Wednesday Weird: La Bête du Gévaudan

I really thought I had done a Wednesday Weird on this topic before, but I checked all my posts and I couldn't find one, so proceed I shall.

La Bete du Gevaudan (the beast of Gévaudan) was a real wolf-like monster that prowled the Auvergne and South Dordogne areas of France 1764 -1767, killing people often in bizarre circumstances. Many men and professional hunters would try to kill the beast, but almost all of them would fail.

The first recorded attack was a young woman in 1764. The beast approached her as she was tending oxen. Her dogs fled, but the oxen drove the beast away. Shortly after the beast would kill 14-year-old Janne Boulet.

After that, the beast would spend two years hunting and killing men, women and children. Most often it would attack single people as they tended their animals in fields or in the woods, but on more than one occasion it would attack larger groups of people, sometimes succeeding in killing multiple victims. Often times only pieces of victims would be found, if their bodies were found at all.

The number of attacks vary, depending on the source, but it killed somewhere between 60 and 113 adults and children, and injuring another 30-49. Many of the victims killed were partly eaten, and it frequently focused its attacks on the throat or head.

Descriptions also vary, but what most people agreed on was that it was reminiscent of a wolf, but the size of a calf or a donkey. It had a strange red coat, square head with small ears and white chest. It had a strangely long tail, like a cat.

 

 

On more than one occasion peasants or professional wolf hunters would shoot the beast, and the bullets would not kill it. There were also rumors that perhaps the beast wasn't alone, because more than once attacks happened at almost the same time.

Many wolves were killed in the attempt to put an end to the beast. Louis XV offered rewards and sent hunters to help, but though one hunter did kill a particularly large wolf (5'7" in length) it would prove to not be the beast, as the killing continued a month later.

The man credited with finally putting an end to the beast is Jean Chastel, a 60 year old man sent to hunt the beast. He shot the beast with his shotguns and his dogs finished the deed.
Upon examination, witnesses would stand by the fact that the beast was not a wolf, but by the time the body arrived in Paris it was so putrefied that it was buried immediately.

Nowadays many people think the beast was a wolf, perhaps deformed, or a wolf-dog hybrid, or something else entirely. Unfortunately we'll probably never know for sure what it was. But regardless, it did indeed kill many people, an act that would be strange for any animal, monster or not.

It is still a famous bit of strange history and occasionally shows up in pop culture

If you haven't seen this movie, you should. It deals directly with the beast and is also pretty good

 

Thoughts or theories?

Wednesday Weird: Honey Island Swamp Monster

In 1963 Louisiana native Harlan Ford saw a creature in the swamp he had never seen before.

Ford was a retired air traffic controller who had taken up wildlife photography when he claimed to see a creature now dubbed the Honey Island Swamp Monster.

The creature was purported to be bi-pedal, with gray hair or fur, yellow or red eyes and about seven feet tall. It also supposedly stank, much like skunk-ape (which, I realize, is a post I'll need to do in the future)

Sightings have been rare, but footprints have ben found.  These differ from the usual bigfoot/sasquatch footprints in that they only have three toes and are webbed.

 

 

 

 

In 1974 Ford and a friend claimed to find footprints in the area of his first sighting and supposedly found the body of a boar with a torn out throat.

After Ford's death in 1980, a super 8 film was found among his belongings that showed the creature in the wild.

 

So, the Honey Island Swamp Monster. thoughts? Theories?

Wednesday Weird: Shunka Warak'in

A cryptid again today for Wednesday Weird.

There have been sightings in the northern US (mostly Montana, Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa) of a beast that resembles a hyena, a primitive wolf or a cross of both.

The Ioway and other Native American tribes of the region called this creature the Shunka Warak'in which translates into "carries off dogs" since the beast would often sneak into their camps and do just that.

Documented sightings wouldn't start until the 1880's. The Hutchins family settled in lower Montana. Not long after, they and their neighbors began to encounter a strange wolf-like creature.  Ross Hutchins would later write: One winter morning my grandfather was aroused by the barking of dogs. He discovered that a wolf like beast of dark color was chasing my grandmother’s geese. He fired his gun at the animal but missed. It ran off down the river, but several mornings later it was seen again at about dawn. It was seen several more times at the home ranch as well as at other ranches ten or fifteen miles down the valley. Whatever it was, it was a great traveler The witnesses described the creature as being nearly black and having high shoulders and a back that sloped downward like a hyena. One morning in late January, grandfather Hutchins, alerted by their dogs, was able to shoot and kill the creature. The creature was taxidermied and donated to a museum in Idaho where it was displayed for years (the museum owner dubbed it "ringdocus" (Why? Who the hell knows.)) 

photos of the taxidermied creature before it went missing from the museum

 

 

  So this is all interesting in and of itself. But what's important to note is the youngest Hutchins had a PH.D. in zoology and had no idea what the animal was. He speculated that maybe it was an escaped circus hyena, but the nearest circus was hundreds of miles away.  The taxidermied specimen went missing for quite some time, but was rediscovered by the museum in 2007. 

Photos of the creature after it was rediscovered by the museum

 

  There's a theory the Shunka Warak'in could be a Borophagus, an ancient hyena-like canine known to inhabit North America almost 13,000 years ago.   

  Since the animal was killed in the 1880s, there have continued to be occasional sightings of similar creatures in Montana and other states. A strange wolf, responsible for the deaths of over 120 sheep in Montana in 2006 was shot and killed, and though it's appearance was not like other wolves, the fish and wildlife department did classify it as a wolf. So there you have it! Thoughts? Theories? I like the Shunka Warak'in a lot because there's an actual body of the creature and a zoologist testimony, things frequently lacking in most cryptid cases.

Wednesday Weird: Sasquatch Kidnappings

I'm actually surprised I haven't done a Bigfoot/Sasquatch/Yeti post yet, since it's one of my favorite cryptids (along with Orang Pendek and Thunderbirds (okay, let's get serious here. I have a lot of favorite cryptids))

But everyone knows about Sasquatch and junk so for this post, and any future posts, I'd rather speak about specific encounters.

Today we're talking about kidnappings, that is people allegedly kidnapped by Sasquatches. Which actually happens more than you might think (allegedly).

The most famous case is Albert Ostman, an occasional logger and construction worker, in Vancouver in 1924.

Albert was searching for a lost gold mine somewhere near Toba Inlet. Soon after his search began, he noticed that something was stealing food from his camp site. Then one night he was awakened when something picked him up in his sleeping bag.

At first he thought he was tossed on horseback, but then he realized he was actually being carried. Hours later he was finally dropped and he heard a strange chattering sound. But he didn't work up the nerve to get out of his sleeping bag until dawn.

He found himself in a cave with 4 Sasquatch, which looked to him to be a family group of an adult male and female and a juvenile male and female. Albert was later able to provide detailed descriptions of all four individuals, all of which were huge except for the juvenile female.

Albert claimed to have spent 6 days in the company of the family group before he got them sick on snuff, fired his rifle in the air and fled
.

 

the best part of this video is the "awesome" ending credits music. I mean, really??


There are other cases where people have claimed being kidnapped by Sasquatches, including Muchalat Harry, also in Vancouver in the 20s.

Also there are cases where children have gone missing in forests, only to be found "several hundred percent" outside the search grid organized.

An example being 2 year old Keith Parkins who vanished near Umatilla National Forest. He would later be found 12 miles away after only being missing for 19 hours.
The toddler would have had to cross two mountain ranges, several fences, rivers and creeks to reach his final location.
 

Wednesday Weird: The Beast Of Bray Road

Happy Halloween everyone!

And how apropos that Halloween is on a Wednesday this year, for a Wednesday weird? And since it's Halloween, it seems fitting to focus on a halloweeny weird: werewolves.

I've actually read quite a few first hand accounts of "werewolf" sighting, (they're actually kind of common up here in MN, WI and MI) and though many can surely be chalked up to a bear with mange (see below for a photo) (OT: That's the name of my Rockband band: Mange Bear, purely because they get mistaken for sasquatch and other cryptids. True Story) there are some that can't be explained away so easily. One of the most famous series of encounters is the Beast of Bray Road.

On October 31st, 1989 (Yay! 13 years ago TODAY! (Halloween of all days)) Doristine Gipson, from Elkhorn, WI was driving along Bray Road. As she neared an intersection she leaned over to change the station on her radio when she felt her right front tire jump off the ground as if she had hit something. Concerned, she stopped the car and got out to see what it was. Finding nothing on the roadway behind her car, she began to look around.

As she peered into the darkness, she suddenly saw a dark, hairy form racing toward her. She did not see what the figure looked like, but she did see it was quite bulky and she would later compare the form to someone who works out continually with weights.

Startled by the oncoming form, and by the sounds of its “heavy feet”, she got back in her car. She was attempting to drive away when the beast jumped onto her trunk. Luckily, it was too wet for the creature to hang on and it fell off onto the pavement. Doristine returned to the site later on that evening with a young girl that she was taking out trick-or-treating and saw a large form on the side of the road. When she saw the creature moving, she ordered the child to lock her door and drove quickly away from the scene.

A few days later, 24 year old  Lorianne Endrizzi was rounding a curve on Bray Road and saw what she thought was a person kneeling and hunched over on the side of the road. She slowed down and was no more than six feet away from it. The sighting lasted for about 45 seconds and she clearly saw a beast with grayish, brown hair, fangs and pointed ears. "His face was … long and snouty, like a wolf". Endrizzi was completely unnerved by the sighting. She later stated in an interview that the creature “appeared to be so human-like that it was scary.”

 The media picked up these stories and more eyewitnesses came forward, as well as people who had seen the creature in years past. Other details about the sightings include:

The animal walking on two feet
The animal kneeling like a person
Human-like hands with claws at the end
The animal carrying and eating food held on the palm of it's hands
When on all fours, a sloped back and collected hind legs and a stronger front end
More than one encounter where it chased people or children

The sightings would continue for a few years before finally drying up.

So what do we think the animal could have been? Some people want to say a wolf, or wolf-dog or coy-dog. Some prefer the idea of a shunka warak'in which is a wolf-like cryptid that resembles a hyena.

taxidermied animal believed to be a shunka warak'in

And still, a mange bear may be the best culprit. But even bears don't eat their food in the palms of their hands.

What are your thoughts? And do you have any exciting plans for Halloween?

 

Wednesday Weird

Sorry about not having a post on Monday. I was so busy this weekend with house repairs and my cooking club, and then Twin and I watched a movie (Big Year) that I just completely forgot to write one.

But I'm back now, with my usual serving on Wednesday Weird to offer up.

Today we're going back to cryptids. The week is another one of my favorites: the Thunderbird.

Thunderbirds, besides being a Native American legend (which may be connected, natch) is the name given to a large, condor-like bird reported throughout North America since we started keeping records.

They're typically described as large, dark colored birds with wingspans over fifteen feet long. As a reference, the current living bird with the largest (known) wingspan is the Marbou stork with a span of 13 feet (the albatross is close second, with a wing span of 12 feet).

The most famous sighting of a thunderbird is the Lawndale Incident, occurring in 1977 with multiple eye witnesses.

On July 25th 1977, 10 year old Marlon Lowe was playing in a field by his house with two friends. Two giant birds flew overhead and one swooped down and snatched the boy, carrying him several feet before dropping him, possibly due to his mother's screams. There were 7 witnesses to this event, all of whom described the same thing: two black birds with long curled beaks, white rings around their necks and wingspans of over 10 feet. Marlon's mother compared the size of the bird to an ostrich, though she said it looked more like a condor.

There were several more sightings of the birds in the area before the sightings ceased.



There really aren't any living birds large enough to carry a human child that large, at 10 years old (though there are plenty of eagles that have killed smaller children, as human infant skulls have been found in eagle nests. The African Crowned Eagle is one (and there is record of one trying to carry off a 7 year old), but so possibly are the Harpy Eagle and the Goden Eagle (which is a North American bird, btw) Here's an awesome article on living badass birds of prey, if you're interested ).

One of the likely contenders for the identity of the Thunderbird is the recently extinct Teratorns.  Alive during the ice age, their remains are almost always found with human habitations, which suggests they had plenty of interaction with Native Americans of the time. Their bones have been found from California to Florida and are numerous at the La Brea tar pits.

Besides the Lawson Incident, there are frequent, and numerous sightings still to this day, across the US.

So what do you think? Are there unidentified giant birds living in North America?

Wednesday Weird

I'm actually surprised it's taken me so many weeks before I dove into one of my most favorite weird things. What's that you ask? Cryptozoology!

For those not in the know, Cryptolzoology is the study of hidden animals. Cryptozoology is the reason animals such as the panda and the okapi were discovered.

Today cryptozoology mostly centers around possible animals like Sasquatch etc, but there is also a lot of focus on Lazarus animals (animals that were presumed extinct and rediscovered alive. One of the most famous cases being both species of the Coelecanth)

So expect to see more cryptids in upcoming Wednesday Weirds.

Today, we're going to talk about one of my favorite cryptids, the Orang Pendek.

Orang Pendek is an animal that reportedly lives in the remote forests and jungles of Sumatra. Orang Pendek translates to mean "short person" because anyone who's seen it will tell you it's just like a little ape-man about 3 feet tall and covered in orange hair.

So it's just an ape, right? Yes and No. What's so awesome about Orang Pendek is that it's bi-pedal. It walks on two legs just like us.

So you say, OK, sure, maybe there is a little ape-man running bipedally down there and maybe there isn't. No smart people actually believe in it right?

Wrong. In fact, there have been so many eye-witness accounts of Orang Pendek that both National Geographic and Fauna and Flora International have sent teams for evidence gathering missions. The Fauna and Flora one lasted over 15 years.

What you have to remember is that the forests of Sumatra are amazing at hiding things. Scientists who live down there to study the Sumatran tiger or Sumatran elephants, animals we know exist have sometimes seen Orang Pendek more frequently than these known animals.

So if a frickin elephant can elude discovery in the jungles of Sumatra, it's certainly not difficult to believe a a little ape could, either.

In Which I Receive (More) Awards

I seem to get blog awards in groups, which of course makes it easier to write blog posts.

Thank you to Nicole at One Significant Moment at a Time for the Honest Scrap Award.

Check out her blog because it's great and I'm sure you'll like it.

For this award I'm supposed to tell you 10 honest facts about myself. I think what this really means is "embarrassing" facts about yourself. I'll try to do my best, but I don't have too many moments that I find embarrassing.

1. I once fell down the stairs at my parent's house, to my family's endless amusement

2. Myself, Twin, Brother and a friend placed 4th in a local radio's Rock Band competition.

We are Mange Bear. Twin's character, Rojo, My character, Falen (der), Brother's character, Mal Strum

3. I'm afraid, yet fascinated, by ghosts

4. I'm an amateur cryptozoologist

5. In highschool, I broke my foot in a lazy river

6. On that note, when I was 6 I was sent to my room when Twin broke my collarbone (to be fair, my parents didn't know it was broken...)

7. I own a Hanson CD. And yes, I kind of like it

8. I have two tattoos. One which I showed here. And here's the other one:

9. I don't like to hear about Pukwudgies (also the final story here and here)

10. I cheat frequently at Croquet, but only because I don't want to lose as badly as I would without the cheating (I still lose when I cheat, just not as badly. And I never cheat if I'm doing OK)

This award I will pass on to:

Your Friendly Neighborhood Palindrome
Anissa
Elana Johnson

The other award I received from Alex over at Alex J Cavanaugh is the Over the Top award.

I've received this award before, so I won't bore you with my single word answers (because try as I might, I won't be able to come up with different ones than I did before).

Check out Alex's blog for some fun!