Online Interview

Earlier this week, I was interviewed by Ghost-Mysteries.com about my research into cryptozoology. The interview has now been posted online and can be found here. We discuss a variety of crypto-related issues, including the British Bigfoot and paranormal aspects of the subject.

Man-Beast Secrets

Jon Downes' excellent autobiography, Monster Hunter, includes a fascinating "British Bigfoot"-type story, the roots of which can be traced back to the height of the Second World War. It's an account full of high-level conspiracy, dark-goings on at a Devonshire hospital, strange medical files, disturbing family secrets, and the presence of a hairy man-beast that was rumored to be either a genuine wild-man, or possibly an unfortunate individual afflicted with hypertrichosis. Whatever the truth of the affair, it's a story that is as intriguing as it is significant. If you're interested in tales of hairy man-beasts on the loose in the British Isles, this one from Jon is a valuable addition to the data in-hand.

The Wild-Man of the Beach

One of the strangest stories I ever heard - and that can be said to fall firmly into the realm of the British "Wild-Man" - came from a man named Morris Allen, who told me how, early one morning in 1968, he had been walking with his dog along the coast near the town of Orford (which also happened to be the site of another man-beast encounter centuries ago), when in the distance he saw someone squatting on the sand and leaning over something.

As he got closer, Allen said, he could see that the man was dressed in what appeared to be animal-skins, and was tearing into the flesh of a dead rabbit. The man was dirt-encrusted, with long, tangled hair and had wild, staring eyes.

Allen held his dog tightly, and could only watch with a mixture of fascination and horror. Suddenly the man held his head aloft and quickly looked in Allen's direction, as if he had picked up a scent.

The man quickly scooped up the remains of the rabbit, bounded off into the grass and was lost to sight. He was never seen again. We'll probably never know if this was some sort of true Wild-Man, or an eccentric soul who had taken to living in the woods of England's east-coast.

The Chatham Thing

Many thanks to Neil Arnold (author of Monster! - an excellent book that everyone with an interest in cryptozoology should own) for the following report.

As Neil says:

"August (day unknown) 1975 WALDERSLADE, CHATHAM.

"A female witness named Maureen, who was eighteen at the time, was with her boyfriend, late at night, in local woods near Sherwood Avenue. They were chatting and her boyfriend decided to bend down and light a fire. As he was doing so, Maureen saw two glowing points of light just a few feet away that she took to be eyes. They belonged to a hulking, hairy creature that she could just pick out in the darkness, and it stood a couple of feet above her, making this creature around six to seven-feet in height.

"Maureen watched the figure, but was too transfixed to alert her companion, and then, the eyes seemed to lower and the form disappeared behind the undergrowth, but she sensed it was still there, so, without trying to worry her partner, she simply asked to leave.

"She never spoke of the encounter for some thirty years often asking herself afterwards if she’d seen the Devil! Skepticism may arise over such matters but across the UK there are legends of such 'wildmen', and as you will read in other cases from Kent, such glimpses of red eyes and hulking humanoids, albeit scarce, do occur."

Click here for more of Neil's work.

Monster Artwork!

This great piece of artwork of a glowing-red-eyed British Bigfoot was recently done for me by a very skilled artist named Simon Wyatt. Si will be following up with his own unique renditions of other mysterious beasts, including the Owlman and the Goatman.
Check out his work at http://www.comicspace.com/simonwyatt/; at http://simonwyatt.blogspot.com/; and at http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/simon_wyatts_portfolio/default.aspx

On the Road

I'm on the road again from now until late Sunday, but will be back with more British man-beast news on Monday of next week.

A Close Encounter of the Hairy Kind...

In January 2003, the Midlands-based newspaper, the Express and Star, published an article titled Night Terror With a British Bigfoot that described a very close encounter with a mysterious beast near Staffordshire's Cannock Chase woods - a location notorious for its assocation with unusual and unidentified creatures.

The newspaper reported that the witness had described seeing a "huge, ape-like creature at the side of the road on Levedale Lane between Stafford and Penkridge." He told the newspaper that:

"I was driving my [Ford] Fiesta [car] down the road towards Penkridge and as we approached a house, the security light came on. I saw something in the corner of my eye. It was coming towards the car, running very fast. It wasn’t a dog or a deer. It was running like a human would run, but it was really hairy and dark. It came level and jumped at the car but just missed. My friend turned round and said it was huge and had run through the hedge and across the field. I turned the car around but there was no sign of it."

There are countess such reports from the Chase, and over the next few weeks I'll be posting all my archived reports here.