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UNKNOWN CREATURES IN NORTH AMERICA
By Scott Corrales
© 1997
In their landmark book The Supernatural, Douglas Hill and Pat Williams make a somewhat jocose exposition of the "monsters" which fill the pages of American folklore -- entities with silly names like gollygog, bingbuffer, moogie and fillyloo, which form part of the lore of the Appalachian and Ozark region. The authors put aside any mention of very real creatures which are not only alien to our world but which also choose to manifest in the isolated woodlands and rural areas of North America, beings whose mention produces no smiles whatsoever.
  According to noted Bigfoot researcher Joan Jeffers, somewhere in McKean County (Pennsylvania), there exists a one-of-a-kind portrait: very possibly the only oil painting ever dedicated to a monster. The canvas, says Jeffers, depicts an enormous red-eyed beast staring directly at the viewer from the gloom of a northern forest. The following words appear at the painting's base: "The monster bear seen at Allegany Creek in 1811." The witnesses to such a frightening apparition perhaps chose to immortalize it for the benefit of future generations, not realizing that what they'd seen was not a bear, but one of the enormous apelike creatures known by a variety of names, mainly Native American ones.
Althought the bulk of sightings and encounters with such entities have been associated with the Pacific Northwest and California, investigators like Don Worley have pointed out that there appears to be no relationship between the "Sasquatch" of the Washington/Oregon/Idaho region and those seen elsewhere in the country, which seem to have more of a paranormal nature. Worley has coined the term "para-apes" to describe these beings.
On December 5, 1995, three young hunters had a terrifying experience they would not soon forget. Having entered the woods near Salamanca, N.Y. on a deer hunt, Muhammed Dubashi, Greg Eisenmann and Matt Curcione never thought they would encounter Bigfoot in this otherwise peaceful part of the country.
Between 7 and 8 a.m., the hunters noticed what they first took for "a bear" moving across the woodline. The animal headed straight toward them in a two-legged run, issuing blood-chilling screams, as the hunters would later testify. The creature, which had originally been some 300 feet away, covered the ground with enormous strides. Aware that they had were only some 20 feet away from their truck, the hunters promptly ran for cover, getting into the vehicle just as the frightening, screaming entity reached them. The creature landed a powerful blow against the windshield, shattering it to bits. According to Eisenmann, the beast appeared to have been eating something when it noticed them. It had yellow eyes and appeared to be a mixture of human and ape. The truck's owner did not dare to file a claim with his insurance company for the ruined windshield in order to avoid recounting the surreal experience to others.
Salamanca, N.Y., is at the heart of the Seneca Indian Reservation. Duce Bowen, a respected author and chronicler of Seneca lore, has said that such "Bigfoot" type creatures occupy a prominent place in his people's traditions.
Those who believe that these creatures are merely "gentle giants" of the woods should think twice after reading the following account, taken from the files of researcher Ron Schaffner. In 1869, the Minnesota Weekly News featured a news item in its pages to the effect that Gallipolis, Ohio, was beseiged by a "hairy wildman" who appeared to live in the forested area surrounding the prosperous river town. The tall creature was openly hostile toward humans, having attacked a father and daughter riding in an open carriage at one time. The man was no match for his enormous assailant and was pinned against the muddy ground with the monster poised to bite his throat. He was saved by quick thinking on his daughter's part: she picked up a rock and landed a blow behind the creature's ear, causing it to run back into the woods.
On June 24, 1980, the sheriff of Ohio's Logan County called a search for a Bigfoot-type entity haunting the woods between the towns of West Mansfield and Union County. One of the witnesses to these activities had been Ray Quay, a police officer from Russell's Point, who claimed to have seen a six-foot tall, hairy creature emerging from a barn.
Quay's original impression was that a vagrant had been taking shelter in the barn, and he proceeded to shout at it. The "thing" broke into a run straight into the treeline beyond the barn. The officer then realized that what he had just seen was neither man nor bear, since it left a nauseating odor in its wake.
Officer Quay's sighting coincided with that of farmer Patricl Polling, who witnessed a tall, powerfully-built creature emerging from the woods to stroll alongside a road adjacent to his farm. Four-toed prints were subsequently found in the area, each of them more than 18 inches long.
Fourteen years later, Ray Lehman of Nelsonville, OH, would have his very own brush with the unknown one evening in September 1994. Lehman, an avid squirrel hunter with a thorough knowledge of the backwoods, ran into "something" he had never seen before.
"I say it was Bigfoot, because I don't know what else it might have been," Lehman explained. "At first I thought it was a bear, but a bear can't run on two legs. It can walk on two legs, but this thing was running. The weirdest thing was the sound it made while it ran -- something like a monkey's screams. It made every hair on my body stand up, even made me cry. It was some ten feet away from me and it ran away when I walked past it. People always said there was something strange in the Nelsonville woods, and now I know what it is!"
But Ray Lehman wasn't the only one to see this strange kind of creature. A few miles away from Lake Hope Drive, three campers had pitched a tent to spend the night in the forest when "a thing" picked up the tent, pushing its occupants out through the other side.
The area of the forest in which these encounters with improbable creatures occurred was occupied by abandoned kilns a short drive away from State Highway 278. The affinity between these apparitions and ruined or abandoned structures has been examined by a number of influential researchers.
An unexpected turn of events came about in 1995: over the years, hunters and other visitors to the Ohio woods had found enormous "mounds" of dried grass and branches in certain clearings. Joedy Cook, director of the Ohio Bigfoot Research and Study Group, located in Cincinnati, believes that the mounds are temporary dwellings built by these creatures. Cook and his colleague George Clappison have entered these large, haystack-like structures and claim to have found samples of animal hair. Residents of the remote areas in which these "habitats" tend to appear believe they are built by the Grassman -- a creature whose description fits that of a Bigfoot.
According to researcher Don Worley, "para-apes" have also proven themselves invulnerable to gunfire. In over thirty recorded cases between 1968 and 1977, these creatures have been hit with bullets of every caliber without flinching. Worley believes that the dual nature of these entities -- physical and paraphysical -- has been clearly demonstrated over the years, which explains why none have been slain or captured after almost a century and thousands of encounters. It also explains, says Worley, how such entities can materialize in the midst of heavily populated areas and nonetheless elude capture, which would be utterly impossible for a purely physical beast. The "para-apes" are physical in every respect while in a material environment, but are endowed with the power to change into a state of matter and energy that is unknown to modern physics.
Stranger yet are those accounts describing the fusion of Bigfoot-like creatures or "para-apes" with the winged oddities collectively known as "Mothmen" after John Keel's landmark 1975 book. One of these chimeric combinations, dubbed "Bighead", spread fear throughout the communities lining the Ohio River in 1978. The bulk of the events appeared to center around the town of Butler, a rural community with a population of 1300 at the edge of Mohican State Forest.
On July 8, 1978, two local teenagers were walking alongside the railroad tracks when they heard strange noises emanating from a dense cluster of vegetation farther down the line. Both boys were stunned to see an unknown creature standing some seven feet tall, with glaring red eyes, emerge from the foliage. Seized by panic, one of the teenagers made a run for it; his companion remained paralyzed by fear, his eyes riveted on the apparition. He reportedly felt the entity bidding him to come closer, but was finally able to turn about and run back home.
The strange creature was later described to researchers as possessing a massive head completely out of proportion with the rest of its body, with no visible hands or feet. The witnesses also indicated that it made very strange grunting noises.
Bighead staged a reappearance on the evening of July 10, 1978, showing itself before a car filled with passengers near Mansfield. The car was about to cross the railroad tracks when the driver noticed a dark mass with red eyes standing between the rails. On July 12, the creature reappeared near the Kline farm, frightening the Kline daughter, who threw a flashlight at it.
Researcher Ron Schaffner was able to ascertain that all the wildlife in the area surrounding the Kline farm had mysteriously vanished, perhaps as a consequence of the strange creature's apparance. Dogs barked constantly and the cattle were restless. A dog belonging to a neighboring rancher jumped right through a closed window in order to get into his home, apparently in an effort to flee from something that frightened it.
Although none of the witnesses ever saw "Bighead" fly, Schaffner noted that there were similarities between it and West Virginia's Mothman: both entities had luminous red eyes, emitted sounds similar to a whistle or a record playing at 78 rpm's. Neither creature had visible arms nor feet, and both stood well in excess of six feet.
While cryptozoologists roam the woods of the Pacific Northwest and the desolate reaches of the Himalayas in search of possible prehistoric survivals, an entirely different variety of man-ape is manifesting itself much closer to home.

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