MOTHMAN

The weird events connected to the Mothman began on November 12, 1966 near Clendenin, West Virginia. Five men were in the local cemetery that day, preparing a grave for a burial, when something that looked like a “brown human being” lifted off from some nearby trees and flew over their heads. The men were baffled. It did not appear to be a bird, but more like a man with wings. A few days later, more sightings would take place, electrifying the entire region.

Late in the evening of November 15, two young married couples had a very strange encounter as they drove past an abandoned TNT plant near Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The couples spotted two large eyes that were attached to something that was "shaped like a man, but bigger, maybe six or seven feet tall. And it had big wings folded against its back". When the creature moved toward the plant door, the couples panicked and sped away. Moments later, they saw the same creature on a hillside near the road. It spread its wings and rose into the air, following with their car, which by now was traveling at over 100 miles per hour. "That bird kept right up with us," said one of the group. They told Deputy Sheriff Millard Halstead that it followed them down Highway 62 and right to the Point Pleasant city limits. And they would not be the only ones to report the creature that night. Another group of four witnesses claimed to see the “bird” three different times!

Another sighting had more bizarre results. At about 10:30 on that same evening, Newell Partridge, a local building contractor who lived in Salem (about 90 miles from Point Pleasant), was watching television when the screen suddenly went dark. He stated that a weird pattern filled the screen and then he heard a loud, whining sounds from outside that raised in pitch and then ceased. “It sounded like a generator winding up” he later stated. Partridge’s dog, Bandit, began to howl out on the front porch and Newell went out to see what was going on.

When he walked outside, he saw Bandit facing the hay barn, about 150 yards from the house. Puzzled, Partridge turned a flashlight in that direction and spotted two red circles that looked like eyes or “bicycle reflectors”. They moving red orbs were certainly not animal’s eyes, he believed, and the sight of them frightened him. Bandit, an experienced hunting dog and protective of his territory, shot off across the yard in pursuit of the glowing eyes. Partridge called for him to stop, but the animal paid no attention. His owner turned and went back into the house for his gun, but then was too scared to go back outside again. He slept that night with his gun propped up next to the bed. The next morning, he realized that Bandit had disappeared. The dog had still not shown up two days later when Partridge read in the newspaper about the sightings in Point Pleasant that night.

One statement that he read in the newspaper chilled him to the bone. Roger Scarberry, one member of the group who spotted the strange “bird” at the TNT plant, said that as they entered the city limits of Point Pleasant, they saw the body of a large dog lying on the side of the road. A few minutes later, on the way back out of town, the dog was gone. They even stopped to look for the body, knowing they had passed it just a few minutes before. Newell Partridge immediately thought of Bandit, who was never seen again.

On November 16, a press conference was held in the county courthouse and the couples from the TNT plant sighting repeated their story. Deputy Halstead, who had known the couples all of their lives, took them very seriously. “They’ve never been in any trouble,” he told investigators and had no reason to doubt their stories. Many of the reporters who were present for the weird recounting felt the same way. The news of the strange sightings spread around the world. The press dubbed the odd flying creature “Mothman”, after a character from the popular Batman television series of the day.

The remote and abandoned TNT plant became the lair of the Mothman in the months ahead and it could not have picked a better place to hide in. The area was made up of several hundred acres of woods and large concrete domes where high explosives were stored during World War II. A network of tunnels honeycombed the area and made it possible for the creature to move about without being seen. In addition to the manmade labyrinth, the area was also comprised of the McClintic Wildlife Station, a heavily forested animal preserve filled with woods, artificial ponds and steep ridges and hills. Much of the property was almost inaccessible and without a doubt, Mothman could have hid for weeks or months and remained totally unseen. The only people who ever wandered there were hunters and fishermen and the local teenagers, who used the rutted dirt roads of the preserve as “lover’s lanes”.

Very few homes could be found in the region, but one dwelling belonged to the Ralph Thomas family. One November 16, they spotted a “funny red light” in the sky that moved and hovered above the TNT plant. “It wasn’t an airplane”, Mrs. Marcella Bennett (a friend of the Thomas family) said, “but we couldn’t figure out what it was.” Mrs. Bennett drove to the Thomas house a few minutes later and got out of the car with her baby. Suddenly, a figure stirred near the automobile. “It seemed as though it had been lying down,” she later recalled. “It rose up slowly from the ground. A big gray thing. Bigger than a man with terrible glowing eyes.”

Mrs. Bennett was so horrified that she dropped her little girl! She quickly recovered, picked up her child and ran to the house. The family locked everyone inside but hysteria gripped them as the creature shuffled onto the porch and peered into the windows. The police were summoned, but the Mothman had vanished by the time the authorities had arrived.

Mrs. Bennett would not recover from the incident for months and was in fact so distraught that she sought medical attention to deal with her anxieties. She was tormented by frightening dreams and later told investigators that she believed the creature had visited her own home too. She said that she could often hear a keening sounds (like a woman screaming) near her isolated home on the edge of Point Pleasant.

Many would come to believe that the sightings of Mothman, as well as UFO sightings and encounters with “men in black” in the area, were all related. For nearly a year, strange happenings continued in the area. Researchers, investigators and “monster hunters” descended on the area but none so famous as author John Keel, who has written extensively about Mothman and other unexplained anomalies. He has written for many years about UFO’s but dismisses the standard “extraterrestrial” theories of the mainstream UFO movement. For this reason, he has been a controversial figure for decades. According to Keel, man has had a long history of interaction with the supernatural. He believes that the intervention of mysterious strangers in the lives of historic personages like Thomas Jefferson and Malcolm X provides evidence of the continuing presence of the “gods of old”. The manifestation of these elder gods comes in the form of UFO’s and aliens, monsters, demons, angels and even ghosts. He has remained a colorful character to many and yet remains respected in the field for his research and fascinating writings.

Keel became the major chronicler of the Mothman case and wrote that at least 100 people personally witnessed the creature between November 1966 and November 1967. According to their reports, the creature stood between five and seven feet tall, was wider than a man and shuffled on human-like legs. Its eyes were set near the top of the shoulders and had bat-like wings that glided, rather than flapped, when it flew. Strangely though, it was able to ascend straight up “like a helicopter”. Witnesses also described its murky skin as being either gray or brown and it emitted a humming sound when it flew. The Mothman was apparently incapable of speech and gave off a screeching sound. Mrs. Bennett stated that it sounded like a “woman screaming”.

John Keel arrived in Point Pleasant in December 1966 and immediately began collecting reports of Mothman sightings and even UFO reports from before the creature was seen. He also compiled evidence that suggested a problem with televisions and phones that began in the fall of 1966. Lights had been seen in the skies, particularly around the TNT plant, and cars that passed along the nearby road sometimes stalled without explanation. He and his fellow researchers also uncovered a number of short-lived poltergeist cases in the Ohio Valley area. Locked doors opened and closed by themselves, strange thumps were heard inside and outside of homes and often, inexplicable voices were heard. The James Lilley family, who lived just south of the TNT plant, were so bothered by the bizarre events that they finally sold their home and moved to another neighborhood. Keel was convinced that the intense period of activity was all connected.

And stranger things still took place..... A reporter named Mary Hyre, who was the Point Pleasant correspondent for the Athens, Ohio newspaper the Messenger, also wrote extensively about the local sightings. In fact, after one very active weekend, she was deluged with over 500 phone calls from people who saw strange lights in the skies. One night in January 1967, she was working late in her office in the county courthouse and a man walked in the door. He was very short and had strange eyes that were covered with thick glasses. He also had long, black hair that was cut squarely “like a bowl haircut”. Hyre said that he spoke in a low, halting voice and he asked for directions to Welsh, West Virginia. She thought that he had some sort of speech impediment and for some reason, he terrified her. “He kept getting closer and closer to me, “ she said, “ and his funny eyes were staring at me almost hypnotically.”

Alarmed, she summoned the newspaper’s circulation manager to her office and together, they spoke to the strange little man. She said that at one point in the discussion, she answered the telephone when it rang and she noticed the little man pick up a pen from her desk. He looked at it in amazement, “as if he had never seen a pen before.” Then, he grabbed the pen, laughed loudly and ran out of the building.

Several weeks later, Hyre was crossing the street near her office and saw the same man on the street. He appeared to be startled when he realized that she was watching him, turned away quickly and ran for a large black car that suddenly came around the corner. The little man climbed in and it quickly drove away.

By this time, most of the sightings had come to an end and Mothman had faded away into the strange “twilight zone” from which he had come... but the story of Point Pleasant had not yet ended. At around 5:00 in the evening on December 15, 1967, the 700-foot bridge linking Point Pleasant to Ohio suddenly collapsed while filled with rush hour traffic. Dozens of vehicles plunged into the dark waters of the Ohio River and 46 people were killed. Two of those were never found and the other 44 are buried together in the town cemetery of Gallipolis, Ohio.

On that same tragic night, the James Lilley family (who still lived near the TNT plant at that time) counted more than 12 eerie lights that flashed above their home and vanished into the forest.

The collapse of the Silver Bridge made headlines all over the country and Mary Hyre went days without sleep as reporters and television crews from everywhere descended on the town. The local citizens were stunned with horror and disbelief and the tragedy is still being felt today.

During Christmas week, a short, dark-skinned man entered the office of Mary Hyre. He was dressed in a black suit, with a black tie, and she said that he looked vaguely Oriental. He had high cheekbones, narrow eyes and an unidentified accent. He was not interested in the bridge disaster, she said, but wanted to know about local UFO sightings. Hyre was too busy to talk with him and she handed her a file of related press clipping instead. He was not interested in them and insisted on speaking with her. She finally dismissed him from her office.

That same night, an identically described man visited the homes of several witnesses in the area who had reported seeing the lights in the sky. He made all of them very uneasy and uncomfortable and while he claimed to be a reporter from Cambridge, Ohio, he inadvertently admitted that he did not know where Columbus, Ohio was even though the two towns are just a few miles apart.

John Keel believes that Point Pleasant was a “window” area, a place that was marked by long periods of strange sightings, monster reports and the coming and going of unusual persons. He states that it may be wrong to blame the collapse of the bridge on the local UFO sightings, but the intense activity in the area at the time does suggest some sort of connection. Others have pointed to another supernatural link to the strange happenings, blaming the events on the legendary Cornstalk Curse that was placed on Point Pleasant in the 1770's.

REAL VAMPIRES

First off all let me explain to all of those that say:  “I love vampires!”  This post is not about Hollywood vampires but about the “Real myth” the monsters Vampires.  In Hollywood mythology (if we can say that!)   Vampires are beautiful, sexy, attractive and charming some even glow like glitter!

But if you stop and investigate the Man Animal history you will find that there is a reason why for millenniums there were called monsters.

In simple definition Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person.

Although Vampiric entities have been recorded in many cultures, and may go back to "prehistoric times", the term vampire was not popularized until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe, although local variants were also known by different names, such as Vrykolakas in Greece and Strigoi in Romania.

But the “believe” of Vampires is not strictly restrict to Europe in fact the myth can be found all over the world.

 

Non-European beliefs:

AFRICA

Various regions of Africa have folkloric tales of beings with Vampiric abilities: in West Africa the Ashanti people tell of the iron-toothed and tree-dwelling Asanbosam and the Ewe people of the Adze, which can take the form of a firefly and hunts children. The Eastern Cape region has the Impundulu, which can take the form of a large talon bird and can summon thunder and lightning, and the Betsileo people of Madagascar tell of the Ramanga, an outlaw or living vampire who drinks the blood and eats the nail clippings of nobles.  

THE AMERICAS

The Loogaroo is an example of how a vampire belief can result from a combination of beliefs, here a mixture of French and African Voodoo. The term Loogaroo possibly comes from the French loup-garou (meaning "werewolf") and is common in the culture of Mauritius. However, the stories of the Loogaroo are widespread through the Caribbean Islands and Louisiana in the United States. Similar female monsters are the Soucouyant of Trinidad, and the Tunda and Patasola of Colombian folklore, while the Mapuche of southern Chile have the bloodsucking snake known as the Peuchen  Aloe vera hung backwards behind or near a door was thought to ward off vampiric beings in South American superstition. Aztec mythology described tales of the Cihuateteo, skeletal-faced spirits of those who died in childbirth who stole children and entered into sexual liaisons with the living, driving them mad.

During the late 18th and 19th centuries the belief in vampires was widespread in parts of New England, particularly in Rhode Island and Eastern Connecticut. There are many documented cases of families disinterring loved ones and removing their hearts in the belief that the deceased was a vampire who was responsible for sickness and death in the family, although the term "vampire" was never actually used to describe the deceased.

ASIA

Rooted in older folklore, the modern belief in vampires spread throughout Asia with tales of ghoulish entities from the mainland, to vampiric beings from the islands of Southeast Asia.

South Asia also developed other vampiric legends. The Bhūta or Prét is the soul of a man who died an untimely death. It wanders around animating dead bodies at night, attacking the living much like a ghoul. In northern India, there is the BrahmarākŞhasa, a vampire-like creature with a head encircled by intestines and a skull from which it drank blood. The figure of the Vetala who appears in South Asian legend and story may sometimes be rendered as "Vampire".

Although vampires have appeared in Japanese cinema since the late 1950s, the folklore behind it is western in origin. However, the Nukekubi is a being whose head and neck detach from its body to fly about seeking human prey at night.

Legends of female vampire-like beings who can detach parts of their upper body also occur in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. There are two main vampire-like creatures in the Philippines: the Tagalog Mandurugo ("blood-sucker") and the Visayan Manananggal ("self-segmented"). The Mandurugo is a variety of the Aswang that takes the form of an attractive girl by day, and develops wings and a long, hollow, thread-like tongue by night. The tongue is used to suck up blood from a sleeping victim. The Manananggal is described as being an older, beautiful woman capable of severing its upper torso in order to fly into the night with huge bat-like wings and prey on unsuspecting, sleeping pregnant women in their homes. They use an elongated proboscis-like tongue to suck foetuses from these pregnant women. They also prefer to eat entrails (specifically the heart and the liver) and the phlegm of sick people.

The Malaysian Penanggalan may be either a beautiful old or young woman who obtained her beauty through the active use of black magic or other unnatural means, and is most commonly described in local folklore to be dark or demonic in nature. She is able to detach her fanged head which flies around in the night looking for blood, typically from pregnant women. 

And the list goes on…..

SLAVIC SPIRITUALISM

Although many cultures possess revenant superstitions comparable to the Eastern European vampire, the Slavic vampire is the revenant superstition that pervades popular culture's concept of vampire. The roots of vampire belief in Slavic culture are based to a large extent in the spiritual beliefs and practices of pre-Christianized Slavic peoples and their understanding of life after death. Despite a lack of pre-Christian Slavic writings describing the details of the "Old Religion", many pagan spiritual beliefs and rituals have been sustained by Slavic peoples even after their lands were Christianized. Examples of such beliefs and practices include ancestor worship, household spirits, and beliefs about the soul after death. The origins of vampire beliefs in Slavic regions can be traced to the complex structure of Slavic spiritualism.

VAMPIRE MYTHOLOGY COMMON SPECIES

MORTAL VAMPIRES

 

Since the beginning of time, there have always existed mortals whom have had an obsession with blood drinking for whatever reasons. Some portray themselves as real vampires, some use blood drinking as an excitement or as a sexual enhancement. Some may even be from a particular disease which often causes insanity. This disease is often referred to as "Renfield's Syndrome" which is also as you guessed, a character from Dracula who is a Zoophagous, meaning a "life-eater."

Mortal blood drinking is quite a big occurrence now. There has become quite a big community for this sort of thing. Most blood drinkers advertise for blood donors while some purchase the blood from blood banks. Blood bank purchasing is only allowed in some states in USA however and as an added benefit, the blood is thoroughly tested to ensure safety from any sort of known impurities.

Aaron Homer (l.) and Amanda Williamson have been arrested in Arizona for stabbing a homeless man, whose blood they wanted to drink, police said.

True story

A pair of blood-sucking "vampires" has been busted for attacking a homeless man in Arizona.
The transient, who had been living with the couple, was stabbed after he refused to let them suck his blood and mocked their "religion," police said.
Aaron Homer, 24, and Amanda Williamson, 21, allegedly stabbed Robert Maley, 25, last week in their apartment.
Maley, who was also arrested over a probation violation, told police Homer and Williamson were into "vampire stuff and paganism," and he had allowed them to drink his blood in the past.
On the night of the attack, police were called to the couple's home and found a trail of blood leaving the apartment.
Homer initially claimed his girlfriend had been attacked by an unidentified man, but later admitted he'd stabbed Maley, who was found several blocks away, because he refuse to let them drink more blood!

IMMORTAL VAMPIRES OR HOMO VAMPYRUS

Immortal Blood Drinkers is a rather large classification because not all receive the dark course the same. There are roughly around thirty-six different recorded types well documented. I will be listing the four most common however which is also more than the rest all added together.

SUBSPECIES:

HOMO WAMPYRUS CHIROPTERA

These vampires are the rarest of the vampires because they are the "bat" vampires. They are largely found Africa, New Zealand and South America. Most of the population are concentrated in China and India.

These vampires appear to be very human other than a slightly pointy pair of ears and sometimes with a lantern jaw. They socially mix well with humans but hate to be around crowds. These are the most sensitive to sunlight, they experience blisters and pain after some time in the sun. They are the only vampires capable of the shape shifting feature and can even change into vampire bats. They are able to do this by certain factors such as racial origin, length of time as a vampire and even the right food.

HOMO WAMPYRUS DRACO

This is the most well-known of the types. Made famous by Bram Stroker, They are everywhere with the majority in places like North America, Britain and Western Europe.

They are extremely human in appearance except for their retractable canine teeth in their upper jaws that are hardly noticeable. They have medium to poor tolerance to sunlight and will perish in a couple of hours of direct sunlight. They are very social with humans and often take jobs as night watchmen and club bouncers.

They often gain there blood through willing donors who think that they are mortal blood drinkers. Some do pleasure in taking blood by force due to the fear factor and the release of adrenaline.

HOMO WAMPYRUS NOSFERATU

They are often referred to as the "deformed" vampires. They were given their name after the 1922 movie "Nosferatu." They are less common then the Wampyrus Draco but are surprisingly numerous.

Their change into a vampire is not an easy one. The individuals' immune system has fought the virus and the virus is forced to mutate in order to survive. The end result is a twisted and disfigured vampire.

Usually it is a high domed head that is bald with a visible network of livid veins; the face is long, thin, drawn, has deep creases; has sunken eyes; the ears are large and pointy or membranous; nose is upwards and revealing the nostrils; the hands have long tapered fingers often with an extra joint with sharp, discoloured nails; stands with a hunch because to straighten their back causes extreme pain to their twisted spines and can cause a slipped disc or worse. All of these abnormalities are the reason why they are so anti-social with both humans and vampires a like.

They obtain blood through stealth from sleeping humans, small children or even from farm animals. They are everywhere with large concentrations in Africa, South Africa, The Caribbean and Japan.

It has been speculated that the Puerto Rican Chupacabras, Goat Suckers, are excessively deformed Nosferatu vampires.

They are moderately sensitive to sunlight and can tolerate it for hours at a time on a dull day. They can perform certain shape changes but they vary from case to case.

HOMO WAMPYRUS SAURIA

They are often known as the "reptile" and/or "lizard" vampire. They get these names because they possess teeth that are all sharply pointed and resemble those of large lizards.

They are the most social of the four main types and are able to withstand extended periods of sunlight or indefinitely with the aid of sunglasses and sunscreen. With the exception of their teeth they are very human in appearance. They tend to be very outgoing and are often business men who have amassed a great deal of wealth through their long lifetime. However they are extremely susceptible to depression and most commonly the victims of suicide.

They are rare in Europe but are common in North America, Central America, South America and Australia with a great concentration in China, Japan and certain parts of the former USSR.

Due to their extreme social abilities, you might think that they are the most considerate feeders, wrong. They are the most brutal of all. They will often rip large pieces of flesh from the victim, usually from the thigh, upper arm or throat. They will devour the flesh and drink the blood from the gaping wound until the victim perishes. This rarely happens now. They take more often to buying blood or obtaining it from willing donors whom are cut with razors rather than teeth.

SHADOW PEOPLE

Shadow people are supernatural shadow-like humanoid figures that, according to believers, are seen flickering on walls and ceilings in the viewer's peripheral vision. They are often reported moving with quick, jerky movements, and quickly disintegrate into walls or mirrors.

Shadow people are not bound by walls or physical obstacles, as they may choose to move through them, while strangely; other shadow people seem to believe they have to go around physical objects. Shadow people are also known as dark shadows or shadow ghosts, and probably are the most misunderstood of entities seen.

Here some stories:

IT WANTED THE PAPERS

In 1983, the wife of Doyle, a geologist, encountered one of these shadow people in their home near Olathe, Kansas. Its appearance followed that of another spirit – a vaporous white form. Doyle says his wife was home alone in the house one September evening. “She was headed down the hallway when she stopped, feeling a slight chill in the air,” he tells us. “Almost immediately she observed a wispy white shape, that of a woman in flowing white apparel, drift from my office into the master bedroom. This apparition seemed to look briefly at her as it passed by.

“But then ‘something’ else made its appearance. From the master bedroom into which the wispy woman in white had disappeared emerged a very solid and very ghastly apparition. This thing was a slow-moving, black, skeletal form, like some hideously animated charred corpse. It did not drift, but walked slowly into my office, not seeming to be aware of my wife. You would think this ‘thing’ would have terrified her, but she said she felt no unease whatsoever, despite its frightening appearance. In fact, she advanced to the office door and looked in. The light was on, and this thing was standing at my desk with its back to her, looking down. She said it was reaching out with a bony blackened hand at the papers on my desk, as if it were profoundly interested in those papers.

“She stood transfixed as it then slowly turned, as if aware of her presence, to face her. She said it seemed to have remnants of charred clothing clinging to its body. It then looked back at her, its faceless skull devoid of any emotion, malevolent or otherwise. Its eye sockets were black and empty. She had no thought that it meant her harm or was evil. Then it simply vanished, like a TV screen being snapped off.”


THE DIGGING SHADOW MAN

There are other stories in which these shadow people seem to appear with a purpose. Sometimes they seem curious about the people they are visiting. Reiner recounts what happened to his brother when he was 12 years old. “One night, while everyone was fast asleep, [my brother] heard the shutter of the window open,” Reiner says. “He peeked from under his covers and saw a hand coming through the shutter. He closed his eyes thinking that it was a dream, but when he looked again, there was now a figure of a man inside the room. This figure was so dark that even in our pitch-black room his outline was clear. Terrified, he screamed and switched on the night light beside his bed. The dark figure seemed startled and leapt out the small window.”

This reaction by the figure indicates that is well aware of its surroundings. But what did it want? A year later, it returned, and behaved very mysteriously indeed. “This time the figure was already in our room,” Reiner says his brother told him. “The thing walked across our room and studied my sleeping self and our youngest brother. He then went in-between our beds and started digging with what my brother explained as a pick-like tool. The sight frightened him and he again switched on the lights and shouted for me to wake up. But this time, the figure didn't leave. It stopped its ‘digging’ and just stared at him, seeming to walk toward his bed. I woke up from his screaming, and just as I looked toward him, I saw the dark figure. It looked back at me, then back to my brother. It jumped out of the shutter just as my brother said it did before.”

This case is significant in that the being was seen by more than one person performing the same action. But digging? At what? For what possible reason? If these are beings from some other time or dimension, we can only guess at their puzzling intentions. In another case, one of these beings was seen trying to pull up a floorboard.

 
IT SEEMED SURPRISED

Shadow beings aren’t just creatures of the night. Consider Victor’s sighting on November 1, 2003 (the day after Halloween – All Souls Day) at 8 a.m. He was in his kitchen pouring himself some coffee when he saw the shadow person actually materialize on his backyard patio. “A brownish-colored smoky mist came wrapping around the patio post from the rear,” Victor recalls. “It was about two feet tall and two inches thick and was hugging the side of the post about five feet above the ground. The ‘smoke’ stepped aside from the post and formed into a human shape. I could see the torso from above the groin (no legs), the head and right arm.

I couldn't see a face and the torso didn't appear to be clothed. The whole thing was still very smoky, fluid and almost had a shimmery sparkle to it. “The next second, the apparition actually straightened its head from a downward position (like someone standing at attention). I saw the shoulders snap into place and we stood and stared directly at each other for a split second. His whole body jolted, like he was shocked that I was looking at him. It was a very human reaction.

Imagine how your body reacts when someone surprises you. He turned sideways and raised his right arm like he was running. He scooted very quickly back behind the patio post. At the same time he appeared to be running, his body also seemed to be reverting back to the smoky mist shape.” The behaviour of this apparition indicates intelligence. As it appeared in our dimension of reality, it seemed surprised that it could be seen by Victor, and retreated to whence it came. Wherever that might be.


DARK NIGHT FIGURES

Nicky has had several encounters with these shadow beings, some completely terrifying because they have actually touched her. One night as she lay in bed with her husband, she was jolted awake. “I opened my eyes and this dark figure, which felt like a male presence, was holding my arms down and smothering me,” she says. “I kicked at it to try to feel my arms and screamed so loud that it woke up children at the other end of the house.

My husband flew out of bed, and for the first time in the 12 years we have been together he saw it. The dark figure went through the ceiling. It shocked my husband so much that he sat up for an hour and didn't say a word. I was so terrified and relieved at the same time because my husband saw it and I wasn't going crazy. After that, the visitations relented until the night of November 4, 2004. “My husband was on night shift and it was just me and the kids,” Nicky says. “It was 11.30 p.m. I felt its presence and when I opened my eyes I could clearly see the figure was not human. It was all black and crouching on four legs. It sort of reminded me of a gargoyle. It pounced at me. I screamed at it and punched the air, jumped out of bed and turned on the lights. I left the light on because I was too scared to turn it off.”