Dr KARL SHUKER

Zoologist, media consultant, and science writer, Dr Karl Shuker is also one of the best known cryptozoologists in the world. He is the author of such seminal works as Mystery Cats of the World (1989), The Lost Ark: New and Rediscovered Animals of the 20th Century (1993; greatly expanded in 2012 as The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals), Dragons: A Natural History (1995), In Search of Prehistoric Survivors (1995), The Unexplained (1996), From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (1997), Mysteries of Planet Earth (1999), The Hidden Powers of Animals (2001), The Beasts That Hide From Man (2003), Extraordinary Animals Revisited (2007), Dr Shuker's Casebook (2008), Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times (2010), Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery (2012), Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History (2013), Dragons in Zoology, Cryptozoology, and Culture (2013), The Menagerie of Marvels (2014), A Manifestation of Monsters (2015), Here's Nessie! (2016), and what is widely considered to be his cryptozoological magnum opus, Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors (2016) - plus, very excitingly, his first two long-awaited, much-requested ShukerNature blog books (2019, 2020).

Dr Karl Shuker's Official Website - http://www.karlshuker.com/index.htm

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Saturday 3 April 2021

UPDATING THE LOUISIANA GIANT SPIDERS SAGA

 
Giant spider sculpture in Ottawa, Canada (© Markus Bühler)

Last year, I posted a 2-part ShukerNature blog article of mine (click here and here to access it) concerning the alleged encounters during 2005 and 2007 by various Louisiana-based U.S. army personnel with some incredibly huge spiders. Unsurprisingly, it attracted a great deal of attention, especially as by all the fundamental laws of biophysics such creatures shouldn't – couldn't – exist. The information concerning these immense arachnids was provided to me by one of their reputed eyewitnesses, and he gave me full permission to publish all of it, on the sole condition that I did not make public his identity, which I have not done. Instead, I refer to him merely as Sgt S.

My 2-part article engendered a fair few comments from readers, some of which queried certain technical and military aspects of Sgt S's testimony. As a result, I have recently received some additional information from him, not only addressing those queries but also providing further insights into the creatures that he and others allegedly encountered. Moreover, he has provided me with a series of truly startling, thought-provoking scale drawings that readily reveal the supposed sizes of those spiders alongside an average human. As noted above, the zoologist in me cries out that such creatures simply cannot be. Equally, however, Sgt S's extensive, impassioned communications are ones that ostensibly originate from someone who was truly terrified and still patently haunted by what he claims to have seen.

As before, Sgt S has kindly granted me full permission to publish these updates under the same condition as before, that he remains anonymous, and to which I fully accede. Personally, however, I can see no feasible way via which the diametrically opposite, mutually exclusive disparity between the biological incongruity of the spiders and the apparent honesty of his belief in what he claims to have seen can be resolved. So I choose instead to present Sgt S's additional information and scale drawings herewith without comment from me, but in the form of a new article that will serve as a publicly-available record of the latter data's existence, which I feel needs to be done.

I received the first of Sgt S's new emails to me just over a fortnight ago, on 14 March 2021, in which he stated: "I finally saw your blog postings of my accounts with the giant spiders at Fort Polk. Thank you so much for bringing this story to light and keeping my name out of it. After reading it all over again I remembered a few more details from the 2005 sighting, regarding the animals' behavior that are significant enough to include".

On 18 March, Sgt S. added:

I was so traumatized by these events that I became disassociated, as if this were too unbearable to think about or as if it happened to someone else. To be clear on the retelling of these parts of the story, I did not fully recall the entire play-by-play of events, as it was so hard to deal with, that I blocked it out trying not to think about it. I have not talked about it at all with anyone until writing about it with you, 15 years later. Now it haunts me to even see a large dog lose in the park as that is the general size of the creature’s torso, without the 6-inch venomous fangs and long creepy legs. I was finally able to talk about it with a friend from work who is very open-minded to this sort of thing and that helped me to decide to write these additional details. You have my permission to publish as agreed upon before.

I must discourage anyone from trying to get near one of these things, or even walking in their area as they are extremely dangerous, venomous, man-eating, ambush predators that can move with tremendous force and speed.

He then presented an extensive account, which he revised slightly during some subsequent emails. This is his finalised version. Be sure to check back to my previous 2-part article in order to set the scene and read in context what is now presented below:

 

2005 Sightings

Animal Type 1A

On the night of the first encounter in 2005, when I first saw this thing that I will label Type 1A, I could not believe what I was seeing. In the heat of the moment, I charged forward and used my M4 carbine weapon’s buttstock to smash Type 1A in the head repeatedly, swinging wildly with my weapon at its legs while kicking and screaming at it at the top of my lungs. The flashlight shining directly in its eyes illuminated the eye tube itself making it appear light blue. I can compare it to being in a dark room and shining a light into to the bottom of a clear glass bottle filled with clear viscous fluid or clear jelly. The eyes of course were outwardly convex and had no eyelids. Before I charged, Type 1A tilted its head to the side and around so I could see the light all the way inside its head and there were increasingly smaller rings inside the eye tube. I think the adrenaline from my fight or flight instinct kicked in when I saw it moving. Type 1A backed up and sprayed a mist of foul-smelling liquid at us from about 5 or 6 feet away. The pheromone-laced liquid came out from the animal’s mouth, (or likely from glands near its mouth) and initially fanned out like water from an automotive windshield wiper nozzle, before dispersing into a mist. It happened very suddenly while I was firing blank 5.56mm rounds in its face, so it may have been a defensive response. The scent was a mix of ammonia and strong animal musk, like the scent of a cat marking its territory but much more pungent. The smell was not as bad as Skunk spray but more of a wet, swampy undercurrent of stench. With the sound and flash from 30 blank rounds, Type 1A turned its back and fled very clumsily, tumbling into its own legs, and smashing into the trees and sticks on the wooded area and was feeling its way around trying to find a path to escape before it scampered out of sight. I believe these things cannot see very well like most spiders and instead follow their noses (or whatever olfactory organs a spider has).

After I cut SGT Becky loose from the thick threaded silk, I became entangled and stuck to the ground. While SGT Becky was screaming and running back to our tent, I was nauseated from the pungent spray and basically frozen in fear, unable to move my legs. I then changed magazines in my weapon and made a Morse code S.O.S signal by firing a three-round burst, followed with three separate single-round shots, finishing with another three-round burst. I did this pattern three times. I could still hear movement in the trees from the direction where Type 1A fled, so I frantically cut away blindly at the dirt trying to free myself until I could get up and run like the devil back to our tent. I was very disoriented, dizzy, and itchy on my exposed skin as was SGT Becky. In retrospect, I believe this was due to a neurotoxic effect on the inch-long bristles or hairs we found all over our uniforms that I believe were ejected from Type A1 in a defensive reflex. Common tarantulas are known to shoot bristles or urticating hairs from their abdomens, to ward off predators. The bristles were black, white, and tan. Some of these were collected in a zip lock bag but the senior leadership took these away with any other evidence.

Later when they asked me to describe what I saw, I recalled thinking Type 1A looked like an old, frail man. Its head was not covered in hair, but the face and fangs were covered in long, light-colored bristles. This gave it the appearance of a bald, bearded elderly man, with its long, thin legs giving it the appearance of frail, bony arms, and legs.

When the senior leadership arrived one of the soldiers recognized the scent on us and ordered his men to go get bottles of ammonia and Simple Green (a degreaser popular with the Army). He ordered us to wash our hands and faces with ammonia and warned us to burn our uniforms or wash them three or four times with the Simple Green to get the smell out, or ... “she’ll come after you”. He did not elaborate further.

 
Scale drawing showing a Type 1A spider alongside an average human (© Sgt S)


----


Animal Type 2A

When everyone calmed down from all the excitement I headed back to my cot. SGT Becky returned from the Aid station under assistance as they had given her tranquilizers. She was removed from training the next day under a command referral due to her traumatized state. My tent mates began complaining about the musty smell on me, so I threw the scent-marked uniform in a laundry bag outside, next to the tent about 20 feet from the door. After I changed and made a coffee I started heading out to the showers and laundry, and stood just inside of the door frame, getting my eyes adjusted to the dark. I had a black shaving kit/ toiletry bag in my right hand outside the open door when I felt something hit the bag. There was a whitish, silver-dollar-sized material connected to a thick string against my black bag. As I turned it slightly to look, it was pulled away from me suddenly and with great force, smashing my wrist into the metal frame of the door and snatching it out of my hand. Just then another soldier leaving the portable toilets, about 40 feet perpendicular to the door, started gasping in silent screams, pointing at a dark mass, about the size of a man and low to the ground along the outer wall of the tent, where my laundry bag was (this [creature] I will label as Type 2A). He threw a plastic spit bottle at the shape on the ground, splashing tobacco spit all over Type 2A, and it turned in his direction making a hissing sound. Immediately I threw my hot coffee and canteen cup that I had in my other hand. Type 2A turned again now with its back to me and raised with its head topping off at about five feet from the ground. Its 2- to 3-inch-thick front and side legs then spread out, shaking menacingly in the air, spanning 6 or 7 feet in circumference! Type 2A's back legs were dangling straight down like it was on its tiptoes and its abdomen was about 1 foot thick by 3 feet long. All this happened instantaneously, and in a split second, it leaped 50 or 60 feet horizontally away! (I suppose it could have run on its back legs but it covered 50 to 60 feet of distance in a split second!) It reached the edge of the "200 man" tent and without stopping it rounded the corner, crashing into another tent alongside ours. It clumsily clambered over the next tent ripping holes in the fabric then disappeared into the woods. Animal Type 2A was much darker in color, with a thicker coat of bristles, much thicker in body mass. Its abdomen was more elongated than bulbous, and its overall size was greater than a large man. I did not see its fangs as it was dark and quickly turned its back to me, but overall, it gave the appearance of an enormous tarantula. Someone found my bag the next day by the wood line and it was punctured, with the shaving cream can exploded and the other contents mangled. Again, the senior officers collected it and ordered us not to talk about the incident. The soldier who threw the spit bottle already had a phobia of spiders and this event so traumatized him that he could no longer speak intelligibly. He became so uncontrollably stressed that he was also removed from the training under command referral.

 
Scale drawing showing a Type 2A spider alongside an average human (© Sgt S)

In my first email to you on the 2005 event, I mentioned another soldier woke up to what he said looked like a bearded old man wearing large black goggles, looking at us at the base of our open tent door. To elaborate further on that event, that night of the first sighting I placed Army issue cots upright, lengthwise around my sleeping cot in a feeble attempt to protect myself with a wall around me. In the night I awoke to a loud metal banging sound at the rear tent door near where I was sleeping. But when several of us got up there was nothing to see. In the morning one of my upright cots was gone. I found it crumpled up in the field behind our tent with more sticky silk around it. I assume one of the spiders returned and spit silk at where their scent was coming from, catching an upended cot instead of me. The cots are made of sturdy aluminum intended for years of military use and not easily crumpled up by human hands.

After these incidents, the senior leadership came back and ordered me to surrender my boots and any clothing I wore when I was sprayed by Type 1A. I washed my equipment including my helmet, flashlight, and weapon with the Army-issued M295 Decontamination Kit (this is a charcoal powdered mitten that has a disgusting rotten fish oil smell). I also used the M295 kit on my head, face, neck, hands, and arms. I repeated this process a few times to get the smell off me and we sprayed the area down with Army issued STB, or super tropical bleach, (the M295 and STB are for chemical weapons defense). After the decontamination, a few showers, new uniforms, spraying down the tent area with STB, and pouring STB into the hole where Type 1A appeared, the creatures did not return. I was quietly praised for being a survivor and openly mocked for seeing something that was not there or feeling stressed about an event that never happened.

 

2007 Sighting

Animals Type 1B & Type 2B

I would like to label the 2007 daytime sighting of the large, light-colored trapdoor spider, Type 1B, and the night-time sighting of the gargantuan spider on the roof as Type 2B. [see Part 2 of my previous article here for details of Sgt S's 2007 sighting.]

 

OBSERVATIONS

1. Nocturnal, occasionally diurnal.

2. Burrowing and tunneling.

3. Creates Trap Doors with silk feeder lines to capture and ambush prey. Alerted by vibrations.

4. Large venomous fangs, and potentially venomous tailhook/ stinger.

5. Spitting silk to capture prey from at least a 20’ distance.

6. Makes a hissing sound when agitated.

7. Urticating hairs with a neurotoxic effect.

8. Raises up and rattles its forelegs legs before jumping horizontally at high velocity to 50 or 60 feet.

9. Pheromone marking and hunting.

10. Inferior sight.

11. Superior olfactory senses.

12. Prey baiting.

13. Easily startled.

14. Returns to scent marked hunting of prey even when startled.

15. Follows scent marked prey over many miles and many days.

16. Moves silently under cover of darkness.

17. "Bags" prey in silk to carry off to burrows.

 

 
Scale drawing showing a Type 1B spider alongside an average human (© Sgt S)


ASSUMPTIONS:

1. I assume the creatures were hunting after the scent marked on my clothes and body by Type 1A and Type 1B. I propose They may work communally or competitively going after each other’s scent marked prey.

2. Type 2A spit a sticky web hitting my bag and pulled it away from me, perhaps as a way of capturing prey from a distance, like the spitting spider, Scytodes thoracica.

3. I think it reacted to the liquids thrown at it like many common spiders do, by raising up and jumping away, albeit with extraordinarily terrifying force and speed. If I were in its path it would have undoubtedly taken me with it.

4. Animal Types 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B may all be the same species but different sex and at different life phases. I believe the lighter colored, smaller Types 1A and 1B are the males, as both male spiders are usually smaller, and each performed the scent-marking behavior. I believe Type 2A and Type 2B are the females. Both being larger, darker colored and followed the scent of Types 1A and 1B. One theory is that these are four different animals at two different life stages. Another could be that these are two animals that have enlarged from 2005 to 2007. These could be mated pairs.

5. I speculate that these things may have a long lifespan where they hibernate or have years of inactivity where they remain in their tunnels.

Sgt S concluded his testimony with the following telling comment contained in an email to me of 26 March 2021:

Putting together the scale drawings made me sick with anxiety. I feel nauseous just looking at them again. If I did not see it with my own eyes I wouldn't believe that venomous spiders as large as grizzly bears could actually be roaming around freely in the Louisiana woodlands. I don't care if anyone else believes it to be honest because gravity doesn't care if you believe in it either. Go ahead and jump off a tall building and try not to believe in gravity if you want. 

 
Scale drawing showing a Type 2B spider alongside an average human (© Sgt S)

So there we have it, make of it all what we will, but undeniably fascinating.

 

I have already stated my personal opinion as a zoologist regarding the biological feasibility of such spiders, based upon what is currently known concerning arachnid anatomy and physiology. As for whether the U.S. Army would – or could – keep such extraordinary events a secret or alternatively endeavour to seek out and either capture or destroy anything as inimical as these arachnid entities, I am not a military man, so I have neither the theoretical knowledge nor the practical experience to answer such questions. Nor do I have any means of either confirming or discounting Sgt S's testimony. Like so much evidence put forward in cryptozoology, it is entirely anecdotal, unsupported by any physical, tangible evidence. Nevertheless, in view of its detail and depth, I have decided to document it herewith, because I feel not to do so would be both judgmental and remiss, and might even mean that if there is other, independent evidence out there that could substantiate its claim, it might not be brought forward. But now it might, so now we must wait and see.

My sincere thanks to Sgt S for sharing his testimony with me and, as before, for most kindly permitting me to make it publicly available.

For further details concerning giant spider reports, be sure to click here to read a detailed survey on ShukerNature, and also check out the comprehensive chapter devoted to such creatures in my book Mirabilis: A Carnival of Cryptozoology and Unnatural History.



13 comments:

  1. I'm no expert, but I too have a hard time reconciling this compelling testimony with biology. As I believe you said in the first article, these spiders would have to have evolved in several significant ways to reach this amazing size. Would they have evolved in such ways internally without a similar external evolution (i.e., they're described as simply normal spiders writ large)?

    Also, regarding them being a variety of trap door spider, the water table in much of Louisiana is perilously high, hence the need to bury folks in above-ground vaults. Would a trap door-type spider, especially one this large, be able to function?

    Like you, I have no answers. But these posts are fascinating.

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    1. My sentiments exactly, Alex - thanks for posting!

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  2. Honest opinion: I think this guy is having fun making this up and he'll probably keep adding ever more elaborate details as long as we are happy to keep reading them. The "game" follows a pattern I'm familiar with from UFO research and is usually a disinformation tactic. For what purpose I couldn't say but I'm certainly curious.

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    Replies
    1. Interesting - thanks for your insight Martin.

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  3. I would just be careful in letting one's theories dictate what reality can or can't do.

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    1. Precisely, which is why, although I think the possible existence of such spiders to be highly unlikely from a fundamental biological perspective, I choose not to rule it out entirely.

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  4. I personally find the account all but impossible, on the grounds that were such spiders real I would expect them to be a prominent feature of local folklore. The First Nations peoples are not shy of recounting tales of man-eaters, and missionaries and anthropologists who have recorded their lore would have no reason not to publish such stories.

    Furthermore, I find it highly unlikely that such spiders would be so geographically limited as to only be found around one military base. As such, I should think there would be no small number of civilians who had seen these animals. Given that Louisiana has an active storytelling tradition to such a degree that the local werewolves are still reported, I fail to see how man-eating spiders of such colossal scale would escape notice.

    (Also, these things would probably be apex predators. That would be kind of hard to miss.)

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  5. While I do not claim to be an expert on Louisiana folklore, I find it most curious that such a large and memorable species appears to be entirely absent from local legend. The first inhabitants, namely the indigenous First Nations peoples, would naturally have no reluctance to regale the arriving Europeans with accounts of monstrous man-eating spiders, being as they were entirely unburdened by any such notions as the impossibility of giant spiders. (This is based on the ground that anything that eats your neighbours is going to be widely believed in.)

    Furthermore, the chances of such a formidable species (which, based on the description, should be more then capable of killing alligators and black bears) being limited to the region around Fort Polk is highly implausible. (Also, Fort Polk has an ongoing controversy over feral horses. Not the sort of thing one would expect to remain a problem in the presence of such predators.)

    Basically, if such spiders were real, I should think they would either rapidly become noncontroversial or no one but stupid thrill-seekers would ever set foot in Louisiana.

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  6. I had a chance to "sleep on it" for a while after reading this man's account, and something bothered me that didn't register at first. Allegedly, certain men already stationed there at Fort Polk already knew of the existence of this deadly arachnid, which could easily kill a man - yet they never took steps to make sure no one walked down the nature trail where one could meet a gruesome end? Wouldn't they instead have *unofficially* (at least) warned anyone from straying outside the bounds of the fort's perimeter? Much like they would warn people that, say, man-eating grizzlies were in the vicinity?

    If the story is true, then why would some in charge of the base turn a blind eye to the obvious danger lurking to the servicemen walking in the area? Dr. Shuker, if you are able to contact this person, it would be a question worth asking.

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    1. From what I can tell, the existence of these creatures was classified, top-secret information, so perhaps the men stationed there who did know about them had been forbidden by their superiors to talk about them, evem to the extent of not giving out warnings to others about them? Just a thought, I have no idea if this is true or not, but it would tie in.

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  7. Here is a screenshot from the movie "Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets," where Harry and his friend are surrounded by spiders about the size of the largest reported spider in Louisiana. Just to give you a CGI idea. ;>) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WmagkeBn7_RoNQreK676e1pBJJMM2zWN/view?usp=sharing

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  8. There are tarantulas in Louisiana, and they do burrow. Suppose a secret government lab had a few "J'ba Fofi" specimens laying around. The Army needs to test something out on either the spiders or their soldiers, or both maybe. This highly implausible reasoning is all that I can come up with for logic's sake. A transplanted cryptid used in military training for dog know's what.

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  9. I think this may be a hoax, the spiders described seem a little too similar to the frostbite spiders in the video game Skyrim, based on their sizes, description of their appearance, spitting, bundleing prey in silk, etc

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