Long-Leggedy Beasties on Windwhistle Hill

For at least 500 years, it has been a well-established English tradition to tell fireside ghost stories during the Christmas season, especially on Christmas Eve (Weir and Clarke, 2018). 

Early evidence of this fact dates from 1553, when Thomas Kirchmaier wrote:

"For these three nights are always thought unfortunate to be;
Wherein they are afraid of sprites and cankered witches' spite;
And dreadful devils, black and grim, that then have the chiefest might" (Weir and Clarke, 2018).

This Christmas, my family and I have been staying close to my grandparents in Somerset, specifically near Crewkerne and Ilminster. This area of the country is famous for its apple orchards - haunted by a fairy being called the Apple Tree Man (Briggs, 1979), whose good-will is required for the continued fortunes of the farmers. Somerset also plays host to the legendary Glastonbury, reportedly the site of both an entrance to the fairy kingdom (Briggs, 1979), and the final resting place of King Arthur (Green, 2009). Unsurprisingly, the whole county is a hotbed of weirdness. 

In the spirit of the traditional Christmas ghost story, I went searching for any unusual happenings around Crewkerne or Ilminster to regale my readers with. I was not disappointed.

A Light in the Mist

Approximately halfway between the towns of Chard and Crewkerne lies Windwhistle Hill. It is apparently so named because, as one travels down the A30, the wind makes an eerie whistling sound as it passes through the beech trees that line each side of the road. These trees previously made excellent hiding spots for highwaymen, who would rob and murder unfortunate travellers between London and the West Country (Malloy, 2022). 

The hill is also haunted by the ghost of a local witch, who was struck and killed by a stage coach long ago. A 17th century pub sits atop the ridge, whose former cellar was supposedly used both as a body disposal ground for homicidal highwaymen, and as a magical trap for the Devil himself (Holt, 1986).

All this provides a gloomy context for what transpired one dark September night in 1977. It was 21:30 at night, when Mrs. Kate Walker, her husband, and her two sons, were travelling home along the A30 through Windwhistle Hill. From a vantage point approaching the top of the hill, the Walker family were all able to see a large orange light ahead of them. It was off the road to their left, at the further end of the hill (Rosales, 2016). 

It was initially partially cloaked by fog, and at first none of them thought anything of it. There was a power station and electricity pylons nearby, seemingly offering a plausible explanation for the otherwise strange sight (Malloy, 2022).

However, as they drove closer to the object, the true strangeness of what they were witnessing began to sink in. It was cigar-shaped and enormous, probably between 200-300ft long. It was hovering, completely static in the sky, approximately 800-1000ft above the left-hand side of the road. 

"It was cigar-shaped and enormous" [x]

To the right of them at this point was the aforementioned Windwhistle Inn. Kate remembers peering at the pub and seeing it in total darkness, save for a single light in a little upstairs window, perhaps unusual for that time of the night. When the family glanced back up at the floating light, it had moved to be almost directly above them (Malloy, 2022).

Suddenly, time seemed to warp around them. The next thing any of them consciously remember was a cyclist's headlamp visible through the fog, coming down the road the other way, seemingly from nowhere. It passed them and moved along the road to Crewkerne (Mitrovic, 2021). The family completed their journey with a thick atmosphere of unease hanging over them inside the car. When they arrived home, Kate realised that roughly 30 minutes were completely unaccounted for in their memories.

Years later, memories of that fateful night began to return to the family. As they had been watching the light above them, their car engine had abruptly died and the headlights shut off, leaving only the spectral glow lighting the cold darkness around them. It felt as if the world was somehow in slow motion, and Mr. Walker's desperate attempts to restart the engine failed (Rosales, 2016). 

The Walkers' younger son claimed to have seen a dark shape outside the car window, which he described as being extremely tall. He got the impression that it was human, even though he knew it couldn't be on a deeper level. The thing bent down towards them and stared in through the window. His mother was missing from the front seat (Mitrovic, 2021).

Just a few days after their initial encounter with the UFO over Windwhistle Hill, the family found themselves driving through the same area. They were clearly much braver than many of us would be. Perhaps their stomachs turned slightly when they once again saw something strange on the left-most side of the road. Two figures were there, one of which was lying down and the other was standing. Thinking that maybe someone had been injured, they started to slow their car when the standing figure abruptly stepped out into the road (Malloy, 2022).

The dark shape only took one step, but nonetheless managed to get one of its feet into the centre of the road. The other foot was still on the grassy verge. At this point, panic was likely setting in. The shape was inhumanly tall, and its legs were "horrendously long and thin" (Malloy, 2022). Mr. Walker swerved to the far side of the road to avoid the figure, and then put the pedal to the floor. None of them looked back, but they all agreed that "no one could possibly have legs that long".

"A 17th century pub sits atop the ridge" [x]

Spectres Among the Singing Trees

Gloria Heather Dixon, of the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA), has done extensive research into the Walker family case. With the help of fellow investigator Robert Moore, four further reports from the area around Windwhistle Hill were uncovered.

A woman told of how she and her husband had found themselves transfixed by the sight of a very large silver object, shaped like a spinning top, near Windwhistle Hill. It was November of 1959, and the couple first caught sight of the UFO at 11pm one night, and then felt as if they were somehow unable to stop watching it until 9am the next morning. They got the impression that they shouldn't tell anyone about what they had seen (Malloy, 2022).

Either in 1976 or 1977, a lorry driver felt his vehicle mysteriously escape his control while passing through Windwhistle Hill. He distinctly remembers the dreamlike sensation of his lorry somehow hovering over the road. An anonymous witness also told Moore that something very similar to the Walker family's experience had befallen her parents on the hill in 1975 (Malloy, 2022).

Sometime in 1991, a farmer in Cricket Malherbie (some 3km northwest of Windwhistle Hill) along with her husband and grandson, recalled seeing a tall humanoid figure peering through the window of their farmhouse. A few days later, the witnesses caught sight of a "saucer-shaped object" (Malloy, 2022).

Finally, a strange tidbit is present in Jenny Randles' (1990) book Mind Monsters. An unnamed service engineer was driving along Chard High Street (four miles to the west of Windwhistle Hill along the A30) at 8am on the 18th of February, 1975. He looked above him to see a winged animal, looking like a giant bird with a wingspan between 12-14ft. 

The edges of the thing's wings were alternately shaded, and Randles claims to have seen a sketch made by the witness which depicts the creature as resembling a long-extinct pterosaur. 

Tantalisingly, Randles also makes brief mention of "another UFO flap" in the area at the time, about which I can find no more information (Randles, 1990).

Bibliography

Briggs, K.M. (1979) An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures. London: Allen Lane.

Green, T. (2009) Arthuriana: Early Arthurian Tradition and the Origins of the Legend. Louth: Lindes Press. 

Weir, A. and Clarke, S. (2018) A Tudor Christmas. London: Jonathan Cape. 

Malloy, T. (2022) The Spooky Somerset Road That is ‘a Hotbed for Supernatural Sightings’, Somerset Live. Available at: https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/spooky-somerset-road-a-hotbed-6887653 (Accessed: 27 December 2025).

Holt, A.L. (1986) East Somerset: Romantic Routes and Mysterious Byways. London: Charles Skilton.

Mitrovic, G. (2021) UFOs, Humanoids and Strange Phenomena of England. Admit Hub Ref Service. 

Rosales, A.S. (2016) Humanoid Encounters 1975-1979: The Others Amongst Us. CreateSpace. 

Randles, J. (1990) Mind Monsters: Invaders From Inner Space? Wellingborough: Aquarian. 

The Poole Pyramid: A Saga of Strangeness

Illustration by Traci Shepard

This is a story that has been told many times. The so-called Poole Pyramid is routinely counted among the exalted pantheon of the strangest entities ever to be associated with the UFO phenomenon. However, most retellings of this fantastical tale fail to mention that it was just one part of a family's much longer relationship with the unknown. It might have started in 1965, with two terrified boys witnessing something incomprehensible in their bedroom, but it winds its way onwards for many years afterwards. I am about to tell you a tale of multi-witness sightings, UFO car chases, and photographic evidence of flying saucers.

A Portal on the Dorset Coast

In 1969, Leslie Harris was a member of the Bournemouth-based Cosmic Research Group. Led by former government official Francis E. Hurley, this tightly-knit group maintained a library of books, pamphlets, and tapes relevant to UFOs. They conducted skywatches in the summer, and could often be seen delivering lectures to public meetings regarding flying saucers, approaching the issue from a metaphysical point of view [1].

Between these activities, Harris dedicated his time to investigating local Dorset reports of the strange and unusual. It was in this capacity that he first encountered L. Druce.

As far as Druce could remember at the time, it all began in October of 1967. He and his brother-in-law, B. George, were driving home through the autumnal dusk after an afternoon's fishing off the beautiful Portland coast. They had been accompanied by eight of their friends, but had eventually gotten separated from the rest of them on the road, seeing as George was an inexperienced driver currently being taught by Druce. They were passing through Lytchett Minster when George first noticed something odd.

"A cigar-shaped form, coffee brown in colour with a row of regular yellow lights"

Whatever it was, it was big. It was floating over St Peter's Finger Garage [2], and appeared to be about 70ft long and roughly 200ft off the ground. The car's engine abruptly stalled, leaving both men staring helplessly out of their window at a cigar-shaped form, coffee brown in colour with a row of regular yellow lights along it, resembling windows. Several others gathered around them, leaving their cars and staring up at the night sky in bewilderment and rapture. They watched the thing for five minutes, becoming increasingly unnerved until they decided to leave the scene. 

Luckily, their car was now starting as if nothing had happened. They set off down the road, only to see the UFO ascend slightly before beginning to follow them. It crossed from one side of the road to the other in order to keep pace with them, and they eventually stopped their car again when they reached the Oasis Cafe. The flying enigma came to rest in the sky above a police station opposite the cafe, and Druce decided to run into the building to fetch an officer. When a policeman accompanied him back outside, the object had vanished into the night sky. 

"It crossed from one side of the road to the other in order to keep pace with them"

However, just as the two men were about to explain what had happened, their need to do so was extinguished by the reappearance of the apparition. This time it looked completely different, resembling a blazing mass of coloured light, composed of bands of multiple different colours. It shone red, yellow, green, and blue in the dark night. Awestruck, the policeman staggered back into the station to alert his compatriots to the unfolding situation. 

Now two policemen were watching the thing, and it began an uncanny dance. The top section of the vaguely conical vision split off from the main body of the object, and went beneath it before rejoining. After flickering out of existence and back again once more, the UFO began to slowly move away from the witnesses. It suddenly gained speed and shot out of view, like a bullet from a gun, leaving all four men stood on the street with their sense of reality irrevocably shattered. The policemen took statements from the brothers-in-law, but they never heard anything more about it.

"A blazing mass of coloured light"

Druce told Harris that his legs had felt weak for the duration of the sighting, and that the hairs on his arms had stood up. George vomited on the journey back home. The men had perhaps been initiated into something that night.

Harris also notes that George had since seen an orange sphere "four times the size of a dinner plate" traversing the clouds near Old Harry Rocks in Studland, Dorset. He had also seen a floating yellow "scratch" in the sky on September 25th 1968, which he estimated to be one inch wide and eighteen inches long [3].

When You Notice It...

After witnessing the incomprehensible in the skies over Lychett Minster, Druce had become an enthusiastic believer in the reality of extraterrestrial visitation. On these grounds, he had maintained contact with Leslie Harris, and so he notified her on July 20th, 1971 that his brother-in-law had photographed something neither of them could identify five days previously. Harris promptly went to speak with George, and was able to disclose that his full name was Brian Arthur George, and that he lived in Poole.

It had been the evening of Thursday, July 15th, somewhere between 22:30 and 23:00, and George was just about to turn in for the night. His wife, Sallie, and his three-year-old son, Rory, were already asleep, leaving him as the sole conscious occupant of the house. In what was a normal nighttime ritual for him, he went over to his window and looked out at the night sky. 

As he did, he caught sight of a white, glowing object plotting a slow course across the sky. It seemed to be moving diagonally away from him, from left to right in his field of vision. The UFO appeared approximately the "size of a tennis ball at arm's length" and was roughly 30° above the horizon, probably moving west from a southeasterly direction, as seen in the southwest-facing window. George watched it for a few moments in confusion, before remembering that he had a polaroid camera nearby.

Clutching the blocky body of his Polaroid Swinger II in his hands and opening the window, he pointed the camera at the UFO and took a photo with a dazzling flash. Anxious to resume his observation of the saucer, he pulled the developing photograph out of the device slightly before it was finished and looked back up at the sky. The mysterious craft had vanished, but its image had clearly impressed itself onto the film. White patches had appeared along the top of the photo, likely caused by rushed viewing.

Brian George's full 1971 photo

Closeup of apparent flying saucer

Harris persuaded George to part with his sole copy of this photo so that he could get prints made, which he published in Flying Saucer Review in October of that year. He also reported that between his visit to Poole in July and the publication of his article, members of the George and Druce families had been having further strange experiences, including several dramatic UFO encounters. Brian George and his sister (Mrs. Druce) were also said to have some limited ESP abilities, including George's apparent skill for predicting the sex and time of birth of unborn babies [4]! 

It Notices You

What was to occur throughout the rest of 1971 was definitely not without precedent. Not only had Druce and George been tailed by a cigar-shaped object over Lychett Minster in 1967, but George had also had another eerie encounter sometime around 1970 while hunting rabbits on Canford Heath in Poole. He claimed that he suddenly became aware of two bright lights, one red and the other green, descending towards him. They were very close together, but he couldn't see any solid structure behind them. They made no audible sound. As one would, he initially thought he was watching an aircraft, but the lights were not flashing and continued to descend towards him at a steady 45° angle.

He started to grow uneasy as the lights got closer, and they appeared to land behind a clump of trees some 500-600 yards away. George was terrified at this point, fleeing the scene promptly.

Roughly one year later, Brian and Sallie were driving to Poole along Longfleet Road at 13:30, when they both noticed a "rocket-shaped" object climbing steeply into the southern sky above Poole Hospital. It was bright white in colour. Both witnesses momentarily lost it in the glare as it crossed over the sun, and soon after Brian was unable to continue observing it due to needing to drive.

Slightly over two weeks after Brian took his striking photograph, on Saturday, July 31st, Druce's mother and his sister Jenny saw a flying saucer. Jenny was the first to see it, looking out of her lounge window just after 23:00. Excited, she attracted her mother's attention and they both ventured outside the house to watch the strange object. A large, white craft shaped like a child's spinning top was floating at an elevation of approximately 75°. It moved slightly to the right and lost a little altitude before continuing to hover, with a slight vertical oscillation.

As they were observing the perplexing thing from outside on the street, another object started to emerge from it. This one was about a quarter of the size of the saucer, and resembled a string of five red-orange lights. Harris described it as worm-like when he briefly mentioned this sighting in his October article. Only the lights could be seen, but it gave the impression of a solid object. The streetlights went out as the serpentine apparition slowly and silently drifted away from them. In total, it took about 15 minutes to disappear. The saucer remained hovering, and the women watched it for a few more minutes before both grew tired and decided to retire to bed. Neither of them knew of Brian's photo.

Two days later, on August 2nd, Druce and Roy George (Brian's brother) were driving along the A31 towards Ringwood in their removal van. Three white lights approached them from their left at roughly 21:50, and began to keep pace with their vehicle. They were described as approximately the size of an old penny at arm's length, and appeared to be attached to a circular object, despite this not being visible. They noiselessly flew at an elevation of roughly 150-200 yards.

"They noiselessly flew at an elevation of roughly 150-200 yards"

The lights initially travelled in a straight line until the van cleared a line of trees, at which point they swooped much closer to it, getting to roughly 100 yards away. George began to slow the vehicle, intending to stop for inexplicable reasons. Druce was terrified and yelled at him to speed up, at which point he accelerated rapidly and the objects overtook them. They flew at least 600 yards ahead of the vehicle before turning back on themselves to the left, and abruptly retreating the way they had come [5].

Enter the Pyramid

It was at this point that Druce's two stepsons, Roderick (13) and Terence (14) told Harris that they had been through a frightening and inexplicable experience of their own some seven years ago. Seeing as Harris was writing in 1972, that would mean that the event took place in 1965. Terence had woken up in bed in the middle of the night, and had seen something utterly bizarre moving at the foot of his bed. It had a pyramidal body, taller than it was wide, composed of many-coloured triangles that slotted together, as well as spindly black 'arms' ending in crab-like claws. These appendages moved in an unsettling "waving" motion. 

Terence screamed in baffled horror, and Roderick woke with a start. He also saw the pyramid, just before it suddenly vanished. Mrs. Druce also confirmed to Harris that she remembered Terence being terrified of something in his bedroom that night.

The next afternoon, the brothers were walking home across a carpark when they saw it again. This time, it was entirely black in colour, and seemed to be stood next to a parked car. It was halfway up the car's window in height. Roderick had a side view of the thing, and he said that it had a sort of "beak" protruding near the top of its triangular form. Horrified, both boys ran off, and claimed to see the creature turn to watch them as they left [6].

Terence's drawing of the pyramid in his bedroom (left)
Roderick's drawing of the pyramid by the car (right)

The Wheel of the Year

The families' houses were perhaps unusually quiet throughout the rest of August and September, although I can imagine that they were all holding their breath for the inevitable return of the alarming phenomena. This return indeed came on Tuesday, October 12th. Druce's daughter, Suzanne, woke blearily from sleep at 3am on that day, and soon became conscious of a "whirring, swishing" sound that seemed to be coming from outside. Wandering over to her window and wiping the condensation from the glass, she saw nothing, despite the continuing noise.

Perplexed, she ran to her parents' bedroom and woke them up, whereupon they too could hear the weird noise. Mr. Druce told Harris that it sounded like the regular swishing of a skipping rope, and appeared to be passing overhead. He also looked outside, but was similarly unable to see anything unusual.

Precisely a week later, it was between 22:00 and 22:30 at night when Druce and his two brothers-in-law were driving along the M3. When they got between the Reading intersection and Winchester, they started noticing vibrant red points of light appearing in the night sky. Some of these were round, some were oblong. Some were stationary while others moved about in all different directions, with some being very close to the ground. They seemed to randomly appear and disappear. 

Although there were no more than 50 lights in the sky at any one time, the men counted at least 200 in total. 

At this point, they had stopped on the deserted motorway and were watching the UFOs dancing in the darkness from outside their van. A policeman rolled up behind them and told them to move along. No-one heard any sound, and it is implied that either the policeman was unable to see the lights, or they had vanished by the time the trio got back on the road. 

They continued driving until the Winchester bypass, where something even more unsettling happened. They stopped again, presumably at Brian's request, who abruptly left the vehicle and marched off into a pitch-black field by the side of the road. Thankfully, he swiftly returned, but appeared terrified. His pulse was racing, and he was so agitated that he was unable to speak for a moment, but was eventually able to answer when Druce asked him what was wrong. "Come see for yourself!"

Druce accompanied Brian out into the field while Roy remained in the van. They waded through the presumably wet October grass, before catching sight of something glowing white in the darkness. It was roughly 40 yards away, and was shaped like the letter M, 10ft tall and between 7-8ft wide. The incomprehensible thing seemed to silently hover some 2ft above the ground, and was slowly progressing over a rising incline to its right. Deeply unnerved, both men elected to return to the van.

When later questioned, Brian told Harris that he had initially only seen one of the arches, but that he had seen the full M-shape when he returned to the scene with his brother-in-law.

On October 24th, a red oblong hovered in the air in full view of the Druce household. Mr. Druce's two sisters, mother, and brother all saw the aerial geometry very clearly, as did everyone who lived in the house next door. It remained stationary in the air for many minutes before exiting the scene, and Druce's sister phoned him while watching it, telling him to look in its direction. He was unable to see it.

As mentioned earlier, Harris noted that Brian George, Mrs. Druce and her husband's mother have all had ESP experiences. The latter apparently had a gift for recognising certain places despite having never visited them before. Mr. Druce told Harris that he was growing tired of the inhuman attention, stating clearly that he was "fed up with it all".

As if granting his wish, no more reports of strange activity were forthcoming from the Druce or George families. Whether this was due to lack of reporting or genuine cessation of anomalous events, we will likely never know [7].

Sources and Notes

1. Topside, No. 32 (Summer and Fall, 1969)

2. St. Peter's Finger Garage no longer exists (or at least is not findable on Google), but there is a pub in Lychett Minster called St Peter's Finger. Perhaps this is the same location?

3. Flying Saucer Review, Vol. 15 No. 6 (November-December 1969)

4. Flying Saucer Review: Case Histories, Supplement No. 7 (October, 1971)

5. Flying Saucer Review: Case Histories, Supplement No. 9 (February, 1972)

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

Phantoms and Rituals in Staffordshire

Artwork from Hellebore Magazine

The origins of the ritual are still shrouded in mystery to this day. Folk knowledge asserts that it dates back to a long-lost pagan fertility ritual, and modern historians remain unable to state with any certainty where the practice comes from.

It was Monday, September 8th, 1986 – and Mick Dodds, his wife Lila [1], and his mother-in-law had spent a long day in the Staffordshire village of Abbots Bromley, where they had borne witness to the age-old performance of the Horn Dance. As they put the village in their rearview mirror on the way to Stowe-by-Chartley, they had no idea that the ritual wasn’t done with them yet.

The Wildman's Hunt

After dropping Lila's mother back at her cottage in the nearby village of Stowe-by-Chartley, Mick continued driving northeast until he reached the A518 road that would take them home. It was nighttime by now, but both parties were looking forward to the drive that would take them through the idyllic West Midlands countryside and past the 11th century ruins of Chartley Castle.

Perhaps the couple's casual conversation was suddenly interrupted. Something large and dark lurched out of the field to the right side of the road, and Mick slammed on the breaks in shock. It was a massive stag, its velvet antlers glistening in the moonlight. The giant animal wandered across the road directly in front of their vehicle, leaving both Mick and Lila silent with awe. While they watched the deer, something else was quickly making its way through the field under cover of darkness.

Lila screamed with horror as the grotesque thing leapt out onto the road, seemingly in pursuit of the stag. It seemed to be a large primate, like a chimpanzee. Neither passenger registered how the stag reacted to this, however, because the chimpanzee only made it halfway across the road before stopping dead in its tracks and turning to look directly at them through the car's windscreen. It began to move towards them, picking up speed.

Red hot panic overwhelming his senses, Mick put the car into reverse gear and attempted to back away as quickly as possible as the ape began a flat-out charge towards their vehicle. The engine stalled. Just before it reached the car's bonnet, the chimp stopped and retreated. Fumbling to restart the engine, Mick accidentally flooded it and left them completely stranded and helpless. Maybe sensing weakness, the hairy thing charged again.

Just before it reached their car, it stopped once again. Was it mocking them? The terrified couple and the monstrous ape remained deadlocked like this about twenty seconds, and it made at least one more mock charge before beating its final retreat. It bounded off the road and into the dark field to the left of their car, presumably chasing the stag. It had never actually touched the car, and the passengers were (physically) unscathed by the encounter. 

Mick set about the gruelling process of restarting the engine, pale as a ghost and shaken to his core [2].

Clashing Antlers and Pagan Cults

At the start of this article, I mentioned the Horn Dance of Abbots Bromley. I feel that this is particularly relevant because of the contents of the performance, which seems to have been somehow reflected in that evening's weird happenings on the A518. 

The 'horns' of the ritual are actually antlers, held by six costumed men who perform what is perhaps a strange re-enactment of the clashing of rutting stags throughout the day on Wakes Monday (the first Monday after 4th September). They are accompanied by a motley crew of other characters who provide a musical backdrop for the ceremony, including a fool, a bowman, a hobby-horse, a triangle player, and a man in costume as Maid Marian.

Beginning at 8am at St. Nicholas' Church, the stag-men pass through key sites throughout the parish of Abbots Bromley, forming into two parallel lines at each location and methodically advancing towards each other. Their antlers are held at chest height as they pass, but they never actually collide with one another. This strange rite is repeated all through the parish for twelve hours, before a final dance is performed in the street at 8pm [3]. 

The first mention of a hobby-horse dance at Abbots Bromley dates from 1532, but does not mention the antlers. A 1686 source discusses the antlers in a description of a performance witnessed around 1630. It has seemingly been performed annually since then, with a short hiatus for the English Civil War. 

Before the Civil War, it was likely a Christmastide festivity associated with St Nicholas' Day and New Years Day. The antlers used have been dated to the 11th century, having been from domesticated reindeer perhaps imported from Scandinavia sometime between then and the 17th century.

Mainland European church documents from between the 4th and 11th centuries frequently denounce midwinter practices that were viewed as pagan, which included animal guising and ritual transvestitism, just like the Horn Dance we see today. These have frequently been interpreted as fertility rites.

While none of these references refer specifically to Britain, or to any time beyond the 11th century, 20th century folklorists frequently saw the possibility of a connection between these ancient practices and modern day rituals. 

Doubt has been cast on the pagan theory by modern scholars due to lack of direct evidence, and Ronald Hutton postulates that animal disguises and crossdressing may have independently arisen during medieval festivals as an easy way for ritual participants to express the suspension of normal social rules (distinctions between the sexes, and between humans and animals) that took place at midwinter [4].

A Place Between Places

Rituals in which the spirit world was invoked frequently involved the dissolution of normal social categories and boundaries. Initiation rites often feature a middle stage between the initiates' separation from their previous social roles and their reaggregation into a new position in society, which has been called liminal. This same quality of liminality (neither-here-nor-there-ness) has been identified in settings conducive to paranormal activity in the modern day [5].

One such setting between settings nowadays would certainly be a long road, such as the A518, the site of the Dodds' encounter. In fact, the Dodds are not the only people to have seen something strange along this road. Local resident Tom Goode told investigator Jim Foley of his recollection of seeing a large number of cars parked near Weston Bank (about 3 miles southwest of Chartley Castle) sometime around the summer of 1950. When he asked what the drivers what they were doing, he was told that they had seen strange objects in the sky and wanted to get a better look.

Apparently unidentified aircraft had been seen coming towards the road from near Stafford, and "hovered and darted to and fro". Tom stayed in the area for a little while, but was unable to see the lights. He dismissed this event as having been due to secret aircraft testing at a nearby airbase [6].

A newspaper article from the October 27th 1995 edition of the Post and Times, written by Rosemarie Davies, is also reprinted in Foley's excellent book on the folklore of the road. It details a poltergeist outbreak that took place over the course of three days at Lower Loxley Farm (approximately 3 miles northeast of Chartley Castle) one August in the 1890s. 

Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, along with their 13-year-old maid, were horrified to repeatedly witness kitchen items and shoes pick themselves up and fly through the air at great speed, accompanied by loud knocking on the walls and ceilings. Stones were thrown at the house from outside, shattering windows up to the third floor. After Mr. Wilson called the police, they witnessed the strange happenings too, and then apparently threatened the maid with jail time if she did not confess to the whole thing.

There was only ever one incident in which the maid was seen to throw a small stone at the house, and she was frequently with the Wilson couple when all three of them witnessed strange things happening, well beyond her ability to accomplish. When spiritualist F. Brittain asked her about her experience of the three days, she said that she didn't have much memory of them and had felt as if "a bandage was wrapped tighly around her head, so tight at times that it hurt her". She described experiencing strange sensations all over her body at night, and fainting uncontrollably.

After the first night of activity, the maid slept in the same room as the Wilson couple. One night, Mr. Wilson noticed that she raised her head while breathing very heavily and making "peculiar noises in her throat" whilst the knocking sounds were occurring. The bizarre events ceased when the maid left the farm on the 21st of August, leaving behind more questions than answers [7]. 

Conclusion

I cannot remember exactly where I heard it, but I think it was on an episode of the podcast Strange Familiars with Timothy Renner. He said that when he investigates Bigfoot sightings, he will often ask the witness if they have seen anything else out of the ordinary. He is rewarded so often with further stories of strange lights and apparitions that he has come to expect this pattern. It seems that the same holds true for the 'British Bigfoot'.

Many sources grasp at a possible connection between manifestations of inexplicable phenomena and human ritual behaviour. If the area around what is now the A518 seems to be especially prone to strange happenings, then perhaps it is no surprise that such a modern remnant of an age-old boundary-defying ritual is still annually performed there too. Just like the costumed performers become something that is neither human nor animal, it seems that forces beyond our knowledge might take on similar costumes given the right circumstances...

Bibliography and Notes

1. Pseudonym, Mick's wife goes unnamed in the original source. 

2. Redfern, N. (2012) ‘Chapter Sixteen: A Monstrous Castle’, in Wildman! The Monstrous and Mysterious Saga of the British Bigfoot. CFZ Press, pp. 95–98.

3. Roud, S. (2008) ‘4th September: Abbots Bromley Horn Dance’, in The English Year: A Month-by-Month Guide to the Nation’s Customs and Festivals, from May Day to Mischief Night. Penguin, pp. 394–397.

4. Hutton, R. (1996) ‘Chapter Eight: Hobby-Horse and Horn Dance’, in The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford University Press, pp. 81–95.

5. Hansen, G.P. (2001) The Trickster and the Paranormal. Xlibris Corp.

6. Foley, J. (1998) ‘Tom Goode’s Story’, in The Road to Chartley: Ghosts, Legends & Stories of the A518 (Part I), pp. 38–49.

7. Foley, J. (1998) ‘Strange Goings-on at Lower Loxley’, in The Road to Chartley: Ghosts, Legends & Stories of the A518 (Part I), pp. 103-105.

Two Phantom Dog Tales

From here in Britain, it can be easy to assume that supernatural 'black dogs' are a primarily British phenomenon. Most areas of the country you visit have their own local names for the unpleasant creatures, and we even have pubs named in their dubious honour. One was immortalised in Arthur Conan Doyle's 1902 Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. 

However, our black dogs are only some among many. Encounters with the hellish hounds stretch across much of the planet. Today I'm going to tell two stories, one of which was told to me directly by a friend, and the other I found in Flying Saucer Review. The latter is so weird that I can't help but tell it.

The Beast of Bhavnagar

People can only know me for so long before I inevitably ask them if they've ever had any encounters with the paranormal. I met Valerie (pseudonym) a couple of years ago and we've grown very close since then. She asked me about UFOs, and I started explaining my research into the topic. It was at this point that she volunteered to tell the story of a strange experience she'd had as a child. 

Valerie grew up in the city of Bhavnagar in the Indian state of Gujarat. In the early 2000s (probably 2005), she remembers sitting on a jhula swingset in the back garden outside her family's house. On the other side of the garden was another swingset owned by the neighbours, backed up by a tall wall. She cannot recall whether anyone else was outside in the garden with her at the time, but she knows that there was at least someone else in the house - possibly one of her grandparents or her sister. 

All of a sudden, something came over the wall behind the neighbour's swingset. Valerie described it to me as misty in texture, comparable to a cloud. It was in the shape of a dog or other four-legged animal, "very black and void-like". The spectral animal seemed to jump over the wall into the garden at great speed. Shortly after hitting the ground, the entity vanished as quickly as it had appeared. 

Valerie was young enough at the time that she couldn't "describe what [she] saw or make sense of it". She told herself that she might've just been dizzy or had some kind of waking dream. She remembers being "disturbed" by it, but deciding not to tell anyone else about it for fear that she wouldn't be believed or would be mocked [1]. 

Phantom hounds are not nearly as prevalent in India as they are in western Eurasia, but there are some mentions of spirits in the form of black dogs in religious lore. The Mahākanha Jātaka of the Pali Canon tells of how the god Sakka saw that mankind had fallen into a state of wickedness, and so he came to Earth with another god in the form of a fearsome black dog with tusks and chains around its body. He came to the city of Varanasi and pronounced the world doomed, allowing the monstrous hound to chase its residents. 

Before returning to his heavenly abode, Sakka and his dog went to king Usīnara of Varanasi. The dog roared with rage, and the king ordered the monster fed. The dog ate all the food in the city and was still hungry, at which point Sakka told the people that the hound would devour all those who lived in unrighteousness.

"Not to hunt game the Black Hound came, but he shall be of use
To punish men, Usīnara, when I shall let him loose."

Terrified into following the teachings of the Buddha once more, the population was saved from their fate at the jaws of the hellhound. Sakka revealed himself to be the King of the Gods, before disappearing back up into his otherworldly home [2]. 

UFO Road-Rage at Vereeniging

It was late at night on December 13th of 1963 when the police phone-lines in the Vereeniging district of the Gauteng Province of South Africa lit up with reports of strange lights in the sky. A dazzling object was seen passing over Keyterskloof, roughly 20 miles northeast of Vereeniging city proper. 

One Mr. Gericke, working on a farm near Keyterskloof, saw a "fiery object travelling low over the horizon" that night. He said that it lit up the whole surrounding area as it seemed to disintegrate, before disappearing with "a tremendous bang". The official explanation is given as a meteor. Shortly afterwards, two men approached the Afrikaans newspaper Die Brandwaag to tell their story, which suggests a different explanation for the eerie lights. 

These men were Leslie Immelman and WT Muller. Early in the morning on the 14th, they had been driving along Potchefstroom Road towards Vereeniging and were about 50 miles away from the city. They were unaware of the UFO wave then hitting the surrounding area. Leslie was a sworn skeptic of "ghosts, fairies and any such nonsense", but that was about to change. 

As they raced along the dark road, they passed something large and out of place in the road. Leslie later said that he initially thought it was a buck, and he impelled Muller to turn the car around so that they could look at it. They soon found that it was an "exceptionally large dog". Turning again to drive away from the strange dog, both men were stunned when the area around them was suddenly lit up as bright as daylight. 

This shock quickly turned to panic as a glowing object appeared ahead of them, moving towards their car at enormous speed. Instantly sensing that the UFO was going to collide with their vehicle, both passengers fled the car in terror. As they stood beside their car, the light dove down over their car before ascending again at a breakneck pace. 

Swinging like a pendulum, the object then turned back on itself and made another pass over the car. This time it hovered in place for a moment, bathing the road in its unearthly light. It stood still in the air roughly 50ft above the vehicle, and Leslie could see it clearly enough to describe it in detail. 

It was round in shape, and approximately 50ft in diameter. It glowed an incandescent orange, with a blue light on one end, which seemed to emit a fiery tail of electrical-looking sparks. It was this light that was responsible for lighting up the surrounding environment. The object was accompanied by a gentle humming sound and no noticeable heat. 

Turning to his companion in amazement, Leslie asked Muller if he was seeing the same thing, to which he responded in the affirmative: "Yes, but I don't believe it!"

Like a bullet from a gun, the object then shot away from the witnesses once again - travelling extremely rapidly southeast towards Parys before changing course northwest towards Potchefstroom. It made another pendulum swing down towards the terrified pair's car, and actually repeated this daring manoeuvre "five or six times" - each time "swooping low over us only to disappear into the distance". 

Leslie and Muller had decided to keep their experience to themselves until they saw the coverage of the bizarre 'meteor' flap at Keyterskloof. Both men later swore statements before a Commissioner of Oaths to say that their testimony was "gospel truth", as Leslie later put it. 

About six days later, on Friday the 20th of that month, residents of Krugersdorp (some 47 miles away from Vereeniging) were awoken by two defeaning explosions and an unexplained bright light. One Mrs. A Stoop says she heard a bang coming from an easterly direction at about 3am that morning, before seeing a blue luminous object "swinging... to and fro" over the town. This phenomenon lasted for about a minute before subsiding [3]. 

Conclusion

The latter story might appear to have very little do to with black dog folklore, but I contend that it is relevant to this specific category of zooform phenomena. A black dog reported from Budleigh Hill in Somerset was said to have gone "up in the air like a flash of fire" when it reached a stream of running water that it presumably could not cross. Another case from Dartmoor in Devon describes a shaggy canine entity that disappeared with a dazzling flash of light and the sound of an explosion [4]. 

Black dogs and other phantom hounds are found all across Eurasia and the Americas, with examples being known from as far afield as China and Guatemala. It seems likely that they are connected with the frequent mythological appearances of dogs as psychopomps, accompanying the souls of the dead. This archetype is not only present in Eurasia with famous examples like the Greek Kérberos and the Norse Garmr, but is also found in the lore of American civilisations such as the Aztecs and the Mayan Téenek people [5].

Sources

1. Personal correspondence. 

2. Translated by Rouse, WHD. (1901) 'Jataka 469: Mahā-Kaṇha-jātaka' in The Jataka, Vol. 1V. https://sacred-texts.com/bud/j4/j4033.htm

3. ‘On the Road to Vereeniging’ (1964) Flying Saucer Review, 10 (3), pp. 27–28. Translated by P.J. Human.

4. Bord, J. and Bord, C. (1985) ‘Chapter Three: Mysterious Black Dogs’, in Alien Animals: A Worldwide Investigation. HarperCollins, pp. 80–108.

5. Cutchin, J. (2022) ‘Chapter Two: Psychopomps’, in Ecology of Souls: A New Mythology of Death and the Paranormal - Volume One. Horse & Barrel Press, pp. 47–72.

The Relic: A Warning for the Unwary

Introduction

Our ancestors kept traditions for a reason. Culture does not tend to endlessly self-replicate without any meaning for the people who live within it. This raises the important question of why religious ritual has survived the ravages of the evolutionary process for (at least) tens of thousands of years if it is merely the product of mistaken conceptions of the world. The modern world is actually becoming more religious, not less [1]. Why? 

Cognitive evolutionary theorists and medical anthropologists seem to have the beginnings of an answer. Ritual works, and appears to be a natural response to something. 

According to Winkelman [2], the psychological impact of ritual is capable of producing physical healing through the placebo effect. This same psychological component produces strong senses of in-group solidarity, contributing to the formation of communities. Individuals with genes that predisposed them to dissociation and extraordinary experiences could've thus been more likely to survive than those without, and rituals were gradually developed that encouraged such experiences [3]. 

Kalweit [4] speculates that religions have their roots in unusual experience, and in experiencers trying to replicate the conditions that gave rise to their encounters through ritual.

What sort of experiences would give rise to ritual/religious behaviour? Shushan [5] convincingly argues that the spontaneous near-death experience may have been among them. Cutchin [6] highlights that a large percentage of those who apparently return from death find that they have developed extrasensory capabilities that they did not previously possess. They may have increased IQ, the ability to sense the thoughts of others or even to perceive apparitions. According to Vallee [7], similar strange developments take place in the lives of those who come into close contact with unidentified flying objects. 

It seems that psychological and social benefits would not be the only results of regular, ritualised contact with the unknown. 

If some forms of ritual (like shamanic trance) exist in response to the advantages gained from supernatural experience, then what can we say about rituals that developed to repel evil? If paranormal phenomena are the roots of religion, then perhaps a similar experiential basis exists for various taboos and prohibitions. After two decades of misfortune, Jim Hunter would likely agree that such taboos might've existed to protect us from something... 

The Discovery

Jim Hunter contacted paranormal investigator and prolific author Brad Steiger in the mid-1980s to report his ongoing experiences with entities that the latter came to label 'Deiform Spirits'. By Steiger's definition, these are spirit entities that "have congealed in certain places" they deem sacred [8]. Meddling with these places or taking things from them can anger these beings, with unpredictable consequences. 

Hunter's involvement with the Deiform Spirits began when he was just seventeen years old. His father worked for a large South Pacific import company, and so the family moved around frequently - but in 1967, the Hunter family was living in New Zealand. It was March of that year, just shortly after Jim's seventeenth birthday. He had gone on holiday to the isolated coastal town of "Kawhai" [9], and was swimming off the shore when he came across a smooth metallic object lodged between two boulders.

Wrenching the strange object out of its hiding place, Hunter saw that it was shaped like a flat oval, encrusted with algae and seaweed, and seemingly inscribed with some kind of strange symbology. It weighed roughly one pound. Intrigued, he took the item home and showed it to his father. 

Mr. Hunter figured that it was probably of Maori origin, and so encouraged Jim to show it to the local Maori community. After about two weeks, they told him that they had no idea what the object was [10]. 

Shortly afterwards, an ambiguous figure arrived on the Hunters' doorstep. He introduced himself as a journalist with the New Zealand Herald, and claimed that he had heard about the object from a Maori contact of his. He asked to examine the object, and concluded that it was "made of some kind of bronze alloy". The alleged journalist asked to take the object back to Auckland to run tests on it [11]. 

The Hunters declined, having already inquired about having a metallurgical analysis of the object done at a university in Christchurch. As far as Jim knows, these tests were never performed, and the object instead languished in a drawer for the next year before the family relocated to New York in May of 1968. 

When Jim went to retrieve it while packing his suitcase, he discovered that it had gone missing. He suspected someone he knew had stolen it, but he had to accept the loss given his limited time left in the country.

Scare Tactics

Amidst the bustle of Auckland International Airport, Jim found himself on his own while his parents bade goodbye to some friends. Two strange men approached him - described as "Polynesian types" - and identified themselves as being affiliated with New Zealand Inland Revenue. 

They asked if he was taking anything illegal out of the country, and despite their professionalism, Jim soon found them very intimidating. They asked specifically about "any relics, art objects, or the like". 

Despite his repeated denials of having any such objects, the pair were persistent. They eventually insisted that he come with them to a hotel room for a private baggage check. Frightened, Jim called his father over, who demanded to see their ID cards and asked why they couldn't simply check his son's baggage where they were standing. He got a nonsensical reply in return, and responded by calling for a patrolling constable. Finally taking the hint, the bizarre figures wordlessly "shuffled" away [12]. 

There were no further incidents until the Fall of 1968. By that time, Jim had enrolled in Columbia University for the freshman year of his undergraduate course. Shortly after the start of the term, a middle-aged man who claimed to be an Italian art dealer approached him. Predictably, this man had somehow heard that Jim had lived in New Zealand and wanted to know if he had brought any interesting artifacts home. 

Presumably starting to suspect that something was amiss, Jim told the 'art dealer' that he didn't have any relics. This didn't stop the man from approaching him two further times to ask the same question [13].

It was around this time that Jim discovered that three of his closest friends in New Zealand had been harassed by figures who seemed to be the same people he had encountered at Auckland airport. 

The letters his friends sent to him used words like "weird", "creepy" and "spooky" to describe the men. Apparently situations had escalated enough that the police had gotten involved, and one girl's life had been threatened. 

"You Have Acted Unjustly"

Jim transferred to Stanford University in 1970, and immediately after he had gotten a telephone installed in his new apartment, he received a bizarre and ominous call. An anonymous voice warned him never to return to New Zealand. 

A second call (from a high-pitched female voice) told him that he was being surveilled by a group that he had wronged by acting "unjustly" and "not returning things to their proper owners" [14]. 

Throughout his time at both Columbia and Stanford, he received over thirty mystery phone calls regarding New Zealand and the stolen artifact. 

In 1972, Jim was on holiday in San Francisco between graduate work and beginning a teaching career in the Sacramento suburbs. Just a few weeks before starting work as a teacher, he received another phone call to his hotel room. On the other end was a male voice, who said that he "had acted wisely by not returning to New Zealand".

Three days after he'd begun work at the school, a student he'd never seen before stopped off in his classrom. While this wasn't inherently unusual for obvious reasons, the child walked towards the blackboard and drew some strange symbols. Jim's heart dropped - these were the same markings that were on the object from Kawhai. The student asked Jim if he knew what they meant, to which he desperately insisted that he tell him where he'd seen them. 

Swiftly erasing the symbols and laughing, the student said that he had just been "fooling around" before making a rapid exit from the room. When Jim described the offending student to his colleagues, he was frightened to discover that nobody could identify him. He would never see the boy again [15]. 

After teaching at a high school level for four years, Jim was finally offered a teaching assistant position at a major university. He began his doctorate program in the Fall of 1976. Four days after starting at the university, someone rang his room and reprimanded him for theft. The voice from the other end of the line accused him of "acting unjustly" and demanded that he "should never take anything from where [he] found it". 

By the time Jim contacted Brad Steiger, the harassment was infrequent but still ongoing. 

Conclusion

Anthropologist Mary Douglas [16] describes taboos as being for "hedging divinity off" - protecting the supernatural from contact with the profane world, and protecting the profane world from chaotic contact with the supernatural. Supernatural disorder seems to act as a contagious agent according to Douglas, with those who break taboos spreading their misfortune to those they come into contact with. Ritual could almost be thought of as a form of quarantine. 

This reminds me of the descriptions given of visitors to 'window areas' such as Skinwalker Ranch being followed home by unwelcome supernatural guests [17]. This same terrifying effect was observed among Jim Hunter's close friends, who were harassed by the phantom strangers despite presumably not having had much contact with the mystery object. The hitchhiker effect - as this phenomenon has been called - will be the topic of an upcoming article. Watch this space. 

Bibliography

1. Sherwood, H. (2018) ‘Religion: Why Faith is Becoming More and More Popular’, The Guardian, 27 August.

2. Cited in Shushan, G. (2018) ‘Chapter Five: Interpretations, Implications, and Conclusions’, in Near-Death Experience in Indigenous Religions. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 200–247.

3. Ibid. 

4. Kalweit, H. (2000) Shamans, Healers, and Medicine Men. Boston: Shambala.

5. Shushan, G. (2018) ‘Chapter Five: Interpretations, Implications, and Conclusions’, in Near-Death Experience in Indigenous Religions. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 200–247.

6. Cutchin, J. (2022) Ecology of Souls: A New Mythology of Death & the Paranormal Vol One. Horse & Barrel Press.

7. Vallee, J. (2008) Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact. San Antonio: Anomalist Books.

8. Steiger, B. (2007) ‘Chapter Nine: Sacred Places of the Deiform Spirits’, in Shadow World: True Encounters with Beings From the Darkside. San Antonio Tex.: Anomalist, pp. 192–216.

9. As far as I can see, there is no coastal town in New Zealand by this name. The location was likely the town of Kawhia on the country's North Island, probably misspelt by Steiger. 

10. Steiger, B. (2007) ‘Chapter Nine: Sacred Places of the Deiform Spirits’, in Shadow World: True Encounters with Beings From the Darkside. San Antonio Tex.: Anomalist, pp. 192–216.

11. Ibid. 

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid. 

16. Cited in Hansen, G.P. (2001) The Trickster and the Paranormal. Philadelphia: Xlibris Corporation.

17. Lacatski, J.T., Kelleher, C.A. and Knapp, G. (2021) Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insider’s Account of the Secret Government UFO Program. 

 

The Flatwoods Seance

Looking up from the fog-shrouded fields of Braxton County, Tommy Hyer and Edward and Fred May saw a blinding light streak across the sky before apparently coming down on a nearby farm. It was September 12th of 1952, and the three terrified boys ran back to the May household to tell their incredible story. I imagine that most of this blog's readers will be familiar with what happened next. Accompanied by a local National Guardsman and two other children, the group ventured onto the farm - and were eventually met with one of the most bizarre beings ever recorded in the annals of UFO history: the now infamous Flatwoods Monster.

A Baffling Sequel

Twelve years later, it seemed that the Flatwoods Monster was not yet done with the human race. The strange story apparently transmitted to ufologist Gray Barker by its ill-prepared protagonists also seems to suggest that the entity involved with the 1952 events might not have been a material extraterrestrial, but rather some aberrant form from the spirit world.

Gray Barker's knowledge of the events was made public by Riley Hansard Crabb writing for the Borderline Sciences Research Foundation in 1967. Crabb had previously received a letter from the witnesses, but had not been in further contact with them until Barker investigated the case. Crabb's letter made it clear to him that the witnesses were college students who had picked up an interest in the flying saucer mystery, and had quickly concluded that the answer to said mystery lay in the metaphysical realm as opposed to outer space.

Norman Schreibstein and Ervin Vertleib lived somewhere in Pennsylvania, and they'd decided to establish a home-grown flying saucer observatory in Norman's home in early 1964. One of their first ventures into the ultraterrestrial world would yield far more dramatic results than many seekers could hope to receive after years of work. For reasons best known to themselves, they set their sights on establishing contact with the Flatwoods Monster. 

Contact!

Drawing used for the seance

To begin with, the boys elected to draw up a picture of the robot-like apparition on a large sheet of paper. They found a suitable model for this makeshift idol in the May family's witness sketches that had appeared in Gray Barker's Saucerian Bulletin. The drawing was stuck up on the wall of the observatory, the lights were turned out and the group all sat down the meditate. At this point, Schreibstein and Vertleib had been joined by individuals named Mark Kaplan and Patricia Morgan, as well as Norman's unnamed skeptical cousin. 

Upon sitting in the dark for roughly fifteen minutes, a light appeared above their heads in the room. The floating orb lazily circled the room. Another light briefly appeared and disappeared. Perhaps predictably, Schreibstein's cousin promptly fled the room. 

Showing boundless dedication, Vertleib reached out into the darkness. He felt a disembodied hand clasp his own and firmly shake it, as if in acknowledgement that contact had been successfully established. At this point, the group needed a way to properly communicate with the entity that was manifesting in their room - and they decided on a simple code for the floating light to follow - one circle for yes, two for no. 

Crabb doesn't say who was first to break the silence, but the first question they asked was whether the entity in question was the Flatwoods Monster. They received a single circle in response, signalling 'yes'. They next asked if the entity minded if they told others about their encounter, which was answered 'no'. The entity responded in the affirmative to a question on whether it was friendly, and then offered no firm answer when asked if it was limited to appearing at Norman's house. 

"If you are solid, give us some sign."

This final question was a mistake. This became clear to the group as the whole house started to violently shake, and deafening crashes were heard in the observatory room. In terror, someone flipped the room's light switch, causing the spiralling light to immediately vanish. Norman was appalled to see that his PA system and microphone had been smashed, and that the camera the group had been hoping to use to photograph the phenomenon had been thrown across the room and had had its lenses unscrewed. A model airplane had been broken as it hurtled to the floor, and it lay among chaotic heaps of books and other detritus.

Somehow undeterred by the threatening display, the boys swiftly turned the lights out again and sat around in their seance circle. The light appeared once more, floating just above Vertleib's head. He impulsively reached up and grabbed it - and was stunned to grasp a "sharp, metallic structure". This object remained in his hands for roughly ten seconds before it jerked itself away and continued its flight around the room. 

The activity in the room escalated one final time, as Mark and Norman felt humanlike fingers touch their foreheads and Patricia felt one touch her throat. The floating light started to lurch around, divebombing the seance participants and being met with screams of alarm. As if satisfied by the terror it had inflicted, the light dove into the Flatwoods Monster drawing and disappeared. Norman claimed that the drawing was hot to the touch shortly afterwards. Patricia soon developed a sore throat, and Mark and Norman had terrible headaches. 

Follow-Up

Three strange men showed up to Norman Schreibstein's house in September of that year. Perhaps they were curious about the letter he had sent to Crabb, or perhaps they were late to the punch in dealing with the seance. Although both Norman and Ervin were familiar with the concept of the Men in Black, Norman didn't recognise the figures at first. Instead, he assumed that the men had a genuine interest in flying saucers, and so happily allowed them access to the observatory. 

Bizarrely, the men seemed largely disinterested in the books and UFO memorabilia on display throughout the seance room, but rather focused their attention on the electrical equipment in the space. They carefully examined the PA system, and inquired about the specific make of his tape recorder. Crabb pointed out that Albert Bender experienced problems with his radio in the attic that played host to many of his encounters with the Men in Black. It was as they prowled around his observatory investigating various wires and dials that Norman started to feel a cold chill scuttle down his back - he suddenly knew that these 'men' were not human beings. 

Almost as if they'd sensed the shift in their host's awareness, the men turned to leave. Before they did so, however, they sternly told Norman to "get the hell out of flying saucer research if you know what's good for you" - as well as threatening him with "serious consequences" if he told anyone about their visit. It seems he later did this anyway and was entirely unharmed.

In the next few months, Schreibstein experienced four more visits from a phantasmal stranger. Crabb likened this character to a stereotypical CIA agent, and Norman described him as being "about 33" in age and being roughly 6ft in height. The man had dark skin and wore distinctive horn-rimmed glasses, as well as a strange ring on one of the fingers of his left hand. Perhaps predictably, the CIA man also warned Norman to leave flying saucer research. 

The boys were apparently not frightened by these tricks, and Gray Barker claimed that they actually had "other psychic experiences", which they were unfortunately not happy to be made public at the time of Crabb's writing. 

Source 

Who Flys the Saucers? by Riley Hansard Crabb, 1967

Whispering Clowns in the Woods: The Genesis of a Panic

Hysteria consumed the globe in 2016 - starting in Summer and concluding after Halloween. There were men patrolling neighbourhoods across the world dressed as clowns, and these sinister figures were menacing children, chasing pedestrians and even sometimes attacking people with various weapons. Several arrests were made, proving that the majority of these clowns were flesh-and-blood criminals exploiting a growing atmosphere of panic, but there are certainly some reports which seem to be slightly more mysterious. The first of these anomalous reports took the form of the first report of the entire panic. Today I am taking you to Fleetwood Manor in Greenville, South California - be warned, there are clowns in the woods.

This photo fits the description of the first two clowns

Outbreak! 

The young son of a woman named Donna Arnold would become patient zero in a coulrophobic hysteria that would soon reach pandemic proportions across the globe in the Summer of 2016. It was 8:30pm on the 21st of August - and the boy could see two men dressed in bright clothing in the nearby forest behind the local basketball court. As he looked closer, he soon realised that he was looking at two clowns - one of whom was wearing a red fright wig and the other had a black star painted on his face. The clowns apparently whispered something to him, but what exactly this was remained unclear throughout the reporting. Donna was originally skeptical of her son's claims, but felt it necessary to report the incident to the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office just in case. She told her son to calm down and assured NBC News that she wasn't eager to let rumours of clowns spread across the community. She said that her son had 'seen clowns in the woods whispering and making strange noises'.

A police deputy was dispatched to investigate the matter, and he uncovered several other sightings of kooky characters dressed as clowns. An anonymous individual said that she had seen a 'large-figured' clown with a blinking nose stood under a post light near a garbage dumpster area. The strange man waved at her and she nervously waved back, but the enigmatic entertainer did not approach her or harm her in any way. He seemingly just stood there. The neighbourhood had suddenly been taken over by clowns. Another woman claimed that her son had told her that he had heard clanging chains accompanied by a banging noise at the front door.

Things would only spiral out of control from there - and although Donna had disbelieved her son, she would soon be forced to reevaluate this conclusion when thirty children approached her the day after her son had allegedly seen the phantom figure and asked her if she had seen the clowns in the woods. Although the reporting somewhat differs among my myriad of sources, it would seem to be the case that her son then took her to where he had seen the clowns - and she would become the second confirmed adult witness of the phenomenon. She saw two clowns in the forest 'flashing green laser lights' before they ran off into the woods. It had taken one day for the clown hysteria to reach epidemic proportions among the child population of the area.

The Greenville County Sheriff's Office released a report based on the findings of their investigations in the week of the first sighting, and most of the details from the former two paragraphs are sourced from there. The Greenville police also said that children had told them that the clowns had showed them 'large amounts of money' in order to persuade them to follow them into the forest according to the police report obtained by ABC News. The children also believed that the clowns lived in 'a house located near a pond at the end of a man-made trail in the woods'. This might've sounded like a fantastical detail pulled from a fairytale, but deputies working for Master Deputy Ryan Flood searched the forest and found a house matching this exact description after following a trail - but it was completely empty and didn't contain any 'clown paraphenalia'. Every time they investigated this house, they continually failed to find 'clothing or anything else' that might've indicated that anyone lived there. Flood stated that he didn't think there were any circuses in town, and that there was apparently no history of unusual clown sightings in the area. Interestingly, he also stated that there were no CCTV cameras installed anywhere that the clowns had allegedly been spotted, and so the reports were all impossible to substantiate.

Nothing Spreads Faster Than Fear 

It took three days for the clown hysteria to spread beyond Fleetwood Manor. On the 23rd of August, Greenville City Dispatch responded to a late-night call from Shemwood Crossing on Shemwood Lane about a menacing clown which had made its getaway in a dark car after being confronted. The residents told a crew from WSPA News that they had been alerted to the presence of more clowns when their children had told them that the costumed freaks were lurking by the local playground. They chased after the clowns, whereupon the odd characters high-tailed it out of there in a mysterious vehicle. This took place at roughly 9:00pm. The police were planning to increase patrols in this region.

The letter sent to Fleetwood Manor tenants

Just because it had spread didn't mean that it wasn't still holding Fleetwood Manor in its clown-gloved hand. On the 24th, the manager of the apartment complex sent a letter to all their tenants warning them about the alleged presence of the clowns and encouraging them to call the police if they saw anything strange. Greenville County law enforcement was apparently conducting routine patrols around the apartments in light of the reports. A community activist by the name of Bruce Wilson noted that there were between 200 and 300 children in the area, and told WDTV News that he was now getting involved in making sure that the police are 'doing the right thing'.

It was 8:20pm on Monday, August 29th when the Greenville Sheriff's Office received a panicked phone call from a 12-year-old girl on White Horse Road. She was calling from Emerald Commons apartment complex, and she told deputies that she had seen a man riding on a blue bike taking photographs of children from around her backyard area. Shortly after she noticed this, a man wearing a black jacket and a clown mask emerged from the woods 'before going away'. This newly-infected apartment building was 20 minutes away from Fleetwood Manor.

The Lakehouse

In October of that year, Matthew Teague and a team of reporters for the UK newspaper The Guardian ventured to South California to report on the clown situation from the scene of the crime, as it were - and they found that things had changed quite considerably. The clown panic had already gone global, stretching across the United States and then spreading to the United Kingdom. Within the next few days it would move to Spain, Chile, Singapore, Brazil, Sweden, Mexico and Denmark.

When the news crew got there, Donna Arnold was still eager to tell them about the clowns she had seen with her son, and she pointed them towards the woods and explained about the abandoned house from which the clowns had allegedly originated. Intrigued, the reporters followed the odd little path down towards the house in the forest - and found it just as derelict as it had been initially described - but something odd had happened in the two months since it had been reported on. Although the balcony was sagging down and someone had boarded up the windows, a modern security system had been installed outside it, apparently quite recently. New bags of potting soil had been left near to the basement door. It still looked as if nobody had lived in it for years, but it seemed that someone was now planning something.

Perplexed, the confusion felt by the reporters would only grow in strength when a gleaming white Mercedes of a new model pulled up to the house shortly after sunset. The driver stepped out of the mysterious vehicle - which 'looked as out of place as any clown car' - and she was immediately ambushed by the waiting pack of reporters. They asked her about the house and she said that she had bought it recently as an investment due to it sitting on a free space of five acres in an area that was otherwise quite densely populated. Interestingly, she refused to give her name - and was wearing an in-ear headset which meant that it was often quite difficult for the reporters to tell if she was talking to them or to someone on her phone. When they asked her about the clown sightings, she scoffed at them and asked why none of the children had taken photographs on their phones - which they could obviously work far better than she could and so it made no sense to her that there was still no evidence.

Thinking that this information would comfort Donna, Teague naively went back to her house and told her this. She laughed at him and then invited him to come round to the back of the home. The house backed onto the dense woods in which the clowns had first appeared - and Teague couldn't help but notice the ugly dent in the back door where the paint appeared to have been chipped away. With complete conviction, she told him that the clowns had hit the door with a chain. She had seen them hit the door with a chain and then run off into the forest as soon as she approached them with the intention of making them answer for their crimes. She was now certain that there were men dressed as clowns in the forest out to torment the good people of Greenville.

Sources 

Reports of Clowns Trying to Lure Kids Into Woods in South Carolina Prompt Investigation for ABCNews

Clown Sightings: The Day the Craze Began for The Guardian

Creepy Clown Sightings in South Carolina Cause a Frenzy for The New York Times

Creepy Details Released in South Carolina Clown Sightings for CBS News

Children Claim Clown Tried to Lure Them Into South Carolina Woods for CBS News

Reports of Creepy Clowns Spooking Residents of Greenville, SC for NBC News

Apartment Complex Warns Residents About Clown Trying to Lure Kids into Woods for CNN

Another Child Reports Clowns in South Carolina Woods for CBS News

More Clown Sightings in Greenville, Deputies Say for WSPA News

Residents Anxious After Clown Sightings, Letters Received at South Carolina Apartments for WDTV News