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.

Rocket Ghosts, as is common knowledge, are the spirits left behind by long since exploded aerodynamic artillery. The most commonly sighted ghost rockets haunt the streets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where they’ve been seen playing Dance Dance Revolution in empty shops at midnight.

Ghost Rockets, on the other hand, are a strange aerial phenomenon seen thousands of times in 1946 Sweden. They were caught on radar, reported hundreds of times – and even allegedly left a crater in the bottom of a lake. And perhaps the strangest part – according to an alleged government top secret memo, is this:

“These phenomena are obviously the result of a high technical skill which cannot be credited to any presently known culture on earth.”

Governments have had a long, weird, alleged history with UFOs. Remember a few weeks ago when we dropped ol’ Henry McElroy on you? He’s the retiring politician that said every single UFO/Alien story you’ve ever heard is absolutely true, or something like that. Well that’s the kind of upfront no-nonsense attitude we’ve all come to expect from all of our world governments – especially Sweden.

We know, we know – normally when you think of Sweden you just think ‘Well, they screwed Norway again,’ but this time we want you to think about the strange, extremely large UFO flap they had in 1946. Wikipedia really sums things up:

“Ghost Rockets (also called Scandinavian ghost rockets) were mysterious rocket- or missile-shaped unidentified flying objects sighted in 1946, mostly in Sweden and nearby countries. About 2,000 ghost rockets sightings were logged between May and December 1946, with peaks on the 9 and 11 August 1946. 200 sightings were verified with radar returns, and authorities recovered physical fragments which were attributed to ghost rockets.

“Investigations concluded that many ghost rocket sightings were probably caused by meteors. For example, the peaks of the sightings, on the 9 and 11 August, also fall within the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower. However, most ghost rocket sightings did not occur during meteor shower activity, and furthermore displayed characteristics inconsistent with meteors, such as reported maneuverability and being trackable on radar.”

There was another strange characteristic attributed to some of the ghost rockets as well – they made no sound. There it was, a giant piece of machinery chugging across the sky and not a peep was made – even when they’d explode. According to the August 13, 1946 New York Times:

“One of the best of the puzzling reports came from a meteorologist who observed an unknown object closely while he was outdoors watching cloud formations with a telescope. At first the meteorologist thought he was seeing an airplane on the horizon, brightly reflecting sunlight. The object’s very high speed soon disproved this idea. In a few seconds, the observer got a clear view of the ghost rocket: It was, he judged, ninety feet long, torpedo-shaped, and had a shiny metal surface. He estimated the object was but 2,000 meters distant, but made no noticeable noise. Abruptly the ghost rocket exploded — again without a sound.”

Certainly that sighting from an unnamed yet trusted Swedish meteorologist is enough to convince anyone of the credible oddity that are Scandinavian Ghost Rockets. But if you’re the type that prefers to read it in top secret government documents, well then – here you go:

“One of these  objects  was observed  by a Swedish  technical  expert near his home on the edge of a lake.   The object crashed or landed in the lake and he carefully noted its azimuth from his point of observation.   Swedish intelligence was sufficiently confident in his observation that a naval salvage team was sent to the lake.   Operations were underway during the visit of USAFE officers. Divers had discovered a previously uncharted crater on the floor of the lake. No further information is available, but we have been promised knowledge of the results.   In their opinion, the observation was reliable, and they believe that the depression on the floor of the lake, which did not appear on current hydrographic charts, was in fact caused by a flying saucer.”

And there you have it. These things were flying around like mosquitoes in a swamp in ’46 Sweden. They were sighted by the educated, recorded on radar and some say one of them smashed a crater into the bottom of a lake. Were they UFOs? Certainly – because nobody knows what they were. But were they space ships?

Well…

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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.

The Brown Mountain lights are a mystery that has been going on at least since 1913. They are red lights that rise up from the mountain ever so slowly, hover for a second, and then flash the words ‘Good Grief’ in Morse code – hence the first part of the name.

That’s not true. Well – to be fair the lights do seem to be an actual phenomenon, but they definitely don’t flash any Peanuts related messages. Instead they just float up there, eerily glowing red and hovering like the ghost of Anna Nicole Smith‘s used tampon in zero gravity.

This is getting gross – on with the story!

First and foremost, sorry to make you think of a dead woman’s old bathroom garbage can. Second and second-most – with a name like the Brown Mountain Lights you may be tempted to compare them to the Phoenix lights – arguable the best documented UFO sighting on record. Not so – you see the Phoenix lights are largely assumed to be a spaceship or something. Be it man made or not, it looked like a craft – some people even claim to have seen the bolts and rivets that held it together.

Although the Brown Mountain lights are definitely UFOs, it seems to us that nobody suspects them of being a craft of any sort. From what we’ve studied on the matter it seems to typically be considered more of a ghost-type thing.

We’ll let Wikipedia tell you about an early sighting:

“One early account of the lights dates from September 13, 1913, as reported in the Charlotte Daily Observer. A fisherman claimed to have seen “mysterious lights seen just above the horizon every night”, red in color, with a pronounced circular shape.”

And we’ll let Ibiblio.org tell you a little more:

“One thing is certain, the lights do exist. They have been seen from earliest times. They appear at irregular intervals over the top of Brown Mountain – a long, low mountain in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. They move erratically up and down, visible at a distance, but vanishing as one climbs the mountain. From the Wiseman’s View on Linville Mountain the lights can be seen well. They at first appear to be about twice the size of a star as they come over Brown Mountain. Sometimes they have a reddish or blue cast. On dark nights they pop up so thick and fast it’s impossible to count them”

Of course the government has investigated. The United States Geological Survey declared at least twice that people who see the lights on the mountain are actually seeing headlights from cars, trains, or perhaps the mechanical lovechild-hybrid of the two.

Would you like to see for yourself? Well here are two videos to help you with that. The first is a news clip that’ll tell you about the legend of the lights, and actually shows a brief clip from the second video we’re posting. Said second video is pure unadulterated 49 seconds of light-flashing footage.

Enjoy them, won’t you?

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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.

Historically speaking, if a leprechaun’s not carrying a bowl of delicious cereal under a rainbow with several children chasing him, we really don’t care if he exists or not. They’re not as cool as monsters, not as spooky as ghosts, and they do far less anal probing than aliens.

Plus – nobody really believes in them anyway – right?

But there have been sightings – lots of sightings. And possibly – just possibly – one got caught on tape.

It wasn’t carrying any of the aforementioned delicious cereal though, so we remain quite dubious.

First and foremost – leprechauns aren’t only sighted in Ireland. As we understand it they get at least three weeks of annual leave, and they like to spend that vacation time seeing the world. A few years back one was all over Mobile, Alabama. A local news channel captured the pandemonium:

Irelandseye.com has a webcam secreted away in a mystical part of the Irish countryside. The purpose of the cam is to find leprechauns – and some people consider it a success – like this comment-leaver:

“I’m a fairy believer myself. I’ve always been since a child. And because of my belief and gifts to the fairies I’ve seen them. Here I’ve seen 3 very vivid Leprechauns and a few more but not as vivid.”

Or this one:

“he is sitting at the base of the tree with a red coat and hat on..with something like a rod in his right hand and something white in his left.”

The webcam updates every 30 seconds or so – and it caught an actual stream of a possible leprechaun running through the bushes on the right within the first 10-15 seconds or so. It’s not wearing a green hat, it’s boringly bald and it kinda looks like an all gray bowling ball hovering with delight. Check it out:

It’s bookin’ pretty fast, isn’t it? Again – without the green bowler and no bowls of cereal, we’re extremely skeptical about that thing being anything supernatural, but we sure don’t know what it is. If you’d like to investigate the scene yourself – hop on over to Irelandseye.

Who knows – you may get credit for concretely discovering a green-clad high sock-wearing sort of all around gay tiny new species.

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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.

Let’s say for a second that while on vacation somewhere you’re enjoying a leisurely stroll. You notice a swarm of butterflies prancing on the wind. Squirrels are gracefully leaping about with mouthfuls of nuts, and a mother-bird gently feeds her young.

Then a gigantic owl/man hybrid comes screaming out of nowhere and swallows most of your face.

That, folks, is a slightly exaggerated version of today’s topic.

The Owlman of Mawnan is known by a few different names. Some people call him the Cornish Owlman, some refer to him as the Death Raptor, and in most local pubs where you can find him slumped over the bar every weekend he goes strictly by Ted.

And now for a physical description as brought to you by Unknown-Creatures.com:

This creature has been described as a monstrous thing resembling a mix of 3 beings; an owl, a bear, and a man. The creatures height is estimated as 7 feet tall. It has large flapping wings that are covered with grayish-brown feathers. The legs and body are also covered with feathers. The eyes are large, slanted and glow bright red. On top of it’s head are pointy ears, it’s feet have large, black crab-like claws.

After reading that, of course, the first thing that will probably come to mind is that the Owlman sounds an awfully lot like Batsquatch, except with huge sharp talons crammed into his loafers instead of size 22 toe-holders. If that’s what you thought, then you’re right. You’re right. That’s exactly what it sounds like.

It also sounds like a large, feathery creature of those proportions should have some eye witnesses too. Well it does. It says so right here on Wikipedia:

…Two months later two other young girls on July 3 14-year-old Sally Chapman was camping with a friend, Barbara Perry, in woods near the church. According to her account, as she stood outside her tent, she heard a hissing sound and turned to see a figure that looked like an owl as big as a man, with pointed ears and red eyes. The girls reported that the creature flew up into the air, revealing black pincer-like claws. Sightings of this figure continued to be reported on the following day.

Those weren’t the last of the sightings, either. The creature’s been spotted as recently as 1995, albeit probably with a Rachel-haircut.

It seems to us the real question here is why is this thing always associated with that church? Is it trying to repent for being half-bird (something Moses took great issue with, if we recall correctly). And why is it always appearing to young girls? Is it possible all the thing wants is a box of thin mints?

We don’t know, to be honest. Unfortunately we can’t answer any of these questions for you. We do, however, have a few suggestions for the locals. Put some of those cookies up on the bell tower and see if that doesn’t satisfy ol’ Owlman enough that he flaps on back to his home dimension.

Of course, if you’d rather have him lurking about you should do absolutely nothing.

We’re just saying…

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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.

Honey Island Swamp is a marshy place located somewhere in Louisiana. It would probably look a lot like other swamps around the world – inhabited by alligators, insects and the hideouts of Zartan, the master of disguise GI Joe guy who turned blue in the freezer. One thing that makes the Honey Island Swamp stand out though, is its very own mythical monster.

Honey Island enjoyed a nice normal existence until the seventies when a couple of men spotted a monster living in its swamp. The beast’s physical description appears to be identical to Bigfoot upon first look – but it’s not. The footprints the thing leaves behind vary from its hair covered cousin.

The Honey Island Swamp Monster leaves tracks that have what appears to be four toes, three big ones and one that looks thumb-ish. According to one cryptozoologist the feet that leave those tracks look like they are good for climbing. Bigfoot’s never been described as a climber.

Eye witness descriptions, though, seem to be very sasquatch-esque. It looks like a big furry ape-man covered in heaps and heaps of hair. Here’s the story of man’s first recorded encounter with the swamp beast. It’s off of AmericanMonsters.com:

“The legend of the Honey Island Swamp was first revealed to the world in 1974, when a pair of Air Traffic Controllers, Harlan E. Ford and Ray Mills, shambled out of the deep antediluvian sloughs of Honey Island with an unbelievable story… and something even more incredible. The veteran hunters claimed to have discovered a pair of unusual footprints imbedded in the soft earth next to a wild boar whose throat had been torn open. They saw something else that day. Something that would change their lives forever… they saw a monster.

“They described a vicious looking creature that stood on two legs. A man-like animal that was covered with a coat dingy, gray hair. The men estimated that this beast stood over 7 feet tall and weighed somewhere between 400 and 500 lbs. But what they remembered most were its sickly yellow eyes, set far apart on its skull, and the horrific stench which surrounded this creature… it was the smell of death.”

Since then there have been multiple encounters with the animal. A lot of people report hearing it, a lot report finding its four-digit tracks – and some say they’ve even seen it with their own eyes. On the accompanying video a man says he thought he hit a log with his boat at night time – and then when he shined his light on it he saw it was a partially submerged bipedal creature.

There’s one other thing you should know – footage of the creature allegedly exists. It was recorded by Harlan Ford, one of the first two men to report sighting the monster, but the tape just sat in a box gathering dust until his widow found it in 1980. It’s since been included in a Honey Island Monster documentary made by his grand daughter. The footage is included in this Youtube clip. It starts at 3:24 – don’t get overly excited though. The ape-man is only seen in the distance through some huge trees.

Aside from that, the video – which is a clip from Fox News’ Hannity & Combs – includes a whole bunch of eye witness accounts.

Enjoy them, won’t you?

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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.

This week: Cryptozoology/Myths

The Goatman we're talking about today has more to do with Bigfoot than it does a cowboy with an unnatural animal fixation. In fact – Goatman pretty much is Bigfoot from the sound of it, just replace all the ape parts with that of goat. He's all covered in fur, he walks on two legs and has cloven hooves. The hybrid has been spotted all over North America, and has several attacks on loving couples attributed to him.

The Goatman, a creature with goat legs, horns and hooves but human everything-else, is shrouded in mystery. Even less is known about him than Bigfoot. Speculation on his origins fly about anyway – according to an obscure Geocities website:

Opinions vary on where the Goatman came from. Some local scholars believe it is just the area's repressed subconscious feelings about the devil and religion that are manifesting themselves in these sitings. Other believe they really are seeing the ancient spirits of the satyrs and Pan. While the last theory seems to have the most interesting qualities. A scientist who worked at the National Agricultural Research Center, which just happens to be located in Prince Georges County, was supposed to have been doing some kind of research with goats. Then something went wrong with the experiments, and the scientist slowly turned into the half-goat, half-human monster [we] now know. Goatman retreated into the woods where he hides most of the time. The Goatman also developed an intense hatred of man and other animals.

Clearly those origins sound pretty comic bookish. In bigfoot stories, the beasty is generally only attributed a typical animal's brain-power. In the Goatman tales, however, it seems to be given human-like intelligence – enough to carry a double-edged battle axe. You read that right – this guy, at least in some sightings, carries an axe. Unknown-creatures.com describes this in a Maryland sighting:

In the first encounter reported, a couple was parked alone a lonely country road during a moon lit love making session, when the suddenly heard something banging on the hood of their car. Looking up they were scared to death to see the goat like creature staring at them, waving what looked like a double edged axe in it's hand. The creature suddenly turned and dashed into the surrounding woods.

Goatman-mania hit the area enough that on Nov 10, 1971, this headline graced the front page of a local paper:

"Residents Fear Goatman Lives: Dog Found Decapitated in Old Bowie"

The article told a story of a woman who heard her dog barking, then looked outside and saw the shadow of a hulking creature in her yard. The dog disappeared, then the next day she found her pooch quite decapitated. The article went on to tell how sightings of the Goatman had been reported all along a few local roads.

As far as we can tell there's been nothing but urban myth and rumours of the Goatman since the newspaper ran that story. It really doesn't give us a lot to work with. Maybe the big beast never existed at all.

Then again, maybe it does.

Read More:

Goatman (Maryland) – Wikipedia