In light of the fact that I haven't put together yet the entry that I want to put up, I decided to try something different and put up a short list of some various High Strangeness cases. There is no theme or pattern to the cases selected, these are just a random sample of reports taken from Albert Rosales' Humanoid Sighting Reports catalog at http://ufoinfo.com/humanoid/index.shtml. I make no claim as to the credibility of these reports, I merely present them as food for thought. So, with that said, let the strangeness begin...
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Location.
Near Allende, Nuevo Leon, Mexico
Date: July 20 1994
Time: 1100A
At a local ranch, a farm worker was on his way to eat lunch when as he passed near a local cemetery a figure suddenly loomed in front of him, coming from behind some rocks about 50 meters away. Thinking that it was another worker he approached the figure, but suddenly realized that the figure was half human, half bird. The strange humanoid ignored the witness and continued on his way, as it reached a nearby crossroads, it opened its huge wings, but then continued on his way, quickly disappearing from sight in the fields.
HC addition # 2952
Source: Marco A Reynoso
Type: E
Location.
Scape Ore Swamp South Carolina
Date: June 20 1988
Time: 0200A
The witness had stopped on Brownstown Road to change a flat tire when suddenly a seven foot tall, green colored, scaly creature with glowing red eyes began running towards him on two legs from an adjacent field about 30 yards away. The witness jumped into the car and sped away but the creature caught up with him, grabbed the door handle, and then jumped on the roof of the car. The witness was able to see that the creature had three fingers on each hand and long black fingernails.
HC addition # 1131
Source: Mark Opsasnick, Mark Chorvinsky, Strange Magazine # 3
Type: E
Location.
Charmwood, Zimbabwe
Date: January 2000
Time: late evening
Marko Batau was walking from Chawarura Shopping Center and as he approached the Hunyani River, he saw what appeared to be a white woman basking in the sun and sitting on a rock, half immersed in a pool of water. The woman was naked and Marko was surprised at this. Then he noticed that what he initially thought to be her leg, drawn up on the rock, was actually a scaled fish tail. The woman did not notice him at first, until he deliberately made a noise while walking on the gravel to get closer, and in an instant she disappeared into the water. A few days later, his curiosity aroused, Marko took the same route home. To his amazement, the woman was there, basking on the rock again. But not only that: this time there was laundry laid out on some stones to dry, with some draped over the bushes nearby. Unfortunately, in his astonishment and perhaps some fear, he did not see what type of washing it was, whether clothing or merely pieces of cloth. Again Marko drew nearer to get a closer view. Suddenly, the woman became aware of him and looked at him as though admonishing him. The next thing, she had disappeared in the water. The following week, Marko deliberately took this rather isolated shortcut home. Immediately when he reached the pool on the river, he saw the same creature there. Only this time, she was holding a baby in her arms and giving it a bath. Still puzzled by what he was seeing, Marko tried to draw closer to verify what he was seeing, but the moment the woman heard his footsteps on the gravel, she and the baby disappeared into the water together.
HC addendum
Source: Cynthia Hind, Fate November 2000
Type: E?
Location.
Mission, British Columbia, Canada
Date: January 2 2000
Time: 0115A
While walking to an outside commode located behind his trailer home, the witness saw a silver disc shaped object hovering outside his bedroom window. It was described as bigger than a panel van. It was stationary and was silent. It had dull white lights around its perimeter. Through a large vertical window in the craft, the witness saw a man wearing coveralls looking back at him. The man had a slight grin on his face, but was normal looking. The interior of the craft was pinkish. There was a sudden flash and the craft disappeared. Later around 0130A, the son of the witness saw a flash in the sky.
HC addition # 3664
Source: UFO BC
Type: A
Location.
Powys, Wales
Date: early March 2001
Time: 1800
A British naturalist and some colleagues were conducting some research in the area after being notified by a local of "something" strange that was seen earlier on the year. As they stood at the edge of some woods by a quarry they suddenly spied an extraordinary entity. Measuring 2.5 ft or son 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 terminated in a pair of horizontal, whale like flukes. The entity was green in color and shimmered somewhat, but appeared solid, not translucent or ethereal, and 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 naturalist had the distinct impression while watching it that this creature was deliberately seeking to keep them at bay, warning them off from approaching further into its territory.
HC addendum
Source: Karl P N Shuker, Strange Magazine 22
Type: E
Location.
Near Mull Highlands Scotland
Date: April 30 1973
Time: daytime
A passenger onboard a bus glanced out the window as the bus stopped to let another car pass and was startled to see, standing on a peat field a small human like figure about 18 inches tall. It appeared to have his foot on a spade as if in the act of digging. He was described as having a thin, keen face, brown curly hair, wearing a bright blue coat with a very white shirt with rolled up sleeves, and he had a small bag at his side. She lost sight of the figure as the bus drove away.
HC addition # 1387
Source: Jerome Clark, Unexplained!
Type: E
Location.
Port Jervis New York
Date: June 5 1973
Time: late afternoon
Two men in their late thirties were on the way home from fishing when on impulse they decided to pull over on Rio Dam and throw their lines for one last time. They were both about to cast the lines when they noticed an oval shaped craft flying low over the lake and approaching them. The craft was rusty to brownish purple in color and had a dull "matte to purple finish." The object had about five portholes that emitted a green "fluorescent light" from inside. From the front of the object two purple pinkish beams of light swept forward and down to Rio Lake. The beams appeared to have "substance" inside them, apparently sucking up water from the river. The craft reached to about 100 feet away from the witnesses then they saw an entity inside the object. The entity had a leathery, wrinkled looking face and large pointed ears. Its skin was of a light brownish color, it had a round mouth, round eyes, and its face was flattened against the rectangular porthole of the object. It also had two hands thrown up against the window near its head. It moved its mouth and appeared to be exclaiming in great surprise upon seeing that he was being watched. Immediately the object accelerated to a high speed and continued its course quickly disappearing from sight at very low altitude over the dam.
HC addition # 2655
Source: John C Thompson
Type: A
Date: August 17 1973
Time: unknown
A man driving near Route 30 reported that his vehicle almost struck a huge gorilla like animal, with pointed ears and red glowing eyes. The creature ran away screaming like a man in pain.
HC addition # 1871
Source: Paul G Johnson, Joan L JeffersThe Pennsylvania Bigfoot
Type: E
Location.
La Playosa, Cordoba, Argentina
Date: January 2005
Time: night
Since early January numerous residents of this community in Cordoba have reported the presence of a bizarre creature they call a “lobizon” (wolfman). The intruder has attempted to enter local residents while at the same time emitting blood curling howls. It generally targets homes where there are no men around; it attempts to enter the home through the rear open patio area. Thankfully so far he has no been able to gain access to any of the residences where women and children have been alone there to confront him. Several women have described the entity as very tall, hairy, thin, and very agile, with blood shot eyes and wearing all black clothing. Police has failed to locate the mysterious intruder.
HC addendum
Source: catent2002@arnet.com.ar
Type: E?
Location.
Newport Oregon
Date: April 1966
Time: afternoon
16-year old Kathy Reeves & a girl friend came upon a dome shaped object "as high as a room" with a ruddy glow & smoke boiling around it, looking as if on fire. After this she saw in a meadow near her home three creatures described as resembling tiny "tree stumps," orange, blue, white, yellow and pink colored. The three beings walked silently across the meadow and soon disappeared from sight. By mid-October, a total of 5 persons in the vicinity had reported seeing moving stump like creatures, at 2 locations east of Toledo Oregon. During the same time there was other phenomena reported in the area, including low level UFO sightings, strange globes of bluish light, poltergeist like phenomena and the reported sighting of a group of cyclopean like beings by a local elderly couple.
HC addition # 1469
Source: Loren Coleman, Mysterious America & Humcat quoting Newspaper source
Type: D?
Location.
Near Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland
Date: middle of December 1910
Time: about midnight
Two men encountered strange lights near Listowel. They noticed a light about a mile ahead of them. At first they thought it was simply a light in a house, but on drawing closer they could see that it was moving up and down, to and fro; diminishing to a spark, then expanding into a yellow luminous flame. Before arriving to Listowel they were able to distinguish two lights. Suddenly both of these expanded into yellow sheets of light about six feet high by four feet across. In the midst of each light they saw "a radiant being having human form." Only the general shape of the figures could be seen. The lights came together so that the beings could be seen side by side within the brilliant illumination. A house intervened between the travelers (who were still moving on) and the lights, and they saw no more of them.
HC addendum
Source: Paul Deveraux, Earth Lights
Type: E?
Location.
Near Jefferson Wisconsin
Date: 1936
Time: night
A night security guard making his rounds came upon a strange creature that was apparently digging a hole at an old Indian burial mound. The creature turned around and looked at the witness that was now terrified and began to pray. The creature seemed to show some fear and uttered something like sounded like “Gadara.” The creature was described as huge, black in color & emitting a putrid smell, it had long finger like claws, a man like built, pointed canine like teeth, pointed ears and a muzzle like nose. The creature slowly disappeared into the nearby woods.
HC addition # 600
Source: Linda S Godfrey, Strange Magazine # 11
Location.
Near Acapulco Mexico
Date: January 1954
Time: 0200A
The witness was driving his vehicle when he was suddenly overcome by a strong state of lethargy and pulled over to the side of the road. Moments later not far ahead on the road he saw a group of men clad in coveralls with wide belts, gathered around a brightly lit object. Before he knew what was happening several tall longhaired men were escorting him towards the object. He felt a slight buzzing sound as he entered the craft. The witness was given a detailed tour of the object and shown a screen on the vehicle's walls where he was able to review the smallest detail of his life. He was then given a ride and apparently was able to see the earth through a porthole on the object. The longhaired aliens die not mentioned their planet of origin.
HC addition # 1715
Source: Scott Corrales, Samizdat 1993, year one
Type: G
Location.
Hamakua Coast, Oahu, Hawaii
Date: 1986
Time: late night
A local elderly resident, Mrs. Gomes that lived near a place called "Menehune Bridge" reported hearing chanting coming from outside her home. Going out she reportedly encountered several little men about 3 ft tall, wearing cloaks that glowed in the dark. The men had thick beards and the women long, beautiful black hair. Their bodies are perfectly formed. She reportedly gave the little people cookies. (These little men are reputed to have been the mythic "Menehune" of ancient Hawaiian tradition).
HC addendum
Source: Hawaii Folklore & Legends
Type: E
Location.
Trumbull County, Ohio
Date: March 1 2006
Time: late night
The witness was returning home from work and was driving through a very isolated forested and hilly area. Suddenly his high beams illuminated a very large creature or “animal”. It was on all fours, and the witness guessed that it was at least six feet long from its head to rump not counting its very bushy tail. And stood at least 3 ft high on all fours, the creature jumped into the ditch and the witness stopped his car shining his headlights directly at the creature. He described the creature as a “beautiful” gray and white in color with a white wolf-like face. The creature did not make any threatening moves but the witness remained in his vehicle and said the creature sort of “looked inside of him”. It quickly disappeared into the woods after that.
HC addendum
Source: Linda Godfrey
Type: E
Location.
Galveston, Texas
Date: March 21 2007
Time: 0300A
Mr. Harry White was awakened by noises coming from outside his opened window, he sat up in bed, and he was very alert since his cat had been keeping him awake all night. He could see most of his yard which he scanned (he possesses exceptional night vision) suddenly his eyes landed on an “object” that seemed out of place and moved with blinding speed behind a small metal building. It had been totally dark in his room but this figure that was light colored and perhaps 3ft tall, seemed to know that the witness noticed it. Perhaps 5 minutes later the proximity lights came on and he herd noises on the roof. His room is located next to an attic over the garage. He then heard what he could only describe as breathing for about 5-10minutes and when he put his ear to the wall something was scraped down the wall. Strangely he was not afraid at the time but gets really scared when he thinks about it now. In the morning he searched the backyard with his Mag-light which immediately went dead. He further described the figure as having a head a torso and being the size of a small child. He states that he had never seen anything move with the speed that he witnessed that night. He has trouble recalling the sequence of events and thinks that he could not account for as much as an hour between the time he heard the scratching noise on the wall and actually walking outside to investigate.
HC addendum
Source: direct from Harry White whitewood41@yahoo.com
Type: E?
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Britain's Man-Monkey
Researcher Nick Redfern has generously sent in a guest blog detailing the first known report of what he calls the Man-Monkey:
Nick Redfern talks about the Man-Monkey:
In her 1883 book, Shropshire Folklore, Charlotte S.Burne wrote: "A very weird story of an encounter with an animal ghost arose of late years within my knowledge. On the 21st of January 1879, a labouring man was employed to take a cart of luggage from Rantonin Staffordshire to Woodcock, beyond Newport in Shropshire, for the ease of a party of visitors who were going from one house to another. He was late in coming back; his horse was tired, and could only crawl along at a foot's pace, so that it was ten o'clock at night when he arrived at the place where the highroad crosses the Birmingham and Liverpool canal. Just before he reached the canal bridge, a strange black creature with great white eyes sprang out of the plantation by the roadside and alighted on his horse's back. He tried to push it off with his whip, but to his horror the whip went through the thing, and he dropped it on the ground in fright."
The creature duly became known to superstitious and frightened locals as the Man-Monkey. Between 1986 and early 2001, I delved deeply into the mystery and legend of the strange creature of that dark stretch of canal, and uncovered a wealth of "British Bigfoot" style stories of hairy wildmen inhabiting the darker corners of some of Britain's larger woods and forests.
During the course of my investigations, I often foundmyself asking the questions: Is Britain really home to a Bigfoot-style entity? Does the creature have supernatural origins? Or is it something else entirely?
Today, I'm still not really sure; but there is no doubt that the story of the Man-Monkey is the strangest cryptozoological mystery I have ever delved into.For more details on Nick Redfern's investigation of Britain's Man-Monkey, see:
http://monsterusa.blogspot.com/
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In the past decade or so, Britain has had numerous reports of Bigfoot-like creatures, usually centered around a location known as Cannock Chase, an area of countryside in Straffordshire, England. The Chase has long been a center of strange phenomena, with reports coming from the area of UFOs, ghosts, big cats, strange clouds, werewolf-like beings, and of course, the British Bigfoot reports.
The first known modern British Bigfoot report was in 1995, by a Jackie Houghton, who witnessed a large, hair-covered beast near the village of Slittingmill, located right in the heart of Cannock Chase. Similar reports followed in 1998, 2003, and 2004, with all of the witnesses reporting similar Sasquatch-like creatures either in or around the area of the Chase. Some of the reports were very detailed, as in the case of the 1998 witness:
"It was a star filled night, clear, but dark and we were all in the car driving home, happily chatting and joking. Suddenly we all fell dead serious, the people in the back sat forward and we all pointed to the same shape. It was a tall man-like figure, sort of crouching forward. As we passed, it turned and looked straight at us. In my own words I would describe it as around six feet eight inches tall, legs thicker than two of mine, very strong looking and with a darkish, blacky [sic]-brown coat. I just could not explain it and I still get goose bumps thinking of it."
Do Bigfoot-like creatures really roam the forests and back woods of Great Britain? There are only two possible explanations for the reports (besides the skeptical argument that all sightings are hoaxes, hallucinations, or misidentifications) is that either a population of flesh and blood creatures exists in Great Britain and is incredibly elusive, or the beings have a paranormal origin. It seems highly unlikely that a breeding population of such creatures could exist in Great Britain very long without being discovered, especially not in a country that is only about the size of Texas. The only other logical explanation is that the creatures are paranormal entities of some sort, which I hesitate to endorse as a solution to the mystery because of the problems with the theory, not the least of which is that obtaining physical evidence becomes problamatic, if not impossible, should the creatures prove to be paranormal.
Whatever the explanation is, Nick's book is an important part of an area in cryptozoology that has remained largely neglected by most cryptozoology and Fortean researchers.
Nick Redfern talks about the Man-Monkey:
In her 1883 book, Shropshire Folklore, Charlotte S.Burne wrote: "A very weird story of an encounter with an animal ghost arose of late years within my knowledge. On the 21st of January 1879, a labouring man was employed to take a cart of luggage from Rantonin Staffordshire to Woodcock, beyond Newport in Shropshire, for the ease of a party of visitors who were going from one house to another. He was late in coming back; his horse was tired, and could only crawl along at a foot's pace, so that it was ten o'clock at night when he arrived at the place where the highroad crosses the Birmingham and Liverpool canal. Just before he reached the canal bridge, a strange black creature with great white eyes sprang out of the plantation by the roadside and alighted on his horse's back. He tried to push it off with his whip, but to his horror the whip went through the thing, and he dropped it on the ground in fright."
The creature duly became known to superstitious and frightened locals as the Man-Monkey. Between 1986 and early 2001, I delved deeply into the mystery and legend of the strange creature of that dark stretch of canal, and uncovered a wealth of "British Bigfoot" style stories of hairy wildmen inhabiting the darker corners of some of Britain's larger woods and forests.
During the course of my investigations, I often foundmyself asking the questions: Is Britain really home to a Bigfoot-style entity? Does the creature have supernatural origins? Or is it something else entirely?
Today, I'm still not really sure; but there is no doubt that the story of the Man-Monkey is the strangest cryptozoological mystery I have ever delved into.For more details on Nick Redfern's investigation of Britain's Man-Monkey, see:
http://monsterusa.blogspot.com/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the past decade or so, Britain has had numerous reports of Bigfoot-like creatures, usually centered around a location known as Cannock Chase, an area of countryside in Straffordshire, England. The Chase has long been a center of strange phenomena, with reports coming from the area of UFOs, ghosts, big cats, strange clouds, werewolf-like beings, and of course, the British Bigfoot reports.
The first known modern British Bigfoot report was in 1995, by a Jackie Houghton, who witnessed a large, hair-covered beast near the village of Slittingmill, located right in the heart of Cannock Chase. Similar reports followed in 1998, 2003, and 2004, with all of the witnesses reporting similar Sasquatch-like creatures either in or around the area of the Chase. Some of the reports were very detailed, as in the case of the 1998 witness:
"It was a star filled night, clear, but dark and we were all in the car driving home, happily chatting and joking. Suddenly we all fell dead serious, the people in the back sat forward and we all pointed to the same shape. It was a tall man-like figure, sort of crouching forward. As we passed, it turned and looked straight at us. In my own words I would describe it as around six feet eight inches tall, legs thicker than two of mine, very strong looking and with a darkish, blacky [sic]-brown coat. I just could not explain it and I still get goose bumps thinking of it."
Do Bigfoot-like creatures really roam the forests and back woods of Great Britain? There are only two possible explanations for the reports (besides the skeptical argument that all sightings are hoaxes, hallucinations, or misidentifications) is that either a population of flesh and blood creatures exists in Great Britain and is incredibly elusive, or the beings have a paranormal origin. It seems highly unlikely that a breeding population of such creatures could exist in Great Britain very long without being discovered, especially not in a country that is only about the size of Texas. The only other logical explanation is that the creatures are paranormal entities of some sort, which I hesitate to endorse as a solution to the mystery because of the problems with the theory, not the least of which is that obtaining physical evidence becomes problamatic, if not impossible, should the creatures prove to be paranormal.
Whatever the explanation is, Nick's book is an important part of an area in cryptozoology that has remained largely neglected by most cryptozoology and Fortean researchers.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
The Road Trolls
Researcher Jerry D. Coleman has very graciously allowed me to use exercepts from his two books, Strange Highways and More Strange Highways, regarding his investigations into what he calls "Road Trolls". This is a very interesting group of reports that have not received much exposure in the literature, so if anyone has any more information, please contact either him or myself. My email address is in my profile, and Jerry's contact will be at the end of these two exercepts. I plan to have the first of a multi-part series entitled "High Strangeness and Mythology" to be up soon, so stay tuned.
"Road Trolls (From "Strange Highways")
PEGLEGGED ROAD TROLLS
Gary Durbin from Effingham, Illinois, tells of a "Peglegged" creature-man seen from Texas to Florida. I first became associated with Durbin in 1969 at the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Decatur, Illinois where we both worked as tire-builders. Known as a straight talker and active outdoorsmen, never were the words Durbin and tall tales used in the same sentence.
It was in 1981, Durbin had gone inside the Tyson Mountain in Arkansas for a load of chicken headed to Chicago. The loading went extremely smooth. Well rested, he figured he could make Chicago by morning easily. These were the days before cell phones, so a delay at the truck stop to phone-in was a necessity. As he drove down the mountain, with its hairpin turns, he glimpsed a peg-legged, hairy, unkempt, person (?) standing just around one of those tight curves, where trailers have even scraped the mountainside. He didn't give much thought to the fellow, only thinking, "Now that must have been a real mountain man, wanting to get really run over," and on to the truck stop he went.
Durbin ran in, phoned, used the little boy’s room, grabbed a cup of coffee to go, and left. Hammer down, he flew up the road, fuel tanks were full, and his load was light. As he crossed over into Missouri on I-55 he stopped at a rest area to catch up his logbook and refresh a bit. Only 10 or 15 minutes had passed when he got behind the wheel and pulled out. Not two miles up the road stood this same peg-legged old hairyman! This time Durbin's head turned almost as far around as Lynda Blairs' in the movie Exorcist, taking in all the details he could.
Quickly he started to reason things out, mile after mile, he thought yes, very possible he was ahead of me, I stopped at the truck stop, then the rest area, if he got picked up soon after I passed him coming off the mountain of course he should be in front of me. But it was strange he thought the peg-legged fellow just standing there not hitch hiking, no movement, just strange.
Durbin has now seen this peg-legged hairyman in central Texas, Arkansas, southern Missouri, southern Mississippi and northern Florida, five times in all with the latest encounter in 1996. By his third sighting he started carrying a camera, once again passing Peg-leg his camera couldn't be found in the cab, the next time, his camera failed to work (he said the button stuck due to soda spilled) and on his last attempt Durbin pulled the truck off the road almost causing an accident in the process. Stopping took sometime which placed him almost an eighth of a mile past his subject over a small hill and as he put it, "To beat it all, the thing was gone, by the time I got back there, he was picked-up or something?"
I should add this note here; between 1981 and 1991 Gary Durbin logged literal thousands and thousands of road miles. It was in 1981 he walked in the door of his house after a recent purchase of a brand new fancy pick-up truck where his wife greeted him with a pile of bills and statements of ridicule for his latest purchase. Durbin, not saying a word, grabbed his road bag and left, vowing to return only when all the bills were paid. Gary pretty much stuck to that promise, driving long and hard for the next ten years, only going home for a day at a time each month.
Durbin notes this about Peg-leg; "He stands a good 6'0" to 6'5", his peg is just below his right knee, made of wood it looks. Always seen by the road towards evening, just past a rest area or truck stop, leaning towards the road, only moving his head a little. Very long hair and beard, light brown in color, covering his entire face, except the eyes, old type clothes, ripped and torn, seems like the same clothes," but he couldn't swear to the clothes. Durbin continued," The creature carries a little hobo type pouch with him, always."
Other drivers I interviewed admit to seeing peg-leg as well. In a truck stop south of Dallas, Texas one driver told me of a peg-legged man he saw next to an interstate split outside of St. Louis. Another truck driver interviewed in Atlanta swears he saw a peg-legged hairy-man standing just a quarter mile from a weigh station in Florida. Is peg-leg a wildman, bigfoot, road troll, a driver's road angel or simply a traveling gent we’ve termed hoboes?
ROAD TROLLS
(From "More Strange Highways")
What creature lurks along our interstates, questioning our logic and testing our nerves? Could there exist an unknown 6 to 7 foot tall hairy, wild, nasty looking creature seen along our roadways many have claimed to have a wooden peg-leg? A human-like figure so disgusting that a short glimpse of its strange appearance sends the witness into an internal debate as to what they just saw.
From 1981 to 2003 Road Troll sightings have been personally acquired documenting eleven different locations throughout the southern and Midwest United States, some with multiple eyewitness testimony. In this chapter, many of the cases will be made public for the first time. Unique are these cases, urban legend some say, peg-legged Bigfoot others argue but could the Road Troll be some kind of protector, spirit or ghost?
Most sightings of Road Trolls are reported from over-the-road long haul truck drivers. Logical this is for me, since these individuals log millions of miles a year. Still yet, first out of the mouths of many hardcore skeptics are these following arguments used only to ignore and debunk the sightings of Road Trolls. Comments as: all truck drivers use "road candy", (that is to say an illegal drug called speed), then comes this generalized thought; that the long late nights of driving while deprived of sleep is the simple explanation for the encounters. These two conditions do indeed contribute to hallucinations, however as true as it may be, these assumptions demand this question; Then how is it that each professional driver tells such similar story‘s? The close-minded skeptic quickly goes to yet another popularly accepted conclusion, which is truckers love to tell a tall tale and have the time to think it up, adding the access to one another to compare notes, thus, evidently surmising a center-white-line hypnoses causes the need to make up such events. Doubtful this is true in many, if any of the cases, but I will not conclude that the hardcore skeptics are completely off base.
I've been around a lot of truckers since 1981, in fact being one myself in the early 1980's then again hitting the road in the 1990's gave proof to the fact that never did I hear stories told of tall tales used to fool a fellow trucker with make believe road monsters. When these stories were heard, it was always sincere in nature and voluntarily initiated and told privately in coffee shops or loading docks, not blasted over the C.B. radio as one may think! If these types of incredible tales got back to their dispatch that driver may be, first up for discipline via logbook violations, (driving on deprived sleep), immediately drug tested and / or simply taken off the truck. The days and laws have change tremendously since the liberal 1960's and loose 1970's, granted a few “road rebel's” still fly up and down the interstates and do tell tall tales to total strangers but these tales often refer to one or two Baywatch-like blond babes that beg our fat, bald, haven't-taken-a-shower-for-two-weeks driver for a ride and companionship or another often told tall truck driver tale that reflects a version of a short days run, which paid five times what others get and usually is but a one pallet light load! These types of fibs are spotted a mile away, lonely drivers on an ego trip, rather than a road trip. Lies of legendary road monsters by truck drivers? This just is not the answer here.
If one insists on sticking to their theory of drivers seeing Road Trolls due to hallucinations, then address this next question; how is it that even some short run drivers, drivers that have just began their trip, which are well rested and drug tested have seen and reported these Road Trolls? But more importantly how would the skeptics explain away such cases as the mother of two, headed to the mall or the pastor going to a church gathering, both who claim an encounter with a Road Troll? These latter two cases are not alleged drug-taking truck drivers, deprived of sleep and spinning yarns, they are average citizens out on a thought to be average trip.
The Green Pond Road Troll
In 1983 I interviewed a woman we can only refer to as Barb (and at her request, hold her last name for privacy). While sitting at her kitchen table in Des Plaines, Illinois she told me of a trip taken to Alabama to visit her sister. The trip by automobile went without a hitch, well rested and only excited about reminiscing with her sibling; the following day an early morning journey was underway to a Birmingham strip-mall. On their way to the mall located on I-20 and I-59 by Green Pond (mile marker 97 by a weigh station) her sister exclaimed, "What the hell is that!" Quickly Barb slowed down and followed her sister’s eyes to the roads edge in front of them. Now going just under 30 miles an hour they passed a wild looking man (?), immediately the chat in the car was replaced with total silence. Barb’s eye’s locked on the creature and her sister wore out the rearview mirror as they passed the unorthodox looking figure.
Barb told me the creature was well taller than her husband (he is 5'10"), it had hair at least a foot long covering its face and its clothes looked like what one may think someone’s clothes would look like if a car dragged them. She continued, "The man or whatever it was, just looked at us, a look of curiosity I'd call it. We both agreed it had a wooden leg or walking stick in front of its leg we were not sure.” Barb then said, “I felt guilty that we didn't call the police to check it out."
I interviewed Barb again while writing this story. Now years later, she continues to stick to her story that the ‘thing’ she and her sister saw that morning outside of Birmingham, Alabama was one of the strangest days of her life. She added, “After seeing the creature or whatever it was, it like totally changed our plans.” I asked her to elaborate, and Barb continued, “We didn’t go on to the mall as planned, instead, so shaken and concerned we stopped at a nearby coffee shop and quietly sat composing ourselves and caught up on sister talk and, never mind you’ll think I’m silly.” I insisted, “Please continue.” Barb then said, “I never told you this, never thought it was related to the sighting but when we returned home three hours earlier than we had planned, my sister’s son had fallen out of a tree he was climbing. The babysitter was getting ice when we walked in, but her son’s bone was exposed and we rushed him to the emergency room. In retrospect, I’ve always felt if we hadn’t seen that ‘thing’ and returned home, maybe her son would have laid there and bled to death.”
Truckers Road Troll’s
Professional drivers, Gary Durbin, Adam Sanders and Adam's father's sightings are well documented in my book "Strange Highways", Durbin and the Sanders encounters were years and states apart, from Florida to Texas in 1981 to 2003, yet both parties explained, almost in identical detail their Road Troll stories. So too did another truck driver I interviewed south of Dallas, Texas.
In the winter of 2000, I had the opportunity to interview a person who asked I only use his CB handle name, which was Gunslinger. Gunslinger and I were in a truck-stop just south of Dallas / Fort Worth sharing a pot of coffee as he told me tales of his road life. Gunslinger spoke of many unique and interesting experiences but one story caught my attention, a story I had heard many times before, it was an encounter of a large hairy peg-legged wild-man. (Note; Gunslinger had no clue of my connection with Cryptozoological and Paranormal research).
Gunslinger told me that on February the 27, 1998 around 4 or 4:30 p.m. he was driving on I-255 after just loading in Saint Louis and headed for Chicago. As he approached the junction of I-255 and I-270, 12 to 14 miles from Alton, Illinois and 4 miles north of the Collinsville weigh station he spotted a figure along the road. Slowing down, in fact as he put it, "I took my foot out of the carburetor and threw on the Jake-break, not knowing if the thing was going to cross the road." He recalls the date and time so well because he still carries the logbook in the sleeper of his present truck and insisted I follow him to the truck so he could show me the notes written in the margins, which confirmed the testimony. In the margin read, "Strange wild looking man seen”, on the reverse of the log book read, "This thing was big, hairy and almost looked fake until it moved!"
Gunslinger's description of the varmint was as follows; “It stood well over 6 foot tall, maybe even 7 foot tall, long hair that covered its face and arms, the creature had a peg-leg just below the right knee and was wearing very out of date, torn-up clothes.” He added these observations, “It didn't move until the truck got right up to it, I was going fairly slow and got an excellent look at it, I honestly didn't think it was real but then it turned its head and looked my way! I'm not sure what I saw, thoughts of a wild, weird creature quickly crossed my mind, I am sure it was no ordinary hitch hiking man!”
Then this report by Brad Royalty an owner/operator that on March 15, 2000 also apparently spotted a peculiar pedestrian. Royalty claims he spotted a peg-legged Road Troll standing along I-44 outside of Big Cabin, Oklahoma. Royalty stated, "The thing was tall and hairy and had a wooden leg, I first thought it was a bum but it freaked me out, it just starred".
Now this report from Doug and his wife also an owner/operator team, they too saw what sounds to be a peg-legged Road Troll sometime in the mid-summer months of 2000. It was on I-70 by Boonville, Missouri just one mile from a rest area. Doug stated, “The man or whatever it was didn't even act like he was hitch hiking or doing anything, no vehicles were broken down within miles, and to be honest it looked like a huge scarecrow, it had an artificial leg and a lot of hair!” His wife refused to comment, other than saying, “It scarred me to death!”
The Pastor’s Road Troll
Then came a sighting by Pastor Jim Washington of East Tennessee. Pastor Jim was on his way to a church function on the evening of June 4, 2003 around 7:15 p.m. The Pastor was taking an all too familiar route down I-181 south of Johnson City, Tennessee to the small town of Erwin where just outside the town of Unicoi he spied a large, hairy, crippled man (?) along the Interstates shoulder. Concerned about the individual he took the next exit and returned to the location he had seen the unkempt looking thing, but nothing was found, it had disappeared.
The Pastor stated, “I felt sorry for him and wanted to help if I could, so I turned the car around. Although it took me 2 or 3 minutes to get turned around, he was long gone. He was so wild and strange looking with an obvious disfigurement of the leg that I can't imagine anyone picking him up. Then the Pastor added this final thought, “I can’t explain it but he appeared lost.”
Further examination of this event and the location uncovered little other than a closely related report of a Bigfoot-like creature seen near Erwin, Tennessee two weeks later.
The Theories
These ten witnesses with similar story’s coming from professional truck drivers, their passengers, a homemaker, her sister and pastor, spanning 22 years and covering Florida to Texas into Missouri, Illinois and Tennessee are what, coincidences? What is it these people are seeing?
One theory quietly kicked around of these big hairy, tattered old-time-clothes wearing homo anomalous' is the ancient story of protective guards. In this theory, Cortez's army while fleeing north and hiding Aztec Treasure in the Cascades left slaves behind armed with flintlock rifles to guard the treasure. This story appears to transform the wooden leg or walking stick into a musket. However, it does not explain the sightings found in the southeast and mid-western United States. Another theory, accepted by some is that these ‘Road Troll’ sightings are in truth a Peg-legged Bigfoot. In this theory the torn clothes is matted hair and the locations of some sightings coincide with other Bigfoot reports. A Bigfoot with an artificial limb? Seems very illogical!
More likely, it may be a simple case of a traveling soul, a feral human that finds the establishment an unnecessary infringement on his life, an unkempt individual only wishing to escape the taxman and the time clock. I recall in the winter of 1984 while on my way to work around 4 a.m., I would pass a secluded wooded area and notice movement around a small campfire. After days of passing this activity, curiosity got the best of me. Stopping along the shoulder of the highway (route 19 by Elgin, Illinois), I hiked back to the ‘camp’ and there sat a young man of 19 peacefully eating some cornflakes. He told me his parents had both recently died and left him a huge fortune. He said, “Family started coming out of the woodwork, lawyers had unwanted advice and neighbors that had never met my parents were now taking interest in me.” He had to get away and think things out; where to go, what to do and of course mourn in peace. I questioned his method but understood completely and later that day asked a police buddy of mine to check in on him from time to time, three months later the young man and the campsite was gone.
Are these sightings a peg-legged Bigfoot? Alternatively, loyal spirits still standing guard? Who knows, but perhaps it is an unknown entity of our mind an unexplained homo anomalous with little purpose, playing cosmic games or with a lot of purpose changing fate to those who see it? Does the witness think they see something thus stimulating or alerting these drivers back to reality where their minds may have drifted from the task at hand or as in Barb and the pastor's case an obvious detour in the direct path of travel, possible delaying them and others, avoiding an accident awaiting around the next curve of changeable fate?
1. 1981 Little Rock, Arkansas - East of Ouachita National Forest
2. 1981 Cooter, Missouri - South of Mark Twain National Forest
3. 1983 Birmingham, Alabama - West of Talladega National Forest
4. 1984 Huntsville, Texas - San Jacinto/Sam Houston National Forest
5. 1986 Natchez, Mississippi - Homochitto National Forest
6. 1991 Live Oak, Florida - Osceola National Forest
7. 1998 South of Alton, Illinois - Northwest of Shawnee National Forest / South of Mississippi River Fish & Wildlife Area.
8. 2000 Big Cabin, Oklahoma - North of Cherokee State Park
9. 2000 Boonville, Missouri - Katy Trail State Park
10.2003 Carnesville, Georgia - South of Chattahoochee National Forest
11.2003 Johnson City, Tennessee - North of Cherokee National Forest
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Amazon links for "Strange Highways" and "More Strange Highways" can be found here and here respectively.
The link for Whitechapel Press can be found here
You can reach Jerry Coleman at http://myspace.com/jerrydcoleman.
"Road Trolls (From "Strange Highways")
PEGLEGGED ROAD TROLLS
Gary Durbin from Effingham, Illinois, tells of a "Peglegged" creature-man seen from Texas to Florida. I first became associated with Durbin in 1969 at the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Decatur, Illinois where we both worked as tire-builders. Known as a straight talker and active outdoorsmen, never were the words Durbin and tall tales used in the same sentence.
It was in 1981, Durbin had gone inside the Tyson Mountain in Arkansas for a load of chicken headed to Chicago. The loading went extremely smooth. Well rested, he figured he could make Chicago by morning easily. These were the days before cell phones, so a delay at the truck stop to phone-in was a necessity. As he drove down the mountain, with its hairpin turns, he glimpsed a peg-legged, hairy, unkempt, person (?) standing just around one of those tight curves, where trailers have even scraped the mountainside. He didn't give much thought to the fellow, only thinking, "Now that must have been a real mountain man, wanting to get really run over," and on to the truck stop he went.
Durbin ran in, phoned, used the little boy’s room, grabbed a cup of coffee to go, and left. Hammer down, he flew up the road, fuel tanks were full, and his load was light. As he crossed over into Missouri on I-55 he stopped at a rest area to catch up his logbook and refresh a bit. Only 10 or 15 minutes had passed when he got behind the wheel and pulled out. Not two miles up the road stood this same peg-legged old hairyman! This time Durbin's head turned almost as far around as Lynda Blairs' in the movie Exorcist, taking in all the details he could.
Quickly he started to reason things out, mile after mile, he thought yes, very possible he was ahead of me, I stopped at the truck stop, then the rest area, if he got picked up soon after I passed him coming off the mountain of course he should be in front of me. But it was strange he thought the peg-legged fellow just standing there not hitch hiking, no movement, just strange.
Durbin has now seen this peg-legged hairyman in central Texas, Arkansas, southern Missouri, southern Mississippi and northern Florida, five times in all with the latest encounter in 1996. By his third sighting he started carrying a camera, once again passing Peg-leg his camera couldn't be found in the cab, the next time, his camera failed to work (he said the button stuck due to soda spilled) and on his last attempt Durbin pulled the truck off the road almost causing an accident in the process. Stopping took sometime which placed him almost an eighth of a mile past his subject over a small hill and as he put it, "To beat it all, the thing was gone, by the time I got back there, he was picked-up or something?"
I should add this note here; between 1981 and 1991 Gary Durbin logged literal thousands and thousands of road miles. It was in 1981 he walked in the door of his house after a recent purchase of a brand new fancy pick-up truck where his wife greeted him with a pile of bills and statements of ridicule for his latest purchase. Durbin, not saying a word, grabbed his road bag and left, vowing to return only when all the bills were paid. Gary pretty much stuck to that promise, driving long and hard for the next ten years, only going home for a day at a time each month.
Durbin notes this about Peg-leg; "He stands a good 6'0" to 6'5", his peg is just below his right knee, made of wood it looks. Always seen by the road towards evening, just past a rest area or truck stop, leaning towards the road, only moving his head a little. Very long hair and beard, light brown in color, covering his entire face, except the eyes, old type clothes, ripped and torn, seems like the same clothes," but he couldn't swear to the clothes. Durbin continued," The creature carries a little hobo type pouch with him, always."
Other drivers I interviewed admit to seeing peg-leg as well. In a truck stop south of Dallas, Texas one driver told me of a peg-legged man he saw next to an interstate split outside of St. Louis. Another truck driver interviewed in Atlanta swears he saw a peg-legged hairy-man standing just a quarter mile from a weigh station in Florida. Is peg-leg a wildman, bigfoot, road troll, a driver's road angel or simply a traveling gent we’ve termed hoboes?
ROAD TROLLS
(From "More Strange Highways")
What creature lurks along our interstates, questioning our logic and testing our nerves? Could there exist an unknown 6 to 7 foot tall hairy, wild, nasty looking creature seen along our roadways many have claimed to have a wooden peg-leg? A human-like figure so disgusting that a short glimpse of its strange appearance sends the witness into an internal debate as to what they just saw.
From 1981 to 2003 Road Troll sightings have been personally acquired documenting eleven different locations throughout the southern and Midwest United States, some with multiple eyewitness testimony. In this chapter, many of the cases will be made public for the first time. Unique are these cases, urban legend some say, peg-legged Bigfoot others argue but could the Road Troll be some kind of protector, spirit or ghost?
Most sightings of Road Trolls are reported from over-the-road long haul truck drivers. Logical this is for me, since these individuals log millions of miles a year. Still yet, first out of the mouths of many hardcore skeptics are these following arguments used only to ignore and debunk the sightings of Road Trolls. Comments as: all truck drivers use "road candy", (that is to say an illegal drug called speed), then comes this generalized thought; that the long late nights of driving while deprived of sleep is the simple explanation for the encounters. These two conditions do indeed contribute to hallucinations, however as true as it may be, these assumptions demand this question; Then how is it that each professional driver tells such similar story‘s? The close-minded skeptic quickly goes to yet another popularly accepted conclusion, which is truckers love to tell a tall tale and have the time to think it up, adding the access to one another to compare notes, thus, evidently surmising a center-white-line hypnoses causes the need to make up such events. Doubtful this is true in many, if any of the cases, but I will not conclude that the hardcore skeptics are completely off base.
I've been around a lot of truckers since 1981, in fact being one myself in the early 1980's then again hitting the road in the 1990's gave proof to the fact that never did I hear stories told of tall tales used to fool a fellow trucker with make believe road monsters. When these stories were heard, it was always sincere in nature and voluntarily initiated and told privately in coffee shops or loading docks, not blasted over the C.B. radio as one may think! If these types of incredible tales got back to their dispatch that driver may be, first up for discipline via logbook violations, (driving on deprived sleep), immediately drug tested and / or simply taken off the truck. The days and laws have change tremendously since the liberal 1960's and loose 1970's, granted a few “road rebel's” still fly up and down the interstates and do tell tall tales to total strangers but these tales often refer to one or two Baywatch-like blond babes that beg our fat, bald, haven't-taken-a-shower-for-two-weeks driver for a ride and companionship or another often told tall truck driver tale that reflects a version of a short days run, which paid five times what others get and usually is but a one pallet light load! These types of fibs are spotted a mile away, lonely drivers on an ego trip, rather than a road trip. Lies of legendary road monsters by truck drivers? This just is not the answer here.
If one insists on sticking to their theory of drivers seeing Road Trolls due to hallucinations, then address this next question; how is it that even some short run drivers, drivers that have just began their trip, which are well rested and drug tested have seen and reported these Road Trolls? But more importantly how would the skeptics explain away such cases as the mother of two, headed to the mall or the pastor going to a church gathering, both who claim an encounter with a Road Troll? These latter two cases are not alleged drug-taking truck drivers, deprived of sleep and spinning yarns, they are average citizens out on a thought to be average trip.
The Green Pond Road Troll
In 1983 I interviewed a woman we can only refer to as Barb (and at her request, hold her last name for privacy). While sitting at her kitchen table in Des Plaines, Illinois she told me of a trip taken to Alabama to visit her sister. The trip by automobile went without a hitch, well rested and only excited about reminiscing with her sibling; the following day an early morning journey was underway to a Birmingham strip-mall. On their way to the mall located on I-20 and I-59 by Green Pond (mile marker 97 by a weigh station) her sister exclaimed, "What the hell is that!" Quickly Barb slowed down and followed her sister’s eyes to the roads edge in front of them. Now going just under 30 miles an hour they passed a wild looking man (?), immediately the chat in the car was replaced with total silence. Barb’s eye’s locked on the creature and her sister wore out the rearview mirror as they passed the unorthodox looking figure.
Barb told me the creature was well taller than her husband (he is 5'10"), it had hair at least a foot long covering its face and its clothes looked like what one may think someone’s clothes would look like if a car dragged them. She continued, "The man or whatever it was, just looked at us, a look of curiosity I'd call it. We both agreed it had a wooden leg or walking stick in front of its leg we were not sure.” Barb then said, “I felt guilty that we didn't call the police to check it out."
I interviewed Barb again while writing this story. Now years later, she continues to stick to her story that the ‘thing’ she and her sister saw that morning outside of Birmingham, Alabama was one of the strangest days of her life. She added, “After seeing the creature or whatever it was, it like totally changed our plans.” I asked her to elaborate, and Barb continued, “We didn’t go on to the mall as planned, instead, so shaken and concerned we stopped at a nearby coffee shop and quietly sat composing ourselves and caught up on sister talk and, never mind you’ll think I’m silly.” I insisted, “Please continue.” Barb then said, “I never told you this, never thought it was related to the sighting but when we returned home three hours earlier than we had planned, my sister’s son had fallen out of a tree he was climbing. The babysitter was getting ice when we walked in, but her son’s bone was exposed and we rushed him to the emergency room. In retrospect, I’ve always felt if we hadn’t seen that ‘thing’ and returned home, maybe her son would have laid there and bled to death.”
Truckers Road Troll’s
Professional drivers, Gary Durbin, Adam Sanders and Adam's father's sightings are well documented in my book "Strange Highways", Durbin and the Sanders encounters were years and states apart, from Florida to Texas in 1981 to 2003, yet both parties explained, almost in identical detail their Road Troll stories. So too did another truck driver I interviewed south of Dallas, Texas.
In the winter of 2000, I had the opportunity to interview a person who asked I only use his CB handle name, which was Gunslinger. Gunslinger and I were in a truck-stop just south of Dallas / Fort Worth sharing a pot of coffee as he told me tales of his road life. Gunslinger spoke of many unique and interesting experiences but one story caught my attention, a story I had heard many times before, it was an encounter of a large hairy peg-legged wild-man. (Note; Gunslinger had no clue of my connection with Cryptozoological and Paranormal research).
Gunslinger told me that on February the 27, 1998 around 4 or 4:30 p.m. he was driving on I-255 after just loading in Saint Louis and headed for Chicago. As he approached the junction of I-255 and I-270, 12 to 14 miles from Alton, Illinois and 4 miles north of the Collinsville weigh station he spotted a figure along the road. Slowing down, in fact as he put it, "I took my foot out of the carburetor and threw on the Jake-break, not knowing if the thing was going to cross the road." He recalls the date and time so well because he still carries the logbook in the sleeper of his present truck and insisted I follow him to the truck so he could show me the notes written in the margins, which confirmed the testimony. In the margin read, "Strange wild looking man seen”, on the reverse of the log book read, "This thing was big, hairy and almost looked fake until it moved!"
Gunslinger's description of the varmint was as follows; “It stood well over 6 foot tall, maybe even 7 foot tall, long hair that covered its face and arms, the creature had a peg-leg just below the right knee and was wearing very out of date, torn-up clothes.” He added these observations, “It didn't move until the truck got right up to it, I was going fairly slow and got an excellent look at it, I honestly didn't think it was real but then it turned its head and looked my way! I'm not sure what I saw, thoughts of a wild, weird creature quickly crossed my mind, I am sure it was no ordinary hitch hiking man!”
Then this report by Brad Royalty an owner/operator that on March 15, 2000 also apparently spotted a peculiar pedestrian. Royalty claims he spotted a peg-legged Road Troll standing along I-44 outside of Big Cabin, Oklahoma. Royalty stated, "The thing was tall and hairy and had a wooden leg, I first thought it was a bum but it freaked me out, it just starred".
Now this report from Doug and his wife also an owner/operator team, they too saw what sounds to be a peg-legged Road Troll sometime in the mid-summer months of 2000. It was on I-70 by Boonville, Missouri just one mile from a rest area. Doug stated, “The man or whatever it was didn't even act like he was hitch hiking or doing anything, no vehicles were broken down within miles, and to be honest it looked like a huge scarecrow, it had an artificial leg and a lot of hair!” His wife refused to comment, other than saying, “It scarred me to death!”
The Pastor’s Road Troll
Then came a sighting by Pastor Jim Washington of East Tennessee. Pastor Jim was on his way to a church function on the evening of June 4, 2003 around 7:15 p.m. The Pastor was taking an all too familiar route down I-181 south of Johnson City, Tennessee to the small town of Erwin where just outside the town of Unicoi he spied a large, hairy, crippled man (?) along the Interstates shoulder. Concerned about the individual he took the next exit and returned to the location he had seen the unkempt looking thing, but nothing was found, it had disappeared.
The Pastor stated, “I felt sorry for him and wanted to help if I could, so I turned the car around. Although it took me 2 or 3 minutes to get turned around, he was long gone. He was so wild and strange looking with an obvious disfigurement of the leg that I can't imagine anyone picking him up. Then the Pastor added this final thought, “I can’t explain it but he appeared lost.”
Further examination of this event and the location uncovered little other than a closely related report of a Bigfoot-like creature seen near Erwin, Tennessee two weeks later.
The Theories
These ten witnesses with similar story’s coming from professional truck drivers, their passengers, a homemaker, her sister and pastor, spanning 22 years and covering Florida to Texas into Missouri, Illinois and Tennessee are what, coincidences? What is it these people are seeing?
One theory quietly kicked around of these big hairy, tattered old-time-clothes wearing homo anomalous' is the ancient story of protective guards. In this theory, Cortez's army while fleeing north and hiding Aztec Treasure in the Cascades left slaves behind armed with flintlock rifles to guard the treasure. This story appears to transform the wooden leg or walking stick into a musket. However, it does not explain the sightings found in the southeast and mid-western United States. Another theory, accepted by some is that these ‘Road Troll’ sightings are in truth a Peg-legged Bigfoot. In this theory the torn clothes is matted hair and the locations of some sightings coincide with other Bigfoot reports. A Bigfoot with an artificial limb? Seems very illogical!
More likely, it may be a simple case of a traveling soul, a feral human that finds the establishment an unnecessary infringement on his life, an unkempt individual only wishing to escape the taxman and the time clock. I recall in the winter of 1984 while on my way to work around 4 a.m., I would pass a secluded wooded area and notice movement around a small campfire. After days of passing this activity, curiosity got the best of me. Stopping along the shoulder of the highway (route 19 by Elgin, Illinois), I hiked back to the ‘camp’ and there sat a young man of 19 peacefully eating some cornflakes. He told me his parents had both recently died and left him a huge fortune. He said, “Family started coming out of the woodwork, lawyers had unwanted advice and neighbors that had never met my parents were now taking interest in me.” He had to get away and think things out; where to go, what to do and of course mourn in peace. I questioned his method but understood completely and later that day asked a police buddy of mine to check in on him from time to time, three months later the young man and the campsite was gone.
Are these sightings a peg-legged Bigfoot? Alternatively, loyal spirits still standing guard? Who knows, but perhaps it is an unknown entity of our mind an unexplained homo anomalous with little purpose, playing cosmic games or with a lot of purpose changing fate to those who see it? Does the witness think they see something thus stimulating or alerting these drivers back to reality where their minds may have drifted from the task at hand or as in Barb and the pastor's case an obvious detour in the direct path of travel, possible delaying them and others, avoiding an accident awaiting around the next curve of changeable fate?
1. 1981 Little Rock, Arkansas - East of Ouachita National Forest
2. 1981 Cooter, Missouri - South of Mark Twain National Forest
3. 1983 Birmingham, Alabama - West of Talladega National Forest
4. 1984 Huntsville, Texas - San Jacinto/Sam Houston National Forest
5. 1986 Natchez, Mississippi - Homochitto National Forest
6. 1991 Live Oak, Florida - Osceola National Forest
7. 1998 South of Alton, Illinois - Northwest of Shawnee National Forest / South of Mississippi River Fish & Wildlife Area.
8. 2000 Big Cabin, Oklahoma - North of Cherokee State Park
9. 2000 Boonville, Missouri - Katy Trail State Park
10.2003 Carnesville, Georgia - South of Chattahoochee National Forest
11.2003 Johnson City, Tennessee - North of Cherokee National Forest
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Amazon links for "Strange Highways" and "More Strange Highways" can be found here and here respectively.
The link for Whitechapel Press can be found here
You can reach Jerry Coleman at http://myspace.com/jerrydcoleman.
High Strangeness - Introduction
In May of 2000 Guido Canales, a resident of the Chilean town of Codao, reported being attacked by a massive gorilla-like creature with wings and golden eyes, that viciously scratched him before being driven off by a neighbor's porch light. The monster was then tracked down by Guido's brother Luchito and other friends, surviving a shotgun blast to the chest before flying off into the night sky.
Starting in 1980, Debbie Jordan of Indiana began receiving strange phone calls from a mysterious caller whom made strange moaning and muttering sounds with the roar of a factory in the background. These phone calls continued to come every Wednesday at about 3:00 in the afternoon, with the voice varying from anger to sadness but always remaining unintelligble. Even when Jordan changed her number to an unlisted one, the calls continued for nine more months, ending when Jordan gave birth to her son. Strangely enough, at three years old her son developed a speech problem during which he would moan much like the strange caller, eventually growing out of the problem. Jordan connected the phone calls to her lifetime of UFO encounters, including landings and even abductions.
In 1959 the Belfast Telegraph in Ireland reported that a man operating a bulldozer on a County Carlow farm reported that a three-foot-tall red man ran out from beneath his machine and dashed about a hundred yards across the field, over a fence and into the adjacent field. Three other men witnessed the figure, making this an important multiple-witness sighting of one of the "Little Folk".
One morning in 1979, a Scottish man named Robert Taylor reported being attacked by two spiked spheres that emerged from a landed UFO and attempted to drag him towards the craft. He reported fainting and waking up completely disorientated, driving his trunk into a ditch and having to walk all the way home on foot. The local police sent his torn pants to a forensic lab, which concluded that the damage to his trousers was consistent with his report.
On October 31, 1989, a young woman named Doristine Gipson encountered a frightening creature while driving on Bray Road near Delavan in the state of Wisconsin. While stopped on the road, she bore witness to a large, dark hairy form that jumped onto her trunk as she sped away in terror, slipping off due to the moisture on the car and falling onto the pavement. She would not be the only one to have strange encounters in this part of Wisconsin, as the creature dubbed "The Beast of Bray Road" or the "Manwolf" began to be seen first near Elkhorn and then throughout the state.
What do these five cases have in common? Simple - they all fall into the category of High Strangeness, a term attributed to the famous UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek. This is the category that is so far removed from science as to be untouchable by almost all scientists, and even mainstream researchers in the ufology and cryptozoology fields are hesitant to touch such cases, resigning most of them to the fringe. These are the cases that are so bizarre and even non-sensical that they defy all logic and confound all those who research and investigate them, coming across as more scenes from a old science fiction or horror movie than objective parts of reality. They can incorporate strange beings, paranormal events, time and space distortion (known as the "Oz Factor"), heightened states of consciousness, and other factors that make them appear absurd on their surface. Never the less, such reports of High Strangeness continue to come in from witnesses all over the world, demonstrating that the events described are either real and happen every day, or that people all the world are either liars or suffer from a mass psychological condition that causes them to see things that don't exist and have never existed.
So then what is the best course of action to take regarding High Strangeness? I propose a kind of intellectual agnosticism, neither dismissing such reports right away before examination but not buying into them at first glance either, starting off balanced on the proverbial fence. If a case should prove, after carefully checking the credibility of the witness(es) and performing an investigation, to be a solid case, then it can be moved to the realm of credible cases, and spark speculation as to its causes. However, if it should prove to be a hoax or hallucination, then it can safely be discarded and regarded as fake.
Many of the High Strangeness cases to be discussed on this blog will no doubt raise the skepticism of many readers, leading them to judge the reports bunk and dismiss it all as flat out impossible. However, I say that all the reports should be read with an open mind, for a mind that is closed considers nothing and dimisses everything. As long as the possibility exists and the reports continue, there is no shame in daring to consider that reality may be stranger than we ever thought possible, and that bizarre creatures and abnormal phenomena may yet lurk in the dark woods and near the lonely highways of the world, forever remaining just out of the light but waiting for you around the next corner..
Starting in 1980, Debbie Jordan of Indiana began receiving strange phone calls from a mysterious caller whom made strange moaning and muttering sounds with the roar of a factory in the background. These phone calls continued to come every Wednesday at about 3:00 in the afternoon, with the voice varying from anger to sadness but always remaining unintelligble. Even when Jordan changed her number to an unlisted one, the calls continued for nine more months, ending when Jordan gave birth to her son. Strangely enough, at three years old her son developed a speech problem during which he would moan much like the strange caller, eventually growing out of the problem. Jordan connected the phone calls to her lifetime of UFO encounters, including landings and even abductions.
In 1959 the Belfast Telegraph in Ireland reported that a man operating a bulldozer on a County Carlow farm reported that a three-foot-tall red man ran out from beneath his machine and dashed about a hundred yards across the field, over a fence and into the adjacent field. Three other men witnessed the figure, making this an important multiple-witness sighting of one of the "Little Folk".
One morning in 1979, a Scottish man named Robert Taylor reported being attacked by two spiked spheres that emerged from a landed UFO and attempted to drag him towards the craft. He reported fainting and waking up completely disorientated, driving his trunk into a ditch and having to walk all the way home on foot. The local police sent his torn pants to a forensic lab, which concluded that the damage to his trousers was consistent with his report.
On October 31, 1989, a young woman named Doristine Gipson encountered a frightening creature while driving on Bray Road near Delavan in the state of Wisconsin. While stopped on the road, she bore witness to a large, dark hairy form that jumped onto her trunk as she sped away in terror, slipping off due to the moisture on the car and falling onto the pavement. She would not be the only one to have strange encounters in this part of Wisconsin, as the creature dubbed "The Beast of Bray Road" or the "Manwolf" began to be seen first near Elkhorn and then throughout the state.
What do these five cases have in common? Simple - they all fall into the category of High Strangeness, a term attributed to the famous UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek. This is the category that is so far removed from science as to be untouchable by almost all scientists, and even mainstream researchers in the ufology and cryptozoology fields are hesitant to touch such cases, resigning most of them to the fringe. These are the cases that are so bizarre and even non-sensical that they defy all logic and confound all those who research and investigate them, coming across as more scenes from a old science fiction or horror movie than objective parts of reality. They can incorporate strange beings, paranormal events, time and space distortion (known as the "Oz Factor"), heightened states of consciousness, and other factors that make them appear absurd on their surface. Never the less, such reports of High Strangeness continue to come in from witnesses all over the world, demonstrating that the events described are either real and happen every day, or that people all the world are either liars or suffer from a mass psychological condition that causes them to see things that don't exist and have never existed.
So then what is the best course of action to take regarding High Strangeness? I propose a kind of intellectual agnosticism, neither dismissing such reports right away before examination but not buying into them at first glance either, starting off balanced on the proverbial fence. If a case should prove, after carefully checking the credibility of the witness(es) and performing an investigation, to be a solid case, then it can be moved to the realm of credible cases, and spark speculation as to its causes. However, if it should prove to be a hoax or hallucination, then it can safely be discarded and regarded as fake.
Many of the High Strangeness cases to be discussed on this blog will no doubt raise the skepticism of many readers, leading them to judge the reports bunk and dismiss it all as flat out impossible. However, I say that all the reports should be read with an open mind, for a mind that is closed considers nothing and dimisses everything. As long as the possibility exists and the reports continue, there is no shame in daring to consider that reality may be stranger than we ever thought possible, and that bizarre creatures and abnormal phenomena may yet lurk in the dark woods and near the lonely highways of the world, forever remaining just out of the light but waiting for you around the next corner..
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