Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

Henry Hudson was a brave explorer from yesteryear who demanded that Ohio be spelled with an ‘O’ at both ends. That really seems like a brazen waste of vowels to us. Not as bad as Hawaii though. Seriously – ‘Hawi’ would get the point across just fine – plus we heard their school system already teaches it like that. All we’re saying is the island state would probably fair better on the SATs if the answers more closely reflected the crummy curriculum.

And no doubt Henry Hudson, who we think we might have been talking about a second ago, would probably agree. As would the Gnomes he claimed to have happened upon in the Catskills.

Although Henry Hudson is known mostly for discovering rivers and then being thrown overboard by his mutinous crew, that’s not the only thing on his globe trotting resume. As the story goes – he was boating around the new world looking for an easy route to the East. Along the way he made friends with many an Indian tribe. Some of these tribes gave a warning – something like ‘If you hear music in the middle of nowhere, don’t look for it’s source.’

Sounds like easy advice to follow, right? Not so much according to AmericanFolklore.net:

“That night, Henry Hudson and his crew anchored the Half Moon in the shadow of the Catskill Mountains. Around midnight, Hudson heard the sound of music floating across the mountains and down to the river. Taking a few members of his crew, he went ashore and followed the sound up and up into the Catskills. The sound of the music grew louder as Hudson and his men marched up to the edge of a precipice. To their astonishment, a group of pygmies with long, bushy beards and eyes like pigs were dancing and singing and capering about in the firelight. Hudson realized that these creatures were the metal-working gnomes of whom the natives had spoken.”

And what would you do if you stumbled upon a weird scene like that? Hudson & crew got sloshed with them. In the process – Henry learned a thing or two about the gross little dudes. According to CoasttoCoastAM.com:

“…Hudson was told that [the gnomes] were from “somewhere else” and that they come into our world every twenty years.”

The story gets weirder actually. The Gnome-brew the crew slurped down turned them all gnome-like for the night. Hudson had only been sipping the stuff as he talked with the gnome chief. When he saw that his peeps had metamorphed into little figures that we can only assume were disgusting, he hurried them all back to the ship before anybody got Troll 2-ed, if you know what we’re saying.

It’s unclear what the source of this encounter is. We haven’t found a place to say where it was recorded. The mutiny was written in a crew member’s journal. We’d like to assume the same for the gnome encounter.

And you know what they say about super-weird stories with no original documentation – they’re  definitely true.

So, you know, be careful all along the Hudson River.

Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

90% of the time people sight UFOs it ends up being a comet, a misidentified airplane, or a child who’d sucked too much helium and floated way up into the sky. That last one is personal experience.

But the point being the encounters can usually be easily explained. But what about when it can’t be? The Chiles-Whitted sighting, for instance, will probably leave little brown clumps all over your underpants-innards.

Wikipedia lists a very interesting intro to this story. It takes place at the Hague in the Netherlands, and was apparently investigated by the US Airforce. Edward J. Ruppelt, the head of Project Blue Book at the time, sums it up in a report:

“On July 21 [1948] a curious report was received from the Netherlands. The day before, several persons reported seeing a UFO through high broken clouds over The Hague. The object was rocket shaped, with two rows of windows along the side. It was a poor report, very sketchy and incomplete, and it probably would have been forgotten except that four nights later a similar UFO almost collided with an Eastern Airlines DC-3.”

Does that grab your attention? Well lets fast forward those four days then. Pilot Clarence Chiles and co-pilot John Whitted were chugging along the Alabama skies. They were probably having the standard peanut fight up in the cockpit, which we’ve been told repeatedly was industry standard in the forties. That’s when the cigar shaped flying object almost smashed right into them.

UFOs.About.com has the details:

“The object appeared to be directly in their path of flight. The two pilots had no cause to think anything other than there was another airliner in their vicinity, albeit unreported. Almost before they could react, they saw the object coming right at them. The object streaked by, just barely edging to their starboard side. The unknown object could not have been more 1,000 feet away. When reflecting on the near-miss later, both pilots agreed that the UFO had no wings, and no tail.

“They also had seen two rows of windows, which appeared to be extremely reflective… The two pilots also recalled that the object’s front section was pointed, and along its belly was a blue glow. This glow ran the full length of the UFO. Exhaust of a red color could be seen at the end of the object. The UFO’s size compared favorably to a B-29, except with a thicker body.”

And then it disappeared. It could probably be ruled out as a hoax, right? Just a story two bored pilots came up with as the peanuts flew accompanied by riotous giggles – except that one of the passengers saw it too.

Wikipedia, if you would please:

“Given the early hour of the flight, most of the passengers were asleep. One of them, Clarence L. McKelvie, would later offer corroborative eyewitness testimony. He asserted that he saw an extraordinarily bright light from his window seat in the aircraft, describing it as unlike lightning. He later told Project Sign investigators that the light seemed to have moved parallel to the plane, but at a higher altitude.”

Still not convinced? What about ground witnesses. UFOs.About.com says:

“One saving grace for many of the passengers was that, because of the hour, they were asleep at the time of the incident. But there were also witnesses on the ground who saw the UFO. Several individuals from Robbins Air Base, located near Macon, Georgia, also saw the unknown object. Their description was consistent with that of the two pilots. Their observation was about 1/2 hour before the DC-3 encounter. After tracing 225 flights of the same morning, a passenger plane was ruled out, according to a government official.”

The government, apparently, was at a loss for words. An Air Force spokesman went as far as saying:

“…this country has no plane resembling a double-decked, jet-propelled, wingless transport shooting a 40-foot flame out of its back end.”

The explanation they eventually went with was first offered by Dr. J. Allen Hynek. It was an extraordinary meteor. One that apparently wasn’t confined by gravity’s typical demands.

That’s a lot of sightings by a lot of people describing the same thing. In a court of law that spaceship could have been found guilty on testimony alone. And assuming that causing the spill of peanuts was as serious a crime then as it really should be now (what with the economy and all) – it’d probably be sentenced to quite a stint in the pen.

And you know, really, if a spaceship was behind bars hammering out license plates and taking conjugal visits from the Deathstar – well what could the skeptics really say then? Unless the spaceship joined the prison crips, that is. Everyone knows it’s best not to report on a prison crip.

Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

The thing that bugs hecklerspray most about its dearly departed mother-in-law was the way she lay in the coffin with that wide-toothed, ear-to-ear grin. It’s an image that still haunts us as we lay awake at night staring into the darkness of our clenched eyelids.

The Grinning Man has a (probably) less frightening smile on him – but those who’ve seen him would likely argue that point.

The Grinning Man seems to be a paranormal oddity akin unto Spring Heeled Jack or The Mad Gasser of Mattoon in that it seems to be very human-esque, but nobody is really sure.

That’s not to say nobody’s seen him though – oh no! Plenty of people claim an encounter – like this one off of Wikipedia:

“Perhaps the most famous sighting of a Grinning Man is reported to have taken place on October 11, 1966 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The entity was sighted by two boys, James Yanchitis and Marvin Munoz, as they were walking home along Fourth Street and New Jersey Street when they reached a corner parallel to the New Jersey Turnpike. The turnpike is elevated and there is an extremely steep incline going down from the busy street above which leads to Fourth Street. A very large, high wire fence runs along the edge of the other street below where the boys were walking, making it incredibly difficult to near impossible for anyone to want to climb up the incline to the turnpike above.

“There are bright street lights in that area, which gave the boys a good glimpse of what they called “the strangest guy we’ve ever seen.” Yanchitis noticed the strange entity first. “He was standing behind that fence,” he stated later to investigators. “I don’t know how he got there. He was the biggest man I ever saw.” “Jimmy nudged me,” Marvin Munoz reported to police, “and said, ‘Who’s that guy standing behind you?’ I looked around and there he was… behind that fence. Just standing there. He pivoted around and looked right at us… then he grinned a big old grin.” There had been recent reported incidents of violence in the nearby neighborhood, such as a middle-resident being chased by a “tall green man” down that same street and on the same night, so the boys fled quickly.”

That sighting seems to have been a pretty big deal when it happened – big enough to have caught the attention of John Keel - the famous Mothman researcher. Keel interviewed the boys three days after the incident – Wikipedia has those details as well;

“Munoz and Yanchitis were interviewed by Keel separately in the home of Mr. George Smythe and both boys told the exact same story. “The man was over six feet tall, they agreed, and was dressed in a sparkling green coverall costume that shimmered and seemed to reflect the street lights. There was a wide black belt around his waist.” The boys also said “He had a very dark complexion, and little round eyes…real beady…set far apart.” The most frightening and bizarre aspect of the encounter is the fact that “They could not remember seeing any hair, ears, or nose on this figure.”"

Keel, we assume, decided to get his hands dirty with this case because he thought it kind of sounded like a Mothman encounter. Others think the Grinning man is an alien. Still others think it’s one of the Men in Black or a cryptid like a shaved version of Bigfoot. We are of the school of thought that his shiny green wardrobe definitely rules out being a Man in Black.

Given the stated evidence, in fact, we feel strongly that he is a gay disco dancer. This next sighting may just prove our theory wrong. It’s off the website Profiling the Unexplained:

“In Nov. 1966, Woodrow Derenberger was driving home in his truck when he heard a crash.  Out of nowhere, a vehicle came zooming up behind him and quickly passed him up.  After passing him up, the vehicle slowed down and stopped, blocking the road.  The witness noticed that it was the strangest vehicle he had ever seen, and described it as looking like a “kerosene lamp chimney”.  It apparently was flaring at each end, and the ends were narrow.  The vehicle had a large bulge in the center.

“All of a sudden, a strange, tall man stepped out.  He was described as being “really tall and tanned”.  Derenberger claimed that the man had a “gleaming green” outfit on, similar to what the boys in NJ noted.  The Grinning Man alleged communicated with Derenberger telepathically and asked him strange questions about UFO sightings in the area.  The entity then, telepathically, revealed his name to be “Indrid Cold”.”

Indrid Cold – wasn’t that the name of a Care Bear villain? Somebody better put Care-A-Lot on at least orange alert. Meanwhile we’ll keep working down here – trying desperately to learn the true identity of this Grinning Man, and to end his nefarious smiling once and for all.

This we swear.

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Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

When it comes to aliens there are generally three kinds – the fuzzy ones that eat cats and thrive on prime-time TV, there’s the kind with the broom-helmets that occasionally show up to thwart Bugs Bunny, and there’s the super hot ones to which all of mankind happily hands over their planet. Like on V.

Add to that all inclusive list, if you will, the Nordics. Like the ones an off-duty police officer just reported encountering.

When people talk aliens they generally think of little gray fellows with enormous black eyes and a chest-full of lubricated items destined for earthlings’ bum-bums. Those creatures certainly are real, as our poor uncle Albert’s scab-covered underwear drawer will surely attest, but they aren’t the topic-aliens of the day.

That’s because today we’re talking about the Nordics – those tall blond aliens from another galaxy that we assume got here in a big wooden spaceship powered by dozens of enslaved oarsmen. In this, our hour of need, we’ll let Wikipedia get you up to speed on these guys:

“Nordic aliens (Aryan aliens) is a name given to what are said to be a group of humanoid extraterrestrials. They are so named because they are said to resemble Nordic, Scandanavian, or Aryan racial images. Nordic aliens form a notable part of UFO/abduction belief and the contactee movement in European and Latin American nations, but are not commonly found in accounts from the US.”

The European nation where today’s account takes place is England. To set the stage, picture a lone policeman, off-duty and care free. He’s cruising through the countryside when he happens upon a crop circle. And in said crop circle he sees this (according to the Telegraph):

“The sergeant, who has not been named, was off-duty when he saw the figures standing in a field near Silbury Hill, and stopped his car to investigate. However, as he approached the ‘men’ – all over 6ft tall with blond hair – he heard “the sound of static electricity” and the trio ran away ”faster than any man he had ever seen”.

Andrew Russell, a crop circle researcher, summed up the Sergeant’s experience like this (Also from the Telegraph):

“[The Sergeant] said: ”At first he thought they were forensic officers as they were dressed in white coveralls. He stopped his car and approached the field. ”The figures were all over 6ft and had blond hair. They seemed to be inspecting the crop. When he got to the edge of the field he heard what he believed to be a sound not dissimilar to static electricity. ”This crackling noise seemed to be running through the field and the crop was moving gently, close to where the noise was. ”He shouted to the figures who, at first, ignored him, not glancing at him. When he tried to enter the field they looked up and began running. ”He said; ‘They ran faster than any man I have ever seen. I’m no slouch but they were moving so fast. I looked away for a second and when I looked back they were gone. ”I then got scared. The noise was still around but I got an uneasy feeling and headed for the car. For the rest of the day I had a pounding headache I couldn’t shift.””

Why exactly the Nordics ran off like that is unknown – it sounds pretty weak though. Comparatively speaking, green aliens bang on rooves and what-not trying to terrify the people that have seen them. And the gray aliens – they’ll melt off your fingers. If the best the tall blond aliens can muster is a quick escape on foot (not even in a spaceship), well that’s not overly impressive.

Of course we probably wouldn’t say that to their faces.

No, we wouldn’t do that.

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Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

As paranormal events go, this one really stands out. It stands out, perhaps, because we’ve never heard of anything quite like it. There are no UFOs to speak of, nobody’s claimed a terrifying ape-man encounter deep in the woods, and as far as we can tell nobody’s gotten ghost-hickeys.

Ask our Aunt Sally about the hickeys.

Today’s topic is a man who has appeared in everybody’s dream.

There appears to be some very strange epidemic wherein one man is being seen in the dreams of people all over the world.

You’re probably wondering exactly how anybody could possibly know that their dream phantom looks exactly like one who haunts the night-fantasies of so many others. The answer is simple – from ThisMan.org:

“In January 2006 in New York, the patient of a well-known psychiatrist draws the face of a man that has been repeatedly appearing in her dreams. In more than one occasion that man has given her advice on her private life. The woman swears she has never met the man in her life.

“That portrait lies forgotten on the psychiatrist’s desk for a few days until one day another patient recognizes that face and says that the man has often visited him in his dreams. He also claims he has never seen that man in his waking life.

“The psychiatrist decides to send the portrait to some of his colleagues that have patients with recurrent dreams. Within a few months, four patients recognize the man as a frequent presence in their own dreams. All the patients refer to him as THIS MAN.”

Not everybody who sees This Man is necessarily getting life changing advice from him. Some people are just flying through the air with him at their side. Some see him escorting them out of a shopping mall with a confusing floor plan, and still others find themselves making sweet, sticky love to him all day long forever and ever.

Or something.

Some say he’s a human being who’s somehow obtained the ability to project himself into people’s dreams anywhere in the world. Some say while doing so he can change his appearance so that he’d never be recognised in the street. Still other’s think it’s God himself gracing the sleep-time of mortals across the globe.

Our theory is that Israel is somehow behind all this, and they’re doing it to eventually get all westerners attracted to sheep.

That’s not really our theory, but those guys sure catch flack, don’t they?

Now you all know that we here at hecklerspray are truly dedicated to getting multiple sources for absolutely every story we ever tell you. This time, however, we’re not going to do that because there are three bats perched in an office corner behind us and the closest broom is two floors down.

We’re a bit panicked, you understand.

As such, we’ll close out today’s story with a bunch of alleged first hand encounter quotes from the same website we just used.

Again, it’s from ThisMan.org:

“I have had this recurrent dream for some years now. A tall, dark man shows me a picture and asks me if I can recognise my father in it. The man in the picture is this man I have never seen before, he looks nothing like my dad, nevertheless I inexplicably answer that I do recognize my father. At this point I usually wake up feeling very peaceful. Other times the dream continues, I am standing before my father’s grave, I place some flowers on the ground and I realise the photograph on the tombstone is missing.”

“I fell in love with him from the very first time I saw him in my dream. Even though if I think about it I must admit he’s really ugly. And yet each and every time, he sweeps me off my feet with his romantic gestures and sweet words. He buys me flowers, jewellery, he takes me out to dinner or to the beach to watch the sunset.”

“I have always had this dream of flying in the sky over my city and observing my friends from up there. Since I moved to another house I started meeting this man while flying. Not every single time that I have this dream about flying, but often enough. He flies too, but he never speaks.”

“The first time I had a dream about this man I was having a hard time at work. I had a dream about getting lost in a huge and deserted shopping mall. Suddenly this man appeared and I started running away from him. He chased after me for what seemed like an hour until I found myself against a wall in the kids’ area in a supermarket. At this point he smiled at me and he showed me the way out towards the cash desks and I woke up. Ever since that night this man has appeared in all of my dreams and he always gives me directions to get out of the dream and wake up.”

“I have never had homosexual relationships or even fantasies. But I dream about having sexing with this man all the time. I must admit he has a lot of imagination and he pleases me. Sometimes when I wake up I discover I have had a nocturnal emission.”

“I saw this man in my dream, dressed as Santa Klaus. When he showed up I felt so happy, just like when I was a little girl. Then he smiled at me and his head became a balloon,floating in the air above me, but no matter how hard I tried to catch it, I just couldn’t reach it.”

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve several bats to pin to the ground, trap in a bag and toss out a window.

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Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

Ghosts are passe and Sasquatch seems about as scary as a bucket full of lollipops. Whatever is the former world of terror/monsters to do? Why, they need to invent some sort of a new creature to fear – and by new creature, we mean of course, children. Not just any children though – needy ones with black eyes.

Black eyed children, it seems, are a fairly new epidemic.

Of all the paranormal oddities you could encounter, few would truly terrify. If you encountered a UFO, you’d likely be nothing but awe-struck unless it seemed to be positioning itself to suck you up. If you ran into a Sasquatch you’d be too busy counting imaginary money as you aimed your mobile phone at it, and shadow people – well sure, shadow people would make you poop your pants until they slide down to your ankles.

Other than that though, nothing would really seem that bad, right? Except Black Eyed Kids. BEKs, as they are frequently quick-referenced, have a tendency to strike fear to your very core as they stand there politely asking to use your phone, bathroom or vehicle.

On the surface they seems like nice teenagers and you can’t think of one reason not to help them, but inside your skin every part of you is screaming to slam the door and hide forever. Have you heard of these kids before? It wouldn’t be too surprising if you hadn’t – they’ve only been around 10 – 15 years or so. Here’s a bit on them from Paranormal.About.com:

“The first well documented and discussed account came from a journalist named Brian Bethel in 1998. In his story, two children (not quite teens, but close) approached him as he sat in his car while parked in a parking lot. At first glance, the kids looked normal, wearing clothes that were in style and had a pale, olive colored skin. In acknowledging the two boys, Bethel was overcome with a peculiar fear that he describes in his account as: “I could feel fight-or-flight responses kicking in. Something, I knew instinctually, was not right, but I didn’t know what it could possibly be.”

“Claiming that they were on their way to see a movie but had left their money at home, the two boys asked Bethel for a ride back to their house. When Bethel did not allow them into his car, the kids seemed to get annoyed and kept asking for a ride. As Bethel’s fear and panic increased, he actually found himself wanting to open the door. However, when Bethel noticed their eyes, a primal fear took over and momentarily paralyzed him; the kids had coal black eyes, completely lacking pupils and irises.”

If you’re wondering how that encounter ended – the man sped off with an empty back seat. Most encounters with the BEKs are on your very own front porch. They’ll ring your bell and then give you a fairly inconspicuous story about how they need your phone, or that their black eyes are soon to turn yellow if you don’t please let them in for a heavy pee.

But the terror always takes over though – nobody ever lets them in because of it. And it’s a good thing too, as there’s some speculation that BEKs need permission to enter your abode before they can eat your freshly salted, semi-marinated face off.

For the record we really don’t know what the kids would do upon entrance because nobody’s ever fallen for their tricks. Well almost nobody. One man commenting in a chatroom claims he did. He also claims that what happened next seemed straight out of a horror film. It’s overly long and spellcheck-free -but a worthwhile read.

As found oon Haunted Diary.com:

I have read many accounts of these black eyed kids but i dont think any really come close to what happened to me when i let two into my house. Some people think that if you let them in that the will kill you, obiviously i can say this is not true.

this is what happened, i was sitting in my bedroom at home when i heared a knock on the door, it was not too late so i didnt hesitate opening the door to whoever it was. when i opened it there was two children standing there, both were looking at the floor. “yes ” i said, the taller one asked if they could come in as they were lost and the other boy needed the toilet. I live in an area where it is very easy to get lost, so i just ashumed that they were telling the truth and was looking down because they were shy, even though the one talking, spoke very confidently. so i let them in, the one who needed the tolitet just walked in and straight up the stairs so i shouted up its on the right, i dont know why i didnt find this strange but most toilets are upstairs and as he was young i didnt think anything of it.

i told the other one that the phone was down the hall, “thanks” he said and he started to walk down the hall, i followed him and then i suddenly came over with a really awfull feeling like something bad was going to happen, i became very nervious and a bit shakey i still cant explain how that happened, the boy stopped at the phone and paused, “everythink ok?” i asked, he turned to me and looked up and thats when i saw his eyes, and trust me i will never get that picture out of my head, i was so scared that i couldnt even scream as i turned to run down the hall the other kid was standing at the end.

i became very dizzy and stuggled to stand up, he walk closer to me and said that they had been sent to collect me, i still couldnt bear to look into his face, i pushed away from him and ran into my frontroom and slammed the door shut, i was in so much shock about what was happening i couldnt think straight, this is something that you dont even expect to happen even in movies. after standing against the door for around and hour or so i finaling got the courage to make a run for the back door, so i ran to it and unlocked it, i ran to the back of my garden and jumped over the fence not once looking back.

my friend lived close so i ran to his house, i told him the story and as i guessed he was a bit sceptic about what i had said. i convinced him to come back with me, when we got there we looked around the whole house but couldnt find them. ever since this happened i always have a dream that this kids with the black eyes stand over my bed with there hands streching to me, i hope to god that i never see these again.

Sent to collect him. Well who knows what that really means, but we assume the boys were collectors for an intergalactic zoo. That wouldn’t be a bad life though, would it? You’d eat free, people would probably bathe you with a long brush, and every time you had a kid the local news station would hold a fun contest where the winner gets to name it.

Really that kind of sounds nice, doesn’t it?

Of course it does.

If the kind of collecting they do includes a human-sized lamination machine to prevent you from bending at the corners, well – that just sounds terrible.

Let’s all continue to not let them in, shall we?

It’s agreed then.

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Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

People are familiar enough with Bigfoot and the common descriptions given to him – that being visually identical to how Rosie O’Donnell would look if she always walked around naked and backwards with her face on the reverse-side of her skull. What people don’t often know is that the sasquatch is not the only hairy anomaly out there – oh no.

You see, there’s also the much less reported Agogwe – an animal that’s every bit as hairy as sasquatch but a fraction of the size. There have actually been a surprising amount of sightings of this guy – sightings to be detailed on the next page, sucka.

When it comes to the Agogwe, there are three basic sightings that seem to get reported the most. Let’s get them out of the way right off the bat. Here is what Captain William Hitchens claims to have seen in 1900, in his own words:

“Some years ago I was sent on an official lion-hunt in [east Africa] and, while waiting in a forest glade for a man-eater, I saw two small, brown, furry creatures come from dense forest on one side of the glade and disappear into the thickets on the other. They were like little men, about 4 feet high, walking upright, but clad in russet hair. The native hunter with me gazed in mingled fear and amazement. They were, he said, agogwe, the little furry men whom one does not see once in a lifetime.”

Hitchens didn’t tell his story publicly until 1937. He was, of course, met with ridicule at which point Cuthbert Burgoyne defended him in a magazine with his own Agogwe sighting a year later. Here are his own words:

“As we watched [Africa's east coast from a Japanese cargo ship] two little brown men walked together out of the bush and down amongst the baboons. They were certainly not any known monkey and yet they must have been akin or they would have disturbed the baboons. They were too far away to be seen in great detail, but these small human-like animals were probably between four and five feet tall, quite upright and graceful in figure. At the time I was thrilled as they were quite evidently no beast of which I had heard or read. Later a friend and big game hunter told me he was in the Portuguese East Africa with his wife and three hunters, and saw a mother, father and child, apparently of the same species, walk across the further side of the bush clearing. The natives loudly forbade him to shoot.” Without the quote, an account of Mr. Burgoyne’s making such a report is given in.”

And finally, here is the third frequently given account, as found on Wikipedia:

“Charles Cordier, a professional animal collector who worked for zoos and museums, followed the tracks of the [Agogwe] in Zaire in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Once, said Cordier, [an Agogwe] had become entangled in one of his bird snares. “It fell on its face,” said Cordier, “turned over, sat up, took the noose off its feet, and walked away before the nearby African could do anything”

Well that’s pretty interesting, and if that last account is true it shows quite a bit of intelligence clicking and ticking deep in the skull of that little furry animal. You should know that the Agogwe seems to go by different names depending on where its living. Other names it goes by include the Kakundakari, the Kilomba, the Sehite, the Agogure and Orang Pendek.

We said there were three primary stories available for the curious to read, but that’s only for those specifically researching the Agogwe. If you check under the other names, like the Orang Pendek, for instance, there’s more to find. For example, here’s a sighting from a Dutch colonist. We found it, too, on Wikipedia:

“I saw that he had short hair, cut short, I thought; and I suddenly realized that his neck was oddly leathery and extremely filthy. “That chap’s got a very dirty and wrinkled neck!” I said to myself. His body was as large as a medium-sized native’s and he had thick square shoulders, not sloping at all… he seemed to be quite as tall as I. Then I saw that it was not a man. It was not an orang-utan. I had seen one of these large apes a short time before. It was more like a monstrously large siamang, but a siamang has long hair, and there was no doubt that it had short hair.”

And there you have it. Hairy creatures of various sizes are found absolutely all over the world – and sightings of them are taken seriously enough for National Geographic to be in the middle of a very real effort to catch the Orang Pendek on film.

Good luck to them, that’s what we say. Good luck to them.

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Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

There’s ghosts, there’s UFOs, and then sometimes the two groups get together and have a real freaky lookin’ baby. They say the act itself is usually preluded with some smooth R&B after a night at the theatre and a nice dinner that costs more than $20 for the both of ‘em.

The end result is something called Phantom Planes – airbuses that both look and sound real, but then disappear into nothing. Some low-flying encounters with them have been so lifelike that pedestrians have jumped for cover.

As we already said – Phantom Planes are a phenomenon wherein the ghostly structure of a plane materializes, flies for a bit and then disappears. We haven’t heard if any long-dead crew have been seen piloting the ghost-ships, but there have been some reported very close encounters – like this one from the BBC:

“The most dramatic incident which came to the attention of ufologist Margaret Fry was reported by mothers in Llangernyw, Denbighshire, as they were picking up their children from school. Several claimed they were sent running for cover as the plane – which they described as rusty, with no paint work – roared over their heads.

“In the distance it followed the landscape and dipped down in the valley at such speed that the parents felt the plane was sure to crash, but they continued to watch as it pulled up and, with “great effort”, it managed to make it over some distant hills. Margaret said there was a shocked silence after the incident before locals began calling officials to try and find out what had happened to the plane.”They were told that no such aeroplane would even be allowed to fly in that condition,” said Margaret. “

Sounds unique, right? It’s not. Here’s another account – this one first hand. It’s from a man named Tony Ingle, who was out walking his dog:

“It was very eerie…I could see the propellers going round but there was no sound..It was getting lower and lower and I thought, this thing’s going to crash…..It was bizarre…I could see it was banking as if trying to turn, and then it seemed to go down just over a hedge. I ran up the lane to see if I could see anything. I expected a plane to be in the field but there was nothing…just lambs and sheep. Everything was silent, you could hear a pin drop…”

There was no sound with that particular sighting – it’s not always the case though. In this next one – taken from a 1976 edition of the Cincinnati Post (and found on Unexplained-Mysteries.com, there were a bunch of different types of witnesses – the last of which even heard people screaming as the phantom plane was about to crash:

“Butler County, Ohio, deputies discontinued a search yesterday afternoon for a plane which reportedly had crashed in Reily Township near Imhoff and Indian Creek Roads late Wednesday night. Deputies said an amateur radio operator heard what he thought was a distress call from a plane believed to be flying from Oxford to Cincinnati about 11 p.m. About 1:45 a.m. yesterday, George Mosley, 1203 Azel Avenue, Hamilton, his son and two other boys became separated in the same area while coon hunting. During the separation the boys said they saw a white flash in the sky at treetop level, then heard screaming and a crash. Airports in Hamilton and Butler County had no record of any small craft filing a flight plan during those hours. Deputies used a plane and walked the area in search of a downed plane Wednesday night until fog set in on the Reily area. The search was continued yesterday morning and discontinued after nothing was found.”

That’s a pretty creepy account – not only did the three boys see the thing individually,  but a radio operator heard a distress call completely separate from the other account.

Phantom Plane sightings don’t seem to happen too often – they’re rare enough to be pretty free from devoted debunkers, as far as our quick internet search can tell. Should any of these debunkers arise we’ve little doubt their chief arguments would have to do with tricks of light or the moon through the trees.  It doesn’t answer much, but when you have to publicly expose something you can’t actually study there’s not a lot of wiggle room.

All we know is if we saw a ghost plane accompanied by terrified screams, a light emitting explosion and distressed radio calls, we’d probably think at least twice about our brand of cough syrup.

Ad we’d rub our eyes.

Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

The mental imagery of a creature called the Dover Demon may be one of a horned, scaly biped surrounded in flames and looking quite sinister. This description, however, seems to be more suited to Courtney Love than the actual Dover Demon itself. No, the Demon is actually described as being about four feet tall with a watermelon shaped, noseless and mouthless head. It was sighted three times in 1977, and people still be trippin’ about it today.

Wikipedia has a good opening paragraph for the topic at hand:

“The Dover Demon was first sighted at night by three seventeen-year-olds who were driving through the Dover area when the car’s headlights illuminated it. Bill Bartlett, the driver, reported that he saw what he thought at first was a dog or a cat, but upon closer inspection realized that it was a bizarre, unearthly-looking creature crawling along a stone wall on Farm Street.

“Bartlett continued to watch the creature, and he reported it to have a disproportionately large, watermelon-shaped head and illuminated orange eyes, like glass marbles. It had long, thin arms and legs with slender fingers, which it used to grasp onto the pavement. It was hairless and had rough, flesh-toned skin, described as tan and sandpaper-like. The creature’s appearance was very plain, with no nose or ears, and no mouth was seen.”

Later that day, and then again the day following, the creature was seen again. One of the newer sightings was made by John Baxter, a kid who encountered the creature on foot. It seems to have run away from him, and then inexplicably just stood near a tree at a safe distance.

The third sighting was by two young people in a car. All descriptions are roughly the same except for the eye colour, and they all happened within about a mile of each other.

One cause of grief to all the people who reported an encounter is that they were all teenagers. Skeptics found things easy to brush off as an immature conspiracy of sorts. We haven’t seen any reports that say all the witnesses knew each other, but again, they all did seem to live in pretty close proximity (we refer you, again, to the fact that all sightings were within a mile).

Another interesting paranormal anecdote lies within the book Dover Farms, which is an account of local area history. It’s a passive description of one man’s encounter with a different kind of demon – the king of demons, in fact:

‘‘In early times this road went around by the picturesque Polka rock [an area very close to the Dover sightings] which was called for a man by that name, of whom it is remembered, that amid the superstitions of the age he thought he saw his Satanic Majesty as he was riding on horseback by this secluded spot.”

It seems that not much of a description was given for the horse-back demon, so it’s impossible to say whether or not the encounter was with the same beast. One thing worth mentioning is that the 1977 Massachusetts police chief who looked into the Dover Demon case has mentioned that he personally knew all the young witnesses, and that they were all good kids.

Could good kids make crap up? No – never. That’s never been done. Still though – thirty-some-odd years later and the involved parties – now full fledged adults, obviously – haven’t changed their story. That’s gotta be good for something.

Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

If hecklerspray ever had to fight a crocodile, we’d start out by giving it our famous one-two punch, follow up with our world renowned triple-round-house kick, and then we’d force its tail into its own mouth making it chew until it was nothing more than a little scaly donut.

Don’t try that at home, kids. We’ve had training.

If we ever had to fight Mahamba, on the other hand, we’d probably do all the same things except with construction cranes instead of our hands. That’s because Mahamba is reported to be a 50′ long croc. It’s been sighted in the Congo, and some say it’s a remnant from a very ancient age.

We have a strange quote for you today – strange because we can only read it ourselves through Google’s Translator tool. It gives the account of a man who encountered Mahamba in the wilds of the Congo. He’d gone to hunt ducks, but saw this alligator/crocodile thing he estimated to be 15 metres long.

He only had a wussy gun with him as he came to hunt tiny little ducks, but he had a better weapon in his vehicle. He sent a kid to get his bigger gun. The is where Google translator kicks in. The original text is in German, and is found on Kryptozoologie-online.de:

“After the boy after a long time came, [the hunter] decided to brave because of the apathy of the crocodile which it had apparently not noticed, a little closer in his direction to crawl. Unfortunately, [the croc was] alerted by the ducks, which immediately aufflogen him, given his scant stock to a rapid, led untargeted shot. It was like it had come, because the giant crocodile-like flight left just before him like the ducks down the sand bank into safe water and disappeared into the murky waters.”

Probably the most coherent thing ever to appear on this website, right? Did you catch the part where the great white hunter was actually crawling towards this thing? Yeah, we did too. The story goes on:

“Hardly two or three days later ran the adventurers on a sand bank. After just one meter of scarce water under the keel of the boat was, waggled it unusually fierce and would not be the low water level would have assumed he almost rammed a river horse to have. Suddenly ran an approximately twelve meter-long crocodile, apparently uncomfortable by his boat taken quickly into deeper water. The animal had them after the Belgians later thought, already heard and escaped going to be in the direction in which her boat on the sandbank auflief. At the collision the animal had a speed of 64 Kmh added.”

As we understand it, a few days later the same crew got beached on a sand bar. One of these huge alligators freaked, shook their boat a bit, and then swam off. It’s kind of a tough read. Now for some plain English quotations. This is off of the website AmericanMonsters.com:

“Probably hailing from the Lake Likouala swamp region, this animal may, in fact, be a completely new species of heretofore undiscovered large, central African crocodile. That having been said, rumors of this animal’s prehistoric origins still persist, convincing some investigators that the animal might be a freshwater variety of the presumed extinct, aquatic reptile known as mosasaurs.”

Other than what we’ve already told you, there doesn’t seem to be a lot known about the Mahamba – by the western world, anyway. The natives could probably expound on the subject quite a bit.

When they get more internet savvy, we’ll update you all.

Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

The Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui, or Am Fear Liath Mòr as he seems to be known in his native Scotland, is a ten-foot-tall creature that ‘haunts’ a very high peek in the Cairngorms. He’s been described as both a physical creature and a ghost of sorts, and many a mountain climber has a story including him.

Whether the Fear Liath is a physical creature or not, those that have encountered him have said they were absolutely overcome with fear – sometimes enough so to cause them to stumble through five miles of mountainous fog just to escape his presence.

The Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui, as we said, is a ten-foot-tall creature that has been described a few different ways. Some say he’s got a barren skin, while others insist he’s covered in a short brown hair. The Encyclopedia Mythica describes him thusly:

“Fear Liath More, or the Grey Man, is a creature said to have inhabited the vicinity of the summit cairn of Ben MacDhui, one of the six great peaks of the Scottish Cairngorm Mountains, for generations. The Grey Man is identified as a presence encountered both physically and psychically. In its physical form, the Grey Man is most often described as quite large and broad shouldered, standing fully erect and being in excess of 10 feet in height, with long waving arms.

“He is also reportedly olive complected or, alternatively, covered with short brown hair. Because of this, some tend to associate him with the Bigfoot or Sasquatch of North American fame, or the Yeti of the Himalayas. Footprints found on the summit of Ben MacDhui do closely resemble the “typical” Bigfoot imprint. However, this association is misleading, as the Grey Man has far more interesting identifying characteristics than his physical description alone.”

From  what we’ve gathered, the chief difference between the Grey man and Bigfoot is that a Bigfoot is generally (we said generally) encountered with your eyes. When you run into the Grey Man you usually don’t see him – but you’re suddenly terrified by him. Encyclopedia Mythica also gives a description of a typical encounter:

“More frequently, the Grey Man is encountered in physical sensation, but without a true physical form. Sensations of this type include vast, dark blurs which obscure the sky, strange crunching noises, echoing footsteps which pursue the listener, an icy feeling in the surrounding atmosphere, as well as a physical feeling of a cold grip on, or brush against, the observer’s flesh. There is also a high pitched humming sound, or the Singing as it is sometimes called, which is associated with Ben MacDhui and the Grey Man.”

The singing sounds pretty spooky. It gets worse – a specific encounter is given on Wikipedia:

“In 1925, the noted climber John Norman Collie recounted a terrifying experience he had endured while alone near the summit of Ben MacDhui some 35 years before. “I began to think I heard something else than merely the noise of my own footsteps. For every few steps I took I heard a crunch, and then another crunch as if someone was walking after me but taking steps three or four times the length of my own.” Collie was unable to make out the source of the noises because of mist, and continued “… [as] the eerie crunch, crunch, sounded behind me, I was seized with terror and took to my heels, staggering blindly among the boulders for four or five miles.”"

Here’s another encounter – this one includes gun shots, and was found on Ghostclub.org.uk:

“In 1943 the most sensational account of the Big Grey Man appeared penned by a mountaineer Alexander Tewnion: he claimed he had actually shot at it with a revolver! He described how he had been climbing Ben MacDhui when a thick mist descended so he descended by the Coire Etchachan path. He was disturbed to hear menacing footsteps and recalling Professor Collie’s experience he peered into the mist. A strange shape loomed up in the mist, receded and then came charging towards him. Pulling out his gun he fired three times and then turned and ran reaching Glen Derry in a time I have never bettered since.”

So the Grey Man seems to be physical enough to get shot at, but generally appears as more of a terrified feeling than a face to face meet & greet. Although the beast has never been sighted off-mountain, there are a few other places in this big wonderful world where similar entities are believed to exist – spooking you out as you walk alone through the middle of nowhere.

Wheever they are, we are more than content to just give them their space.