Sheepsquatch from Global Warming and Terraforming Terra

Sheepquatch Revisit

Posted: 27 Mar 2013 05:16 PM PDT

This is a smattering of additional reports out of the Appalachians. There are few enough such reports, but we are slowly building up a very interesting picture. Our working hypothesis is that we are dealing with the Giant Sloth.

There are noteworthy observations and variations across the universe of sightings that lead to a couple of conjectures.

1 The male and female are quite different. The male is robust, wears two pointed horns. Depending on season its fur is thick and wool like. A snout and non bear like configuration of the skull. The female is surprisingly thin and the skull is not nearly as robust. [I am presuming the "Horns" reported are actually its ears-DD]

2 The long claws are used as digging tools and disturbed soil is common.

3 The fur is wool like and is seen in its various states which leads to confusion. It may well account for the robust appearance.

Again, I think that the total extant eyeball reports are less than two dozen. That is enough to puts folks on notice and to encourage more reports coming forward.

Sheepsquatch: Appalachia's White Monster

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013

http://naturalplane.blogspot.ca/2013/03/sheepsquatch-appalachias-white-monster.html

From Monsters and Mysteries in America: The dark hallows and dense forests of Appalachia harbor strange mysteries. Local residents will recount their encounters with the terrifying Sheepsquatch. The border between southwest Virginia and West Virginia is an area shrouded in mystery and folklore, but few mysteries are more unusual and intriguing than that of the Appalachian white beast known to the locals as Sheepsquatch. Dakota Cheeks and his best friend Ricky Joyce become prey to the legendary white beast during a weekend hunting trip.

In July 2011 I received an unusual email that, quite frankly, I thought was a prank...that's until I started to check into the claim. From what I can gather there is a bit of local folklore with this story. Last Summer I was contacted by the producers of Monsters and Mysteries in America for information on this beast and others I had written about. Here is the previous post:

Mr. Strickler - I hope you can give me an idea of what I saw a few weeks ago while hiking with a friend in Fairy Stone State Park in Virginia. We had been on one of the trails for about an hour when we stopped for a brief rest and drink. This was my first visit to this park and I was pleased that the area we were in was secluded.

After a few minutes of rest we continued to walk along the trail when my friend suddenly stopped and pointed towards the right at large group of rocks. Something was moving around but it was about 50 yards away so we didn't get a very good look. We could see that it was light in color and was quite bulky. We stood frozen wanting to know what this creature was though I was getting more frightened by the second. As we started to walk the creature moved onto a rock where we got a good look at it. It looked like a medium sized bear but the fur was very light in color, almost a yellowish gray. The head was very strange also. There was a snout like that of a bear but the dark round eyes were set lower on the head. It was looking in our direction and we had no intention on sticking around to see what it was going to do.

We got back to the car and immediately left for home. I have read online that this area has a strange history, thus the name 'Fairy Stone'. The creature is unlike any I have seen or heard about before. I had made an inquiry to a local historian who laughed at me and said I saw a 'Sheep Squatch'. What is that? Thanks for you help - Teena

Monstropedia has a brief history about a cryptid referred to as a 'Sheepsquach', which is also known as the 'white thing'. It is supposedly a white woolly-haired cryptid that has been reported throughout the southwestern region of Virginia. Fairy Stone StatePark is located in the southwestern region of Virginia.

This creature is described as "being the size of a bear, with completely white wool-like fur. Its front limbs end in paw-like hands, similar to a raccoon’s but larger. The beast head is long and pointed, like a dog with long saber-like teeth and a single-pint horns like a young goat. SheepSquatch sports a long and hairless tail, similar to an opossum’s and is reputed to smell like sulfur."

There have been a few reported sightings over the years. The counties with the most sightings of Sheepsquatch are from Boone, Kanawha, Putnam, and Mason. A large surge in sightings took place in Boone County during the mid-1990s.

In 1994, a former Navy seaman witnessed the beast break through the forest. The white thing drank for a few minutes, then crossed the creek and continued on across toward the road. The navy seaman observed the animal for a while, and then it moved on into the surrounding brush.

Also in that same year, two children observed the beast while playing in the yard in Boone County. They saw what looked like a large white bear, and it stood up on its hind legs, which made it over six feet tall. Startled, the beast ran away through the forest, breaking medium-sized limbs off of trees as it went.

Another encounter a year later involved a car. A couple driving through Boone County noticed a large white beast sitting in the ditch along the road. They stopped their car to get a good look at it. It was described again as a large white animal with woolly fur about the size of a bear. In this instance, it was described as having “four eyes”. Then, it jumped out of the ditch and starts attacking the car. The couple drove off quickly, and when they got home noticed the large scratches on the side where the beast attacked.

Another incident occurred in 1999, this time a couple of campers were in the forest of Boone County at night around a campfire. They heard an animal snorting and scuffling around the camp, but it did not come into the light of the campfire. All of the sudden, the SheepSquatch appeared out of the darkness and charged at the campers. They jumped up and ran back to their house; all the while being pursued by the SheepSquatch. It stopped at the edge of the forest, however, and let out a terrible scream. Then it just turned around and headed back into the woods. The next morning, the campers examined their campsite and the trail home. It was torn up, they said, “like someone had tilled it up for gardening”.

Caribbean Ground Sloth?

Another Taino artifact is this small "Bear" representation. Since there are supposed to be no bears in the area, the next suggestion is that it could possibly represent a surviving ground sloth. The Tainos lived in Cuba and Cuba is one place the bear-sized Groundsloths are alleged to have survived. Also it does seem the paws are meant to show some sizeable hooked claws, although that part may not seem readily apparent at first.

Tetrapod Zoo on Sloths

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2012/08/30/the-anatomy-of-sloths/

I am reprinting part of this article of Darren Naish's because people don't realise what a diversity of sloths there once were and why we are facing a quandry when we are talking about the possibility of surviving groundsloths. We do not only have survivals of one kind of generic groundsloth that is reported everywhere today, but instead we have a number of reports of highly varied groundsloths with different anatomies described in different areas. And I thought I sould mention that my home manuscript report dealing with the topic has a drawing basically like a simplified version of Darrens drawing for "Sloth Diversity" shown directly below.-DD

The anatomy of sloths

By Darren Naish August 30, 2012 About Darren Naish Darren Naish is a science writer, technical editor and palaeozoologist (affiliated with the University of Southampton, UK). He mostly works on Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs but has an avid interest in all things tetrapod. He has been blogging at Tetrapod Zoology since 2006.  Darren Naish is a vertebrate palaeontologist, currently based at the University of Southampton, UK. From 1997 to 2006 I worked on the predatory dinosaurs of the Lower Cretaceous of southern England, focusing for my PhD on the tyrannosauroid Eotyrannus. My published technical work is mostly on theropod and sauropod dinosaurs, but I've also worked on pterosaurs, marine reptiles and marine mammals (see list of references below). Since completing my PhD I’ve worked in the media and as a technical editor and freelance author (see list of books below). I like dinosaurs very much, but they’re far from the only animals that I find interesting: I'm fascinated by all tetrapods and have some practical and research experience with Mesozoic marine reptiles, marine mammals, flightless birds and pterosaurs. I spend as much time in the field as possible, looking at real live tetrapods.

Contact Darren Naish via email.
Follow Darren Naish on Twitter as @TetZoo.

Everybody loves sloths, and whenever we talk about sloths we have to remember that the two living kinds (Bradypus – the four species of three-toed sloth – and Choloepus – the two species of two-toed sloth) are but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to sloth diversity. This article – an excerpt from Naish (2005) (though with citations added that were absent in the published article) – briefly reviews the anatomy of fossil sloths, though there are references to the living forms where appropriate.

A typical fossil sloth can be imagined as a rather bear-shaped, shaggy-furred mammal with particularly powerful forelimbs, a barrel-shaped ribcage, a stout tail, prominent curved hand and foot claws and a markedly broad, robust pelvis.

Skulls from various sloths. a. Eremotherium, a Pleistocene megatheriid known from both South and North America. b. Nematherium, a mylodontid from Early Miocene South America. c. Scelidotherium, a scelidotheriine mylodontid from the Pliocene and Pleistocene of South America. d. Thalassocnus, a nothrotheriid from the Miocene and Pliocene of the Pacific coast of South America. e. Acratocnus odontrigonus, a choloepodine megalonychid from the Pleistocene of Puerto Rico. f. Acratocnus simorhynchus, an even shorter-snout choloepodine, from the Pleistocene of Hispaniola. Not to scale. Images by Darren Naish, redrawn from various sources. From Naish (2005).
Naish, D. 2005. Fossils explained 51: sloths. Geology Today 21 (6), 232-238.

--Now the problem we have with groundsloths as live candidates for reported Cryptids is that the reported ones are seldom a very good match: in discussing the reprinting of this article, Darren Naish mentions that proponents "cherry pick" traits which they choose to make out as important correspondences between the reports which they have and the fossil candidates they wish to promote. Now a severe problem in this category is the identification of the legendary Mapinguary or Mapinguary of South America, commonly represented in Cryptozoological literature as being a type of surviving giant ground sloth, probably a type of Mylodon. In this case the fossil candidate fails on two important counts: the legendary creatures are not supposed to have tails and they are supposed to have fightening fangs in the mouth. This rules out the Mylodons because the Mylodons were quite lacking in foreteeth. Farther north in the Caribbean reports of hairy apelike or apeman creatures are not generally considered as possible groundsloth survivals, even though they are often reported on Islands of the West Indies where there were no significantly large monkeys BUT on some islands where some groundsloths were known to have persisted at least as recently as the European colonisation. In particular this means Puerto Rico, Hispanola and Cuba where the 'Yehos' or Devils are still reported, and the candidate groundsloths were smaller with rounder heads and still retaining some fanged teeth in the canine positions (some of these teeth are more incisorform and presumably were used in a more rodentlike adaptation) See especially Acratocnus on both drawinfgs. At the same time there are reports of a larger more bearlike creature from Cuba that could also represent one of the other local types of groundsloths (once again usually called Yehos or Yahus, meaning Devils, and said to be an African name originally)

Separating Sasquatch From Sloth

Separating Sasquatch From Sloth

Posted: 12 Sep 2012 12:00 AM PDT

[Global Warming and Terraforming Terra Reprint]

We have come to understand that there are two bipedal creatures been observed and that they are easily mistaken for each other. The Sasquatch is clearly not particularly aggressive toward ourselves and conforms completely to our expectations of a primate cousin. That is not true for the giant sloth. The sloth is both bipedal and quadrupedal. When that is observed, you have a Sloth. One of the stories here is a report by a man who as a child was rescued by a Sasquatch which again conforms to the mass of date we now have.

What is becoming clear is that the nonconforming oddities been report actually conform to the Giant Sloth which is a much more dangerous creature to confront. In fairness, my own eye is pretty seasoned and I can pick up on the differences rather easily. Right now it is enough to know we do have a difference.

One of these was clearly a Sloth and we also learn the good news that a healthy individual can out run the creature. It is far faster that had been claimed, but its ability to consume meat protein provides plenty of energy for this.

Orange Eyes and the Charles Mill Lake Monster

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 06, 2012

http://naturalplane.blogspot.ca/2012/09/orange-eyes-and-charles-mill-lake.html

The legend of Orange Eyes dates back to March 28, 1959, when three panic stricken teenagers allegedly encountered a large, bipedal, hairless monstrosity, which rose from a mist covered morass on a desolate stretch of country road. This lane, which is officially named Ruggles Road, runs along the Charles Mill Reservoir outside of Mansfield, Ohio

The first known encounter with Orange Eyes occurred in 1963. According to eyewitness reports, the creature appeared before a plethora of eyewitnesses who described as being approximately 11-feet in height and weighing somewhere in the order of 1,000 pounds.

The horrified wasted no time in arming themselves and forming a posse in order to ensure this massive beast’s destruction, but their efforts were met with failure.

While the origin of this being is shrouded in mystery, there are many who believe that Orange Eyes was once a docile and reclusive creature, which dwelt in a tunnel in Cleveland’s River Side cemetery.

These individuals assert that it wasn’t until a highway construction crew destroyed the animal’s sanctuary in the late 1940s, that it was forced to move into the wooded area near Mill Lake, where it came into more frequent contact with human beings and its attitude took a distinct turn for the worse.

The next recorded encounter with Orange Eyes occurred on April 22, 1968 when a group of children stumble upon the beast.

The final recorded encounter with this creature was said to have taken place in June of 1991, when this creature presented itself to a pair of anglers who were fishing near Willis Creek.

So what is Orange Eyes? The description would suggest that it is a Bigfoot-like being...but has it been confused with another local cryptid?

Nestled in between Cleveland and Columbus, the Mill Lake Reservoir was constructed in 1935 by damming the Black Fork of the Mohican River. Known for its voluminous catfish population, The Lake is also said to be the home of a unique and ostensible amphibious creature named the Charles Mill Lake Monster.

The previously mentioned encounter with Orange Eyes on March 28, 1959, may have actually been the Charles Mill Lake Monster. Three teenage buddies — Denny Patterson, Wayne Armstrong and Michael Lane — claimed to have had a run-in with a horrifying creature. The youth testified that they were cavorting near Ruggles road, near the swampy shores of the Charles Mill Reservoir at night when they saw a strange, 7-foot tall being rise up from the black water front of them.

The petrified boys watched in horror as this colossal creature towered above them. Later they would describe the beast as being a huge, “armless” humanoid with luminous, green eyes and large, webbed feet. Needless to say the teens wasted no time in exiting the scene and were swift to report their unusual encounter. This odd manifestation seems quite unlike any other creature ever reported.

[this unfortunately sounds cribbed from a bad movie - if it has substance, then it may have been a reptile of sorts– arclein]

When local authorities made their way back to the reservoir to see what all the excitement was about, they discovered a series of "tracksthat resembled the footgear worn by skin divers" along the shore. Despite this apparentconfirmation that“something” with large, webbed feet was skulking along the edge of the lake, there were no subsequent reports of this armless beast with glowing eyes.

It goes without saying that the legends of the Charles Mill Lake Monster and Orange Eyes have become intertwined over the years, a fact which is understandable considering that they are both huge, humanoid beasts with illuminated eyes and inhabit the same general area.

The Charles Mill Lake Monster is an armless, hairless, ostensibly amphibious, green-eyed monster with big webbed feet, whileOrange Eyes is more akin to a prototypical Bigfoot-like being in that it is a large, hairy ape-like creature with two arms and orange eyes. So...are these two beings actually the same creature that was described differently?

The following anecdotes and reports (unedited) come from the BFRO website:

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Old Hickory Rd in the Summer 1963 - Richland County

This incident occurred about forty years ago and may not be of interest, but I'm going to relate what happened anyway. Two other teenage neighbors and I were sitting in a large yard in a rural setting one summer evening talking. All of a sudden, the property owners dog ran from behind the barn yelping. Our approximate sitting position in relation to the dog was I'd say 70 to 80 ft. What surprised us initially was that this big boxer dog was afraid of nothing. The three of us turned in unison to see a large creature come from behind the barn that I would describe as resembling part bear, part ape and part human. It was about seven feet tall, and it had rather long, dirty, reddish brown hair. I would best describe the creature's gait as a fast "lope." What I mean is that it would bring its right leg to its left and repeat the same movement in a quick manner while swinging its arms in a fully extended and relaxed manner (kind of difficult to describe). It moved from our left to our right. It "loped" across the yard, across the road and into the woods. It was the time of evening that it was starting to get dark. I said to the other two boys...let's get knives and flashlights and investigate. When we had assembled the gear we followed the creature's path to the edge of the woods. Although we were young and full of bravado, we weren't brave enough to actually go into the woods. We instead shined our flashlights into the woods from a safe distance. We could see in the lights reflection two bright pink eyes looking back at us. Well, what little bravado that we had evaporated and we ran home. Although this event occurred about forty years ago, I can still see it in my mind as though it happened yesterday.

[The lope is odd and plausible if we are observing a Giant sloth. It is not plausible for a Sasquatch - arclein]

------

Somewhere between Cleveland and Columbus in one of the little campsite areas along State Route 3, from what he recalls. (He called back to describe the Mohican Memorial Forest as the likely general area in Ashland Co.)

I would be happy to send you a copy of a colored picture I drew when I was 5 years old back in 1943 of what possibly could have been a bigfoot. I was lost out in the woods while camping with my parents somewhere in central Ohio and this large female ape-like creature put me back in our camp. Then I started screaming and my parents who were out looking for me heard me and came back to the camp and found me. I have not showed this picture to many people because they would have thought I was crazy. I was a lawyer here in Summit County for nearly 40 years and I did not need any aspersions cast upon my sanity. I have had two cancer surgeries in the past six months and I would now like to leave the original of this picture as a bequest in my will to the right kind of museum before anything else happens to me. I also hope that thispicture might corroborate the testimony of people with similar experiences whom nobody would believe before. If you don't have the time to look at it, please let me know the address where thepicture can be sent by parcel post or UPS. I am grateful to that blessed creature for my life and would like to honor her memory in some way.

Followup:

Subject stated he remembers being picked up by something. He saw its arm and he was carried. He described that it looked to him like a gorilla woman. She had deep set big brown eyes. Since it was so long ago, he doesn't remember details except that she had a fox-like color of brownish red. It was covered in coarse hair.

He remembered being carried for what he thought had to be over a minute. He described her as fast, strong and bigger than his father who stood five feet eight inches tall. He recalls being held; an odor commonly described as dead or rotting meat. He stated that her teeth looked stained and she had bad breath. I asked, why a woman, and he said he didn’t know but she acted that way. She had no enlarged breasts. He also kept saying she had deep brown eyes but not so deeply cut into her skull.

He said she took him and cut through the forest. He was terrified, she held him in her right arm. He remembers how fast she walked and that she cut through the forest like butter and she knew where she was going. He said he cried hard, was terrified, but she did not hurt him. She took him to a place where his parents eventually found him and she put a heavy branch on his legs so he could not move. Then she left. I asked about her build and he said she was solid with "good shoulders". Since it was so long ago there was a lot he couldn't remember, but he feels she was (even though she looked so hairy) a woman.

[this was clearly a rescue and cleverly done to boot. It was clearly a Sasquatch - arclein]

This witness went on to say he spent the rest of his life not sharing his story but after retiring, he thought "What the Hell" and began sharing his experience. He mentioned that he could not get his parents to believe him. They passed it off as imagination. The only adult he mentioned as believing him was his kindergarten teacher and his father was thought to discredit her by the beliefs she held.

The question "What did your parents think of you being pinned down by the log or branch?" was recently asked of this man. He reminded me that his parents were from the city and in a state of panic (even hysterics) because he was missing. Being frightened so much of the woods in the dark in the rain, they would have figured he would have never survived being lost. He presumed that his parents thought it might be a natural situation such as a branch being blown down by the trees, regarding him being pinned by a heavy branch. . As unlikely as that sounds, it is certainly more acceptable than what he described as happening to him at the time. He feels this report is important in that it may help to influence young people to share any unusual experiences they have had. Back then, he had nowhere to go with it and nobody to talk to about it. When he tried to talk about it he was met with rejection so after awhile, he completely stopped since he only met one adult person who would believe him.

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Fall 1991 - The incident in question took place in Ashland County about 5 miles south of Ashland on a one lane country road. If necessary I can go and get the actual township number for the road.

Myself and my best friend at the time were still in high school And we were "investigating" a "supposed" haunted bridge one night. So we went out to this old rail road bridge,(the kind that you can drive through And it is only one lane), and we went there at night. So we preceded to look around and we heard rustling in the woods next to us about 50 yards Away. We didn't think nothing of it so we continued looking around. The rustling began to get closer but we thought that it was a deer or something So we decided to walk up to this old abandoned barn to see what was in it. Well, all of a sudden there was this loud, deafening scream-roar-growl noise And we heard what sounded like heavy footsteps in the field next to us. I saw, running at us on what appeared to be somewhat all fours but it wasn't a massive creature with long shaggy hair. It stopped about 15 feet away and stood up and it had to have been at least 16 feet tall!!! We then took off running for the car and the creature pursued us. By the time we got to the car another was coming down the road and it scared the creature away.

[This is surely a Giant Sloth and it was stalking these two chaps. Possibly unsure what it faced it reared up to attack and then gave chase. The fortunate news is that the creature's running speed is slower than ours. This is a very dangerous creature that stalks and ambushes and will give chase. That is good enough for a lot of meals. - arclein]

Also:

Other then the rustling of trees and bushes and the growl like sound I can't remember anything. We did come back the next day and found Some rather wierd looking tracks or footprints or whatever they were.

The area was kind of set down in a low area with somewhat of a hilly area. There was a railway line that had two tracks and it ran along a raised area that had several one-lane bridges in the area on other roads. There was a small stream that also ran next to the railway bridge and in fact there was two bridges, one for cars and one for the stream. There was An old cow pasture where we actually saw the creature but surrounded that and everything else could be considered a wooded area or forest. The elevation Is not known.

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The location was south of the Adario West Road approx 1/2 mile along the creek in Richland County.

I was fifteen or sixteen at the time, 1958, and running a trapline on a creek west and south of Adario, Ohio. It was my third or fourth year of trapping. My dog, Smokey, always went with me and usually chased rabbits while I was checking my traps. That morning, before going to school, I set out to check my traps with a near full moon lighting up the sky. It was a very cold morning. As I started down the Adario West Road toward the creek, Smokey started acting strange and wouldn't leave my side. He started growling a real deep growl, just barely audible. At each spot where I had a trap set, Smokey would sit on top of the bank while I went to check my traps. I was nearing the end of my trap line when I had to go down a steep bank to retrieve a muskrat in one of my traps. This time Smokey came down the bank with me and sat facing up the bank, his growling growing louder. I was just getting ready to reset the trap when an errie feeling came over me. I turned to look up the bank (Smokey had ceased growling and was leaning against me)and saw something I had never seen before until many years later in a documentary on 'Big Foot'. Whatever it was stood approx. seven feet tall and was all covered with long hair, except its face. The face was not exactly human, but not animal either. And there seemed to be some kind of foul odor in the air.

Needless to say, it scared me half to death, but I think I also might have surprised it at the same time. In just seconds it turned and half walked, half ran away. I started up the bank a few seconds later and reached the top of the bank in time to see 'it' cross a six foot high gate leading into a field, without even touching it. I watched it lumber through the field for a minute or so to make sure it wasn't going the direction I had to go, and then started for home. Unfortunately, there was no snow on the ground and the ground was frozen pretty hard. I didn't even think to look for tracks at the time, but thought about it in school later in the day. I decided to go back out and look for tracks after school, but as luck would have it we got about four inches of snow before I got home from school.

I didn't tell my parents or anyone else because I didn't want to loose my freedom to trap and knew my mom would come unglued if she knew about it. I waited several days before checking my trap line again for fear of running into it again, but never did see anything like it again. There are a lot of small woodlots in that area, but nothing of any great size because it is farm country with roads as close as one mile apart. I have no idea where something like that could have lived undetected by someone, sometime. I didn't find out until the early nineties that there had ever been any 'sightings' of such a creature anywhere in Ohio. I thought such sightings were mostly in northern CA and up the coast states into Canada. Anyhow, that's about as much as I can remember after forty-five years.

Followup:

Between 1957 and 1960 they had strange incidents around there property that couldn't be explained. One night the dogs were going crazy over something in the yard. The next morning they found a three-foot wide section of wheat field mowed down heading toward the ditch line. He adds the creature had long hair and the arms very straight. The encounter even caused his dog (cross between shepherd/spitz) to sweat in fear.

[This one is likely a Sasquatch. However the lumbering gait and the slight oddness of the face opens some ambiguity]

-----

The following is a full report of sightings in Richland County, OH during July 1978:

SUBJECT: An unusual bipedal creature with large head

DATE(S): July 8, 10, & 12, 1978

\
WITNESSES: Eugene Kline, Theresa Kline and Ken O'Neal

LOCATION: Butler, Ohio; Richland County

INVESTIGATORS: Ron Schaffner (Ron@bfro.net), Earl Jones, Richland County Sheriff's Department

CASE DATA: A brief column in the Columbus Dispatch dated July 16, 1978 read as follows:

BIGHEAD CAUSE STIR IN BUTLER VICINITY

"What has a head larger than its body, bulging red eyes and stands over seven foot tall? Don't know?...Well, neither do the residents of southern Richland County community of Butler"....

The newspaper goes on to explain an offbeat investigation by Butler's acting police chief and the Richland County's Sheriff's department. Both departments debunked the story as a hoax. We spent several hours interviewing the witnesses and found discrepancies between law officials, the press and local rumors. We hope to clarify the events in question.

Butler is a quiet community of 1300. The town offers a wide verity of outdoor entertainment, such as canoeing, hayrides and ski facilities. On the eastern side lies the Mohican State Forest, which provides an unlimited amount of camping and backpacking trails.

The Roger Kline family live on Ohio S.R. 95 at the Butler city limits. Their property extends a few acres back to a branch line of the CSX railroad.(1) Beyond the tracks, lie vast wooded hills and farmland.

The first of these strange encounters occurred on the night of July 8 at 11:00 PM. Eugene Kline and Ken O'Neal, both 17, were walking along the tracks when they heard a strange noise coming from the brush up ahead. The boys turned around towards the left and saw an unknown creature about seven foot tall with large red eyes. The boys instantly panicked. Ken started running back to the house, but Eugene could not move. He seemed to be transfixed to the apparition for what seemed like minutes. Finally, the shock broke and Eugene made his get-a-away back to the house.

Eugene described the creature as being about seven foot tall with a head much larger than its body. It appeared to have red eyes. He further stated that there were no hands or feet visible. They could not give any details as to hair or skin. Both agreed that it made an unusual growling sound.

Eugene's father called the Sheriff's department and they checked the area. They also filed a report. (2)

Within two days, "Bighead" was reported again. This time, the creature was seen by a carload of Mansfield residents. (Names are on police report, but are withheld here due to confidentiality requests.) It was about 10:00 PM, when the group of young adults were at a railroad crossing. They told Bellville Police that a hugh black apparition with red eyes was in a slumped position by the tracks. The authorities were impressed because all their stories matched while being interviewed separately. All witnesses showed signs of fright.

On the night of July 12, the creature was back on the prowl and back on the Kline's property. Theresa and her father, Roger were pitching hay from their barn. A slow freight train was heading eastbound. The train began to sound its horn at long and short intervals. Roger went back to the house while Theresa decided that she wanted to see why the train kept blowing the horn. She had not gone far when she saw a silhouette with two glowing eyes. It omitted a foul odor and a high pitched scream. Theresa threw her flashlight at it and ran.

EVALUATION:

The Richland County Sheriff's department investigated and found no physical evidence to substantiate this creature. deputies remained skeptical and even mocked the stories. According to Butler Police Chief, Phil Stortz, the Klines were probably seeing a wild animal from the Mohican State Park. He could not see how "Bigfoot" could exist in Ohio. (3)

There seems to be a change of opinion from Chief Stortz. According to the Columbus Dispatch, he stated that footprints and unusual hair were found on the Kline's property. When we asked him about his statements, he denied ever saying that and that the press misquoted him.

We arrived at the Kline residence on September 8. Eugene and Theresa were still in a nervous state as they recalled their encounters. They appeared to be intelligent kids with no apparent reason to perpetrate a hoax. Eugene received much ridicule from his classmates. He is familiar with many domestic and wild animals. It is a common practice of his to observe the local wildlife as they approach the nearby creek. Eugene told us that much of that wildlife wasn't seen during the week in question, although the neighborhood dogs barked constantly and the cattle seemed spooked. One dog jumped through a picture window of his owner's home and ran wildly inside the house. No one was sure what spooked the dog, but it was obviously scared. However, this may not be related to the events in question.

[I suspect that the focus on the head was a flight phenomena in which the eyes drill down on a central feature. This was likely a Sasquatch - arclein]

Since there were no specific descriptions of the creature's facial features, we can only speculate as to what it was. The head area is certainly not indicative of our legendary Bigfoot, but that description is probably a bit exaggerated due to a frightened experience. At any rate - Bigfoot or not - this case is extremely puzzling.

(1) CSX abandoned their right-of-way several years ago. The old line is now a paved bike trail.

(2) I have copies of the three original police reports that were filed.

(3) The reader will notice that the Butler Police Chief was the first to use the term "Bigfoot". This wasn't mentioned by the witnesses and we avoid using this term during our investigations.

Sources:
mid-americabigfoot.com

americanmonsters.com
BFRO

http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com/2012/09/separating-sasquatch-from-sloth.html

 

Swamp Ape Search Finds Giant Sloth

From the Global Warming and Terraforming Terra site. I am reprinting it exactly the way it was run although I do not endorse the conclusions. I find the clawed tracks to be composite bear tracks. But I'll let the original article speak for itself:

Swamp Ape Search Finds Giant Sloth Posted: 07 Sep 2012 12:00 AM PDT You were right the first time lady, you saw a Giant Sloth. It can run on all fours and it can run upright. The gait is almost primate like except there is a sideways sway observed in another report. Another swamp ape reports catches it picking at road kill. It is plausible that both the bigfoot and the giant sloth operate in the South, however the Giant sloth is well adapted for Southern Swamps while the Bigfoot is no better adapted than we are. In the event this is only the second report that recognized a giant Sloth when they saw one. I am sorry to say that our silly assumption that the Giant sloth was a slow moving critter is dead wrong. We already knew that from the other reports we are uncovering but this makes it explicitly clear. Much more important is that the natural habitat for a giant sloth is up in large old trees able to support their path-finding even deep into swamps were nothing can follow them. It is also comfortable in water when it needs to be which is why we have observed mud covered examples. The creature is certainly as solitary as the Bigfoot appears to be and it can range widely. It is not limited to a specific terrain and has been spotted even in this short review from swamps to high country. The footprint is quite different from the wide Bigfoot print and is clearly clawed. This is the beginning of a search. Quest for Swamp Ape by Linda Florea September 5, 2012 http://www.ufodigest.com/swampape.html WINTER HAVEN -- It's had more sightings than Elvis. They call it Wookie in Louisiana, Yeti in Nepal, Yowie in Australia and Susquatch in Canada. In Florida, it's called Swamp Ape, Skunk Ape, Stink Ape or Stink Man. More plainly put, Bigfoot. For one local man, finding the creature has become like searching for the Holy Grail, and he is teaming up with other believers the first week in November for a field-research class through Florida Keys Community College. He hopes to bring back proof of its existence. "I know it's there. I know it on several levels," said Scott Marlowe, a founder of the Pangea Institute in Winter Haven and instructor of an online class in cryptozoology, the study of creatures that may or may not exist, through Florida Keys Community College. "Of all the species on earth, man is presumed to be the only one that has one example of its genus -- the only genus that has only one species still alive. All other species have more than one." Marlowe isn't the only one with faith that the creature exists. Patricia Edwards of Lakeland has seen what she believes is the Swamp Ape in the Green Swamp. Although her sighting was in the fall of 2002, it was not until she read about another sighting that she decided to go public. It began when she was going to visit a relative in an Ocala hospital. The morning was clear, and she was driving along Country Road 471, a long, straight stretch of road through the Green Swamp. She said she saw something less than a half block away. "If I live to be a couple hundred years old, the story will not change," said Edwards, 69. "There was very little traffic and I see something that ran out in front of me. It looked like a giant sloth except I know they're slow moving -- this one moved fast and dove down into the edge of the road into a ditch area.'' "It started out running, galloping on fours like a dog, but when it dove I could see the arms come up. It was sizable, almost like a bear, but not a bear, not the way its arms moved."

Selections from 'The Drake Manuscript'

I found this posting to have some items of a Cryptozoological interest. I did not include all the text or photos from the origial site but enough to give the general degree of accuracy and the flavour of the original document, and the most important entry last:

http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/histoire_naturelle_des_indes/

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Histoire Naturelle des Indes

The Histoire Naturelle des Indes, created sometime in the 1590’s, is one of the earliest illustrated records of European contact with the America. Also know it by its informal title The Drake Manuscript it was donated to the the Pierpont Morgan Library in 1983, who after many years of study graciously produced a full color facsimile. I happen to have said facsimile, which was published in 1996, right here in front of me. Shall we take a gander?
First a few words on the manuscript’s origins and possibly misleading title.
The Drake Manuscript is named for Sir Francis Drake, the famed English privateer, navigator, slave trader, politician, and pirate of the Elizabethan era, whose travels it is thought to illustrate. Though Drake was himself something of an artist ⊕, the images in Histoire Naturelle des Indes were not created by his hand. Nothing of his artwork survives as it turns out.


The best guess as to the manuscripts origins are something along these lines-
The naive drawings ⊕ show signs of being created by several separate hands. Context reveals that these were likely the hands of Huguenots. Drake is known to have employed not only Huguenots on his voyages but artists as well. A “considerable number” of the images correspond to ports of call familiar to Drake, in some cases associated directly with his voyages, and Drake is mentioned by name, twice, in the manuscript itself. Hence, with a nice pile of circumstantial evidence to stand on, and no other clues, we have The Drake Manuscript.


Taken as a whole the images are an interesting mixture. The drawings of plants and animals are presented in a sort of cold practical manner, removed from their natural surroundings, with captions that read almost like a sales catalog, listing the virtues and drawbacks of each.  The drawings of the indigenous peoples themselves on the other hand are altogether warmer and seem to serve no greater purpose than curiosity.

MANTTE
(Manta Ray)
“This fish is very large and no less vicious. When the negroes dive in the sea for pearls it jumps on them to make them drown and afterward eats them."

[It seems to be some other very large ray or skate, Since there is at least a hint of some sort of enormous Cryptid skate or guitar-fish in the Caribbean, said to have a shark's tail, this could be a representation of it-DD]

CENT PIERNE
(Centipede)
“A very poisonous beast. It feeds in places where there is wine and vinegar. It only moves around at night. A person who has been bitten by this animal lives only for twenty-four hours afterwards. It finds the Indians in their beds in order to kill them."

[This entry is a control. It is true enough to life, the centipedes are large and they are deadly]

CHILIRATI(Crocodile), PECHE ESPADE (Sawfish), and CAPPE (Eel)

[If that eel is as big as a sawfish or a crocodile, that is no ordinary eel, it is a Megaconger-DD]

PERIQITE LEGERE
(Sloth)
“The nature of this animal is so to climb with its belly uppermost and, climbing this way, it moves faster than a man could on foot. The skin of this animal is very excellent for people suffering from falling sickness [epilepsy]. The head of the afflicted is covered with it then one realizes how effective the skin is."

[Although the intention may have been to show a 3-toed sloth, the nearest creature with a tail like it was a Ground Sloth and this just might be documentation of a late-surviving Ground Sloth done by the error of mixing the two things up. This could be a "Su Monster" in tree-climbing mode-DD]

PORC EPIC SAVVAGE (Wild Porcupine), SAGOVAI (Monkey), and CRABLE SAVVAGE (Scorpion)

{Heads up to Jon Downes, this might be the West Indian Porcupine mistaken for the Chupacabras in the early 1990s reports! This also represents some unknown species of ground-dwelling monkeyparallel to a rhesus monkey-DD]

TIBERON (Shark)
“This fish is very viscious in the sea so that when a sailor throws himself into the water for some reason this fish turns on his back and tears out a leg or an arm and eats it."

[Another control entry, a man-eating shark. Incidentally, the name "Shark" is from the Mayan (Xoc) and circulated among the Pirates of the Caribbean-DD]

COMES LES YNDIENS ONT ORDINAIRM[ENT] DES JLLUSIONS DU MALING ESPRIT
(How the Indians Usually Have Visions of the Evil Spirit)
“The Indians are much tormented at night by visions of the Evil Spirit whom they call in their language “Athoua.” They do not dare leave their houses at night–only when light has come–and this is because they have no belief nor education and do not worship anything...”

Leaving off the sort of turban of leaves and sticks the creature is wearing, we have what is very likely the earliest depiction of a Didi on record and also very likely one of the best and most straightforeward depictions of the Wildman type, from any time, from anywhere in South America. As mentioned in the earlier blog posting under Maricoxi, for the most part most of the South American "Abominable Snowmen" seem to be of the one type which Ivan Sanderson called Neanderthaloid in his review of the Maricoxi proper, in the scientific journal Genus.

Concerning the images themselves it amazes me to look at them in the artistic context of their time, because though I undoubtedly find them beautiful, when I remind myself that they were created in the 1590’s, and that at that same moment El Greco, Rubens, and Caravaggio were all active… well it’s surprising. Thought of in those terms it’s a wonder these weren’t made by the “Indians” themselves.


-
For a bit more on the manuscript see-
The Morgan Library page
Histoire naturelle des Indes on Google books.
This pdf from the National Humanities Center.

-Best Wishes, Dale D.

West Indian "Devils" [Yahus]

I was doing research on Megafauna extinctions and I came across this reconstruction of a Puerto Rican ground sloth. Despite that name, it seems to have spent time both in the trees and on the ground. In life it was supposed to be a few times larger than the living sloths and about the size of a small ape like the Siamang, and standing about thrree feet tall upright. It was a small Mesonychid ground sloth. In older posts about surviving groundsloths I mentioned that several of the West Indies forms survived up into the time of the European colonials because the Europeans ate them-we find their bones in European middens, which are recognisably different than the native ones and include introduced species such as domesticated swine.

In my opinion this small form is what is reported as a "Dwarf" or "Wildman" on many of the West Indies and apparently even on Bimini, where it is called by names that are variations on "Yahus" or "Yehos", said to translate as "Devils" and said to be an African word used by slaves. Such reports are commonly of small apelike creatures about three feet tall but armed with large claws. There are reports on them also on some of the larger islands such as Cuba, Hispaniola and Trinidad: and I have reason to suspect they are at the base of some "Chupacabras" cases.

This was the first reconstruction I saw of one that did not include the tail. That would be important because the reports I have heard never mention any tail either. Some of the larger islands also mention a larger form of persisting groundsloth, one similar to a smallish bear or about twice the size of this one. Those reports would include ones from Cuba definitely, and are possible elsewhere but I have no direct confirmation of anywhere else. The larger ones correspond generally to Oren's version of Mapinguari as a groundsloth although in that case the more apelike creature has a better chance of matching the reports. However, I do not rule out the presence of the "Bearsized" creature in the Amazon rain forest, it is just a trickier propsition there because of confusion with other Cryptids.

Best Wishes, Dale D.
Source: George Eberhart's Mysterious Creatures, Articles "Yahoo" "Yeho" "Mapinguari" and others.

Appalachian Groundsloths, and others Southwards

Earlier in this week I received this message from Robert Kline at Global Warming and Terraforming (Now one of the other blogs permanently linked to this one):

HI Dale, Please see   http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com/2011/07/giant-ground-sloth-observed-in.html
These reports never identified the creatures as a ground sloth and the horns are unexpected.  Yet I suspect that the ground sloth is the best explanation
Do you know of other reports out of the area?

To which I answered, I knew of allegations of Groundsloths around the Caribbean and West Indies alleged in two sizes, one a moderate-sized bearlike creature (say 6 feet tall) and the other described as the size of a small ape or monkey, about 3 feet tall and partly arboreal, both of which marked by having large claws. However, we shall be getting to those later on.

Here is the material from the Global Warming Blog:

Monday, July 11, 2011

Giant Ground Sloth Observed in Appalachia

As I have posted before, cryptids are typically local phenomena and it takes a lot for a patch of reports to actually surface.

This short collection of reports took me aback initially.  The first is as good as it gets yet we can immediately state that it is:

Not a goat or ruminant in spite of having the horns.  Those are clawed paws.

Not a bear.

Not a carnivore – the body is a bulky herbivore with some prospect of also eating grubs and the like.

Yet it resides in the southern Appalachia which is natural refugia from the Pleistocene. Hibernation is unnecessary.

Quite remarkably, this is surely a remnant population of giant ground sloths.  The horns are merely unexpected but certainly congruent with an herbivore needing protection.

Once you think ground sloth, the reports and observations fit and we can chuck the made up name been applied.

Sheep-Squatch

Edited by: JMoore / WVGhosts.com Editor

http://www.wvghosts.com/stories/story-Sheep_Squatch-300.php

I grew up in Gallipolis, across the Ohio River from Point Pleasant. In high school I found an old scrape book of my mother's with several dozen clippings on the Mothman: I was fascinated that something "neat" had happened so close to the sleepy little town I loved, and I was hooked. I had to know more! It didn't take long for me to find "The Mothman Prophecies" and read it cover to cover. 

I lost interest somewhat when I began to date and do the things high school kids do. However, when I returned from a seven year tour in the United States Navy I rediscovered my interest in the Mothman. I decided that I would use the skills the Navy had taught me to try and disprove the Mothman stories. My logic being that if I tried, seriously and diligently, to disprove the stories, and failed, then I would have strengthened their credibility.

My new hobby took me into the woods and "hollers" around the TNT area and to the homes of what witnesses who were alive and willing to talk about what they'd seen. While I found a great many points of interest in my investigation –among them some interesting questions focusing on an Active Naval base in Point Pleasant which seems to have no official purpose or staff. I was not prepared for what I encountered along a creek bank north of

Bethel Church Road

. 

I was walking the creek bank trying to run down some tips provided to me by an acquaintance at a UFO investigation group who I considered a marginal flake, but which seemed to have some credibility in the form of "what are these guys really up to" venue.

As I walked the creek I heard something large break through the brush ahead of me and I froze. Logic told me that it was at worse a large dog or even a stray cow, as there is very little in the way of predators in Mason county. Still, I've been a hunter since my teenage years and I knew well that the WV DNR had been actively repopulating absent native species: it was wholly possible that I was about to become face to face with something which might consider me lunch.

What I saw emerge from the brush was a large, brownish-white creature: it's fur looked dirty and matted as if the animal did very little in the line of self grooming. I can't be sure if I was looking at a dirty white animal or a brownish animal with a white undercoat. It was late in the fall so it make sense that it might be putting on a winter coat. The creature moved on all fours as it breached the brush line and knelt to drink from the creek. It's front limbs, the only limbs I saw clearly, ended in what were markedly paw like "hands". It's head was long and pointed, like a canines, and it had largish horns: not antlers but single point horns.

I shrunk back into the brush and watched, afraid to stay and afraid to run. It drank for a few minutes, then cross the creek and continued on across toward

Sandhill Road

. When I was sure it was gone, I turned and ran as fast as I could back toward the pond where I'd parked.

The one thing that sticks out in my mind about this encounter most clearly is the way it smelled. It smelled like sulfur. Now, don't think I'm screaming fire and brimstone here, I'm not. One of the biggest problems with the TNT area is the pollution from the manufacturing activities that went on there. The worst of this is the Red Water run off generated by the production of gun powder. The area was a navy ammunition plant at one time and made gunpowder. Red Water, the cause to this date of the brownish-red foam seen in many of the run off ponds, has a sulfur content that should concern anyone exposed to it. It makes sense that anything living in this area should absorb some measure of that scent if they are drinking from these water sources. 

What is a Sheep Squatch?

Posted: 07 Jul 2011 03:21 PM PDT

http://naturalplane.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-is-sheep-squatch.html

I received an unusual email a few days ago that, quite frankly, I thought was a prank...that's until I started to check into the claim. From what I can gather there is a bit of local folklore with this story. Regardless, I'll post it so you can comment. If you're familiar with the cryptid, feel free to respond:

Mr. Strickler - I hope you can give me an idea of what I saw a few weeks ago while hiking with a friend in Fairy Stone State Park in Virginia. We had been on one of the trails for about an hour when we stopped for a brief rest and drink. This was my first visit to this park and I was pleased that the area we were in was secluded.

After a few minutes of rest we continued to walk along the trail when my friend suddenly stopped and pointed towards the right at large group of rocks. Something was moving around but it was about 50 yards away so we didn't get a very good look. We could see that it was light in color and was quite bulky. We stood frozen wanting to know what this creature was though I was getting more frightened by the second. As we started to walk the creature moved onto a rock where we got a good look at it. It looked like a medium sized bear but the fur was very light in color, almost a yellowish gray. The head was very strange also. There was a snout like that of a bear but the dark round eyes were set lower on the head. It was looking in our direction and we had no intention on sticking around to see what it was going to do.

We got back to the car and immediately left for home. I have read online that this area has a strange history, thus the name 'Fairy Stone'. The creature is unlike any I have seen or heard about before. I had made an inquiry to a local historian who laughed at me and said I saw a 'Sheep Squatch'. What is that? Thanks for you help - Teena

###

As I stated previously, I thought someone was pulling my leg. I had never heard of a 'Sheep Squatch'...that is, until I started to look for references.

Monstropedia has a brief history about a cryptid referred to as a 'Sheepsquach', which is also known as the 'white thing'. It is supposedly a white woolly-haired cryptid that has been reported throughout the southwestern region of Virginia. Fairy Stone State Park is located in the southwestern region of Virginia.

This creature is described as "being the size of a bear, with completely white wool-like fur. Its front limbs end in paw-like hands, similar to a raccoon’s but larger. The beast head is long and pointed, like a dog with long saber-like teeth and a single-pint horns like a young goat. SheepSquatch sports a long and hairless tail, similar to an opossum’s and is reputed to smell like sulfur."

There have been a few reported sightings over the years. The counties with the most sightings of Sheepsquatch are from Boone, Kanawha, Putnam, and Mason. A large surge in sightings took place in Boone County during the mid-1990s.

In 1994, a former Navy seaman witnessed the beast break through the forest. The white thing drank for a few minutes, then crossed the creek and continued on across toward the road. The navy seaman observed the animal for a while, and then it moved on into the surrounding brush.

Also in that same year, two children observed the beast while playing in the yard in Boone County. They saw what looked like a large white bear, and it stood up on its hind legs, which made it over six feet tall. Startled, the beast ran away through the forest, breaking medium-sized limbs off of trees as it went.

Another encounter a year later involved a car. A couple driving through Boone County noticed a large white beast sitting in the ditch along the road. They stopped their car to get a good look at it. It was described again as a large white animal with woolly fur about the size of a bear. In this instance, it was described as having “four eyes”. Then, it jumped out of the ditch and starts attacking the car. The couple drove off quickly, and when they got home noticed the large scratches on the side where the beast attacked.
Another incident occurred in 1999, this time a couple of campers were in the forest of Boone County at night around a campfire. They heard an animal snorting and scuffling around the camp, but it did not come into the light of the campfire. All of the sudden, the SheepSquatch appeared out of the darkness and charged at the campers. They jumped up and ran back to their house; all the while being pursued by the SheepSquatch. It stopped at the edge of the forest, however, and let out a terrible scream. Then it just turned around and headed back into the woods. The next morning, the campers examined their campsite and the trail home. It was torn up, they said, “like someone had tilled it up for gardening”.

I still don't know what to think of Teena's sighting but I doubt is was a 'Sheep Squatch'...possibly a light-colored bear. I'm really at a loss for any other explanation.

Here is a link to another reference to this cryptid - West Virginia's Weird White Monsters: Sheep-Squatch...Lon

Comparable goat skull