Myths and Urban Legends in Louisiana

Here are some more myths and Legeonds sourroundng parts of Louisiana I have tracked down.

 1. Levitate at The Tomb of Marie LeVeau

Known as the Voodoo Queen, Marie LeVeau was born on Sept. 10, 1794 and died in 1881. She was born a free Creole in the French Quarter of New Orleans and was a dedicated practitioner of voodoo, a practice that she passed down to her daughter named Marie LeVeau II. Though even days after her death many say they could still see her roaming the streets, her grave today still resides in New Orleans at the St. Louis Cemetery. Locals say that if you place a rose on her grave at midnight on her birthday that you can levitate above the historic gravesite. 

2. Haunting at Spanish Moon

This popular music venue and bar in Baton Rouge has been claimed by many to be haunted. Patrons as well as past employees recall countless stories of strange happenings occurring all around the site, and paranormal experts are said to have done readings in the building. The history of the space certainly justifies the theory. During the historic 1927 Great Mississippi River Flood the building was used as a morgue. This flood is largely known as one of the worst in the history of the area in a time when transportation did not allow many to evacuate. About 250 people were known to have died and the ones around the Greater Baton Rouge area were kept at this Highland Road location until they could be identified and relocated.  

3.Grunch Road

On the Eastern side of New Orleans there is said to be a strange group of people who for many years lived secluded in the outer swamps and forests away from the city. Their seclusion caused them to eventually become deformed and many describe them as small dwarf-like creatures who lived at the end of a long, lonely road. However, when pets and people started disappearing from the area, the road become known as haunted. Some say the strange people hired a beast to protect them from the onlookers who started showing up at their home. 

4. Le Feu Follet

This myth originated in the swamps of Louisiana. Known as a ghostly light or flame, the Feu Follet entrances its visitors into following this light leading them deeper and deeper into the swamp. The subdued follow the light until they are hopelessly lost, never to leave the swamp again. Some say the ball of light is the spirit of a lost child who left its nursery and others relate it to the spirits of those who lost their lives to protect the buried treasures of such famous pirates as Jean Lafitte. Either way, if you for some reason find yourself in the Louisiana swamp at night…don’t follow the light. 

5. The Myrtles Plantation, Francisville, LA

This old plantation home located in St. Francisville, Louisiana passed between the hands of a few families between the span of 1796-1834. Throughout that time in America’s history, the families along with servants and slaves lived on the plantation for many years. Today, the Myrtles Plantation is known as one of the most haunted homes in America for a host of visiting stories, as well as the unique contents of a couple photographs. The first is the Legend of Chloe that started with a photo taken for insurance purposes in 1992. The image seems to feature a girl standing in between the Butler’s Pantry and the General Store, though you can clearly see the building through the apparition. The second was taken during a school field trip when a teacher and her student were taking a picture in the courtyard. If you look in the window behind them, a little girl. She has become known as the Ghost Girl of the plantation. Both pictures have been highly analyzed with no proof of tampering involved. 

6. The Honey Island Swamp Monster

Lying between the East Pearl and West Pearl Rivers in southeast Louisiana, the Honey Island Swamp is a tract of bottomland that has caused many spooky stories due to a certain train wreck in the 20th century. Legend has it that back in the day a traveling circus was in the area. Their train crashed on the way to their next stop, causing them to lose a bunch of chimpanzees that interbred with the local alligator population. This led to the creation of the Honey Island Swamp monster that is supposed to be about seven feet tall with three-toed, webbed feet, and a weight close to 400 pounds. Its yellow reptilian eyes pierce through the night and its matted grey hair allows it to perfectly blend with its surrounding atmosphere. The first spotting of the monster was in 1963 by Harlan Ford who later returned to the area with a friend to get a cement casting of the creatures webbed, claw foot. 

7. The Wayne Toups Rice Festival Incident

Wayne Toups is one of the beacons of Cajun culture. Being one of the top Cajun musicians of all time, this legendary performer has been dubbed Le Boss and it is no surprise that he has a myth of a tale to support this persona. During the height of his popularity at some point Wayne Toups went to jail. Though some still say he performed, as he did every year, at the International Rice Festival in Crowley. Getting let out of jail by local authorities to play the show, and then return with them back to jail to serve out his sentence. Thousands of people claimed to have attended the show, but being before the birth of camera phones, nobody took any pictures. Today the mystery continues.

8. Ellerbe Road School, Shreveport, LA

In the 1950s and 60s, what is known now as the Ellerbe Road School in south Caddo Parish was a segregated school for black children. The building is now a bunch of crumbling ruins in an area that is not very populated, and it has generated several terrifying stories over its many long years. Some say that the spirits of some old students linger in the building due to a fire that killed them when the school was still around. Another story of devil worshipers using the old school as a site of worship does have some legitimacy. Pentagrams, as well as inverted pentagrams, can be seen painted inside and outside of the building, while a boar carcass was also found in front of the school one time. This was no pig roast but seemed to locals to be part of some strange ritual or sacrifice. 

9. LaLaurie Mansion, New Orleans, LA

This mansion is known as one of the most haunted places in the historic French Quarter in New Orleans. The stories behind this house are gruesome, real, and somewhat disturbing. The tale originates in 1832, when Dr. Louis LaLaurie and his wife Delphine moved into the home. Known as a popular socialite in town, as well as a grand party thrower, Delphine hid some very dark secrets in this elaborate home during a time when slavery was prevalent in the south. The three-story mansion at 1140 Royal Street housed horrors and atrocities that only began to surface after police raided the home because a neighbor saw Delphine chase a little girl around her garden with a whip. She then chased the girl onto her roof where the girl jumped to her death. Laws were thankfully in place in New Orleans during that time to punish her. However, somehow through relatives, Delphine’s slaves were returned to her. Delphine used to chain up her cook to the stove all day, only to unchain her for bed, then would chain her back all day when she woke in the morning. It is said that a fire broke out in the home in 1834, supposedly by this cook who could no longer stand her fate. When firefighters entered the damaged home, the rumors only became more true though Madame LaLaurie had disappeared, never to be found again after an angry mob gathered outside her home. Gruesome tales have surfaced since this tragic event. The inhumane treatment is truly disgusting and makes the LaLaurie Mansion one of the most haunted, horrifying places in the French Quarter. 

10. Was the Rougarou (Were-Wolf Post found here from yesterday)

This legend took root in Midieval French culture and was born into Louisiana when the first French Canadian immigrant settled among us.  To the French settlers, the tale was spun to keep children in line and out of the woods, especially at night.  To locals, well versed in the effects of VooDoo, the Rougarou became an even more fierce creature.  Said to stand between 7 and 8 feet in height, the beast has a human body but the head of a wolf, with razor sharp teeth and glaring red eyes.  Some believe that you must not look into the eyes of the Rougarou, lest you befall the curse and become one yourself!

There are several theories on how to become a Rougarou.  First, If you were to kill a Rougarou, you could become infected with the curse if you are exposed to its’ blood.  To further this belief, If one were to kill a Rougarou and witness the beast returned to its’ true form, he should not tell anyone of the encounter for 1 year and a day else he would see the same fate.  Other legends, no doubt put in place by the Catholic church, states that if one does not abide by the rules of Lent for seven years, he will become a Rougarou.  And yet another version of the legend says that a person who is turned into a Rougarou is cursed for 101 days, upon the last day the curse is passed to the first victim that the beast draws blood from.  The Rougarou will then permanently return to his human form, the victim will turn into a Rougarou at sunset that day.  Lastly, it is said that one can be cursed by a witch an become a Rougarou as well.

So, what do you do if you are turned into a Rougarou?  I’m glad you asked!  Legend states that you will retain your human form during daylight hours, though you will appear quite sickly to those around you.  At night you will prowl around the swamps and bayous of Louisiana, and sometimes within the city of New Orleans itself.  In these areas you most certainly would not be alone in your prowling however, you would likely be the only one searching for prey, human prey that is!  The Rougarou is said to have and insatiable hunger for blood and unfortunately, it seems to search out those that he knows in his human form to feed upon.

Though there are some parallels between the Rougarou, Vampires and Werewolves, the three are not the same.  The Werewolf has an intolerance for silver, the Vampire detests holy relics, garlic, silver and sunlight.  I have only found these references to talismans used to ward off the Rougarou; a man would place a leaf inside of his wallet, a woman would paint a hexagon beneath her bed.  I don’t know about you, but I find these two forms of protection a bit on the weak side for my liking!

So how would one defend himself against this beast?  Looks like to me, you would have to kill it!  So silver bullets are out and so is the good old stake through the heart approach.  Thank God the Legends are thorough!  Cajun Legends state that the Rougarou must be decapitated and his body mutilated or burned, to keep him dead!

So when and where was the last Rougarou spotted?  Well, it has been a very long time and there is no photographic evidence as found in the case of the Honey Island Swamp monster (sometimes claimed to be akin to the Rougarou).  However, let’s not write the creature off just yet!   Since the massive flooding brought about by hurricane Katrina, there have been reports of something large moving about in the swamps just beyond the suburbs of New Orleans.  Howls and screeching noises can be heard echoing through the bayous at night beneath the Louisiana moon!  Perhaps this is the resurgence of the Rougarou, warning the inhabitants of the suburbs to stay out of the swamps, especially at night!

The ROUGAROU A Louisiana Folklore

I posted earlier on Facebook I was on the trail of the Rougarou! 

I decided I needed to make a blog post what better way then to talk about an ancient Myth or is it/he/she/whatever just an urban legend?

The Louisiana werewolf is the rougarou of the bayou - a very similar-looking creature.

Louisiana is a fascinating place and full of legends from long ago. Is there a Louisiana werewolf? Well, the rougarou of the Bayou country has a pretty strong link to the werewolf of ancient times in Europe and France. Louisiana is a lovely place to visit. However, if you do go there, it is wise to consult long-time residents on the local legends of the area, especially about creatures like the rougarou of the Bayou. It is always good to know which areas should be avoided.

Similar to the European werewolf, the rougarou is a man who can shape-shift, or transform, into a creature. The name rougarou comes from a variant pronunciation and spelling of the French loup-garou. Loup is the French word for wolf, and garou is a man who transforms, shape-shifts, into an animal.

In the French Louisiana areas, the rougarou has been the stuff of legends for several generations. The legends originally came from either the early French settlers or the French Canadian immigrants (Acadia) centuries ago.

Apparently, the Cajuns believe the creature prowls in the swamps around Acadia and Greater New Orleans. It might also be lurking around fields, forests, and maybe just anywhere it chooses to. It is a creature with a human body and a wolf head.

In Laurentian (Laurentian Mountain range) French communities, there are legends of the werewolf. Now, a werewolf, or lycanthrope, is a human who has the rare ability to shapeshift into a creature with a wolf head and human body. The rougarou has this same ability, therefore, has strong links to the werewolf.

I may work on a-post about the top 10 Myths or Urban Legends in another blog post later!  

End of the Year Conventions willIi be attending this year?

This shall serve notice that I will be updating this Blog with a all new press kit for myself. That shall serve as both CV and Resume as Game Coordinator and Game Master should any one want to reach out and contact me for their convention.

My Press Kit is currently be written for 2019! So please be patient.

My 2019 Convention Schedule may be subject to change with out notice due to conflicts and or personal issues that affected the descension to cancel my personal appearance.

See Blog Enters for previous conventions some have been unpublished as they no longer have are active convention.

I will not be attending Tucson Comic Con ever again so don't even ask! If you want to go fine, but I am dune with them! You want tickets fine go here Tucson Comic Con Tickets

Same Goes for TusCon They Choose to replace me, So I choose not to go this year. I donot not having ant recent meant over this design because to be honest I was becoming homeless again and leaving the State of Arizona So I was considering resigning when they made the decision

to replace me. It was like a huge stone was lifted off my chest.

If you want a Membership to TusCon Go Here 

For Tuscon's Online Program Guide Go Here

My Convention year is dune for 2018! Time to enjoy my homeless holidays in peace!

Only Convention I am confirmed at for next year is MaricopaCon 2019 (August) Found Here

I will be posting as conventions reach out to me for scheduling.

Your for now Captain Hedges

Greg Stafford the Passing of a Legend

When I first heard the news about Greg’s death I wasn’t sure what to think.
Please read Chaosium’s official statement here.
It is with great sadness I received the news about Greg Stafford's passing yesterday. It is safe to say that with out his contribution and his inspiration to the RPG Industry I personally probably would have never gotten into gaming the way I did. His works on King Arthur weather in a board game format, or a Roleplaying game that heavily influenced my early child hood in one King Arthur Pendragon Roleplaying game. As well as his works on The Basic Roleplaying system and the Prince Valiant Word Game. All Published by Chaosium.

This is how I will always remember Greg Stafford!

Personal blog: http://www.staffordcodex.com/
Website Chaosium: http://www.chaosium.com/
Website Pendragon: http://www.gspendragon.com/

Yours for now Captain Hedges

So I decided I would make BBQ Pork with pork n beans today!

Sweet, smoky and entirely irresistible, this recipe combines baked BBQ and pork in beans and smothers them with a hickory barbecue sauce full of pork laganiza, All Seasoning, brown sugar, cooking wine, garlic salt, Paprika, red and black pepper. 

INGREDIENTS

6 Table Spoons of BrownSugar 

1  Table Spoon of All Seasoning

1 Table Spoon of Garlic Salt

1 Table Spoon of  Paprika, 

1 Table Spoon of each Black and Red Pepper.

9oz of hickory  barbecue sauce.

2-24oz-Packages of thick pork laganiza.

1-53oz can of Van Kamps Park and beans.

Before cooking pic (above), After Cooking Pic (Below);

Now it’s time to eat some! This is my bench today! You want some? Come by and get some! Before it’s all gone!

Yours Captain Hedges.

Yousimity Falls In Yousimity National Park!

With the seasons changing, the breathtaking sunsets over the summits and striking granite cliffs against a crisp, morning sky, capturing the perfect fall Instagram photo is easily within your grasp. Planning a last minute trip to Yosemite? We’ve got you covered with the best places to stay, shop and play while you’re in Yosemite and Mariposa County. Fall is one of the best times for hiking in Yosemite Mariposa County. Read our blog to find the best Yosemite hikes for fall.

As of this blog post todayYosemite Valley is OPEN, accessible by entering Yosemite via Highways 140 or 120. Glacier Point Road and Merced Grove remain closed. Other areas of the park, including Wawona/Mariposa Grove, Hetch Hetchy, and Tuolumne Meadows are OPEN. For updates Check out Yosemite’s blog found here for more updates.

I made beef brisket today!

In one of my many lives I learned to cook one of my favorite things to make is beef brisket!

Slow Roasted Oven BBQ Beef Brisket is so tender and juicy, with a sweet & smokey hickory barbecue sauce, that no one will care that the meat wasn’t cooked by yours truly!

When I was growing up, my family usually had this easy, oven roasted BBQ Beef Brisket for dinner, during the winter months.  This brisket is another one of my grandmas recipe book that I copied and collected when we were living in Flagstaff  in the early 80’s. My Grandparents were living in Cottenwood at the time. I have made this for years now and it is always one of my most requested recipes, so I knew it was one I needed to share on this blog.

So why did I decide to make it today? Probably because I realize it’s the first of October and a round this time of year I start to get depressed because I  miss my family. Also I think it’s because I all of sudden got hungry for some beef brisket. I am staying at Tony’s Padigemas House and I wanted to treat him to some good beef briscut as he said he never had it before.

Here is the thing about brisket, if you have never cooked one before:  it needs to be cooked slowly, at a very low temperature for many hours in order to dissolve the tough connective tissues of the meat.  Do that and the meat will be so tender that is should practically fall apart when you cut it.  The general rule is that you need to cook your brisket for 1 hour for every pound of meat, although with this recipe I always give it an extra 30 minutes to an hour after adding the backed beans-barbecue sauce so that the sauce can heat up and combine with some of the juices coming off the meat.  So if you are cooking a 3-1/2 pound brisket (like the one in these photos), you need to plan on 3-1/2 hours of cooking time for the brisket plus a little extra time at the end for heating up the baked beans.  But it works just as well with a 12-pound brisket that would take 12 hours to cook.

I have enjoyed this incredibly succulent brisket every year since I learned to make and it has become a go-to recipe when planning food for a crowd.  My mom use to serve this easy BBQ beef brisket at countless family gatherings, large and small over the years, and I have come to rely on it just as much when cooking for the holidays.

It’s a great Sunday dinner, especially when you have company, or you can make it for a summer BBQ, no grill or smoker required and no one will be the wiser!  The meat comes out smoky and tender and sweet thanks to the hickory and brown sugar barbecue sauce and a long, low and slow roasting time.  And if you have a large electric roaster or a big enough crock pot and small enough brisket, you could totally cook it in there as well. I just prefer to do a Slow Roasted Oven BBQ Beef Brisket in the oven.

My favorite side with BBQ beef brisket is Bushes Backed Beans although I also really love serving it with twice baked potatoes or a cheesy potato casserole that I have plans to post on the blog at some point in the future. You could serve it with Biscuits, coleslaw, cornbread, baked potatoes, cold macaroni salad or any other Southern sides you like, Macedonia and cheese.

Slow Roasted Oven BBQ Beef Brisket

Prep Time

10-15 mins

Cook Time

3-1/2 hrs

Total Time

4 hrs 10 mins

 

Slow Roasted Oven BBQ Beef Brisket is so tender and juicy, with a sweet & smokey hickory barbecue sauce, that no one will care that the meat wasn't cooked by a Texas pitmaster!

Course: Dinner, Main Course

Cuisine: American from Arizona

Servings: 6 people

Calories: 867 kcal

Author: Earl C. Hedges Jr, originally thought to me by my grandmother Kay Hedges.

Ingredients

Brisket

• 3-12 pounds of brisket
• 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tablespoons of Garlic Salt
• 2 tablespoons celery salt
• 1 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 tablespoons onion powder
• 2 tablespoons of brown sugar for every pound of beef brisket.

Sauce

• 20 ounces hickory-flavored barbecue sauce (In this recipe I used the following)

Instructions 

1. The night before you plan to cook and serve the brisket, combine the salt, celery salt, garlic powder, onion powder and brown sugar in a small bowl and set aside. Place the brisket in a large roasting pan and trim the fat if it is super thick, but leave at least a 1/4" layer on the bottom. Moisten the brisket with the Worcestershire sauce, then sprinkle the top and bottom of the brisket with half of the mixed seasonings, reserving the other half. Cover tightly with foil and place in the refrigerator overnight.
2. The next day, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then turn it down to 325 degrees. Remove the brisket from the fridge and uncover. Sprinkle it with the remaining seasonings, then cover it with foil again and place it in the oven to roast for 3-1/2 hours for this particular time around Sense the brisket was 3-1/2 pounds (you need to cook brisket approximately 1 hour per pound of meat). 
3. Remove the brisket from the oven and remove the aluminum foil. Pour off the fat. In a medium bowl, stir together the brown sugar and barbecue sauce, then pour it over the brisket. Increase the oven temperature to 350 degrees, add in Bushes Backed Beans then return the brisket to the oven, uncovered, and roast an additional 30 minutes to an hour, or until the sauce is hot and the meat is tender. Slice or chop and serve. 
4. Recipe notes: You can use whatever barbecue sauce you like, but I think a hickory flavored sauce adds a smokiness to this dish that you don't get from just the oven.
5. What if you want this to be a more New Mexican-Texas spicy style? Well the you add to your dry mix 2 tablespoons chili powder, 1 tablespoon ground black pepper, 2 teaspoons of dry mustard, 1 tablespoon of paprika. Really is a simple fix! Don’t for get the secret ingredient 3 Table spoons of Jim Beams Whiskey. Rember Before last hour of cooking, remove brisket and add step 3 above. Then Return the pan and add barbecue sauce mixed. Cover meat with the sauce from step 3. Then cover, and cook for 1 hour longer.

I I hope you enjoy this recipe..... yep to answer your question was it tasty? It certainly did come out quite tasty I will take more pictures of people eating this conconction of mine. As well as my self later tonight and post them here.  Yours for Now Captain Hedges.

Exploring American Monsters: Massachusetts

One of the original thirteen British colonies in North America, Massachusetts was pivotal in the American Revolution. It is the third most densely populated of the fifty states, and the seventh smallest. It’s the birthplace of printer, author, inventor, and political theorist Benjamin Franklin, President John F. Kennedy, author Dr Seuss, author Edgar Allen Poe, and Captain America Chris Evans. The state has coastal and interior lowlands, several large bays, and residual mountains. A 200-square-mile area called “The Bridgewater Triangle” in the southeastern part of the state is the home to UFO encounters, ghosts, animal mutilation, and Bigfoot reports. Oh, and don’t forget the Pukwudgie.

Many American Indian mythologies have stories of little people. The Wampanoag of Massachusetts’ legend is of the Pukwudgie. Jealous of the affection the Wampanoag showed the giant Maushop (well, the giant did create Cape Cod for them), the Pukwudgie began to torment the Wampanoag Indians, playing tricks on them, stealing their children, and burning their villages. Pukudgies are described as humanlike, two to three feet tall with large noses, and ears. Their skin is grey.

The Pukwudgie can become invisible, use magic, and create fire at the snap of their fingers, but their most dangerous antics involve shooting poison arrows (with which legend says they used to kill Maushop and his five sons), and turning into a half-porcupine/half-troll. These diminutive human-like monsters have been known to lure humans to their deaths either by poison arrow, or pushing the human off a cliff. Afterward, the Pukwudgie can control the souls of their victims.

In modern times, people have reported encountering Pukwudgies in Freetown-Fall River State Forest, which includes a reservation in the Wampanoag Nation.

Thunderbird

Another American Indian legend, the Thunderbird is an enormous bird that’s name comes from the thunderous beating of its giant wings. Seen over the centuries across the continent, the thunderbird closely resembles a family of bird called the Teratorn that existed between the Miocene and Pleistocene periods. These monster birds (Teratorn is Greek for just that, “monster bird”) had wingspans of eleven to twenty feet and weighed anywhere from thirty-three to 176 pounds.

American Indian stories of these flying terrors across North America are eerily similar. Thunderbirds can create storms, and shoot lightning bolts. They have been known to swoop low and scoop up children and animals for food.

Sightings of Thunderbirds have occurred all over Massachusetts, including this one from Easton as reported in The Boston Globe from a story written by famed cryptozoologist Loren Coleman. According to the article, police Sergeant Thomas Dowdy drove home from his shift during the summer in 1971 when a bird about six feet tall with wings twelve feet long lifted from the side of the road and soared over his vehicle and disappeared into the night.

An account on about.com by an anonymous author who posted as “Bob,” involved what he thought was a hang glider in the sky around dusk one autumn in 1995 near Weston, Massachusetts. Bob drove over a hill, and saw the “glider” heading straight toward his vehicle. Bob slammed the brakes, and saw something he couldn’t believe. The flying object wasn’t a glider; it was a bird with a wingspan of around twenty feet.

According to a story at cryptozoologynews.com, in August of this year, two men, who were water treatment operators working near Blandford, Massachusetts, saw a huge bird they at first thought was a small airplane. They realized it was not an airplane when it began to flap its wings.

You can find Thunder Bird Artists at Arizona Fine Art EXPO January 11th through March 24th, 2019 26540 N Scottsdale Road, AZ 85255 Hours 10am-6pm for more info click this link

Dover Demon

For a few days in the spring of 1907, then again in 1927, 1937, 1947, 1957, 1967, and last sighting in 1977, the town of Dover, Massachusetts was terrorized by what was described as a demon. 

At around 10:30 p.m. 21 April 1977 seventeen-year-old Billy Bartlett saw a four-foot-tall humanoid creature standing near a wall on Farm Street. The creature had a head like a watermelon, and glowing orange eyes, but no mouth or nose. Bartlett told The Boston Globe in 2006 the demon was real. “I have no idea what it was,” Bartlett told The Globe. ‘‘I definitely know I saw something.’’

Five more witnesses came out claiming to have seen the demon in 1977, including fifteen-year-old John Baxter who stood within fifteen feet of the monster on Miller Hill Road at 12:30 a.m. as he walked home from his girlfriend’s house. The next day, fifteen-year-old Abby Brabham saw the demon sitting on Springdale Avenue.

Carl Sheridan, a former police chief in Dover, told The Globe the story has always bothered him. “I knew the kids involved. They were good kids … The whole thing was unusual.”

Find out more about the Dover Demon by clicking here.

Gloucester Sea Serpent

The first report of the 100-foot-long serpent in the harbour of Gloucester occurred in 1638 when British traveler and author John Josselyn wrote the tale of a “sea serpent, or snake, that lay quoiled (sic) up like a cable upon the rock at Cape Ann; a boat passing by with English on board, and two Indians, they would have shot the serpent, but the Indians dissuaded them, saying that if he were not killed outright, they would all be in danger of their lives.”

In 1817, fishermen claimed to see a snake-like reptilian beast with the head of a horse and a foot-long horn from the center of its head. It poked its head above the surface of the harbour, and looked around before sinking back into the depths. That was by no means the last sighting. Two women claimed to see the creature on 10 August 1817. By 1818, seamen and clergymen said they saw the monster.

In the 1920s it was sighted again 

It was seen again in Kingsport 

Sightings have continued through out the decades. Like in 1922 when a group of teenagers claim to have seen the monster while on their way to school. 

Although the number of encounters has decreased over the years, however, two accounts of note have occurred in the 1960s, and in 1997.

Beast of Truro

During autumn of 1981, pets and livestock were slaughtered by an unknown creature around Truro, Massachusetts, a small town on the northern tip of Cape Cod. The first victims were dozens of cats found torn apart in an area of the small town. Various deaths continued through 1981 and into 1982 when hogs were found injured, their “flanks ripped by deep claw marks,” according to a story in The New York Times. People suspected a pack of wild dogs until the sightings began. Locals reported seeing a “large furry creature that they did not recognize,” according to The Times.

The clearest sighting was from a married couple from Truro, William and Marsha Medeiros, who were taking a walk near Head of the Meadow Beach. “It had a very definite long ropelike tail like the letter J,” Marsha Medeiros told The Times. “We figured it was about as tall as up to our knees and weighed 60 or 80 pounds.” The animal had a catlike face and short ears. Marsha Medeiros was convinced they had seen a mountain lion.

Others reported seeing something that looked like a mountain lion, although the last reported mountain lion in Massachusetts was in 1858. Despite numerous sightings, footprints were never found. Eventually the sightings, and animal deaths faded. Many people at the time thought the Beast of Truro was a mountain lion. By the witness descriptions, I would not be surprised if that is what it was. It would still be of interest to cryptozoologists, though, because of the "surviving Eastern Panther" theory. If mountain lions are still in Massachusetts, and are thought to have gone extinct there in the 1800s, that would still be a great discovery.

One advantage Cape Codders hold when discussing Not Being Killed By A Beast with mainlanders is that they got here first, cleared the forests first, and that the most dangerous thing on Cape Cod for a lot of White Man History was a Bluefish. They had wolves and bears and other scary things at one point, but they were all chased westward into the frontier as European civilization encroached upon Cape Cod.

The other edge they hold is that they chopped Cape Cod off from the mainland in 1914 or so. Anything that wasn't on Cape Cod already wasn't getting on, short of a perilous swim across the Canal or a highly-visible trot across one of the bridges.

Even before then, most of Massachusetts had been cleared for farmland. This eliminated the routes that something like a cougar would use to get some Cape Cod eatin; in.

Cape Cod was also cut off by a stretch of urban territory that lays between Eastern Massachusetts and the more like-nature-used-to-be wilderness of New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Canada. Nothing that couldn't slink unnoticed through Worcester or Cambridge was going to be visiting Cape Cod.

This (and their particular climate) saves them a lot of the bears, wolves, cougars, wolverines, giant hogs, Sasquatch and other megafauna that other parts of the country have to deal with. They have had it pretty easy over the years.

When former farmland in mainland Massachusetts was abandoned as farming ceased to be America's primary occupation, wilderness crept back into eastern Massachusetts. We were protected by the urban corridor and, later, by the Cape Cod Canal.

According to Cap Code Town Data (See Link Below) 

Cape Cod Town Data found here

Truro is a small town (as of 2016 1589 souls reside their right now) It was up and down between (1486 to 1573 or so during the 1980’s) in 1982 it was probly around 1500 or so their like today, to where, lost the link) is undeveloped swamp.

There are about 5 reasons to move and live tin Truro....
1) you like beaches,
2) you inherited property there,
3) you're an artist,
4) you dislike living near other people, or
5) you're an artist who loves beaches but dislikes living near people and you inherited property there.

If it exists, Reason #6 would almost certainly be "Nothing ever happens there." 

So #7 might be a maybe homeless hobo could go live their and terrorize the town as a Hobo with a Shotgun!

That's why it-was-probably so disturbing when a series of animals began to be slaughtered in Truro. At first, it was the local cat population. More than a dozen Meow Machines from the same part of Truro turned up un-living. Then, whatever was responsible started going for bigger prey. The time was about September, 1981.

A hog that weighed 175 pounds was mauled badly enough to warrant euthanasia. The flanks of the hog were grooved with claw marks, and it's throat was mauled. A few days later, another hog pen in Truro suffered an attack by a mystery hunter. In this incident, two hogs were clawed in their pen. People across Truro also reported hearing strange, eerie, cat-like screams.

Experts said that the attacks were the work of either a dog or a pack of dogs. Packs of dogs are not unusual in the countryside, and they roll deep enough to kill deer and livestock. Anything beyond that- even things that we know are here now, like coyote, wildcat, and bear- would have been close to science fiction in the minds of authorities back then.

Hogs don't talk (except in Charlotte's Web), so they make poor witnesses. However, you can tell a lot by the damage that was done to them. You can't tell enough to say anything definitively, however. The wounds to the throat could have been canine, feline, or even ursine. The slashes to the flanks appear to be only feline or ursine.

Big cats, wolves, and bears all will tear out the throat of prey if able to. Cats use their claws to latch on to the animal. Bears will attack by swatting with their powerful paws in an attempt to break the prey's back. Either attack would be consistent with the wounds seen on the hogs.

The problem is that the animals were still alive and not consumed. A bear or a mountain lion would destroy a hog, while smaller animals wouldn't be able to inflict the wounds that the animals suffered. You can imagine the slashed hogs were maybe attacked through fencing somehow, which you'd think a bear would knock down or a lion would leap over.

A cougar's killing bite is applied to the back of the neck, head, or throat and they inflict puncture marks with their claws, usually seen on the sides and underside of the prey, sometimes also shredding the prey as they hold on. Coyotes also typically bite the throat region, but do not inflict the claw marks.

One thing was for sure... it wasn't a pack of dogs. It was something that no one their hadn't seen before around their, at least in the more recent lifetimes of the current towns people.

The mystery got wilder soon after. A local couple, the Medeiros, saw what they described as a mountain lion on Truro's Head Of The Meadow Beach. Other sightings soon followed, including a policeman, an accountant, a noted sculptor, and a school principal. All spoke of a slender, big cat with a long, J-shaped tail. The couple described it as knee high, 60 pounds, and definitely not a fox.

The sightings led to some terror. A cougar is a very bad thing to be attacked by. Several or so Californians a year are mauled/killed/eaten by cougars, also known as Mountain Lions. One of those walking around Truro would be very bad for the locals. Pets, livestock, kids and even adults were at risk. Unless it met an armed man or jumped into the water with a shark, it displaced the Cape Codder as the apex predator on Cape Cod.

The sightings also led to some skepticism. Eastern Cougars, which once roamed all over America, were then (and are still now) the subject of debate. Many experts feel that North America has two sorts of cougars.

One school of thought is that the Eastern Cougar is a subspecies of regular Cougars, while others feel that they're all in the same gang. Many biologists (then and now) believe that the Eastern Cougar is extinct, while others feel that it is making a comeback.

Cougars show up in New England now and then (one was killed by an SUV in Connecticut in 2011), but some and maybe even most officials feel that these are either escaped captives or western cougars who wandered extensively. The cougar killed in Connecticut was actually found somehow to be from South Dakota.

Either way, a cougar in Truro would be amazing. The last confirmed cougar of any sort in Massachusetts was again  in 1858, before the Civil War. A cougar in the Berkshires would be amazing. One in Truro would almost defy science.

The Beast of Truro, who was also known as the Pamet Puma (the Pamet River, named after the Paomet tribe, lent the Beast his second nickname), was national news for a while in 1982.  An article by the New York Times went viral (pre-Internet), and our Beast was being spoken of in New York, Florida, Maine and probably a bunch of other newspapers that I didn't actually see in my research on this subject. Long before she was dishing in the Herald, a then-unknown Gayle Fee was sent to obscure little Truro to seek out the Pamet Puma for the Cape Cod Times. Fee listed a "Bengal tiger" as a possible culprit.




Then, by early 1982, he was seen no more. This led to another mystery. Unlike other monsters like an alligator or an anaconda (which would freeze like a popsicle up here as soon as winter fell), a cougar can survive a Massachusetts winter, especially the milder Cape Cod variety. A cougar would be the apex predator on Cape Cod the instant he arrived, meaning that- unless he went swimming off Chatham- nothing ate him. No one reported hitting one with a car, and no carcass was found. There are more than enough deer on Cape Cod to support a big cat.

With no physical evidence (eyewitness sightings are not considered to be as reliable as tracks and scat, meaning that humans actually know less than sh*t), no definitive analysis could be made. State officials, who always try to be conservative in such cases, say that it was a dog or a pack of dogs.

With 20/20 hindsight, we can read and laugh at officials saying, "Some people even claimed it was a fisher!" Fishers, then thought to be urban legend on Cape Cod, are now accepted as legitimate residents.... just like bears and bobcats were thought to be extinct here until people started getting video.

Maybe he realized he was the only Beast for 300 miles, and the instinct to get laid drove him back to the mainland. Maybe he went for a swim, and a shark ate him. Maybe he was shot by a hunter who then realized that he had just blasted an animal that was thought to be extinct and which probably had a jail term attached to it.

Or maybe, just maybe.... on certain nights when the moon passes too closely, someone on Cape Cod- maybe even someone you know- sprouts fur and claws, and roams the night in search of his next 150 pounds of meat. It sounds funny now, but it wasn't so funny in 1981.

The moors of Truro have been quiet for 30 years now. State officials view the whole thing as the work of a dog pack. The locals who even remember the tale do so with a sense of humor- the Pawmet Puma has been immortalized with a 5K road race, for instance. The Pawmet Puma even has a Twitter account, and seems to be a Dawson's Creek fan.

The local white trash staggering out of the nearby taverns pose a greater threat to Trurorians than cougars do, and probably always have. The last megafauna attack on a human there was from the current villain, a Great White Shark. With a monster like that just offshore, hunting humans... only a fool would worry about a most-likely-mythical Beast of Truro.

Still... anyone who was sentinent and living in Truro in 1982 most likely will never feel 100% at ease on the moors of Pamet, on a dark night when the wind is up and the Hunter's Moon shines.

I am thinking it might be fun to go their and explore the moors myself. 

BLACK DOGS 

A New England black dog story comes from southeastern Massachusetts in the area known, by some, as the Bridgewater Triangle. In the mid-1970s, the town of Abington was, reportedly, terrorized by a large, black dog that caused a panic. A local fireman saw it attacking ponies. Local police unsuccessfully searched for it, at first; but, eventually, a police officer sighted the dog walking along train tracks and shot at it. Apparently, the bullets had no effect on the animal; and, it wandered off never to be seen, again.

So if you have read all the way down to this final post your probably wondering what prompted this blog post. Well you might say I was going crazy about monster sightings in Massachusetts. But their is a cryptic clue in this article that should tell you I am doing research for my H. P. Love Craft Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Horror Game. Can you find the clues? That may point to the CoC Myhos! Good Luck and see you at the game table. Your Cult of Chaos Cthulhu Mythos Keeper of Secrets Captain Hedges.