The Monster Missive: Sn. 20 Ep 49 & Sn. 20 Ep. 50 (Patreon)

Our weekly newsletter, brought to you by MAU team members, Delainey Bowers and Conor Ryan, every Friday.

-Show Notes Spotlight-

A more in-depth look at some of the research covered in this week's Tuesday and Thursday episodes.

Traditionally here at Monsters Among Us we’ve celebrated the end of our seasons with calls that focus on all the wildest hometown legends that lurk in the shadows. We do this because the team here consists entirely of shapeshifting lizard people from the Alpha Draconis star system. Our varying home planets are barren wastelands where not much exciting happens besides Sulfur Sundays, which we are unfortunately not allowed to tell you about. Because of our own lack of legends, we always crave to learn more about the minutiae of human folklore since it helps with our studies us have fun!

Despite our coldblooded reptilian hearts, we are still a little sappy, so we want to start this missive by focusing on some of our other alien companions that use this playground you all call Earth. On Thursday’s episode, Ash shared a legend from the Crossroads of America. Here’s a summary from UFO Insight about the legendary 1967 ‘Beanpot’ UFO encounter.

“On the afternoon of 19th January 1967, in Milan, Indiana, at around 3 pm, 14-year-old Reed Thompson was sitting in the family home watching television after having just returned home from school. However, the calm of the living room was suddenly disturbed by a sound similar to a train engine outside the property.

He turned to face the living room window, expecting to see a train passing on the nearby tracks in that direction. Instead, he saw a strange light that he first mistook for a streetlight until it began to move around the late-afternoon sky.

He went to retrieve his camera. As he returned to the window, the bizarre object still clearly in view, he stopped around five feet from the glass and snapped a picture. He would continue watching the object as it calmly cut through the sky.

Reed…pulled on his outer clothing, coat, and shoes and rushed outside. After scanning the surrounding area for several moments, he managed to pick out the craft approximately 100 yards from his location. It was moving along the top of a group of fir trees. Then, in no more than a second, it vanished from sight completely. It was only when it disappeared that Reed noticed the diesel engine-like sound had stopped also.”

If you want to read an even more in-depth description of the sighting, you can find one here from Think About It. Now that’s an interesting story in itself, but the most fascinating part is Reed’s later encounter with a few mysterious men. We were also able to track down the original articles by Norman Kissell on Newspapers.com about the encounter from the Dearborn County Register published on March 19, 1992 and April 2nd, 1992 respectively

The articles go into considerable detail about the sighting and the immediate aftermath, including investigations undertaken by local and state law enforcement agencies. It’s important to note that the MIB encounter wasn’t until 1973 – six years after the original incident. The following is a description of the two men given by Reed, 

“One was very thin, wearing a hat, apparently male, and so tall (possibly seven feet) that he had to duck to enter the shop door.  This was the first thing that grabbed Reed's

attention. The other ‘person’ was abnormally short (probably under five feet), also very thin, long-haired and apparently female.  In spite of the warm weather, both wore heavy gloves, and their clothing left no exposed skin. Their faces were flesh-colored, but appeared not to be human faces -- more like plastic than skin.”

Seems totally normal to us! If you want to read more, you can find the full scans of the two articles below.

And while that face-to-face MIB encounter is uniquely frightening, we also heard the terrifying story from Pete on Thursday’s episode about being nearly run off the road by a mysterious light near Marfa, TX. For anyone looking for a more detailed explanation of the legend of the Marfa lights, this segment from The UnXplained is a great intro. Also if you’re looking for some old-school local journalism, this gem of a clip features reporter Richard Ray investigating the phenomena.

Unfortunately, not all of the hometown legends this week are untouched by tragedy. And, really, it wouldn’t be the end of an MAU season if we didn’t hear about a few maniacs that roam the woods of rural American towns. The first of these is the story of the “Starr Hill Hatchet Man”, which was shared by Dylan on Tuesday’s episode. Here is a summary from Oxygen of the true story that inspired this legend,“On April 26, 1973, the ‘mutilated female body’ of Mary Rose Turner was found by police in a freshly dug makeshift grave, county prosecutors said. She was ‘footless, armless, and faceless.’

Earlier that day, a local farmer later reported seeing a green car dragging ‘what appeared to be a human body,’ apparently tied to the rear of the vehicle driving north on Potato Hill Road.

A state trooper later found Turner’s body nearby after following a ‘bloody trail’ on the roadway.

Investigators determined that the 56-year-old New York mother had been out for an early morning walk when she encountered Hatch, who tied her to his 1966 green two door Plymouth Satellite and fatally dragged her along the road. Hatch had been working the graveyard shift at a nearby gas station the night of Turner’s killing.

He was indicted on second-degree murder charges in Turner’s killing on Oct. 17, 1973. In April 1975, a jury found Hatch guilty. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison. The case, which involved the discovery of bodies in shallow graves on Potato Hill Road, was described as the longest and most expensive trial in Oneida County history.

Bernard Hatch, 81, died at Fishkill Correctional Facility Regional medical unit on Nov. 8, 2021, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision confirmed.”

We noted some discrepancy in our research because he is alternatively referred to as the “Starr Hill Killer” and “The Potato Hill Killer”, so this article from Hub Pages explains that discrepancy,

“[According to the legend], a man murdered and tortured his victims around here, and that swamp is where the bodies were dumped. He actually dragged a woman behind his car up that last paved road we were on. And the ghosts still haunt this place.

The swamp, where severed body parts were found, was located on Starr Hill.”

It appears that this isn’t the only restless spirit that haunts Starr Hill though, according to this article in The Tangerine, there is also the legend of The Witchdoctor of Steuben, 

“In the 1800s, Dr. Daniel R. Roberts was given the quirky title by the primarily Welsh immigrant neighbors that he treated.

Roberts practiced hypnotism, which was a fringe science at that time and both he and his wife Jane explored the use of potions and alternative healing. This was viewed by the superstitious Welsh settlers of Steuben as black magic.

While riding over Starr Hill on his return from a house call one stormy evening, Roberts was thrown from his horse and killed. Since then, locals have described encounters with a ghostly lantern bobbing up and down Starr Hill Road at night, which supposedly is Roberts trying to find his way home.”

On Tuesday’s episode, we were also given an update on another menacing figure who is said to creep through the countryside at night. Sigrid was kind enough to tell us about her experience on Bunny Man Bridge in Clifton, VA. Now this isn’t the first time the Bunny Man has hopped onto our show, so if you want to listen to previous calls on the subject you can check out S14 EP 20 and S15 EP 2. If this is all new to you, though, the classic Virginia Bunny Man story (of which there are many variations) goes,

“On October 18, 1970, Air Force Academy Cadet Robert Bennett told police that shortly after midnight last Sunday he and his fiance were sitting in a car in the 5400 block of Guinea Road when a man ‘dressed in a white suit with long bunny ears’ ran from the nearby bushes and shouted: ‘You're on private property and I have your tag number.’

The ‘Rabbit’ threw a wooden-handled hatchet through the right front car window, the first-year cadet told police. As soon as he threw the hatchet, the ‘rabbit’ skipped off into the night, police said. Bennett and his fiancee were not injured.”

This story is often conflated with another Virginia Bunny Man legend in which a patient at a local psychiatric hospital escaped into the night, murdered 2 teenagers, and hung their bodies off a nearby bridge.”

If the fact that these incidents were officially reported in the local paper is as interesting to you as it is to us, you can read more in-depth research on the evolution of The Bunny Man here on the official site for Fairfax County and in this well-researched article by Kari Pugh over at Inside Nova. While most urban legends like this start turning up empty leads the deeper you research, it appears in this case there just actually might be a moth-eaten bunny suit and a rusty hatchet hiding in an old man’s closet somewhere in rural Virginia.

And while some people go to Slidell, LA to look for their joy, others go there to look for an elusive figure known as the Onion Head. An anonymous caller was kind enough to give us a rundown on Tuesday’s episode, but in case you need a refresher here is a summary from Geocaching,

“The legend of Onion Head begins sixty years ago in the small town of Slidell, Louisiana. There was a giant of a man with a grotesque face who roamed the woods. He lived there in a shack with his mother and seldom left his home. He was disfigured by a childhood disease that distorted his head. The locals cruelly nickname him Onionhead. To escape their taunts, he stayed out in the woods with his mother and never ventured into town. 

One day, a young girl was found murdered out in the woods. The local people decided that Onion Head must have killed her. Before the police had a chance to investigate, the townsfolk formed a mob and went out in the woods to capture Onion Head in his shack. When he saw the angry mob approaching, Onion Head fled from the shack. His mother tried to reason with the townsfolk, but it was no use. They were baying for her son's blood. She told them she would put a curse on anyone who harmed her disfigured son. The mob hunted Onion Head down and found him hiding in a ditch. Filled with rage, they killed him and dismembered his corpse. They cut him into thirteen pieces and buried him in the graveyard. 

The next morning, the police captured the real murderer. It was a drifter who was passing through town. The townsfolk realized that Onion Head had been innocent. As time went on, there were a series of grisly murders in the town. The victims all had something in common. Every one of them had been part of the mob that killed Onion Head. At every crime scene, the unidentified killer had scrawled a message on the wall in blood. It read: "If you were there, I'm coming to kill you too" The message was signed "Onion Head". Now he lies in wait for anyone who is foolish enough to enter the cemetery.”

Sounds like something Mary Shelley might have dreamed up after a laudanum induced nightmare! An article from the St. Tammany Times-Picayune on October 30, 1993 goes into a bit more detail on Onion Head’s supposed hunting grounds,“The cemetery, which has no clear owner since it was donated by the Edmundson family decades ago as a public burial site, has become a favorite haunt in recent years for teen-agers seeking the ghoul.

No one reports ever seeing him, but that doesn’t stop teens from looking around Haaswood and other secluded locations where he has been reported to lurk.

The tale has been popular for teens for at least 10 to 15 years, but Haaswood hasn’t always been Onionhead’s alleged stomping ground. Other places include Camp Salmen, Our Lady of Lourdes Cemetery, and Greenwood Cemetery.”

This isn’t the only cemetery we heard about this week that you might want to avoid walking through at night. On Tuesday’s episode, Bernadette let us know about The Black Angel statue in Council Bluffs, IA. Here’s a refresher for us from the official website of Council Bluffs,

“The Black Angel (N 2nd St and Lafayette Ave) honors Ruth Anne Dodge, the wife of General Dodge, and commemorates her 1916 death…This sculpture is said to be the translation of a dream experienced by Mrs. Dodge on the three nights preceding her death in 1916. According to the legend, Mrs. Dodge told her daughters of the dream wherein she was on a rocky shore and saw a small boat approach through the mist. At the front of the boat, a beautiful angel held a small bowl and spoke softly, encouraging Mrs. Dodge to take a drink. The vision came three times to Mrs. Dodge, and on the third night, she took a sip. She told her daughters that after she took the drink, she felt ‘transformed into a new and glorious spiritual being.’ She died soon after.”

Just one more reason to never trust an angel! Fun fact though, the Hawkeye State has not one, but two black angel statues with urban legends attached to them. The fine folks at KCUR can fill us in on the other spooky silhouette that’s located in Oakland Cemetery, right in Iowa City,

“The statue has a big presence at almost 13 feet tall. One winged arm is spread out to the right and the angel's head is hunched over looking down at the grave below.

‘If you kiss somebody at the Black Angel at midnight you die or something like that?’ says Jamie Tucker at a bar near campus.

People say it's been struck by lightning, that it came over on a boat from Europe and fell into the sea, and that the woman who is buried there committed adultery then killed herself. Russell Buffington is the grounds keeper at Oakland Cemetery. He says people leave money and flowers for the angel. He's found bottles of liquor given as offerings, and a lot of people have been married in front of it.”

So if you’ve always wanted to take a short tour of potentially cursed angel statues, then it seems like Iowa might be your next dream destination!

However, Iowa does seem to have some competition with Kansas in the “cursed public works of art” department. On Thursday’s episode, Matt relayed the story of the Elizabeth Polly to us, but she might be better known as the Blue Light Lady,

“By August 1867, a cholera epidemic had broken out among the tents of over 1000 troops. The cholera soon spread to the 1200 railroad construction workers who were sheltering near the camp in the new village of Rome, fearing attack from the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers.

Elizabeth sought to help the sick and dying soldiers deal with what were, for many, their final hours. Often in the evening she would walk to the high limestone bluff a mile and a half southwest of the fort, now known as Sentinel Hill, where she is said to have found some comfort and solace.

When it was apparent that she had contracted the disease herself, she pleaded with her husband to bury her on top of that hill. Upon her death, soldiers were detailed to dig her grave on the crest of Sentinel Hill; but only inches beneath the sod they struck massive limestone bedrock. Unable to dig a grave on top of the hill, the sorrowful soldiers instead buried her on a lower slope nearer to the fort.Given a military funeral, her burial clothing was the uniform she wore while caring for the suffering, a blue dress and a white bonnet.”

Now for yet another legend steeped in tragedy, we can head over to Washington. An anonymous caller told us the story of “Dead Man’s Hole” in the small town of Vader. Unfortunately, we’ve dug up a few news articles that appear to prove the provenance of these stories - so if you decide to take a dip there, please wear your floaties. There’s this article below from the May 28, 1926 edition of the Chehalis Bee Nugget. It’s implied another man disappeared/drowned near a similar location the winter prior to this particular incident.

And there is this article below from the August 17, 1904 edition of The Daily Herald. The article mentions a teenage boy drowning in a deep hole in Olequa Creek. It also shares the extremely concerning fact that 11 members of that family died by drowning.

So please be careful in the waters of Vader! In that same call, Anonymous told about her father’s Bigfoot encounter in Brinson Hollow and we were able to dig up a corroborating story. According to BFRO Report 1564, on a Fall day in 1967,

“Some high school kids had parked in the driveway to the abandoned farm, the old Brinson Place. They observed a tall animal, standing erect, observing them. It was white or perhaps gray with red eyes. As I recall this happened on more than one occasion. When word of the ‘Brinson Monster’ got around, some other kids went out there with a rifle, probably a 30-30, in an attempt to kill it. It was spotted again and a shot was fired, but ‘it just kept on going.’ As far as I know that was the last time it was seen in that area.”

However, with a little more research we were able to find that the reporter here was wrong in the fact that it was not the last time the monster was seen in the area. Below you can read a report from the newsletter the Creature Chronicle from 1981, which details stories from Brinson Hollow, its supposed connection to the supernatural, and the Bigfoot lurking within its woods. 

Bigfoot wasn’t the only cryptid that made an appearance in this week’s episodes, though. On Tuesday we were also fortunate enough to have Jade fill us in on the legend of the Aswang out of the Philippines. According to this article on All That’s Interesting,

“The word aswang actually refers to a range of mythological monsters from were-dogs, to vampires, to a gruesome “viscera sucker.” All can change their appearance at will, however — and all hunger for human flesh and blood. At night, it is rumored to prowl villages, using deceptive sounds to confuse its prey. With its backward feet and bloodshot eyes, the aswang’s unsettling appearance is as terrifying as its hunger for human flesh.”

This short reel also offers a basic description of the creature and if you want even more in-depth reporting on the phenomenon then we recommend checking out this documentary.

Or, if you’ve had enough of cryptids and want to dig into some fascinating history related to animals, we highly recommend checking out this article by Cecelia Ottenweller that chronicles the life of Hans Nagel, who Alma told us about on Thursday’s episode.

And lastly, moving from a man who probably knew too much about dung beetles to a town that knows a little too much about The Beatles, on Tuesday’s show, Beth reported on the odd stories of time slips on Bold Street in Liverpool. According to legend, the first Bold Street time slip (documented, at least) happened back in 1996. Per this article from The Tab,

“The first account of someone experiencing a time slip was in July 1996. An off-duty police officer was taking a shopping trip with his wife down Bold Street, and just as he was about to cross the road into his favourite book shop, an old van with the name Caplans emblazoned upon it sped past him, beeping an old fashioned horn as it went.

Not thinking anything of it at the time, he made to cross the road again, but stopped in his tracks when he looked up at the store he thought was Dillons, and found it was instead called Cripps. He looked up and down Bold Street just to see old fashioned cars surrounding him, and people wearing clothes straight out of the 1950s and 60s.

A woman wearing modern clothes was also stood by the shop window. He crossed the street to speak to her and noticed the shoes, handbags, and umbrellas in the store window of what he thought had been a bookshop. The pair entered the shop together, and as they did so, it turned back into a bookshop before their eyes as soon as they stepped over the threshold.”

If you want to dig more into the tricky nature of time, this segment of The Why Files might be what you’re looking for.

-Here There Be Headlines-

A round-up of bizarre, curious, head-scratching news stories that leave you saying "huh."

And now we all have to go sit in the sun on some large, flat rocks in the desert for a few weeks. But we’ll be back soon, fully restored and in much better control of our shapeshifting abilities! We don’t want to leave you empty handed though, so here are some of the wildest stories we’ve skittered across this past week!

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