There be monsters

[GoddessGood]

Yahoo (!) was kind enough to inform me this morning that a second montauk monster has been discovered in NY (warning, pictures are gross). In Texas, I'm more familiar with the stories of the chupacabra (literally, "goat sucker") and the jackalope, the second being a widely acknowledge tall tale (and sometime guest on America's Home Videos). What other oddities is your region known for? Is there a dinosaur hiding in your lake? How about an apeman in your woods? Are there ghosts in the haunted house next door?

I'm not taking the stance that all of these are fakes or hoaxes. I, for one, believe that there are things out there that science has not explained or discovered. Consider that magnetism was once considered black magic, and you'll start to understand my gist. I personally believe I have experienced the supernatural, but I have never seen a beastie, so I'm curious.

[cplmac]

Seeing as how I live up over the hill from Kecksburg, PA, I guess we live in one of the highly debated UFO sightings. However, I personally was not in this area when it did or didn't happen, so I can not say one way or the other. The only thing that I do know is that my mother-in-law drove up a stretch of road that some say was completely closed off for a certain period of time. She went through during the middle of that time frame.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

Had a friend or two send me the link. Always an interesting conversation starter.

[Oldgamer]

In Florida, the Green Swamp area is 2nd in size only to the Everglades and I spent a lot of time working in it (I'm a land surveyor for those who haven't heard). There was a creature similar to Sasquatch there nicknamed (funny enough considering one of our member's username is the same and he is in Fl) Skunkape. This creature is rarely spotted, I'm not sure on the statistics, but it's nowhere near as frequent as Sasquatch. I spent 15 years surveying Fl, and a LOT of that time was in the Green Swamp. And I never saw the beastie ... though I did see some questionable things there ... a rattlesnake longer than 12' and as wide as me, strong enough to lift me and a 280 lb guy I was working with a few inches off the ground (or brush) when we stepped on brush that was on top of it. I saw an orange spider that was roughly the same size as the Grandaddy in Arachnaphobia. I saw a hornet bigger than a hummingbird. Not to mention all the normal Florida wildlife: cougars (nicknamed Florida Panthers), bobcats, boar, gators, a wide variety of snakes, brown bears, alligator turtles, etc ... but I've never seen the Skunkape.

It was spotted in '04 along a long two lane country road which I travelled many times right after Hurricane Charley. A lady said she was driving down the road and it was just off the road in a ditch that had been flooded by the rain ... this was the last I've heard of the creature.

There was also supposed to be a Boggy Creek Monster in another nearby swamp ... but I'm not sure if that was a joke or not.

[Panthro82]

The apartment I just moved out of last year was absolutely haunted. Many nights my ex and I would hear loud footsteps coming up the stairs and walk down the hallway where our room was.

The smell in the kitchen changed dramatically a couple of times.

About one night a month my ex and I would run upstairs and lock ourselves in our room cause we would get this horrible feeling in our stomachs(we had two cats and they literally would run up before us and hide under the bed!) Multiple times on those nights we both could feel like there was someone standing in front of the bed staring at us. The feeling it gave off was horrible.

Almost every single night anyone who would walk up the stairs in our apartment to the 2nd floor would have all their hair stand straight up on their bodies and get goosebumps everywhere. They would say it felt like someone was at the bottom of the steps looking/staring at them.(we would never tell people about this sensation cause we wanted to see if it would happen to them and it did every single time)

Also I often fell asleep in the living room downstairs while watching TV. I would either set the sleep timer for it to shut off or my ex-gf would turn off the TV if she couldn't wake me up. I literally woke up at the same exact time, the same exact minute EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Keep in mind this happened well over 40 times. No alarms, no noises or sounds. We found out later that the owner of the houses mother used to use that room as her bedroom and she died one night in that room sometime in the early morning hours...

[GoddessGood]

A good friend of mine was ... well, I'd call him a sensitive person. That is, he seemed to attract the attention of the supernatural. He hated it until he made peace with it, and it made it odd to be over at his house sometimes. I've seen some odd things, but the weirdest was what happened to me around christmas one year. I was over at his house watching him play video games (something violent, don't remember what it was specifically) and listening to death metal (his new favorite album). It would cycle through over and over again while I watched people die on the tv screen. I started to get this feeling like someone was sitting on my stomach and it spread to my chest, shoulders and legs, almost like someone had thrown a lead blanket over me to keep me in the chair. I freaked, and sprang up out of the chair. His sister, who was also in the room, swore she saw a man-shaped shadow pass over the window a few seconds right before I did that. I left the room to get away from the music and sat in the den where the only light was the christmas tree. His mom had put a reflecting ball on the coffee table and I stared into it thinking to myself that there is no such thing as ghosts or demons and, even if there are, then I'm not afraid of them. I thought, You think you're so tough, come and get me!

I don't really have words to describe what I felt next except it was black and angry. I left the house immediately without telling my friend I was leaving and went straight home. I don't doubt there are things out there anymore. We tried to figure out what the shadow was later, but the neighbors on that side of the house were out of town and his dad wasn't outside that day. It was bright outside, so something had to have thrown that shadow.

[Oldgamer]

When I was about 12, I saw something I couldn't explain too. We had recently acquired a young female cat, and I was in bed sound asleep one night. For some reason, I woke up. Then I thought I heard the cat mew and opened my bedroom door and looked down the hall to the living room. What I saw, and thanks to the internet, I've since seen it called Shadow People or something like that. The room was slightly lit from moonlight through a big window to the right that I couldn't see, and covering this cat was, what I can only describe roughly, is man-shaped thing made of black electricity with yellow eyes that was beating the cat on the chair. It stopped and looked at me, the cat took off and I called out to my mother.

She came out and the thing was naturally gone and naturally she didn't believe me. Until the next morning when she went to pet the cat and it shied away from her touch, something she never did. When you were able to touch her, she'd bite your hand. Took her to the vet and she was bruised all over. What was that thing?

I've since been plagued by seeing shadows out of the corner of my eye, one time I saw one in a mirror in a dark hallway when I briefly lived with my father ... that one actually lingered for a few seconds when I saw it, man I got goosebumps from that one.

My wife sees them now too, back in Fl, in the house we bought. When looking at a house before buying the one we did, we found one that spooked the hell out of both of us. It was huge, like 3000 sq. feet or more, and very cheap ... we didn't wonder long on why it was so cheap, something very malevolent was in that house. It was our first house and she began seeing them there. She called them "childlike" because they seemed short to her and playful. One Christmas Day, I believe our 1st in the house, we were very hungover but got up early anyway to open presents. I went into the living room and laid down on the couch, she went into the kitchen to make orange juice (oranges are everywhere in Fl) and called back to me to come get the juice pitcher down since it was too high for her. I groaned, got up, and went to the kitchen. It was already sitting on the counter. I said "why'd you get me up if you already got it?" She turned around and grew a shade more pale and said "I didn't"

[nijineko]

looks like you jumped into a new element. or at least are hanging your head out the rolled down window. interesting stuff out there.

[Panthro82]

oldgamer, a hornet the size of a hummingbird! For real?!?!?! OMG I would have run with my arms flailing and never went back! I would have moved out of state. That orange spider would have freaked me out simply because I have never heard of an orange spider that size. I know of the Gargantuan Bird Spider but it is brownish/yellow in most cases. It is typically the size of a dinner plate and when it sets up its lair its webbing is AS tough as solid steel! Meaning if you kicked its web barefoot as hard as you could you would break a toe.

[Webhead]

There are still surprises left in the world. I recall a story from a few years ago about a fishing boat off the coast of Portugal catching a strange fish which turned out to be of a species that had previously been believed extinct for over 2 million years.

Edit: My Google search-fu is not strong and I wasn't able to find reference to the story and fish I recall seeing, but there are many refereces to the Coelacanth, a prehistoric fish which was recently caught off the coast of Indonesia and which was believed to have become extinct some 80 million years ago.

Edit2: Oh, and here's the one I recall about the strange prehistoric shark that was spotted in Japan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsFKg05vW9M

[GoddessGood]

I remember both of those coming on in the news. The sharkie doesn't look like he's doing so hot. I also followed the coverage of the first footage of the giant and colossal squids when they came out. These creatures were first considered myth until they washed up on shore. If you're not familiar, you should also check out River Monsters, which is a neat program about giant fish, etc.

[Oldgamer]

oldgamer, a hornet the size of a hummingbird! For real?!?!?! OMG I would have run with my arms flailing and never went back! I would have moved out of state. That orange spider would have freaked me out simply because I have never heard of an orange spider that size. I know of the Gargantuan Bird Spider but it is brownish/yellow in most cases. It is typically the size of a dinner plate and when it sets up its lair its webbing is AS tough as solid steel! Meaning if you kicked its web barefoot as hard as you could you would break a toe.

Lol, yeah, the hornet sounded like a plane humming in the distance coming in. We laughed about it later when we were safe about it being a Bomber, so it now has a name It was a real slow flier too, like it was too heavy for its own wings.

The spider was odd, and luckily dead, maybe that's what color it's husk turned after it died, I don't know, but it was strange to be sure.

[Panthro82]

I hope to never come across a bee that size in my life. That is the 1 fear I have and I am not ashamed to admit that I act pathetic when they are around. Anything else I'm captain cool, but not those horrid things.

Oh I remember watching this show on TV that talked about an Octopus that was the size of an entire football field that washed up on shore a long long time ago(probably before any of us were born). They buried it somewhere...I can't remember the show I think it was on Discovery a few years back.

I've often wondered to myself just what is in deep bodies of water. To me I think there are more amazing things down there then in deep space. I have often thought about just how much the world would change if we had a means to travel to the bottom of the Mariana trench. The things we would most likely find...

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

There was a show on a couple of months ago that did a bit of investigation on a few of these things, including military being killed in Vietnam, and more currently, the middle east. Giant bats, i believe.

[Sascha]

I remember both of those coming on in the news. The sharkie doesn't look like he's doing so hot. I also followed the coverage of the first footage of the giant and colossal squids when they came out. These creatures were first considered myth until they washed up on shore. If you're not familiar, you should also check out River Monsters, which is a neat program about giant fish, etc.

Yeah, the shark ended up dying, due to environmental differences - wasn't acclimated to the warm waters of the zoo. (frilled shark, Chlamydoselachus anguineus, in case anyone was wondering )

The best part of River Monsters (which is a fun show ^_^) is how easy it is to attribute characteristics of one animal onto a more common one. Just ask the poor Lycosa tarantula, who's "deadly" bite spawned a dance (of sorts)