Files From the Edge (18 page)

We walked to the barn and he showed us the prints: they were huge! Whatever this thing was, it sure earned its “Bigfoot” name. The deputy returned to his car and radioed for assistance. Two hours later, another officer arrived with plaster and we proceeded to make a cast of the footprints. The deputy gave me one to take home—I still have it in my study today. I wanted to stay in the area for two more days and one of the ranchers kindly introduced me to a family that lived in a new development called the Flying L Ranch. The family graciously put me up while I continued my investigation. I spent most of my time there staking out the back roads and hills but never saw or heard anything. As far as I know, the creature never returned to that part of Bandera County, and still remains an unsolved mystery in the case files at the sheriff’s office.

Although most Bigfoot sightings come from credible sources, some seem really questionable. For example, in 1992 I received a call from a Connecticut woman who said that a black helicopter landed in her yard and a Bigfoot jumped out, messed up the yard, and stole her clothes hanging on a line to dry. The creature then quickly climbed back into the helicopter and took off. As strange as it sounds, I’ve heard even weirder reports. Such tales are not this book’s focus, but they
do
exist!

Lake Monsters

According to the Global Lake Monster Database, lake monsters have been reported in two hundred and fifty land-locked bodies of freshwater around the world. Next to Bigfoot and his relatives, they are the second-most frequently reported creatures that seem to be from another reality. Many researchers would like to believe these creatures are actually dinosaurs that survived mass extinction and have been living and breeding in some of the lakes around the world. The problem with this theory is simple: where did these aquatic “dinosaurs” go during the ice age when most of these bodies of water were frozen or did not even exist? Despite thousands of hours of exploration, lake monsters seem to pop in and out of existence and no one has been able to prove their existence beyond a shadow of a doubt. They remain as elusive as Bigfoot, yet continue to be seen.

Perhaps there is another dimension very close to our own where marine dinosaurs did not become extinct and somehow occasionally find their way to our reality. Although I have investigated sightings of “Nessie” in Loch Ness, Scotland; “Ogopogo” in Lake Okanagan, British Columbia; and “Champ” in Lake Champlain, Vermont, I have never seen anything strange, but I have spoken with a great number of credible people who claim to have had sightings, some more than once. The creatures are all described as having a long neck, flippers, and several humps on its back. All of these lakes are quite large and remote, so it’s easy to understand how a creature could stay hidden in one for a very long time. In 1983, however, I received a report from a witness who said he saw a “sea serpent” in Long Island Sound just off the coast of New Haven. I found out later that since 1873 there have been fourteen sightings of a similar creature off the coast of New England.
[2]

New England Sea Serpents

A
New York Times
story dated July 31, 1875, reported that a “sea serpent” had been seen over the past two years from Sandy Hook and Cape Elizabeth in New Jersey to Cape Ann in Massachusetts. The same or similar “sea serpent” was also seen by ten people from a fishing ship just 10 miles off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In every case, the creature was reported to be the size of a large boat with a neck stretching 12 feet out of the water. One encounter was reportedly so close to the boat, the men aboard said they could have struck the beast with an oar but did not to avoid drawing the beast’s ire. Witnesses at Cape Elizabeth said the sea serpent had made twenty appearances in the harbor over the past two years. In one encounter, frightened people on a bridge threw stones at the creature, causing it to dive underwater and swim away.

Another story in the
New York Times
(from 1932) talks about a 40-foot creature that resembled a transparent sea serpent spotted in Sandy Hook, New Jersey—just 25 miles from Times Square. Frogmen and scientists were sent with cameras and equipment to verify its existence, but found nothing. Two days later, the sea serpent was spotted again, this time by a Mr. Buckley while on his boat in the Sandy Hook harbor. Buckley got so excited that he grabbed his gun and fired three bullets into the creature, causing it to cry in pain and dive underwater. The
Times
reporter speculated in the article that Buckley may have seen a giant water snake. Mr. Buckley later wrote a letter to the editor saying he was very familiar with snakes and this was not the case: the sea serpent had a long neck, two sharp fins, terrible claws and teeth, and a horn on its nose. When he shot the beast, it made a sound so horrible he wanted to run away.

A sea serpent of similar description was reported by the
New York Times
on August 1, 1933, in the waters of Long Island Sound, off the coast of Westport, Connecticut. At a party in the vicinity of Seymour’s Rock, a group of people saw nine dark hump-like objects sticking out of the water about a quarter of a mile from the shore. The humps were moving slowly in a northeastern direction, and the witnesses reported that they had to strain their eyes in order to get a better look at them. As they watched, the objects suddenly began “churning” in the water at a rapid rate causing the water all around it to foam. The members of the party were convinced that they were looking at the famous sea serpent that had been seen so many times over the past fifty years. The people at the party estimated that the body they saw was very long, at least a hundred feet in length.

As they watched, a huge head and neck came out of the water and stood upright for at least two minutes. Two women in the party using binoculars said they could see the creature’s eyes glowing red. The head and neck resubmerged and the creature swam away at great speed until they lost sight of it in the fog.

In 1983, I received a letter from a New Haven, Connecticut, resident who claimed to have seen a sea serpent in Long Island Sound. The individual did not give his name and there was no return address on the envelope. Perhaps this person felt foolish seeing such a cryptic animal in domestic waters. For years, the report was filed with a dozen others in my library; this is the first time I am publishing it.

I heard you on a radio show and have read your column in the
Greenwich Time
newspaper and I thought you would be interested in the sighting I had of a sea serpent right in Long Island Sound just off the coast of New Haven. Yes, a sea serpent. There is no doubt in my mind that what I saw was real and I prefer not to send you my name but want to report it to someone in case there are more people who saw it. I was out by the shore at about 5:30 in the morning, I do this quite often since it is peaceful at that time and you can see the sun low in the east illuminating the water. As I looked I saw this large body in the water and knew it was some kind of sea animal. My first impression was that it was a whale, but I realized it was more snake like. This creature was shiny black in color with a light green spotted neck. I saw it no more than 200 feet from me for at least thirty minutes. It started swimming back and forth in front of me and then started nudging a buoy around like it wanted to play. This was definitely not a hallucination, I looked for someone to see it with me, but no one was around. I would have given my right arm for a camera that day but it seemed like it was a show for my benefit. I was completely and absolutely frozen with wonder. All the hair on my arm and neck stood up and chills ran down my spine. I then once again ran frantically around looking for another person to see this, but still found no one. When I went back to the water the sea serpent was gone. This is not a hoax or the mutterings of a lunatic since I still cannot believe what I saw. I have told very few people this story and most of them just gave me a strange look so I remained quiet until I heard you on the radio.

The number of articles I was able to find in the
New York Times
concerning sea serpents off the coast of New England really surprised me. How could a creature this size live in such crowded waters and not be captured or killed? The answer once again is that this particular sea serpent’s home may not be in the waters off the coast of the northeast United States, but in another dimension parallel to ours.

The Chupacabra

While living in Texas, I heard stories of various animals being attacked by some type of creature and drained of blood. The most common types of domestic animal victim to this blood-sucking creature were goats, sheep, dogs, and in some cases cows. At first, killings were blamed on vampire bats that would leave their nests in swarms and attack animals, killing and draining them of blood. However, in all of the cases the puncture was made by one animal that had canine-like teeth. Since the puncture marks were mostly in the neck and the wounds appeared like “vampire marks” some people thought that the killings were actually due to human vampires or some Satanic cult. At this time no one in the United States had heard the word “chupacabra,” Spanish meaning “goat-sucker”;
chupar
meaning “to suck” and
cabra
meaning “goat.” Although the first documented attacks that made press were in 1995, it seems that the killings had been going on for much longer than that. There is a chance that I may have seen one of the creatures responsible for these bizarre animal killings during my Bigfoot investigations in central Texas.

I was driving the back roads with a friend just outside Medina Lake in autumn of 1972. It was about 10 pm and it was pitch dark; we were quite far from any major highway and there were no homes in the area. We pulled over to the side of a dirt path in a heavily wooded area. After killing the headlights and engine on my car, I began waiting to see if a Bigfoot would cross the road. We didn’t know it at the time, but the car was closely parked to a large boulder at least 8 feet high. After about an hour, we were ready to give up and head for home when
BANG!
—something landed on the roof of the car! It jumped onto the hood and began running down the path.

I turned on the headlights and clicked on the brights and saw what appeared to be a large hairless dog with long hind legs. It ran down the path, stopped, and turned around as if to look at the light. It was then that we noticed it had a very long snout and its eyes glowed red reflected in the headlights. I must admit: this was a little unsettling. The creature turned around, resumed running away, and was soon lost in the darkness. My friend and I got out of the car to inspect the roof and found a large dent in it. I would estimate this animal was the size of a large German shepherd and must have weighed at least 80 pounds to do the damage it did. It must have been on top of the boulder and jumped off, landing on our car.

At first my friend thought we had seen a cougar, but then guessed it looked like a coyote with mange. I told him that it didn’t look like any animal I had ever seen, and it sure wasn’t a coyote—I encountered them many times in my night explorations in the Texas hills. It wasn’t until early 2009 after seeing an amazing video taken by a deputy sheriff in Texas that I realized we may have had an encounter with a chupacabra! The story made the press on August 12, 2008; I will present a synopsis below.

Texas Deputy Sheriff Captures a Chupacabra On Video

For eight years, Officer Brandon Reidel patrolled DeWitt County, southwest of San Antonio. In all of his time, the only strange things he ever encountered were some of the criminals he arrested.
[3]
That all changed when Reidel had a new experience—chasing a chupacabra in broad daylight in his patrol car! Officer Reidel was lucky enough to record the creature running from him. The footage showed the animal in question appearing at first to be a hairless dog or coyote. Upon closer examination, the creature’s front legs were much shorter than the hind legs, and the way it ran seemed quite strange . . . very different compared to any type of known animal. The creature had a very long snout and fit the description of what has been called the Texas Chupacabra. Last year, a similar creature was found dead near the town of Cuero, and although DNA testing could not completely confirm it was a coyote, scientists in Texas believe it may be a rare mutant version or a wild dog. After looking at the photographs of the dead animal and seeing the video from the police car, I knew it was what I saw that night in Texas. Was it a dog? A mutant coyote? Or the Chupacabra?

I was originally going to end this chapter with the Chupacabra, but in the winter of 2009 I received an interesting letter from a person who had sightings of creature-like entities in the Pine Bush area. Pine Bush is located on the west side of the Hudson and, just like the rest of the valley, is the location of many reported encounters with UFOs, strange beings, and monsters. This is not the first letter I received concerning paranormal activity in that area, but it is one I would like to include in this chapter.

The Creatures of Pine Bush

“To start with, I lived in the Hudson Valley area for only twenty-two years of my life. My story is a bit strange, so be patient. I have recently become aware of things written that have brought me back to think about the strange occurrences and things that happened when I was growing up there. I have told some people about these things, but certain experiences were never told to anyone because I was often left alone as a child and felt my parents would be criticized for neglect for never being around at the time of these occurrences.

“When I was seven years old, we moved from a home my grandfather built in Walden, to Pine Bush, next to an extremely horrible old chicken farm. I say this because my home in Walden was filled with great experiences with lots of friends and community life. Pine Bush became a nightmare to me. It was lonely and also the start of the weirdest stuff (which I kept mostly to myself) starting with blue lights that came through my bedroom window. Some nights, I saw little hairy creatures with big round eyes mulling around outside near my pet’s feeding bowls. They were bipedal and had hands with fingers that they kept flicking almost nervously. They seemed to be huddling like a football team and talking with one another and then they came around the other side of the house to peer at me through the window. There were always about ten of them. Three or four at a time would put their heads and hands against the window trying to see inside. My dog, an incessant barker, hid under the slip-covered chair I was sitting in, without a sound. I sat in front of the TV watching snow static on it until my parents came home at 2 am. I was in deep shock, because I could not speak or move for about ten minutes after their return. They explained that they had no idea it was that late and they had been to Saugerties (a town quite a way’s up the river) visiting friends. I burst into tears and asked that they never leave me alone like that again. I did not tell them what happened.