The worlds of cryptozoology and paranormal research are definitely strange, encompassing a wide range of phenomena that range from the odd to the downright weird. Yet when does the weird become something so utterly bizarre that it defies classification and even the limits of our own perception of reality? From where do these things spring forth from and are they even of the world as we know it at all? Perhaps some of the stranger phenomena out there have their place not in cryptozoology, the paranormal, or delusion and lies, but rather in the ever-growing idea of a multiverse and the notion that things might be able to traverse the barrier between our reality and the next, perhaps using liminal spaces as a way to do it.
The realm of cryptozoology is one rife with possible examples of inter-dimensional interlopers of some kind. I mean this in the respect that there are some creatures sighted which are nothing one would expect to encounter within the natural world as we know it, and are even completely absurd. With something like Bigfoot or Nessie, there is a way to rationalize it as a flesh and blood animal. For instance, Bigfoot might be some undiscovered primate or human ancestor, Nessie might be some unknown aquatic animal, and so on. Even the more bizarre accounts of supposed living dinosaurs fit in somehow with natural history as we know it and are something we can comprehend as maybe being kind of sort of possible, but with some of the more outlandish reports of cryptozoological entities all bets are off.
Take the account of what can only be described as a hairy octopus. In the summer of 1961, a 29-year-old truck driver named Arquimedes Sanchez was driving along a precipitous mountain road through the Basque mountains in Spain at around 11 PM, along with an unnamed companion, on their way to the town of Puerto de Barazar. As they rounded a bend (a liminal space), their headlights hit a bizarre and rather monstrous being standing upon an embankment nearby, which prompted the pair to stop their vehicle. When they peered through the murk ahead of them they claimed that they saw a “hairy octopus,” which stood around 4 feet tall, with glowing eyes and “tentacle-like” arms.
The witnesses and the thing apparently sat there completely frozen and immobile for several minutes, both parties probably just as startled and scared as the other, before Sanchez snapped out of it and slammed the accelerator, which caused the weird apparition to scurry backward away from the threat, after which Sanchez backed up and tried again, apparently intent on running it over. Interestingly, the otherworldly intruder refused to take off into the night, instead always just managing to avoid being run over, as if it were all a game. Finally, the two men, neither who were willing to step out of the vehicle to investigate, drove off to leave the being behind, never to be seen again.
What in the world was this thing? Maybe it wasn’t of this world at all. Continuing road oddities is another case reported to the site Cryptozoology News by a taxi cab dispatcher named Edgar Zayas, who on the evening of June 3, 2018, says one of his drivers had been driving a passenger home and had his bizarre encounter as he had been driving on a rural road (a liminal space) through Elizabethton, Tennessee. He says that this driver had not seen the creature, but that the passenger had witnessed a “kangaroo-like” beast running along on its hind legs, and the report says of the incident:
“The female passenger in his cab asked upon passing the spot where the car had swerved if my driver had seen “it”. When he told her he had not, she described the creature as something about 2 feet tall, running at a high rate of speed across the road on only its hind legs, and had the overall body shape of a Kangaroo. She said the creature was running towards the woods. To the best of my knowledge and research, this is the first sighting of anything like this in or around this area of Tennessee. There have, however, been other sightings of other cryptids ranging from the Birdman of Hampton to the Tennessee Wildman, and even several possible Sasquatch sightings, including a possible winged Bigfoot encounter.”
Adding to all of this bizarreness is what can only be described as some sort of vegetable-like humanoids. Certainly one of the more downright bizarre cases comes to us from the U.S. state of West Virginia, where in July of 1968 a local man by the name of Jennings Frederick was out bowhunting in the rural backwoods just outside of Fairmont, West Virginia. At some point, he allegedly heard a high-pitched, unearthly sound that he would describe as sounding like “a recording running at exaggerated speed.” Curious, Jennings searched about for the origin of this surreal noise, and this was when he came across a very strange sight indeed.
There in the brush between the road and the forest beyond (a liminal space) stood a 7-foot tall, semi-humanoid entity, with an exceedingly thin, almost skeletal frame, long ears, and stalk-like arms that were almost like tendrils and which ended in slender, 7-inch long fingers tipped with some sort of needles or thorns, as well as suction cups. The whole of the anomalous creature was described as green and very plant-like in nature as if it were part animal and part plant. The whole time Frederick watched it that incessant chattering sound reverberated around him, and he suddenly realized that he could make out words within the alien noise, like glimpses of meaning from white noise, which he took to say:
“You need not fear me. I wish to communicate. I come as a friend. We know of you all. I come in peace. I wish medical assistance. I need your help.”
As Frederick stood there wide-mouthed in bewilderment, the mysterious being purportedly suddenly lashed out with one of its stalk-like arms with blinding speed to wrap him in an iron grip. The needles or thorns on its fingers then apparently pierced the startled man’s skin and began to draw blood, but rather than the pain he found himself drawn to the thing’s eyes, which seemed to rapidly switch back and forth from red to yellow in a hypnotizing, oscillating cycle that held him in thrall and dulled his senses. After about two minutes of this, the otherworldly plant-monster reportedly let him go and took off in a sprint up a nearby embankment in great 25-foot-long bounds, followed shortly after by a deep thrumming noise that Frederick would later speculate to have been the sound of the creature’s space ship. For years Frederick kept this undoubtedly absurd-sounding story to himself out of fear of ridicule, but in 1976 he would relate it to the paranormal researcher Gray Barker, who would then include it in his newsletter. The story would be brought to even greater attention when it was mentioned in the late Brad Steiger’s 1978 book Alien Meetings. Was this an alien, some sort of cryptid, or was it something from beyond the veil? Whatever it was, the “Vegetable Man” of West Virginia is certainly one of the more bizarre encounters on record.
Similar in some respects we have another report, this time from near Waverly, Kentucky, from witness Bill Wolfe and his family. The road they were on (a liminal space) went straight on through a vast expanse of cornfields (also a liminal space), and while the swaying stalks would have been eerie enough already, it was when they went up over a low hill (liminal space again) that things would get truly bizarre. As they went over the hill, they saw something crawling or slithering across the road in front of them. It was somewhat humanoid in shape, around 7 feet tall, very thin and long, and looked like what they would describe as an “anthropomorphic stalk of corn,” covered in tufts of what looked like the kind of hair one finds growing on corn stalks. The outlandish beast then crawled its way across the road to disappear into the gloomy cornfield on the other side. What was this bizarre creature? Was this some abomination that just crawled in from some parallel goblin universe to go crawling right back out? Whatever it was, the “Cornsquatch” has never been seen since.
Joining the ranks of all of this bizarreness is an encounter originally published in the October 8, 2017 edition of Strange Magazine, that supposedly occurred back in 1948 at the shipbuilding port city of Bremerton, in the U.S. state of Washington. One day, a young woman named Virginia Staples was just going about her usual daily household chores, carrying a load of laundry down to the washing machines in the basement of her run-down apartment building. It was a mindless chore she had done countless times before, and there would have been no reason for this time to be any different, but it was to prove to lead to a shocking experience, indeed.
The dim basement (a liminal space) was described as enormous, its voluminous floor constantly covered with a sheen of water that leaked from the walls and was rumored to come from passageways leading to the nearby sea, but although it all had a rather creepy foreboding atmosphere, Virginia was used to working in this dark and dank place. Yet on this day, something was not quite right, as she felt an undefinable sense of unease and dread as if she were being watched from the ample shadows clinging to everything in there. She tried to cast the odd feeling out of her head, chalking it up to nerves, but it would not abate, indeed becoming stronger the longer she lingered there, graduating to sheer terror for no discernible reason. She would say of what happened next:
“It was such a creepy feeling I finally turned around and looked toward the back of the basement and froze. I was so scared I can still feel it. I couldn’t move. In one of the huge holes in the basement there stood this thing. It was horrible! I stand five feet tall and this creature was as tall as I was. It had a bright orange colored body and little spidery thin legs and antennae on its head that kept moving back and in and out. That thing started towards me. I backed out of the basement and got up to my apartment and packed up all my things and moved. I was so scared. I moved over to Seattle to my cousin’s. Really no one would really believe this, but as God is my witness it really happened.”
She would say that it looked to her almost like a humanoid shrimp and that for years afterward she says she had potent, chronic nightmares. The interesting part of this tale, other than the sheer outlandishness of the entity described, is that this was in the basement of an apartment complex, and not even a remote one out in the boondocks. At the time Bremerton was a bustling Naval port city home to around 80,000 people, so it makes no sense at all that there should be this thing, even if there were passageways to the sea. Where did it come from and why didn’t anyone else see it? The strange abomination was only seen this one time and we are left to wonder just what it could have possibly been or whether it ever really happened at all.
One very odd humanoid creature of some sort that has been reported is what appears to be some sort of deer man, with various truly bizarre sightings of such creatures from all over the United States. One account was made in northeast Ohio by a witness who claims that he was at his cousin’s house playing hide and seek outside one day when he was 14 years old. It was reportedly around dusk (a liminal space), and they were playing near a wooded creek when it was the witness’s turn to search, and as he did he claims that he heard the sound of leaves crackling underfoot. He turned to look expecting to see his cousin, but instead saw a deer through the brush that appeared to be oddly standing up on its hind legs, unusual for a deer but which would prove to be even stranger than that. The report reads:
“It was getting dark and I was the one searching. I heard leaves crumpling, and when I turned to look, I saw what looked like a deer on its hind legs. I clearly remember seeing “dog legs” running, but the rest of the body was straight up. And it ran with incredible speed, and I knew it wasn’t either of my cousins hiding. I ran as fast as I could back to the house, and my one of my cousins was running in too, he saw the same thing. It still creeps me out to this day, because my uncle always told us how he saw weird things on that property.”
A sighting of a similar creature that appears to have also had the ability of shapeshifting was made in the state of Delaware in 1993. The witness claims that he was around 8 years old at the time and he had been staying with his family at his grandparents’ house in a rural, forested area near the town of Hockessin. One morning he says he woke to a clear day with the sun shining in through the window (a liminal space) and also the surreal sight of the silhouette of a deer with a huge rack of antlers standing just outside. Things would get bizarre rapidly, and the witness says of what happened next thus:
“It was RIGHT there, like almost pressed against the window in profile. I stared in awe. And that is when it changed. In one smooth movement, it reared up on its hind legs and it was no longer a deer, but a man. There were only two men in the area, my grandfather and my dad, and it was clearly neither (not sure if that made it better or worse). Grandfather was very built for his age, dad had a gut. This silhouette was clearly younger, muscular but not in the “like a brick” way my grandfather was. It exuded strength. And scared the hell out of me. It stared to the side for a moment, and then strode off with purpose. Looking back, I want to tell myself it was just the imagination of a half-awake child, but I remember the awe and the utter fear I felt when the “deer” changed.”
Yet another Deer Man sighting was made as recently as 2012, in the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma. In this account, a Kyle Heying claims that he was out at the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge hiking along a trail (a liminal space) in order to take photographs of the night sky there with a friend. On this evening at around 10 PM, the usual sounds of the forest suddenly became muted and the local wildlife started to display some decidedly bizarre and uncharacteristic behavior. First, some elk came running by and then a herd of bison, which all came uncomfortably close before hurrying off, and it seemed almost as if these animals were trying to get away from something scaring them out in the dark forest beyond.
This was enough to spook the men into packing up their stuff and calling it a night, and as they did they allegedly felt a strange change in air pressure and all of the sounds of the woods just stopped to send a profound silence crashing down upon them. The two unsettled men then heard something rustling about out in some tall grass nearby, jarring in the otherwise void of silence that had blanketed the area, and it seemed like whatever it was was coming towards them. Heying claims that he and his friends had then picked up some rifles they had with them, wary of what was apparently approaching. They started the car and began to drive off when they saw something step out in front of the vehicle that they would never forget, a creature that Heying described as having a head like an elk but which stood upright on two human legs and had two human arms and “dark red” eyes. As they passed it, the nightmarish creature lurched forward to hit the car, and Heying floored it away as fast as the vehicle would go until they were about 3 miles away, where they stopped their flight to regain their wits. Heying would say of what happened next thus:
“We were scared shitless. Things got even quieter when we stayed there. While there we heard one ear-piercing screech or scream, almost a hunting screech of some sort that made my hair stand on end and gave me goose bumps even worse. With that we left the mountains completely, we felt as though we were not wanted there that night. The way the wildlife acted, the figure that we came across that the animals had to have ran from, and then the scream of which I can only find references to happens to be the Banshee. I cannot forget that figure we saw, as well as the scream. It was not human but it was not of any wildlife I am familiar with from out there.”
Across a large swath of West Virginia including Boone, Kanawha, Putnam and Mason counties there is said to be lurking a hulking creature which is really hard to classify. Starting from around the mid-1990s there began a string of sightings of what was described as a white, wooly bear-sized beast with a pointed head topped by goat-like horns, a snouted face with long, sharp teeth, and a long hairless tail said to be reminiscent of that of an opossum. Often reported as accompanied by a pungent, sulfurous stench, the creature was at first called simply the “White Thing,” and would later garner the name “Sheepsquatch,” although it bears very little physical resemblance at all to its more famous Sasquatch cryptid cousin other than perhaps its size and hairiness.
The first sightings of this bizarre creature started coming in in 1994. In perhaps the earliest report, a group of women claimed that they had been driving along a treacherous icy road (a liminal space) in a location in West Virginia known as the TNT area, which they were cautiously inching along in order not to get into an accident. According to the witnesses, they were then surprised by a large creature that lumbered out of the woods in front of them, described as being around 7 or 8 feet tall, covered with shaggy white hair, and with a pointed snout, ram-like horns, and human-looking legs. The mysterious creature allegedly froze for a moment when the headlights hit it before running off into the dark forest.
Soon after this report others came pouring in, and there were numerous sightings made in 1994. In one account, a former Navy seaman out hunting observed the same creature emerge from the forest to crouch at a creek (a liminal space) to drink before continuing on its way. The witness claimed to have watched it for several minutes and said that it had human-like hands. In another account, a motorist spotted a tall, robust creature on a hillside, that was covered in white fur that appeared to be like rags hanging off of its body. In that very same year, there was another rather high-profile sighting made in Boone County by two children playing in their yard. The children reported that a beast that looked like a white bear walking on its hind legs was making its way through the underbrush on the periphery of their property (a liminal place) when their startled screams sent it in a mad bolt through the forest, leaving snapped saplings and tree branches in its wake.
Later reports of the Sheepsquatch would take on a more threatening tone. In 1995, a couple was driving along when they spotted a white, bear-like creature hunched over in a roadside ditch (a liminal space). When the couple slowed down to see what it was, the creature had then stood up on its hind legs to reveal that it was no bear, but rather a massive beast with a horned head and, oddly, four eyes. The thing then allegedly dashed at their car in a fury, slashing and banging the side of the vehicle with great force before the terrified couple sped away. They claimed that when they reached their home they discovered that the side of their car displayed wicked scratches that looked like they had been made by claws. In 1999 there was another such frightening encounter, when some campers heard what they at first took to be the sounds of bear grunting, huffing and moving about out in the darkness beyond the periphery of their campsite (a liminal space). Already a little spooked that a bear was in such close proximity and not sounding to be in the best of moods, the campers were truly in for a shock when out of the brush came crashing a hulking white blur which let out a bloodcurdling, unearthly scream. Fleeing for their lives, the campers briefly looked back to see the Sheepsquatch standing at their camp glaring at them. Allegedly, when the campers returned the following day their campsite seemed to have been totally ransacked by a large animal of some kind. In yet another apparent attack by a Sheepsquatch, an account outlined on a 2013 episode of the TV show Monsters and Mysteries in America, two hunters claimed that a giant, furry white beast over 9 feet tall had let out an “ungodly, gut-curling growl” before running towards them in an aggressive manner.
The most recent report of the Sheepsquatch occurred in 2015 when a group of six unnamed campers saw it while camping out in a place called Fulks Run. One of the campers reportedly first saw the creature crouching menacingly atop the crest of a hill (a liminal space) at around midnight, after which he went to warn the others. It was then that whatever it was stood to its full height of 8 or 9 feet and started running down the hill towards their camp. Apparently, a river (a liminal space) stood between the campers and the creature, but after trying in vain to find a way around it simply waded right into the rushing water to slosh towards them. By this time, all of the campers had gathered to watch the strange monster coming inexorably through the river towards them, and when it emerged they could see that it looked like a huge, white bipedal dog, dripping water from its soaked fur. The campers reported that there had then been a shriek from out in the forest from something else, and this had frightened the creature, who whimpered and slunk off back into the woods in apparent fear or passiveness. One wonders what could have provoked such a response.
Some of the alleged encounters with phantom creatures have been truly odd, to say the least, downright bonkers even. In one account from Steytlerville, South Africa, a monster was described as smoothly transforming from a man in a suit into a pig, and then into a bat, after which it flew off into the night. In another account from Easter weekend in 2011, two men were walking near a tavern late at night when they saw a suspicious-looking man in a dark jacket loitering about. When one of the two tried to talk to the man they were ignored, and it was then that they realized that the figure had no head. Shortly after this startling realization, the stranger was then reported to have morphed into a dog that was “very angry and big as a cow.” As the two terrified men ran away, the strange creature then purportedly turned on another group of people and transformed yet again, this time into a monkey, before hissing and scampering away into the night. The encounter was not good for the tavern’s business, as customers became too afraid to venture there at night.
Sightings of the Steytlerville Monster became so upsetting to panicked local residents that they demanded that the Eastern Cape police do something about it, and apparently, the townsfolk had several heated meetings with authorities to discuss the matter. According to one law enforcement officer, Warrant Officer Zandisile Nelani, there was even a picture of the thing taken, purportedly showing the creature resting under a tree. According to Nelani, the photo was originally taken of the monster in human form, but when the picture was developed it showed some sort of unidentified animal instead. Although the mysterious intruder caused a good amount of unrest in this otherwise quiet, sleepy town, whatever it was reportedly did not harm anyone. It is difficult to really classify what the Steytlerville Monster could possibly have been, and it is hard to imagine a stranger, or indeed more absurd mystery creature.
What in the world could possibly account for what these witnesses saw? Just what kind of creature could these things possibly be and are any of these accounts connected in any way? This doesn’t even include all of the sightings of bug-like humanoids out there. How can we reconcile bushy strolling octopuses, vegetable males, deer males, Sheepsquatch, Shrimp individuals, shapeshifters, and different such otherworldliness with something that might probably exist in nature? How is it that they arrive and go with out leaving any proof and in lots of circumstances are seen solely as soon as and by no means once more? Maybe they’re so fleeting, bizarre and so out of this world as a result of they aren’t from this world in any respect, however relatively are merely trespassing into it from outdoors our personal actuality, possibly even a actuality wherein that is all fairly regular?
The opportunity of interdimensional trespassers carries over into the UFO phenomenon as properly. Now granted right here we’re speaking about alleged aliens, which might seem as just about any weird factor we will consider, however some sit firmly on the fence between believability and the absurd. Take a really bizarre account from August 17, 1971, from Palos Verdes, California. Witnesses John Hodges and Pete Rodriguez have been allegedly headed to their automobile at 2 AM after they noticed off by way of the bushes a faint, mysterious glow emanating from past. They acquired into their automobile, switched on the headlights, and suspended within the beams of sunshine from their car have been what have been described as two giant, blueish entities that regarded similar to disembodied human brains, hovering proper in the course of the highway (a liminal house) and surrounded by clouds of vapor that appeared to cling to them. The bigger one of many “brains” was described as having a distinguished purple eye set inside it, and that is the one which started to maneuver in the direction of the car for functions unknown.
The 2 terrified males understandably acquired out of there as quick as they probably might, and it was later seen that they’d 2 hours of lacking time. In 1976, Hodges would endure hypnotic regression after years of being stricken by nightmares and questioning what had occurred to them out on that lonely highway. Underneath hypnosis, Hodges revealed that he had dropped Rodriquez off at residence and arrived at his personal home to seek out the bigger mind ready for him there, which had then telepathically spoken to him. He claimed that he had then been taken into the brains’ ship to some kind of “management room,” the place it was revealed that they have been merely telepathic instruments being utilized by different aliens, this time extra akin to the “gray” aliens sometimes described in additional mainstream studies, though on this case, they stood over 7-feet tall.
These grasp aliens then apparently confirmed Hodges varied photos of nuclear battle and destruction as they defined that the human race had grown too highly effective for its personal good. He was additionally proven one other planet that had been fully destroyed by one other race that had met the identical destiny and was admonished that humankind could be the “devices of their very own destiny,” telling him, “Take the time to know yourselves. The time attracts close to once you shall have to!” Hodges then says that he felt a potent buzzing sensation at the back of his head and located himself again in his automobile. Within the years after, he turned satisfied that these aliens had implanted him with what he known as a “translator cell,” and that he obtained frequent telepathic communications from them by way of this gadget, wherein they made dire predictions similar to an apocalyptic battle within the Center East and the longer term widespread use of nuclear weapons. Whether or not you suppose this story and its “house brains” has any fact to it in any respect or not, you need to admit it’s a rattling unusual story all the identical.
One other one of many weirder of those studies is an account chronicled by UFO researcher Linda Moulton Howe in her e-book Glimpses of Different Realities, Vol. II: Excessive Strangeness. She tells the story of a witness named Linda Porter, who claimed to have had an extremely odd encounter with a telepathic mantis-like humanoid in a hallway (a liminal house) in 1961 and that it had whisked her off to a different dimension by way of what she known as an “interdimensional tunnel.” The following factor she knew, Porter was with a “Praying mantis being in a light-filled room,” and he or she mentioned:
“I keep in mind the being slowly coming across the nook and dealing with me. He stood very nonetheless and easily waited as if he knew how horrifying he appeared to me. Finally he started to speak to me (telepathically). He appeared to own an excessive amount of dignity and seemed like being fairly outdated. He walked me to this room (crammed with dense mild). The reminiscence ends with me about to enter the room and the thought ‘Translated Into the Gentle’ has to do with what occurred.”
Including to the utter strangeness of this case, Porter, who had been born with a coronary heart defect, claimed that she had had her soul transferred by the creature right into a cloned physique of herself that was wholesome and that the creature had defined to her in-depth about different dimensions and journey between them. Very bizarre stuff, certainly. In one other peculiar account from UFO BC, there’s a witness who says that she and her good friend had been captured by tall, insectoid humanoids after which subjected to some kind of violent, ugly medical process. She would say:
“I stood there helpless for the longest time, not realizing what to do however feeling an actual sense of panic. One thing needed to be accomplished rapidly. Rapidly there have been two Beings that appeared subsequent to my good friend. They appeared to push me proper apart and silently went proper to work on her, like expert surgeons. They stood to her left, standing collectively and dealing furiously on my good friend. I had no thought who they have been, what they have been doing, however the very first thing I considered was ‘are they aliens’??? I stood there and watched…I assumed they regarded like Praying Mantises. Alien Praying Mantises…
Then I centered on my good friend and noticed her head was break up huge open, like these aliens sliced it completely open. I noticed freshly sliced uncooked flesh and these Aliens/Praying Mantis have been busily eradicating items of bone, rock or no matter from her mind. This didn’t look something like what I’d think about the within of a mind to look nevertheless it was simply such a clear minimize. These two Alien/Praying Mantis labored rapidly, with out talking one phrase. I appeared to black out and don’t keep in mind any extra of it.”
What was happening right here? What have been they doing? What occurred to the good friend? Was this all a hallucination or is there something extra to it? Who is aware of? From the identical website is a weird report from a witness who claims the Mantis Males have been relatively extra benevolent in the direction of him, and even gifted him with superior expertise. He explains:
“My Praying Mantis determine was very sort to me. He urged me to remain calm and telepathically reassured me all the things could be alright. My proper eye was eliminated by a tool that got here down from the white ceiling. I began to essentially panic however the Mantis stored me from actually freaking out. Then it was changed. The Mantis additionally advised me telepathically that I used to be a particular one that would actually make a distinction right here on earth. I’m now 44 years outdated and have made no actual vital variations to the human race. I believe he might have simply needed to reassure a toddler on the time. I’ve retained 1 factor from my encounter. I nonetheless have the ability to see main international disasters earlier than they occur. I solely report them to both my fiancé or my shut relations as a result of I do know anybody else would simply name me loopy. However now they consider me for probably the most half. As a result of after I see one thing clearly and inform them, it all the time occurs.”
If these males have been telling the reality in any respect, might this even be a case of interdimensional beings invading our actuality? More durable to categorize as cryptozoological or extraterrestrial is the numerous studies on the market of what look like precise gnomes, full with little beards and pointy hats, like one thing out of a fairy story. One such encounter is given on the positioning True Ghost Tales, from a witness who says she had simply moved from Indiana along with her husband and three kids to South Texas when the phenomena first began, the place they lived in a spacious home in a rural space alongside a mud highway and surrounded by expansive fields. The primary time they noticed these gnomes was as they have been taking a stroll alongside the grime highway (a liminal house) and working round taking part in. As they did so one thing unusual would occur certainly. The witness says:
“We started laughing and chasing each other as mothers do however about two miles down the highway my oldest son Austin set free this scream that made me instantly flip to see what was unsuitable. That’s after I noticed them. My son was pointing down the highway a bit and there on the aspect of the highway was 4 little individuals.
Now after I say little individuals I don’t imply quick I imply a few foot tall they usually have been all carrying pointy little white hats and white garments. Two of them have been splashing arm in arm within the rain puddles that had collected on the aspect of the highway and one in all them seemed to be filling up a bucket with the identical water. The final one was the smallest and walked with a little bit of a limp and I seen a fifth one which was a lot taller than all the remaining and wore all black and had a shorter black hat on as properly. I might inform straight away that the one in black was clearly some sort of authority or chief and I watched as he picked the smallest one up and positioned him on his shoulders.
Now all this time we’re standing there watching them they appeared fully unaware of us. We simply stood there frozen and never believing what we have been seeing. Then out of nowhere the chief, or one in black, appeared to note us and he turned to the others clearly telling them it was time to go as a result of they stopped what they have been doing straight away and adopted the largest one into the tall grass. We walked as much as the place the place they’d been after ready awhile to make certain they weren’t coming again and there have been a bunch of tiny naked foot prints left behind within the mud together with bizarre writing that regarded lots like hieroglyphics. We regarded across the space and I gotta inform ya there was no place round there they may of gone with out us seeing them or them having to cross the highway to the opposite aspect the place the woods are.”
Though on this event these “gnomes” gave the impression to be a bit shy about being seen, this might apparently change, as they might quickly seem once more and appeared to need to talk or play with the witness. The witness says that later that exact same night she went outdoors to have a smoke, and out of the encircling gloom these little individuals materialized once more, trying upon her with what she took to be nice curiosity. The witness describes this odd encounter:
“I went out for a smoke and I couldn’t consider it there they have been once more simply on the fringe of my property looking at me with such curiosity that for some motive made me not really feel afraid of them. They started to repeat or mimic my actions and after I put my fingers on my hips they did so to. I lastly sat down on my moms outdated wheel chair and seen how curious they appeared in regards to the chair. I went inside after awhile and within the morning after I went again on the market have been a number of tiny muddy foot prints everywhere in the concrete patio main as much as the outdated wheel chair and everywhere in the chair itself. I needed to chuckle it simply appeared so surreal to of actually seen them and now this. Since then I’ve seen the tiny individuals quite a few occasions and every time they appear to be observing me. I’ve by no means gotten any dangerous emotions or unwell intentions from them so I’m not afraid of them anymore however I gotta say that is the weirdest factor I’ve ever heard of.”
Very bizarre, certainly. Who or what have been these diminutive individuals? What did they need from this witness? Have been they only taking part in, making an attempt by some means to speak in their very own approach, or what? In one other account from the e-book Mysterious Disappearances: And Different Unusual Tales, by Ron Quinn, there may be the account of a pair known as “Rick and Joyce,” who apparently owned a distant mountain cabin getaway the place they might spend their weekends. In the future they have been out tending their backyard (a liminal house) when a small stone landed at their toes, seeming to return out of nowhere. Puzzled, they regarded round and at first, suspected that maybe a squirrel had dropped the stone from a tree, however there was nothing there. As they regarded, one other stone fell, evenly lobbed from the branches and clearly not meant to hurt. One other stone adopted, bouncing in opposition to the porch and tumbling down the steps.
The baffled couple regarded up into the bushes as soon as once more, staring by way of the branches, and this time they claimed that they noticed the face of slightly man peering out from the leaves at them, carrying a vibrant pointy hat and sporting a full beard. The little man was solely a few foot in top and appeared to smile at them earlier than leaping down from the tree onto the roof of the cabin and disappearing into the comb. The couple tried to coax the unusual little man again out, however he was gone, and they might not make one other sighting. Once more we’re confronted with the query of what this entity, creature, no matter you need to name it, needed. What was the which means of these tossed rocks? Why did it smile at them? Was it making an attempt to play with them? Was this a gesture of aggression? We are going to by no means know.
One other report alongside these strains got here to me from a reader, who says this occurred shortly after transferring to a rural city in California. One night, she says she woke to a lightweight tapping on her window (a liminal house), which was odd because it was the midnight they usually had no kids or neighbors, and making it much more weird was that she was on the second flooring of the house. She went to the window, however nobody was there, and there was actually nowhere anybody might have gone to cover so rapidly. She left the curtains open and settled again into mattress with that tapping nonetheless on her thoughts when it began once more. This time she did see somebody or no less than one thing, and he or she tells me:
“There within the window was the face of a tiny little man, simply peering in at me. He had slightly beard, pure white, and had a inexperienced, pointed little hat sitting askew on his head. I’d guess that he would have solely been round 2 toes in top, which was baffling to me as I used to be on the second flooring of the home. I simply sat there completely astonished. The little man tapped on the window once more and smiled, and I didn’t get an evil or sinister feeling from him. He appeared virtually like he needed to play. Then he waved and appeared to step away from the window, though I don’t know the way as a result of there was nothing however a sheer drop to the bottom. I used to be so curious that I went to look outdoors once more and this time he was gone and didn’t come again.”
One commonality in plenty of these more strange encounters with the really outlandish, as I’ve repeatedly identified within the article, is their tendency to happen in liminal locations. A liminal place is a kind of threshold between two locations in house or time. They’re locations that lie between the place we at the moment are and the place we anticipate to be. Bodily liminal areas could possibly be bends within the highway, and even roads basically, home windows, hilltops, tunnels, fields, gardens, rivers, banks of fog, doorways, bridges, or outdated constructions mendacity between current and succumbing to inevitable entropy to change into feral ruins, however these usually are not confined to merely the bodily world. The purpose between wakefulness and sleep is a minimal house, as is nightfall and daybreak, and even one thing so simple as a job interview and ready to listen to should you acquired the job. Liminal areas are people who lie between the recognized and the anticipated, having a pre-determined starting and finish, and connecting two pre-determined, concrete factors.
The best way this all connects to what I’ve been speaking about to date is that most of the more strange encounters with ghosts, aliens, monsters, or no matter, is that they fairly often happen in these liminal zones. What number of studies are there of somebody seeing one thing unusual simply as they woke or drifted off to sleep? What number of alien and ghost encounters occur alongside darkened roads or after rounding a bend within the highway or going over a hill? What number of studies of phantoms and monsters come from decaying ruins or in patches of darkish wilderness? These liminal locations appear to be populated by a few of the weirder studies of varied entities and apparitions, so why ought to this be? Are these locations that maybe symbolize a skinny spot within the veil between realities, factors the place these entities can extra simply bleed into our personal dimension, whether or not deliberately or in any other case? We might by no means know the solutions to those questions, however it’s one thing to consider.
