TEN OF MY FAVOURITE CRYPTOZOOLOGY-LINKED LOCATIONS IN BRITAIN

Nessie and family ((c) Richard Svensson)

What do Cannock Chase, Renwick, Exmoor, Drummans, Falmouth Bay, and Bala Lake all have in common? If I added Loch Ness to the list, I'm sure that you'd guess much more readily. Yes indeed, they are all locations in Britain linked to sightings of mystery creatures. I recently wrote an online article for Enterprise Magazine, presenting ten of my favourite weird and (very) wonderful British crypto-locations, which can be accessed by clicking here.

Cockatrice (Friedrich Justin Bertuch)

So if you fancy travelling around the country in search of lake monsters and sea serpents, mermaids and master otters, owlmen, cockatrices, werewolves, alien big cats, and even a British bigfoot or two, now you know just where to go. Have fun!

Cornish owlman ((c) Richard Svensson)

MOTHMEN AND OWLMEN AND MANBATS, OH MY! – WELCOMING KEN GERHARD'S LATEST BOOK, 'ENCOUNTERS WITH FLYING HUMANOIDS'

Ken Gerhard's latest book, Encounters With Flying Humanoids: Mothman, Manbirds, Gargoyles and Other Winged Beasts

Today, I received through the post a copy of Encounters With Flying Humanoids: Mothman, Manbirds, Gargoyles and Other Winged Beasts. This is the latest book by renowned American cryptozoologist Ken Gerhard, who had added a very kind handwritten inscription to my copy before posting it to me – thanks Ken!

Several months ago, Ken had asked me if I'd write a foreword to his book, and after reading its manuscript I was only too happy to do so, as I was very pleased that these extraordinary and extremely diverse entities' reports had finally been compiled and assessed within a single volume, in so expert and enthralling a manner too.

As I wrote in my foreword, I've always been interested in this subject, ever since encountering by chance many years ago a fascinating book that included a number of different examples. But why waste time attempting to summarise what I wrote in my foreword? Far better simply to reproduce it in full here, as my personal, unequivocal recommendation to everyone interested in such beings, such 'things with wings', to purchase Ken's excellent new book without delay!

One afternoon during the early 1980s, I was browsing through the upstairs, second-hand department of Andromeda Books – the once-celebrated but now long-demised science-fiction and fantasy bookshop in Birmingham, England – when I came upon a paperback entitled Earth's Secret Inhabitants, which had been published in 1979. Its front cover illustration was extremely eyecatching – a full-colour depiction of two feathery-winged humanoids flying through the sky in a scene captured within the hulking silhouette of a bigfoot-type man-beast.

Initially, I'd assumed that this book was a sci-fi novel, but then I noticed that its authors were none other than D. Scott Rogo and Jerome Clark – two leading American non-fiction writers specialising in the field of mysterious phenomena. And when I turned to the back cover, the blurb revealed that its contents featured a wide range of surreal entities that apparently share our planet with us but have never been scientifically explained - including a veritable phalanx of winged 'bat-men'. Until then, I'd been largely unaware of these aerial apparitions, but after reading about them in Rogo and Clark's book – because, needless to say, I purchased it immediately! – I was totally captivated by their bizarre histories and extraordinary appearance, and from then on I made a point of collecting as much information concerning them as I could find.

My much-read copy of Earth's Secret Inhabitants (Dr Karl Shuker/Tempo Books)

The most immediate problem that I have always faced whenever doing so, however, is that such material is extremely disparate, scattered loosely among countless publications, yet rarely compiled or assimilated into any kind of lucid or lengthy coverage. This is why I was delighted to learn recently that Ken Gerhard was writing a book-length treatment of these winged wonders, and even more delighted when he very kindly invited me to write a foreword for it.

Reading through his book, Encounters With Flying Humanoids, it is evident that Ken shares my own fascination with the bat-men and man-birds that have haunted our skies for many centuries, continue to be encountered even today, in all parts of the world, and assume a diverse assortment of forms. Moreover, unlike previous writers, he has not been content to limit his coverage to such perennially-chronicled enigmas as mothman, owlman, and the man-bats of Texas, but has cast his gaze like a vast skyborne net far and wide through time and space, encompassing many much more obscure examples that even I, despite having spent years of collecting material myself, had never previously heard of.

Consequently, Encounters With Flying Humanoids very commandingly fills a sizeable, (all-too-)long-present gap in the Fortean and cryptozoological literature, and it also makes enthralling, if not a little disturbing, reading. What are these mysterious flying figures with plumes of bird or pinions of bat, and where have they originated? Do they truly belong somewhere within our planet's grand scheme of things, or are they visitors from the great beyond – from alien worlds, planes, or dimensions, rarefied realms stranger than we can even begin to suspect? And if so, why are they here? What might their purpose be?

A worthy successor to his previous highly-acclaimed volumes on winged mystery beasts and cryptids of Texas, Ken's latest, superb book is a timely reminder of just how outlandish our land can sometimes be, how otherworldly our world may sometimes seem, and that there truly are more things – especially with wings – in heaven and earth, gentle reader, than are dreamt of in anyone's philosophy!

Click here to purchase Ken's book from Amazon.

With my very own flying humanoid! (Dr Karl Shuker)

INTRODUCING BRITAIN’S BAT-WINGED MONKEY-BIRD

Artistic representation of Britain's bat-winged monkey-bird (Richard Svensson)


The following winged wonder only became known to me in mid-October 2007, when Jan Patience, acting editor of the now-defunct British monthly magazine Beyond for which I contributed a major cryptozoology article each issue, brought to my attention a truly extraordinary email that she had just received from a reader. At that time, I was preparing a lead article on lesser-known British mystery beasts for the next issue of the magazine, so the email reached me in time for me to investigate it further and include a full account of the case in my article (Beyond, January 2008), and it is this account of mine that I shall now quote from here.

The email in question had been sent by Jacki Hartley of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, concerning a truly bizarre beast that she claims to have encountered on three totally separate occasions, and which she reported as follows:

"Back in 1969 I was 4 years old and travelling back from my auntie’s house in London. Dad had been driving for about half an hour and we were going through the countryside. I was in the back of the car when I suddenly heard an awful, screeching scream. Mum and dad were in the front chatting and heard nothing. It was twilight and as I looked out of the back window into the trees, I saw what I could only describe as a monster.

"It had bat wings which it unfolded and stretched out before folding back up again, red eyes and a kind of monster monkey face with a parrot's beak and was about 3 feet in height.

"To my 4 year old mind it was terrifying and I had nightmares for weeks. I did not have a name for this thing in my vocabulary and so called it The Bat Winged Monkey Bird as it seemed to be such a weird mixture of animals.

"I saw it again late one night when I was eleven from the back window of the car on our way home from Hastings, I think we were travelling through Robertsbridge and I saw it for the third time last year.

"It was 4.30 in the morning and I was woken by the same horrible screeching sound. Thinking someone was being murdered in the street I jumped out of bed and ran to the window, catching the tail end of it as it flew past. I knew immediately what it was. . .the same horrible monster thing I had seen all those years ago, The Bat Winged Monkey Bird was back.

"I would be very grateful if you or any of your readers could shed any light on or put a name to this thing."

When Jan forwarded Jacki’s email to me, I was naturally extremely intrigued, and replied directly to it, requesting any further information that Jacki could send.

Close encounter with the bat-winged monkey-bird! (Ryan Durney/Birds of Lore)

In response, I received this second email, together with two accompanying pictures, one of which is Jacki’s own representation of what she saw, and the other a photo of her taken at the age when she experienced her first sighting of the monkey-bird:

"My most recent sighting was at 4.30am on 19-10-06 outside my bedroom window, I saw the tail end of it fly past after the awful screeching noise woke me up, my address is in Tunbridge Wells in Kent.

"The time before that I was on my way back from Hastings in Sussex, having just passed through Robertsbridge. While the first time I saw it, we were coming back from London, heading toward Kent and had been travelling for about 20-30 minutes. The creature was sitting in a tree in a field off to my right.

"As for my parents, they just laughed and said I must have fallen asleep and had a nightmare; they weren't interested and simply dismissed it, even though I had nightmares about it coming to get me.

"Although the creature looked solid flesh and blood and made an awful sound, I think it could be paranormal in origin as I have never seen or read about anything that even vaguely resembles it, but if it is real, I would love to know if anyone else has seen it."

Jacki Hartley’s sketch of the bat-winged monkey-bird, and a photograph taken of her at the age when she first saw it (Jacki Hartley)

There is no doubt that this grotesque entity as described by Jacki does not correspond even vaguely with any known species of animal native to Britain. And even when venturing beyond the known into the realms of cryptozoology and zooform phenomena, there is little to compare with it, especially from the British Isles. Perhaps the nearest is the Cornish owlman, a weird owl-human composite spied in the vicinity of Mawnan Church Cornwall, mostly during the 1970s, and discussed later here. Remarkably, however, as I discussed in my Beyond article, Jacki’s creature is certainly reminiscent of the Raymondville man-bat(s), for which there has never been a satisfactorily explanation.

Raymondville man-bat (artist unknown, but appeared in Creatures From Elsewhere (ed. Peter Brookesmith, 1984))

Consequently, here, for anyone who may be unfamiliar with the latter, is a summary of the Raymondville man-bat case, together with a similar one subsequently reported from LaCrosse, Illinois, as quoted from my book Dr Shuker's Casebook (2008):

"Sitting in his mother-in-law's backyard at Raymondville, Texas, on the evening of 14January 1976, Armando Grimaldo suddenly heard a strange whistling, and a sound that reminded him of flapping bats' wings - a highly pertinent comparison, as it turned out. For just a few seconds later, he was attacked by a man-sized monstrosity with the face of a bat or monkey, a pair of large flaming eyes but no beak, dark, leathery, unfeathered skin, and a pair of huge wings yielding a massive 10-12 ft wingspan (i.e. twice that of any known species of bat). Swooping down at the terrified man, the creature snatched at him with its big claws, but, happily, Grimaldo was able to flee inside before his aerial attacker had inflicted any serious injuries. Nevertheless, his encounter was just one of several on file from this particular region of Texas during early 1976, all documenting sightings of a similar entity.

"Another ‘man-bat’, 6-7-ft tall with a leathery 10-12-ft wingspan, clawed hands and feet, yellow eyes, well-delineated ears, and revealing a huge snarling mouth brimming with teeth, almost flew into the windscreen of a 53-year-old man, Wohali, as he was driving his truck (with his 25-year-old son as passenger) along a road near LaCrosse, Wisconsin, just after 9 pm on the evening of 26 September 2006. The creature then flew back up into the sky and vanished, but the shock of encountering it was such that both men became physically sick. They were convinced that it was a physical, tangible entity. This remarkable case has been documented in detail online by Linda Godfrey at http://www.cnb-scene.com/manbat.html"

LaCrosse man-bat (Richard Svensson)

Returning to Britain's bat-winged monkey-bird: What is also very strange about Jacki’s report is that she saw the creature in three very different geographical localities and over a considerable period of time, yet without any other eyewitnesses apparently having seen it – or have they? This is where you, gentle readers, come in.

Keeping an eye on the bat-winged monkey-bird...or is it the other way round?! (Ryan Durney/Birds of Lore)

Like Jacki, I would love to know if anyone out there has indeed seen this extraordinary creature, or something like it. So if you have, please get in touch with any details that you can provide. I now declare the case of the bat-winged monkey-bird well and truly open for online investigation!

Bat-winged monkey-bird as illustrated in colour for the front cover of the January 2008 issue of Beyond, containing my article on lesser-known British mystery beasts (Philippa Foster)