THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO MYSTERIOUS BEINGS JOHN A. KEEL 18 ATOM DOHERTYTOR ASSOCIATE® S BOOK NEW YORK This book is dedicated to the memory of Otto Binder, Charles Bowen, Alex Jacldnson, Coral and Jim Lorenzen, Ivan T. Sanderson and all the others who spent their lives pursuing the unknown and the unknowable. NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book." THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO MYSTERIOUS BEINGS Copyright © 1970, 1994, 2002 by John A. Keel All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. This book is a revised edition of Strange Creatures from Time and Space, published in 1970 by Fawcett Publications, Inc. A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC 175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010 www.tor.com Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC. ISBN 0-765-34586-2 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-45544 First Tor edition: October 2002 Printed in the United States of America 0987654321 Contents 1. A World Filled with Ambling nightmares 1 2. "The Uglies and the Nasties" 10 3. Demon Dogs and Phantom Cats 17 4. Flying Felines 32 5. The Incomprehensibles 37 6. Giants in the Earth or "Marvelous Big Men and Great Enmity" 47 7. The Hairy Ones 59 8. Meanwhile in Russia 71 9. Big Feet and Little Brains 80 10. Creatures from the Black Lagoon 95 11. Those Silly "Flying Saucer" People 144 12. The Big Joke from Outer Space 160 13. Cattle Rustlers from the Skies 179 14. The Grinning Man 194 15. Cherubs, Angels, zmd Greys 208 16. The Bedroom Invaders 216 17. Winged Weirdos 224 CONTENTS 18. The Man-Birds 233 19. West Virginia's "Mothman" 244 20. Unidentified Swimming Objects 271 21. Scoliophis Atlanticus 282 THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO 22. The Great Sea Serpent of Silver Lake, new York 293 23. The Yellow Submarine Caper 302 MYSTERIOUS 24. Something Else . 314 Afterword: 2002 323 BEINGS Index 329 ONE A World Filled with Ambling nightmares o matter where you live on this planet, someone within two hundred miles of your home has had a direct confrontation with a frightening apparition or inexplicable "monster" within the last generation. Perhaps it was even your cousin or your next-door neighbor. There is a chance—a very good one—that sometime in the next few years you will actually come face to face with a giant hair-covered humanoid or a little man with bulging eyes, surrounded by a ghostly greenish glow. An almost infinite variety of known and unknown creatures thrive on this mudball and appear regularly year after year, cen- tury after century. Uncounted millions of people have been terri- fied by their unexpected appearances in isolated forests, deserted highways, and even in the quiet back streets of heavily populated cities. Whole counties have been seized by "monster mania," with every available man joining armed posses to beat the bushes in THE COMPLETE UE TO MYSTERIOUS BEINGS • 3 2 JOHN A. KEEL dents of the little village of Segamat were quoted in the Malay search for the unbelievable somethings that have killed herds of Mail as describing a shy, harmless giant who blundered about in cows and slaughtered dogs and horses. the bushes, leaving huge eighteen-inch footprints in his wake. The Over the past hundred years, thousands of intriguing human report speculated that perhaps the giant ape was on the move interest items have appeared in newspapers all over the world, because of the pressure of advancing civilization and the loss of describing incredible encounters with awesome creatures un- feeding grounds. known to science. Can all these items be hoaxes and journalistic An ape twenty-five feet tall is a biological impossibility. But jokes? Can we believe that the major wire services, whose very that does not mean that one cannot exist. existence depends on their reliability, employ men to concoct and Berwick, Nova Scotia, sounds exotic and faraway. Actually it is circulate irresponsible tales about hairy giants and helmeted pyg- on the Canadian peninsula lying just off the coast of Maine. In mies stepping from circular flying machines? Can we conclude April 1969 a giant eighteen-foot-tall figure was seen by many res- that the millions of badly frightened people who have reported idents on the outskirts of that little town in the Annapolis valley, such encounters to the local pohce and authorities are merely according to the Evening News. It was allegedly a "tall, very dark pathological liars and lunatics? form" seen striding about the landscape at a speed of about twenty We know that our little planet is infested with remarkable ani- miles per hour. After the initial witnesses reported the "Phantom," mals and insects that defy common sense. Have you ever consid- as it became known, local police had to assign two cars to the area ered the total absurdity of the giraffe? Or that inane rodent, the to control the bumper-to-bumper traffic. lemming, swarms of which periodically march across miles of ice People in Nova Scotia have been seeing all kinds of oddities for in the Arctic to drown themselves in the sea? years. Giant luminous snakes that appeared suddenly and melted Scientists had a good laugh in 1856, when Paul du Chaillu away mysteriously were reported there in 1967. returned from the Congo and described his encounter with a hairy These things are "erratics" and "anomaUes." They have been giant. "He stood about a dozen yards from us, and was a sight I entertaining us for years, and their appearances have spawned all think I shall never forget," Du Chaillu reported. "Nearly six feet kinds of cults and "crackpot-ologies" ranging from "Angelology" high, with immense body, huge chest, and great muscular arms, (the study of the frequent appearances of angels) to UFOIogy (the with fiercely glaring large deep gray eyes ... he stood there and study of flying saucers). Since 1896 a spectacular assortment of beat his breast with his huge fists till it resounded like an immense weird apparitions have been dropping out of the sky to plague us. bass drum." A nude giant paid a visit to Michigan in 1897, according to the We know now that Du Chaillu was the first white man to meet newspapers of the period, and when a farmer tried to move in for a gorilla in Africa. Gorillas did not exist in 1856 simply because a closer look, the creature lashed out with his giant foot and broke the desk-bound scientists of London and Paris said they did not the poor man's ribs. exist. For the past twenty years South America has been infested with People are still seeing things that do not exist scientifically. beings ranging from eight-foot giants with single eyes in the mid- They are seeing them in Nebraska, in England, in Siberia, in dle of their foreheads to little man-shaped things only two feet South East Asia, and in national parks everywhere. tall. Cyclopean giants have also reportedly been seen in the state A Reuters dispatch from Malaysia on August 15, 1966, of Oregon, and a radio announcer in Minnesota claims he ran into reported that an ape twenty-five feet tall was on the loose. Resi- THE COMPLETE GUE TO MYSTERIOUS BEINGS 4 JOHN A. KEEL • 5 a group of tiny animated tin cans only six inches tall. Other crea- would make an acceptable and credible witness in a court of law if tures ranging from fifteen to twenty feet in height have scared the called upon to testify about a more mundane master. We are not dayUghts out of people in such scattered places as Mexico and dealing with wild-eyed crackpots and publicity seekers. These are people very much like yourself and, contrary to the hardboiled Argentina. cynicism of New York editors, most people are honest and they In West Virginia more than one hundred sober, God-fearing are particularly truthful when trying to describe an unusual but people have seen some sort of tall, gray human-like figure with possibly important event to police officers, newsmen, and scien- wings since 1966. It has glowing red eyes and is known locally as tific investigators. "Mothman." A similar creature horrified four teenagers in Kent, Many of these witnesses will be named in this book. They are England, back in 1963. real people, they exist, and you can check them out if you wish These are only a few of the examples in our lexicon of monsters although by now most of them are weary of the ridicule and non- and ambling nightmares. There are hundreds more and we will try sense that usually follows the act of reporting an unusual event. to give a comprehensive, documented account of each one as we Skeptics who have had no newspaper experience usually tiy to go along. Unfortunately there is very little scientific evidence that make an issue out of the rehabihty of newspaper reports. We grew any of these things really exist. In many cases unusual footprints up m the newspaper business and have been involved in journal- were found on the ground afterwards and plaster casts were made ism all our life. Newsmen are trained in a hard school and total of them. In some instances witnesses were clawed or went into a objectivity becomes a part of their hfestyle.