe extends past our planet and that space exists, people have looked to it as a final frontier. Humanity has made many great strides in our endeavors to conquer this last great unknown, but largely we have only really scratched the surface of getting there, with our progress of manned space missions still limited to the general vicinity of our planet. The desire to delve out into the cosmos is a powerful one, yet while most people may think that our true step towards space travel started in the 20th century, such aspirations have been around far longer than that. There have been serious plans put into space travel centuries before we even put the first animal in orbit, and one of these is certainly the time a 17th century scientist drew up his plans to reach the moon centuries before we actually did.

John Wilkins was born in Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire, England, on 1 January 1614, and was from a young age gifted with great intellect and a passion for the natural world. He would graduate from Magdalen College, Oxford, with a B.A. in 1631 and an M.A. in 1634, mostly focusing on theology, natural philosophy, and astronomy, all subjects in which he excelled. He then went on to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England, after which he took on various posts as chaplain to an array of the rich and powerful, including at one point Charles Louis, Prince Elector of the Palatine, and these posts would take him all over England and Germany, where he became acquainted with scholars from various fields. He would eventually in later years become Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, serve as Bishop of Chester, and go on to be one of the founding members of the Royal Society, which had him spending much of his time among some of the greatest thinkers, scientists, and intellectuals of his time. Yet for all of these achievements, he is perhaps most remembered for his groundbreaking ideas on space, space travel, and alien life that were well ahead of their time.

Wilkins was considered a bit of a genius himself, and during these years he had made many advancements in science and proposed many ideas that were extremely unique for their era. In his 1668 book, An Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, he proposed a universal language that could be used by scientists and travelers alike all over the world, and he also was a pioneer of the idea of using a universal system of weights and measure, as well as using pendulums to measure time and utilizing a universal measure of length. He was also an accomplished inventor, creating the first air gun, an artificial rainbow machine, a cypher and signal system that would allow one to “with privacy and speed communicate his thoughts to a friend at any distance,” and an inflatable bladder that would go on to serve as the prototype for the pneumatic tire, among others. Yet although these were all pursuits in which he was pushing new boundaries, it was space that truly fascinated him, and he spent most of his time looking up at the stars contemplating what was out there and how to get there.

John Wilkins

This was an era in which a cascade of discoveries in all areas of science was going on, and astronomy and our understanding of the universe was undergoing a bit of an upheaval. Johannes Kepler had worked out the physical laws governing how planets orbit the Sun. Galileo had completely changed our view of the stars and planets using the newly improved telescope to smash the long held idea of an Earth-centered view of the cosmos, and replace it with Copernicus’s heliocentric theory. We were now coming to an understanding that the stars and space itself extended farther than had ever been thought before. We also could finally see that the moon, which had long been an enigma, had a landscape in many ways similar to Earth, complete with mountains and plains. Humanity was suddenly thrown into a universe that was far more massive and stranger than had ever been thought before, and Wilkins was absolutely fascinated by this.

He would write two groundbreaking books on astronomy called The Discovery of a New World in 1638, and then in 1640 A Discourse Concerning a New Planet, in which he railed against the prevailing physics of Aristotle, which dated back 2000 years, and he introduced this new vision of the universe in plain English and clear vernacular terms that the average reader could understand, something very unique for its era. He also illustrated the idea that not only was Earth just one planet among many others, but that these other planets, as well as our own moon, might be inhabited as well. These were all ideas that had been doing the rounds for some time already, but of all of his ideas on space and the nature of the cosmos, his most bizarre and ambitious were his visionary notions of humans actually travelling to space to meet these beings for themselves. He would write of this:

In the first ages of the world the Islanders either thought themselves to be the onely dwellers upon the earth, or else if there were any other, yet they could not possibly conceive how they might have any commerce with them, being severed by the deepe and broad Sea. But the after-times found out the invention of ships, in which notwithstanding none but some bold daring men durst venture, there being few so resolute as to commit themselves unto the vaste Ocean, and yet now how easie a thing is this, even to a timorous and cowardly nature? So, perhaps, there may be some other meanes invented for a conveyance to the Moone, and though it may seeme a terrible and impossible thing ever to passe through the vaste spaces of the aire, yet no question there would bee some men who durst venture this as well as the other.

This was more than just a thought experiment for Wilkins, as he seriously believed that it was possible to fashion a craft to actually travel out into space, an idea which was mind-blowing for its time, the realm of wild, fanciful fiction. Inspired by such great explorers into the unknown as Columbus, Drake and Magellan, Wilkins truly believed that it was just the next logical step that we head past the horizon and into the new frontier of space. To do this, in around 1640 he proposed building a “flying chariot” that would be capable of reaching the moon, which he really felt was possible and which he really felt could be built.

In order to make this a reality, he had many ideas on how it could be accomplished. The first thing to do was to escape the pull of the planet, which was a bit of a challenge considering this was well before Isaac Newton had identified the force of gravity, but Wilkins thought he had it worked out. He believed that everything was held to the earth by a force of magnetism, but that if one could get just 20 miles into the air they would be free of this force, as the thinking at the time was that the power of gravity depended on the proportionate distance between objects, with the further apart they were, the weaker the force became. Wilkins reasoned that his could be done with a flying machine designed like a ship and equipped with a powerful spring, clockwork gears, gunpowder as a sort of propulsion system and internal engine, a vertical rotating sail sprouting from the backrest, wheels for when the thing landed, and a set of wings covered with feathers. This craft would then take off at a low angle, eerily predicting how planes would take off in modern times centuries before the Wright Brothers made their historic flight and in a time when inertia physics was scarcely understood.

17th century engraving of the moon

Once in space, Wilkins suggested that the temperature might not necessarily be cold, and also explained that since the astronauts would be free from the magnetic pull of the planet, there would be nothing pulling on their digestive system to make them hungry and therefore they would not have any need for food in space. He similarly argued that astronauts would not have to worry about breathing either, as their lungs would get used to breathing the “pure air of angels” at that altitude. To him, flying across space would in a sense be even easier than flying on earth, and would merely be the next step past the ships used by the explorers of the past. He was under the impression, as was the common knowledge of the day, that Earth’s atmosphere was nearly identical to the conditions of space. All that needed to be done was to escape Earth’s attraction and we were set to make a journey to the moon that he estimated would take about 180 days, comparable to a long voyage across the oceans. Simple. He was sure his flying chariot would work, and said “I do seriously and upon good grounds affirm it possible to make a Flying Chariot; in which a man may sit and give such a Motion unto it as shall convey him through the air.”

Looking back at this with what we know now about flight and space travel, we understand that the whole plan is absurd and would have never worked at all, but at the time this was pretty visionary stuff. Although space travel and trips to the moon had been mentioned before in science fiction as pure fantasy, no one had ever seriously considered and drawn up plans for an actual working spaceship, and indeed this was an era in which the idea of real, actual space travel was not even really a thing. As the years went by and more discoveries were made, Wilkins himself would come to understand that travelling to the moon through his plan was not a possibility, although he did continue to experiment with various flying machines. Dr. Allan Chapman, a historian at Wadham College, Oxford, calls it the “Jacobean space programme,” and has said of the rise and fall of Wilkins’ grand vision:

His ingenuity was enormous. He saw his flying chariot as being the space version of Drake’s, Raleigh’s and Magellan’s ships. In the same way that it was an Englishman, Thomas Harriott, who beat Galileo in using the telescope, so on the anniversary of the landing on the Moon it was an Englishman who came up with the best argued possibility of getting to the Moon in his day. This was a honeymoon period of British science. The vacuum had not yet been discovered. In 1640, flying to the Moon was a heroic possibility. But by 1670, they realised it was impossible. They’d made so many discoveries in physics and astronomy in 30 years that they could see that flying to the Moon was not on. But in that glorious period around 1640, it seemed a real possibility.

Wilkins would go on to act as Bishop of Chester with a seat in the House of Lords in 1668, and continue his work in the Royal Society, as well as work as an educator all the way to his death in 1672. Although his ideas concerning space travel might seem extravagant, crude and silly by today’s standards, many of his basic ideas such as flying ships and long distance communication would eventually come true, things he was envisioning centuries earlier. During his era, he was a major influence and force in science, advancing the field and looking into the future frontiers of science, a visionary who may have failed in his quest in space, but holds a great legacy in science. He may not have ever reached the stars, but he was a consummate dreamer who encouraged others to dream too, and in many ways it is dreams that fuel our push into new realms of scientific discovery.

The year 1973 remains significant in the history of UFO studies for being a year where some of the most widely discussed and controversial incidents ever to have occurred were logged. From the alleged abductions of Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker at Pascagoula, Mississippi, to the famous “Coyne Incident” involving a near midair collision between a U.S. Air Force Huey helicopter and an oblong-shaped UFO, 1973 presented several incidents that remain among ufology’s best-known cases.

“As mutilation reports exploded across the Midwest and West in 1975, the number of ‘mystery helicopter’ reports also increased in many areas,” read an entry by Scott H. Colborn in the Fortean Research Journal in 1989. “This helicopter/mutilation concurrence has continued throughout the past decade,” Colborn wrote. “We have concentrated much of our attention on the ‘mystery helicopters’ because we suspect that if we can acquire some concrete answers illuminating the role of these helicopters, we will be much closer to an understanding of the mutilation phenomena as a whole.”

According to Colborn, by the end of the 1980s, there were “well over 200 accounts of mystery helicopters near or at or in the vicinity of mutilation sites.” While he acknowledged that some of the reports had merely been “innocent flyovers” that were unrelated to the animal mutilations occurring nearby, there were nonetheless “too many reports of helicopters that harass herds of livestock, spotlighting cattle, chasing ground observers and even landing in pastures.”

More ominously, as Colborn noted, some of the incidents involved multiple helicopters numbering anywhere from five to seven of the aircraft all in the same vicinity. “People have been paced and chased down country roads. Deputies have pulled into pastures to watch unlit choppers rise and quickly fly away.”

In 1975, the cases involving purported “mystery helicopters” began to escalate, particularly in states like Colorado. According to Colborn, farmers in the eastern part of the state that year were so wary of the helicopter sightings that they were “ready to shoot down anything resembling a chopper,” resulting in a temporary grounding of all known and accounted-for helicopter flights in the region.

Elsewhere in New Mexico, the issue was similarly tense, and even led to the FAA launching a probe into the mystery helicopters. However, once a National Guard helicopter was stationed at the Clayton, New Mexico airport with instructions to chase any unidentified helicopters that were reported in the area, the sightings seemingly stopped for a time.

“We do not know the results of the FAA investigations,” Colborn wrote, “as they have since denied having any knowledge or information about it.”

“Perhaps they found a reason not to announce their findings,” he added.

Strange helicopters of unknown origin hadn’t been exclusive to the areas where cattle mutilations were occurring. During several incidents involving aerial incursions that occurred at U.S. Air Force missile launch sites along the northern tier during the mid-1970s, military personnel occasionally described seeing what appeared to be craft with lighting arrangements that most closely resembled helicopters, rather than exotic-looking aircraft.

In 1975, missile sites that included Loring, Wurtsmith, and Minot Air Force Bases on the nights or early mornings of October 27, 29, and 31, and again on the nights of November 7, 8, 9, and 19 were host to sightings of what many servicemen described as helicopters. However, after probing by The National Enquirer, an official U.S. Air Force response stated that the “helicopter assumption was based on the sound and light perceptions of the eyewitnesses,” and that there had been no overflights at these bases that the Air Force managed to identify as helicopters.

Strange helicopters were also reported during the famous Cash-Landrum UFO incident that occurred in December, 1980 near Daton, Texas. Witnesses Betty Cash and Vicky Landrum described seeing a large number of helicopters that appeared to pursue (or possibly escort away) a large, hovering diamond-shaped aircraft which produced hot jets of flame from its base. In the days and weeks following the sighting, the witnesses developed an array of medical conditions that they believed to have been related to the object they observed. Despite persistent inquiries made with the U.S. Air Force, the source of the helicopter sightings that coincided with Cash and Landrum’s observation of a UFO was never determined.

Some of the helicopters observed by Cash and Landrum in December, 1980, reportedly resembled the CH-47 Chinook with its distinctive twin-blade configuration

(Credit: Unsplash)

As to the possible origins of these mystery aircraft, Colborn presented several theories, which included:

1) The objects resembling helicopters were actually UFOs which merely resembled more conventional military aircraft (or were perhaps intentionally disguised to look like them) but instead shared a common origin with other more exotic craft.

2) The mystery helicopters might originate from some private, non governmental organization or agency, which might include a corporate or even a cult group. Other possibilities Colborn proposed were secret societies, paramilitary groups, or an “international cabal of industrialists, energy czars or similar manipulators.”

3) The helicopters might be part of a U.S. government group, which for clandestine reasons may have been involved in operations that included surveillance of high security installations, and even cattle mutilations, possibly as part of a “massive chemical-biological warfare (CBW) experiment.”

4) Alternatively, the mystery helicopters might have origins from within the U.S. government, but rather than playing an active role in the cattle mutilations, their purpose might have been part of a secret investigation of these incidents.

5) Another possibility is that rather than merely investigating cattle mutilations, the helicopters were being operated by an investigative group or agency within the U.S. government which had a much firmer grasp on the problem than the public does.

As Colborn proposed of this fifth possibility, this hypothetical U.S. government group could know “much more than ‘civilians’ do,” adding that the mystery helicopters “are of military origin” and that the government of theUnited States “possesses a very substantial amount of knowledge about the mutilators, their means and motives.”

“The government may be attempting to persuade mutilation investigators and the populace as a whole that perhaps the military might be behind at least some mutilations, a diversion away from the real truth,” according to Colborn, who noted the apparent presence of “implied a prior knowledge” in some cattle mutilation cases, “which enable the helicopters to arrive around the time of a mutilation.”

Even after the passing of several decades, the “mystery helicopters” of the 1970s and 80s remain mysterious. It seems hard to imagine that their presence represents anything but the clandestine efforts of one or more U.S. government agencies, although their proximity to UFO incidents, as well as overflights of high-security installations, and even apparent relationship to the ongoing cattle mutilation mystery also represents one of the more ominous unresolved questions about the modern UFO mystery.

“The direct evidence from the Dyatlov Pass area obtained in those expeditions confirms that the region is avalanche prone and that slopes above the location where Igor Dyatlov and his group pitched their tent are steep enough for avalanches to release. Independent research by Russian snow and climate scientists supported assumptions and the main results of our slab avalanche modeling.”

The nine individuals who lost their lives at Dyatlov Pass in 1959.

Alexander Puzrin, a professor of geotechnical engineering at ETH Zurich, and Johan Gaume, head of the Snow and Avalanche Simulation Laboratory at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, have been the leading proponents of the slab avalanche cause since last year when their first paper on the subject was published in Communications Earth & Environment. Slab avalanches get their name from situations where a slab-like layer of snow pushed by winds forms on top of a weaker layer, causing pressure to be built up and small fractures to form – fractures that need only a small trigger – like a tent post being hammered – to release the slab to slid down a slope, even a not-so-steep one. In their new follow-up to that study, published in the same journal and in an article in Vice, Puzrin and Gaume describe three expeditions to the infamous location, including one just two months ago when professional mountain guides Oleg Demyanenko and Dmitriy Borisov witnessed and recorded video of slab avalanches.

“The initially favorable weather conditions quickly deteriorated, with wind and temperatures becoming similar to those on the night of the 1959 tragedy. Several times, the 300-kg snowmobiles and their drivers were overturned by wind gusts. Visibility became extremely poor. And then, when after a few failed attempts the two mountain guides approached their destination, the visibility briefly improved and revealed traces of two snow slab avalanches.”

Still photos of the videos are included in the study and shown in a documentary video, which is fortunate because

Demyanenko and Borisov watched as the evidence of the avalanches disappeared under snowfall less than an hour later. This explains why the Dyatlov rescue team could not find signs of an avalanche three weeks after the incident. It also shows why no one believes in slab avalanches … unless they see them for themselves. The study admits that the conditions were slighting different on February 1st, 1959.

“Nevertheless, the area is clearly avalanche prone, and the avalanche danger on the night of February 1st, 1959 was real.”

No avalanche is a good avalanche

Their first study concluded that the slab avalanche cause was “plausible.” Now, Puzrin and Gaume have visual evidence of similar slab avalanches causing similar destruction under similar circumstances with similar disappearances. They plan to continue building the case that the Dyatlov Group was killed by slab avalanches.

Are YOU convinced?

The French astronomer, computer scientist, and UFO researcher Jacques Fabrice Vallée is one of the important figures in the study of unidentified flying objects, long a proponent of pushing the legitimacy of ufology as a viable scientific pursuit. A legendary icon in the field, he not only increased the legitimacy of the study of UFOs, but also pushed at its boundaries, introducing many ideas that were considered groundbreaking in their time, notably the idea of extraterrestrials as interdimensional travelers. He is so important that he was the inspiration for one of the main characters in Stephen Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and his contributions to the field are innumerable. He is also known for uncovering a mysterious lost top-secret document that pointed at a grand conspiracy of the government controlling, twisting, and even fabricating the output of information on the UFO phenomenon.

In the summer of 1967, Vallée was living in the United States, and at the time was tasked with helping astronomer J. Allen Hynek get his documents in order. This is notable in that Hynek was then one of the most recognizable authorities on the UFO subject, and had been the top scientific advisor to three UFO studies carried out by the U.S. Air Force, with those being Project Sign (1947–1949), Project Grudge (1949–1951) and Project Blue Book, which he was then overseeing. Indeed, the documents that Vallée was helping to organize were composed of UFO reports under investigation by Project Blue Book. It was apparently quite the task, since Hynek was notoriously disorganized with his files, something Vallée complained about profusely. One day, he unloaded some boxes of Hynek’s files, and as he went through them trying to make some sense of the chaotic mess, he came across a document that was dated 9 January 1953, stamped in red ink “SECRET – Security Information” and signed by a person he would later only refer to as “Pentacle.” What he would find within would change his whole outlook on the UFO phenomenon, shake him to his core, and inspire debate and discussion that has continued to this day.

Jacques Vallée

Among the many revelations allegedly held within what would be called “The Pentacle Memorandum,” perhaps the most shocking had to do with what was called the Robertson Panel. Headed by Howard P. Robertson, a physicist from California Institute of Technology, and organized in response to a recommendation to the Intelligence Advisory Committee following the Central Intelligence Agency’s own review of Project Blue Book, the Robertson Panel was convened in January, 1953, by a committee of expert scientists who had been asked to consider the UFO phenomenon for the purpose of weighing the threat that such objects might present to national security. These experts included Luis Alvarez, Nobel prize in physics; Lloyd Berkner, space scientist; Sam Goudsmit, nuclear physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Thornton Page, astronomer Although the Robertson Panel was meant to be an impartial, open discussion on the matter that considered all angles and held nothing back, and this was what the public had been told about it, what Vallée supposedly discovered in this mysterious file cast a sinister light on it all.

Jacques Vallee (right) and J. Allen Hynek, who collaborated for years as advisors to the USAF Project Blue Book, and efforts toward bringing a resolution to the UFO problem.

According to the Pentacle Memorandum, which was addressed to a Miles E. Coll at Wright Patterson Air Force Base and meant for transmittal to Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the panel of scientists convening for the Robertson Panel were being manipulated and not told the whole story. Not only had a secret study of thousands of UFO reports carried out on behalf of the United States government by the Battelle Memorial Institute been withheld from them, but under what was referred to as “Project Stork” they were also told in no uncertain terms that, far from an impartial discussion, there were certain things they were not allowed to talk about. This was basically cherry picking and preselecting evidence, which would guide the conclusion the scientists would reach, and they even suggested postponing the Robertson Panel until it could be decided how much information would be made available to the committee. Vallée would write of this to UFO researcher Barry Greenwood:

The greatest implication, which is perhaps not obvious on first reading but which amounts to a scandal of major proportion in the eyes of any scientist, has to do with the outright manipulation of the Robertson panel. Here is a special meeting of the five most eminent scientists in the land, assembled by the government to discuss a matter of national security. Not only are they not made aware of all the data, but another group has already decided “what can and cannot be discussed (Pentacle’s own words!)” when they meet. Dr. Hynek categorically stated to me that the panel was not briefed about the Pentacle proposals.

Vallée found that this mysterious Project Stork extended beyond merely manipulating and guiding the Robertson Panel. There was also referenced a plan to exploit areas of supposed high UFO activity in order to carry out an experiment to secretly and purposefully manufacture UFO phenomena in order to gather reliable physical data on eyewitness testimony, essentially creating what Vallée would call “a carefully calibrated and monitored simulation of an entire UFO wave.” A portion of the document explains of this project:

We expect that our analysis will show that certain areas in the United States have had an abnormally high number of reported incidents of unidentified flying objects.  Assuming that, from our analysis, several definite areas productive of reports can be selected, we recommend that one or two of theses areas be set up as experimental areas. This area, or areas, should have observation posts with complete visual skywatch, with radar and photographic coverage, plus all other instruments necessary or helpful in obtaining positive and reliable data on everything in the air over the area. A very complete record of the weather should also be kept during the time of the experiment.  Coverage should be so complete that any object in the air could be tracked, and information as to its altitude, velocity, size, shape, color, time of day, etc. could be recorded. All balloon releases or known balloon paths, aircraft flights, and flights of rockets in the test area should be known to those in charge of the experiment. Many different types of aerial activity should be secretly and purposefully scheduled within the area. We recognize that this proposed experiment would amount to a large-scale military maneuver, or operation, and that it would require extensive preparation and fine coordination, plus maximum security. Although it would be a major operation, and expensive, there are many extra benefits to be derived besides the data on unidentified aerial objects.

The question of just what would be accomplished by the proposed experiment occurs. Just how could the problem of these unidentified objects be solved? From this test area, during the time of the experiment, it can be assumed that there would be a steady flow of reports from ordinary civilian observers, in addition to those by military or other official observers. It should be possible by such a controlled experiment to prove the identity of all objects reported, or to determine positively that there were objects present of unknown identity. Any hoaxes under a set-up such as this could almost certainly be exposed, perhaps not publicly, but at least to the military. In addition, by having resulting data from the controlled experiment, reports for the last five years could be re-evaluated, in the light of similar but positive information. This should make possible reasonably certain conclusions concerning the importance of the problem of “flying saucers”. Results of an experiment such as described could assist the Air Force to determine how much attention to pay to future situations when, as in the past summer, there were thousands of sightings reported. In the future, then, the Air Force should be able to make positive statements, reassuring to the public, and to the effect that everything is well under control.

Vallée saw all of this as an insidious government plan to spread misinformation and manipulate the truth, to obfuscate the honest search for true answers and mislead the public. He also wondered whether this was just one small part of a greater conspiracy to obfuscate the truth and construct just what the public knew about UFOs. In his opinion, this revelation potentially posed the threat of causing huge shockwaves in the UFO field and beyond into society itself. Vallée was quite alarmed by all of this, and would write:

Perhaps the Pentacle memo only proves that scientific studies of UFOs (and even their classified components) have been manipulated since the fifties. But it also suggests several avenues of research which are vital to the future of this field: why were Pentacle’s proposals kept from the panel? Were his plans for a secret simulation of UFO waves implemented? If so, when, where and how? What was discovered as a result? Are these simulations still going on? Hynek once assured me that if it ever turned out that a secret study had been conducted, the American public would raise an unbelievable stink against the military and Intelligence community. It would be an outrage, he said, an insult to the whole country, not to mention a violation of the most cherished American principles of democracy. There would be an uproar in Congress, editorials in major scientific magazines, immediate demands for sanctions.

Making it all even more ominous was that when Hynek found about the document, he had known nothing of any of this, meaning that Project Bluebook itself was being manipulated. Hynek went to directly confront members of the Battelle study about it, to which their reaction was quite volatile. Vallée would say of the incident, “The man I have called Pentacle snatched his notes away and told him in no uncertain terms that the contents of the memo were not to be discussed, under any circumstances. Why should Pentacle worry so much about a simple letter written fifteen years ago?” Indeed, why would they have such a reaction and what did this mean? All of this disturbed Vallée greatly, and he would later say of the document’s profound effect on him:

The discovery of the Pentacle document had a major impact on me. It gave me an uncomfortable insight into the practices of government agencies and the high-powered consultants who serve them. It was the main raison for my return to Europe in 1967. It made obvious some unsavoury aspects of scientific policy at the highest level. It provided quite an education for an idealistic young astronomer.

It would not be until 1992 that word of this secret document came to light, with the release of Valee’s four-volume series titled Forbidden Science. Not long after this, a purported leaked copy of the Pentacle Memorandum came into the possession of UFO researchers, and Vallee would confirm that this was the very same document he had seen back in 1967. The document would end up hitting the public with a whimper, not creating nearly the sort of uproar that Vallée had been expecting. Most people just didn’t really seem to care all that much. Even within UFO circles it got a mixed response, with some sharing Vallée’s alarmist and paranoid interpretation, while others said the document was not particularly significant in the grand scheme of things. Still others took the more extreme stance that the document “proved” that the government was behind the whole UFO phenomena, and that there were no aliens or spaceships, just a large-scale psi-ops scheme. All of these various interpretations have managed to make the Pentacle Memorandum a controversial and much debated document tight up to the present, with no general agreement on what it all means or what implications it might have. It remains an odd footnote in the history of ufology that we may never truly understand for certain, its implications unknown to us.

Is it possible that some of the cryptid creatures seen on our world are actually extraterrestrial creatures? Yes, it’s a highly controversial theory, but stay with me. Let’s have a look at some of the creatures that just might fit into this particular, peculiar category of alien-and-monster. We’ll begin with the matter of that modern day werewolf, the Dogman. It haunts much of Wisconsin and Michigan – and many other parts of the United States, too. In 2005, Dogman expert Linda Godfrey was contacted by a man – a military whistle-blower, we might say – who was an expert in the field of remote-viewing. According to Linda’s Edward Snowden-like source, the U.S. Government has uncovered data suggesting that the Dogmen are a very ancient, alien race that closely resembles the ancient deity of the Underworld. And who might that be? It’s Anubis, that’s who. Linda’s informant also discovered – via remote-viewing – that the Dogmen can “jump” from location to location via portals or doorways in the fabric of space and time. That’s quite a story told to Godfrey. And a wild way to begin this article, too.

(Nick Redfern)

Linda Godfrey, Dogman expert, with Nick Redfern

Now, let’s go on to the matter of what are known as small “hairy hominids.” That’s right, all around the world there are stories of hair-covered creatures in our forests and jungles. But, what about the UFO/alien angle of this? Well, let’s see. Perhaps the best example of this particularly mystifying aspect of the phenomenon was that which occurred in Venezuela, back in late 1954. So far as can be determined, the controversy – which very quickly became a matter dominated by nothing but cold, unrelenting terror – began sometime after midnight on November 28. All was normal for Jose Ponce and Gustavo Gonzalez, as they traveled along a small road on the fringes of Caracas, Venezuela. Or, to be absolutely correct, all was normal for a while. The dark road was suddenly lit up by what the astonished pair could only describe as a bright ball of light, with a circumference of around three feet. It swayed slightly in the air, not unlike a small boat bobbing along on the water.

The two slowed down their vehicle as they approached it, eventually coming to a complete halt. It was then, suddenly, that astonishment was replaced by outright terror. While Ponce stayed inside the van, Gonzalez cautiously exited the vehicle; he began to slowly and tentatively walk towards the hovering globe. Suddenly, Gonzalez found himself thrown to the ground by an unseen force. The reason why the attacker was unseen – for a few seconds, at least – was because of its size. Or, rather, its profound lack of size. Gonzalez, to his shock and fear, was finally able to see what had assaulted him: a small, hair-covered creature that was built like a man, but which was only around three feet in height. Acting on impulse and adrenalin, Gonzalez attempted to plunge his knife into the body of the creature, only for the knife to bounce off it. In mere seconds, another hairy dwarf was on the scene, and temporarily blinded Gonzalez with a bright light that emitted from a powerful, flashlight-type device. Shocked to the core, Ponce gathered his wits together and jumped out of the van to help his friend, who was stumbling around, his eyesight still affected by the powerful beam that hit him with full force. To Ponce’s growing concern, two more of the hairy creatures surfaced out of the shadows, and both making their way towards the men – and armed, no less, with large rocks.

(Nick Redfern)

Now, onto another hairy hominid. This one, though, is hardly small. It towers over us. That’s right: Bigfoot. While most cryptozoologists (monster-hunters) dismiss the claims that there is a Bigfoot-UFO connection, a smaller core are sure that the creatures are far more than what they appear to be. Certainly, the leading figure in the “Saucers and Sasquatch” camp is Stan Gordon – and his book, Silent Invasion, is the definitive study of this issue. is a swirling cauldron filled with dark and ominous woods; glowing-eyed beast-men prowling the countryside by night; strange lights in the sky; UFO landings; neighborhoods gripped by terror and fear; and much, much more, too. And, it’s thanks to Stan’s research, as well as his in-depth files prepared back when all the dark drama was going on, that we’re now able to appreciate the curious chaos and calamity that collectively hit the unsuspecting folk of Pennsylvania all those years ago. But, that’s not all: macabre Men in Black, paranormal activity, psychic possession, secret government interest in Bigfoot, and prophetic visions of a dark and foreboding future all come to the fore in a book that is guaranteed to make you think twice about the true nature of Bigfoot.

(Nick Redfern)

Nick Redfern and Stan Gordon

To his credit, Stan does not take the simplistic approach that Bigfoot is some sort of “pet of the aliens,” as some might assume. Instead, he logically, forthrightly and with supportive data in-hand, makes it abundantly clear that – even if we don’t have all the answers – addressing the Bigfoot controversy from a purely zoological perspective does not work – at all. He notes the problematic lack of a body (even just one would be nice!), the meager evidence of Bigfoot’s eating habits, and its uncanny ability to always avoid capture – not to mention that the beast appears to be nigh-on bulletproof. And I do mean that literally! And Stan hammers home, time and again, that where Bigfoot turns up, so – very often – do a host of other Fortean favorites. Something strange and diabolical was afoot in Pennsylvania between 1972 and 1974. Bigfoot, UFOs and a plethora of paranormal activity were all in evidence. Somewhere, somehow, there is a connection – even if it’s one we’re not fully able to understand, just yet. Until we do, however, Silent Invasion will provide you with much to think about, to muse upon, and to ponder. And it may just make you totally revise your views on North America’s most famous ape-man, the Dogman, and those mysterious tiny, hairy creatures. We’re not quite over.

On my many trips to Puerto Rico in search of the Chupacabra, people have told me of sightings of UFOs and bright lights in the same areas – many of them deep in the El Yunque Rain-Forest. The same goes for the Loch Ness Monster: the legendary lake has been the site of a Man in Black that scared the life out of the late investigator, F.W. “Ted” Holiday. On August 13, 1971, a notable encounter occurred at Loch Ness. Not with a monster, but with a UFO. The witness was one Graham Snape, who told Ted Holiday that he saw an unidentified object crossing the skies above Loch Ness in a left to right fashion, quickly, and with not even a bit of accompanying noise. The somewhat circular-shaped UFO was purple with a white center. By his own admission, Snape was unsure of the size of the object but suggested it was around five-feet in diameter.

Like it or not, there does appear to be a connection between aliens and cryptids. And it doesn’t seem to be going away at anytime now. John Keel would be smiling at all this: after all, he discovered the monster-alien angle decades ago. Unfortunately, so many people have dismissed it. Too bad for them.

(Nick Redfern)

El Yunque: a home to the Chupacabra and aliens and UFOs

That’s quite a controversial title for an article. But, it most definitely fits the content of that very same article, as you will see now. In August 1995, the Canovanas region of the island of Puerto Rico was hit by a spate of very bizarre attacks on farm animals. The unfortunate creatures – typically goat, chickens, and pigs – were found dead with deep puncture wounds to their necks and amid claims that significant amounts of blood were missing from their corpses. Farmers were on edge, the media had an absolute field day, and the people of Puerto Rico were plunged into states that ranged from fear to hysteria. When similar killings began to be reported in numerous other parts of Puerto Rico that fear was amplified to even greater levels. All of which is hardly surprising, when one takes into consideration the physical appearance of the beast that was believed to be behind all of the slaughtering. The first person – so far as we know – to see the beast was a woman named Madeline Tolentino, who lived in Canovanas, the initial scene of all the action, and whose story is told in Ben Radford’s 2011 book, Tracking the Chupacabra. She described it as a fairly compact animal that ran on two legs – in a strange hopping style – and which had what looked like row of feathers running down the back of its head and spine. As media interest grew and grew, so did sightings of the mysterious monster. But, that’s when things became not just interesting, but beyond interesting. There is a very good reason for that: not everyone saw the same beast that Tolentino encountered. Or, at least, it did not look the same.

(Nick Redfern)

On one of my many treks around Puerto Rico while seeking for the Chupacabra

It is one thing to suggest that, in the 1990s, one unknown and dangerous animal was on the loose on Puerto Rico. It is quite another, however, to suggest that multiple, strange creatures were running wild on the island. And, yet, that appears to have been exactly what was going on. Unless, all of the reports were of the same monster. But, given their physical differences, how could that be? Very easily, that is how, if the Chupacabra is a shapeshifter. As amazing as it may sound, a significant amount of data points in that specific direction. Although the first sighting of the creature in the summer of 1995 effectively dictated how the locals perceived the animal to look, not everyone reported something that resembled the monster seen by Madeline Tolentino, as we shall now see. In the days, weeks, months – and even years – that followed, countless reports of Chupacabra attacks on farm animals were reported. The problem, however, is that the descriptions of the beast varied to incredible degrees.

(Nick Redfern)

A small portion of Puerto Rico’s El Yunque rain forest

In some cases, witnesses told of seeing an animal that did not have the feathery line running along the back of its head, neck and spine, as described by Tolentino. Instead, they saw a row of menacing-looking spikes, which stood erect and around four to five inches in length. And, of course, it would be very hard to mistake a line of feathers for a row of vicious spikes! Then, there was the matter of how the animal ran. According to both Tolentino and the majority of the early witnesses, it was a bipedal beast, albeit one which bounced along in a bizarre hopping fashion. Others, however, were sure that the creatures they saw ran on four limbs only. And there was nothing bizarre about its movements: they were likened to the way in which a large cat – such as a mountain lion – would stalk its prey. Now, let us take a look at the eyes of the Chupacabra. Some sightings involved creatures with bright blue eyes. In other cases, the eyes were of a piercing, devilish red and glowing variety.

(Nick Redfern) P

uerto Rico: The lair of the Chupacabra

The most significant factor, however, was the matter of the wings of the Chupacabra. Yes, that is correct: wings. In some cases, but most certainly not all, the creatures were said to have had large and powerful-looking bat-like wings. In other words, they were black and leathery-looking. When faced with such stories, other witnesses swore the monsters had absolutely no wings at all. Adding to the puzzle is the fact that on my second expedition to seek out the Puerto Rican Chupacabra, I spoke with a man named Pucho who saw such a thing, but which had wings like those of a large bird: they were feathery. Most controversial of all are the reports of the Chupacabra transforming into a large and lumbering Bigfoot! I should stress that such reports are rare, and few and far between. However, I do have eleven such reports in my files. In all the cases, the witnesses saw the Chupacabra engulfed by a near-blinding white light and then mutating into a large, hair-covered humanoid, before their startled eyes. When we put all of this information together, we are clearly face with a major-sized conundrum: how can one creature take on multiple appearances and forms? Well, the answer is that no normal animal can do such a thing. But, there is nothing normal about the Chupacabra. Rather, everything suggests it is undeniably abnormal.

(Nick Redfern)

One of the many caves in Puerto Rico

On all of my many trips to Puerto Rico, I have heard several, often-repeated theories for what the beasts are or may be. The list includes alien beings, giant bats, and the products of secret labs run by scientists engaging in bizarre genetic-, cloning- and gene-splicing experiments. And there is one more theory: that the Chupacabras were invoked, or conjured up by clandestine groups that engage in the black arts, and who are directly responsible for creating a portal, or what we might call a supernatural doorway, that lets the monsters enter our world at will. There is no doubt at all that Puerto Rico is home to multiple cults and secret societies that engage in animal sacrifice, ritual magic, and occult practices. I know that, as I have had the opportunity to speak with a few of them. They are dangerous and powerful bodies, ones not to be crossed with. The most likely scenario to explain the nature and presence of the Puerto Rican Chupacabra, however, is that it is the shapeshifting denizen of another realm of existence. It is a monster that, when called forth, eagerly made a new home – as well as an entirely new hunting ground – on the island, and still has no intention of returning to the weird realm from which it first surfaced.

In the world of mysterious undiscovered beasts we have creatures of all shapes and sizes, with some being more bizarre than others. One corner of cryptozoology that has quite a few rather strange stories is that of various flying, winged reptiles, which have popped up in numerous cultures across the world. Perhaps standing out among the oddest of these are the various accounts of flying snakes, and here we will delve into the weird world of such stories.

The region of Arabia has long been said to be the home of some sort of flying serpent, notably in the area around the Arabian Sea. They were typically described as looking like water snakes, only with bat-like wings upon which they could take flight, sometimes in vast numbers. They were said to lurk about under frankincense trees, and farmers harvesting these trees were so afraid of them that they would burn styrax, which is the resin of the Liquidambar tree, under the trees, which was said to drive the serpents away. The only time when the region was supposedly safe from these malicious winged snakes was during spring, when they were said to migrate to Egypt. Far from mere folklore, the Arabians described these as real animals, giving a good deal of detail on their behavior and life cycle. For instance, the female was said to kill the male during mating, that the young would eat their way out of the womb, killing the mother, and that their primary predator was ibis birds. Occasionally these winged snakes were seen by outsiders, and in the fourth century B.C., Greek historian Herodotus passed through the region and learned much about these creatures from the locals. They told him of the snakes’ habitats and behaviors, even showing him the mountain pass they were said to pass through during their annual migration, and how the ibis birds would congregate there in great numbers during this time to feed on the serpents. He would claim that he had also seen large numbers of skeletons from these snakes at the pass. Herodotus would write of these creatures at length in his tome Histories, saying:

There is a region moreover in Arabia, situated nearly over against the city of Buto, to which place I came to inquire about the winged serpents: and when I came thither I saw bones of serpents and spines in quantity so great that it is impossible to make report of the number, and there were heaps of spines, some heaps large and others less large and others smaller still than these, and these heaps were many in number.” “The region in which the spines are scattered upon the ground is of the nature of an entrance from a narrow mountain pass to a great plain, which plain adjoins the plain of Egypt; and the story goes that at the beginning of spring winged serpents from Arabia fly towards Egypt, and the birds called ibises meet them at the entrance of this country and do not suffer the serpents to go by but kill them. On account of this deed it is, say the Arabians, that the ibis has come to be greatly honored by the Egyptians, and the Egyptians also agree that it is for this reason that they honor these birds. As for the serpent its form is like that of the watersnake; and it has wings not feathered but most nearly resembling the wings of the bat. Let so much suffice as has been said now concerning sacred animals.

Again, Arabia is the most distant to the south of all inhabited countries: and this is the only country which produces frankincense and myrrh and casia and cinnamon and gum-mastich. All these except myrrh are difficult for the Arabians to get. They gather frankincense by burning that storax which Phoinikes (Phoenicians) carry to Hellas; they burn this and so get the frankincense; for the spice-bearing trees are guarded by small Winged Snakes of varied color, many around each tree; these are the snakes that attack Aigyptos (Egypt). Nothing except the smoke of storax will drive them away from the trees . . .So too if the vipers and the Winged Serpents of Arabia were born in the natural manner of serpents life would be impossible for men; but as it is, when they copulate, while the male is in the act of procreation and as soon as he has ejaculated his seed, the female seizes him by the neck, and does not let go until she has bitten through. The male dies in the way described, but the female suffers in return for the male the following punishment: avenging their father, the young while they are still within the womb gnaw at their mother and eating through her bowels thus make their way out. Other snakes, that do no harm to men, lay eggs and hatch out a vast number of young. The Arabian Winged Serpents do indeed seem to be numerous; but that is because (although there are vipers in every land) these are all in Arabia and are found nowhere else. The Arabians get frankincense in the foregoing way.

Herodotus

Another region long said to be inhabited by flying snakes is the desert of the Karas Region of Namibia, on the southwest coast of Africa. The so-called Namibian Flying Snake supposedly has quite the striking appearance, measuring 9 to 25 feet in length, with a wingspan of 30 feet or more, and being yellowish brown with light spots, or black in color, with the ability to camouflage itself like a chameleon. It is said to be able to produce bioluminescence from a crest on its head, and is known for its loud, roaring vocalizations. They are said to live in caves during the day and come out at dusk, and that they are extremely territorial. Locals are apparently terrified of the beasts, which they believe prey on livestock and even people.

Despite just terrifying locals, these creatures have been reported by outsiders since the days of the first African exploration of the region, and one of the more notable accounts supposedly occurred in 1942, in the vicinity of a farm near Kirris West, in south-west Namibia. The account goes that a farmer named Michael Esterhuise was tending to his flock of sheep when he smelled something like burnt tar and looked to see an enormous snake bounding down a hill before shooting straight up into the air on huge wings a sound like “wind blowing through a pipe” and a “great roaring noise.” Esterhuise would claim to encounter the creature on two more occasions after that, and it was compelling enough that it was investigated by Marjorie Eileen Doris Courtenay-Latimer, the South African museum official who in 1938, brought to the attention of the world the existence of the coelacanth. In 1978 there was another notable sighting, when a French farmer who was tending his cattle and noticed a light approaching him. As it drew closer, he could see that the light was emanating from a crest atop the head of a vast winged serpent, which would swoop down to attack one of his cows and fly off. He would say:

I saw what looked like… as the best matching description I can give you is that it looked like a dragon, it had a white bright light on its head, which was blinding me, the color of it was brown and yellow, it had green eyes, there was a tar-like smell coming from it and it had smoke coming out of its nostrils.

In 1988, professor and explorer Roy Mackal travelled to the region to investigate such reports, and although he was unable to see one of the creatures or gather any evidence, he came away convinced that the creature was real. Europe has its share of such accounts as well, and in particular the woodland around Penllyne Castle, in the county of Glamorgan, seems to be a wellspring for flying snake accounts. The Welsh flying snakes have traditionally been described as being six to nine feet long, having feathers, and as being very beautiful, but at the same time very aggressive and dangerous. They were also supposedly ravenous as well, and often shot at by farmers trying to keep them away from their chickens. In her book Folk-Lore and Folk-Stories of Wales, author Marie Trevelyan writes of these mysterious creatures:

The woods around Penllyne Castle, Glamorgan, had the reputation of being frequented by winged serpents, and these were the terror of old and young alike. An aged inhabitant of Penllyne, who died a few years ago, said that in his boyhood the winged serpents were described as very beautiful. They were coiled when in repose, and “looked as though they were covered with jewels of all sorts. Some of them had crests sparkling with all the colours of the rainbow.” When disturbed, they glided swiftly, “sparkling all over,” to their hiding places. When angry, they “flew over people’s heads, with outspread wings bright and sometimes with eyes, too, like the feathers in a peacock’s tail.” He said it was “no old story,” invented to “frighten children,” but a real fact. His father and uncles had killed some of them, for they were “as bad as foxes for poultry.” This old man attributed the extinction of winged serpents to the fact that they were “terrors in the farmyards and coverts.” An old woman, whose parents in her early childhood took her to visit Penmark Place, Glamorgan, said she often heard the people talking about the ravages of the winged serpents in that neighbourhood.

Another recent report of a flying serpent of some sort in Wales supposedly happened in 2001 in the area of Powys. In March of that year, a British biologist and a few colleagues were doing some fieldwork in the area when they apparently encountered “a serpentine dragon.” A report on the incident in Strange Magazine says of it:

A British biologist and a few colleagues were conducting some research in the area after being notified by a local of “something” strange that was witnessed a month earlier. As they stood at the edge of some woods by a quarry they suddenly looked upon an extraordinary entity. Measuring 3 ft. or so in length, it resembled a serpentine dragon with four short limbs, but its head was shaped very like that of a sea horse, and it was airborne…undulating and wriggling as it flew about 10 ft above the surface of the quarry in a wide circle. They were unable to recall seeing any wings, but it had a long tail that ended in a pair of horizontal, whale like flukes. The entity was green in color and shimmered somewhat, but appeared solid, not translucent or ethereal. They watched it for 3-4 minutes, at a distance of approximately 50 ft, before it finally vanished into one of the numerous caves and large crevices pitting the quarry. The biologist had the distinct impression while watching this creature that it was deliberately seeking to keep them at bay, warning them off from approaching further into its territory.

Hopping across to the United States, here we also find many bizarre reports of flying, winged snakes. One spate of such sightings happened in the 1800s all over the country. In the 1850s, settlers in the state of Nebraska began telling of a giant flying “undulating serpent” with “lighted streaks along the sides” that was frequently seen soaring over the Missouri River. In 1873, several residents of Ft. Scott, Kansas saw in the sky “the form of a huge serpent, apparently perfect in form, surrounding the sun” for several minutes. In June of that same year, farmers near Bonham, Texas, saw a giant flying serpent flying along with a cloud. A report of the encounter in the Bonham Enterprise reads:

It seemed to be as large and as long as a telegraph pole, was of a yellow striped color, and seemed to float along without any effort. They could see it coil itself up, turn over, and thrust forward its huge head as if striking at something, displaying the maneuvers of a genuine snake. The cloud and serpent moved in an easterly direction, and were seen by persons a few miles this side of Honey Grove.

In Jerome Clark’s Unnatural Phenomena: A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America, there is a report from September of 1875, when two young men in Leavenworth, Kansas, claimed to have actually captured a flying snake. They claimed that they had been out hunting when a flying serpent measuring one-foot-long and with spots on its body began fluttering around them on two wings about “the size of a man’s hands.” One of the men was able to swat it out of the air with his hand, and the two of them stomped it to death and put the body in a bottle of alcohol. Unfortunately, no one is really sure where this amazing physical evidence went or if it ever even existed at all.

In March of 1882, two lumberjacks in Hurleton, California, saw above the tree tops a massive flying serpent with a head like a crocodile. One of the men fired his shotgun at it, which elicited a “cry similar to that of a calf and bear combined but gave no sign of being inconvenienced or injured.” Several other people in the area also claimed to have seen the creature. In 1888, three young women in Darlington County, South Carolina claimed to have seen a giant 15-foot-long serpent gliding above them at “about the speed of a hawk” making a hissing sound. In 1897, a witness in Detroit of all places claimed to have seen something remarkable as well, saying:

Going down Grand River about 4 in the morning, the policeman I was with and I saw an object that looked to be about three feet in diameter. It was about 1,000 feet in the air and was heading east. It was a silvery color and had a tail about three blocks long. It traveled like those big sea serpents you read about skimming over the top of the water. It made a low hissing noise that we could just hear. My dad, who was leaving our home for work, also saw it as it seemed to pass right over our house on Rivard between Leland and Alexandrine.

What are we dealing with in accounts such as these? While there are known “flying snakes,” in that they can glide from tree to tree, they do not have wings and are very different than anything we have looked at here. Are these misidentifications, tall tales, or what? Certainly many such accounts have quite a colorful cast to them, suggesting pure folklore or someone having some fun on a slow news day, but could any of these have something more behind them? No matter what the answer to this question may ultimately be, these are certainly curious historical oddities that add another strange corner to the realm of cryptozoology.