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The Legendary Tengu
Japanese legends describe a creature, in most cases, a class of supernatural creatures, called the tengu, a bird with four limbs in addition to wings that lives in the mountains and forests of Japan. It often looks somewhat humanoid generally being depicted in Japanese folklore as anthropomorphic birds of prey - typically crows. In fact, this creature is thought to be a shapeshifter, a creature able to assume human form whenever it wants. Different tengu resemble various types of bird, including crows, ravens and eagles. The earliest tengu were pictured with beaks, but this feature has often been humanized as an unnaturally long nose, which today is widely considered the tengu’s defining characteristic in the popular imagination.
The legendary Tengu were often seen as avian-man mountain gods, but there are many traditions for what they are. They are variously described as being cursed humans, demigods, demons, spirits, or a separate race of living beings. Tengu is one of the most famous and ubiquitous creatures in Japanese folklore and originally Buddhism long held that the tengu were disruptive demons and harbingers of war, however, their image gradually softened into one of protective, if still dangerous, spirits of the mountains and forests.
Tengu are born from giant eggs and stories abound of travelers coming across Tengu nests filled with their giant eggs high in the remote mountains. One egg was said to be enough to feed an entire family, but few would dare to disturb them for fear of the Tengu’s wrath. Tengu have been known to possess a wide array of supernatural powers, including teleportation, telepathy, premonition, thought projection (they were thought to be able to invade a person’s mind and drive them insane).
Drawing of a Tengu
In their last incarnation as humans, tengu were arrogant samurai or priests-that is why they have beaks or long noses. The expression tengu ni naru is thus an admonition to avoid being arrogant. If they do good deeds, however, tengu can be reborn as humans.
Tengu, unlike obake (ghosts), are always shown with feet. Yamabushi tengu usually have extremely wrinkled feet to show their old age. The wings of bird tengu are usually shown with ordinary feathers. However, some authorities describe the wings as shimmering, like those of a hummingbird. This would be in keeping with their heavenly origin.
The original incarnation of the Tengu was animalistic, more avian than human, and was typically portrayed as looking variously like anything from simply a giant bird of prey, to a vaguely humanoid form covered in feathers, with wings, piercing eyes, a compact head with a prominently beaked face, and heavy, vicious looking talons. They are depicted both with clothing and without. These animal-like beings were known as the “Karasu Tengu,” or literally “Crow Tengu,” although they could just as often look like eagles or other birds. The Karasu Tengu were known as evil creatures, prone to abducting children, starting fires, and savagely killing anyone foolish enough to do damage to their forest lair. These were violent creatures, said to enjoy ripping travelers limb from limb, and they were thought to be heralds of disaster, war, and doom wherever they went.
Relics relating to Tengu can be found in temples around Japan. For instance, the Hachinohe Museum in Aomori prefecture houses the alleged mummified remains of a Tengu. The skull of these remains is humanoid, while the body is covered with feathers and the feet are like that of a bird. Another temple in Saitama prefecture keeps what is said to be the talon of a Tengu, while still another supposedly has the beaked skull of one.
Could any real animal be behind these legends? If we go the other route and look at the humanoid characteristics that are sometimes present, we run into the realm of winged men.
Japanese Mythology Meets Modern Sightings
There was a story about an incident in 1952, U.S. Pvt. Sinclair Taylor had the experience while on guard duty. This took place at Camp Okubo in Kyoto Japan. The Pvt. heard a loud flapping sound and scanning the sky found what first appeared to be a large bird in the moonlight. It came closer and he put a round in his rifle.
The thing in the air watched the Pvt. for a few moments, not coming closer then continued its descent. He could see a man like body, one 7 ft tall or more . It’s wingspan from his position seemed very near the height. As it made contact with the ground he emptied his rifle. When he checked to see the condition of his target, if he’d struck it, it was gone.
The Sargent of the Guard investigating the gun fire told him he believed his story and that a year earlier another guard had seen the same thing. In a singular case it would have less impact and believability. There is also the point that military personnel, like Police officers, are not likely to discharge their weapons in a haphazard way. There is a stringent set protocol for their use, and the bearer of the weapon is responsible for each round fired.
There is also the fact that in Asia, these winged figures are more common than you’d think. Ufologist Don Worley also related a tale from Earl Morrison, who was among the First Marine Division in Vietnam. His story is of the same eerie sort, a winged object that once closer, could be identified as a humanoid figure. In this case the soldier claimed it was woman, a naked woman, completely black, hair, skin, wings all the same, yet there was the added feature of a greenish glow about her. It illuminated her in the night.
She flew directly over them, blotting out the moon for a moment, and then surprisingly, once 10ft away they could hear the flapping of her wings, something they had not heard before. She was watched as she flew away towards their encampment. Among the details of this story is the fact that she was completely silent when approaching and over them, and then heard leaving. This seems to point towards an effect she may have used on them. It could also be their shock, initially blocking the recognition of such sound out.
There is also a similarity to the large owls mentioned in abduction literature. The Tengu were seen at times as large birds and owls. They were like the Mothman harbingers of doom.
There is, among the Japanese, as much a familiarity with the tengu as the western world has with Angels.
The world over the frightening stories of winged figures seen by old and young, and the modern accounts from Air-force bases of all places, should grab our attention. What were the soldiers mentioned earlier in these Asian countries dealing with?
In Tengu Territory
Could any real animal be behind the Tengu legends? In the world of Japanese monsters, it does not seem likely that it represents a new species. Yet considering how prevalent they are in Japanese folklore, art, theater, and literature and even appearing in earliest representations of tengu appear in Japanese picture scrolls, such as the Tenguzōshi Emaki (天狗草子絵巻?), painted ca. 1296, there must be something to its origins.
One notorious tengu from the 12th century was said to be the ghost of an emperor. The Hōgen Monogatari tells the story of Emperor Sutoku, who was forced by his father to abandon the throne. When he later raised the Hōgen Rebellion to take back the country from Emperor Go-Shirakawa, he was defeated and exiled to Sanuki Province on Shikoku. According to legend he died in torment, having sworn to haunt the nation of Japan as a great demon, and thus became a fearsome tengu with long nails and eyes like a kite’s.
In stories from the 13th century, tengu began to abduct young boys as well as the priests they had always targeted. The boys were often returned, while the priests would be found tied to the tops of trees or other high places. All of the tengu’s victims, however, would come back in a state of near death or madness.
Could this be indicative of some parallels between the story of the Tengu and that of another well known phenomenon, the Mothman? When trying to find answers, there seem to be some similarities worth exploring. Not only do the Mothman and Tengu resemble each other in physical appearance, but there are also similarities between the transformation both creatures underwent from earlier to later versions. In the case of the Mothman, there were the original eyewitness reports of a bird-like creature that later became the more humanoid, supernatural creature popularized by Keel. This later transformation into the more humanoid, paranormal, and generally more outlandish Mothman championed by Keel conflicted with the first eyewitness reports of winged creatures that could have been more grounded in cryptozoology. With Mothman, It is possible that what started out as sightings of a possibly real animal became something more with Keel’s involvement and perhaps further embellishment by later eyewitnesses.
Both Mothman and Tengu started out as winged mystery creatures that were more bird-like in their beginnings, and both share the current popular image as flying, winged distinctly humanoid beings. As fantastic as these current versions may seem, could there have been a real animal at the core of the origins of both of these creatures, indeed perhaps even behind many of the other winged humanoids reported around the world? If the story of Mothman could possibly have had its beginnings in sightings of a real animal, could the same not be true of Tengu? These similarities between the transformation of Mothman from winged cryptid to paranormal winged humanoid, and that of Tengu from animalistic versions to more humanized versions, both possessing increasingly vast supernatural powers, are worthy of consideration.
Even if the culprit was merely a large owl, as is often argued in the case of Mothman, there could be a similar influence on the early versions of Tengu as well. Japan is home to one of the largest species of owl, the Blakiston’s fish owl, which has a wing span of up to 180 cm (6 feet). 
A Blakiston’s fish owl
Under the right circumstances, an owl this large seems like it certainly has the potential to give rise to sightings that, in conjunction with Buddhist folklore and mythology brought over from China, could fuel stories of something like the Tengu. Although the Blackiston’s fish owl is found only in Hokkaido today, perhaps it once enjoyed a larger range in Japan that we are not aware of. There are also other species of owl in Japan, such as the long eared owl, and an exceptionally large specimen could possibly have had something to do with the early accounts of Tengu as well. It seems worth considering that there could have even been some currently unknown species of large bird at work.
It also seems at least worth considering the cryptozoological possibilities behind this creature’s origins.
One hypothesis that has been suggested is that stories of the Tengu could have perhaps been influenced by birds that had demonstrated some sort of physical abnormality. For instance, there are quite a few documented cases of four legged chickens. 
This sort of defect could maybe give the bird the appearance of having arms as well as legs. Perhaps this sort of abnormality could even have been seen in other birds such as crows as well, which would certainly give new importance to the term “Karasu Tengu.” Four legged chickens bear little resemblance to even the most avian looking Tengu, but perhaps deformities such as this had something to do with early stories of bird-like Tengu, which then became imbued with more folkloric elements and human characteristics over time and subsequent generations. Mutations that do this could occur in different species, leading to the variety shown in the legends. Mutations that produce four legs are actually quite well-known in chickens.
In the end, we are left with a perplexing question. Is the Tengu simply pure fabrication, myth, and fantasy, or is there perhaps something more to it? Whether Tengu is a class of supernatural creatures, an giant owl species or mutant bird, there is still widespread belief all over the world in the existence of fabulous birds that include sinister, aggressive, birdlike creatures, so could the Tengu be known to other cultures but as a different myth or cryptid?
Tengu from 1776 bestiary, depicted as a goblin-kite.
The Tengu has such a prominent place in folklore and traditions in Japan, and is so steeped in supernatural imagery, that it is hard to say where the truth ends and the myth begins, as with all lore. However, considering the possible cryptozoological origins in the case of Mothman, as well as known animals of Japan such as the badger, fox, and raccoon dog, that over time were given a similarly mythical status and fantastical abilities, it certainly is interesting to speculate about.
Sources: newanimal.org/tengu.htm, themidnightobserver.wordpress.com/tag/loren-coleman/, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengu, cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/tengu
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Mothman as an Owl
Mothman as an owl has previously been discussed on Cryptid Chronicles with Mark A. Hall’s theory about “Bighoot” with his sense that Mothman/Bighoot may have developed a protective mimicry that has been utilized by the giant owls to disguise themselves as upright trees and logs lying on the ground.
While I don’t believe that all Mothman sightings can be misdiagnosed as an animal, I do think with specific qualities reported in some cases such as Mothman having no head but rather a set of eyes in its upper chest and accounts of “glowing” eyes lends credence to Mothman as an owl.
One of the original eyewitnesses, Linda Scarberry (1966), specifically stated that the effect was related to the car headlights. “There was no glowing about it until the lights hit it,” she said. Others echoed her statement. For example, one man, alerted by his dog, aimed his flashlight in the direction of his barn, “and it picked up two red circles, or eyes, which,” he said, “looked like bicycle reflectors” (Keel 1975, 56).
Eyeshine
The reflector-like nature of the creature’s eyes is revealing. As ornithologists well know, some birds’ eyes shine bright red at night when caught in a beam from auto headlights or a flashlight. “This ‘eyeshine’ is not the iris color,” explains an authority, “but that of the vascular membrane—the tapetum—showing through the translucent pigment layer on the surface of the retina” (Gill 1994).
The TNT area is surrounded by the McClintic Wildlife Management Area—then, as now, a bird sanctuary! Owls, which exhibit crimson eyeshine, populate the area. Indeed, Steve Warner (2002), who works for West Virginia Munitions to produce .50-caliber ammunition in the TNT compound, reported to Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, that there were “owls all over this place.” Conversely, neither he nor a coworker, Duane Chatworthy (2002), had ever seen Mothman, although Warner pointed out he had lived in the region all of his life.
Because of Mothman’s squeaky cry, “funny little face,” and other features, including its presence near barns and abandoned buildings, Joe Nickell identified it as the common barn owl (Nickell 2002). One Skeptical Inquirer reader (Long 2002) insisted it was instead a great horned owl which, although not matching certain features so well, does have the advantage of larger size. It seems likely that various owls and even other large birds played Mothman on occasion.
Here then is the question separating the mystifiers from the skeptics: Is it more likely that there has long been a previously undiscovered giant species among the order strigiformes (owls), or that some people suddenly encountering a “monster” at night have misjudged its size?
Could there be a super large owl living in the north-east at least - in the woods of West Virginian and the Appalachian Mountains which may be a genuine cryptid?
There has been evidence of super large owls found in the fossil records in that area dating back several hundreds of thousands of years ago - some with a wingspan of over 4 to 5 feet! That’s an owl large enough to easily pick up a large animal and carry it away to a giant nest to feed its young. It could possibly be 4 feet tall while standing with its wings closed! Could you imagine coming upon that thing in the woods at night?
So it is JUST possible that at least some reports of the MOTHMAN is not a monster or a demon or a extra-terrestrial after all - but a bonafide “cryptid” - a relic of evolution left over from prehistoric times which may have been living deep inside Appalachian mountain hollows for hundreds of thousands of years and has only rarely emerged to be seen by human eyes (and scare them shitless) due to some change or variability in its natural environment or food base. And if you’ll pardon the pun… Who (hoo) knows? Perhaps this giant owl has a giant brain that is telepathic and can indeed force you to stand paralyzed just with it’s piercing gaze. Maybe, as the Native Americans say, it’s even intelligent and has a memory of its history and a spirituality all it’s own.
There is at least one unconfirmed report of a GIANT OWL swooping down to pick up a small boy out playing in a farm yard in the Appalachian mountains back in the 1930’s. The giant owl screeched with such a terrifying sound at the boy’s struggling and biting at its feet that the boys father and brother and farm hand heard it from the barn and came out and threw rocks and sticks at it until it dropped the boy from a height of about 15 feet into a soft earthen livestock yard relatively unhurt except for a few scratches and bruises from the giant owl’s claws (and probably some hilacious nightmares!!!!).
However when the family reported the incident to the local authorities, they were ridiculed and laughed at and eventually came to wish they’d never made the report. But to further confirm their story, possibly the exact same giant owl was seen again about a hundred miles away not more than three months later by a well-respected and sober business man out on a solitary fishing and hunting trip up in the Appalachians. The shaken fellow who reported seeing the giant owl fly over head with the limp carcass of a dark brown horse dangling from it talons said it was the most terrifying moment of his entire life. He said every hair on his body stood on end when that giant bird flew over with a roaring whooosh and looked down at him for just a second with those large, piercing eyes… “I know exactly what a field mouse feels like now when he spots an owl swooping down from overhead… with those DAMNED EYES that cut right into ya and turn your blood to ice… and it ain’t a good feelin’ let me tell ya…”
Cow carcass found on telephone wire in Winslow N.J. in 1960’s
Deer up 22 Foot Pole in the Northeast U.S.: Source-Coast to Coast
Enormous prehistoric owls may have migrated from Cuba to a town near you
In the piney mountains and desert mesas of south central New Mexico, residents of the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation still share the legends of an enormous and evil bird: Big Owl.
The Jicarilla Apaches, along the state’s northern edge, also talk of Big Owl, beneath the slickrock canyons and gray bluffs of their reservation. But in their stories, Big Owl can paralyze humans just by staring at them, and after doing so, it swallows them whole, just as smaller owls swallow mice.
Such stories may actually have a basis in fact, citing accounts of an actual undocumented species of 3-to-5-foot-tall giant owl (Bighoot). Ornimegalonyx oteroi, or the Cuban giant owl, was an approximately 3-foot-tall owl that lived in what’s now western Cuba up until about 8,000 years ago. In the last few decades, three nearly intact skeletons of this bird have been found in Cuban caves, and their size and bone structure suggest this owl was similar to an oversized version of the common burrowing owl, with long legs and an ability to fly only short distances.
Perhaps some giant owls survived extinction, migrated, reproduced and became part of New Mexico’s Apache oral histories - and there are a number of intriguing points that support his case. Mentions of giant owls occur throughout the mythology of American- and Canadian-Indian tribes. Many Iroquois once feared what they called Flying Heads - man-sized, bodiless, open-mouthed heads covered in ragged hair - heads that could fly in a halting way, were armed with talons and craved humans which Mark A. Hall has theorized were actually giant owls.
Sightings of giant owls continued into the era of North America’s first European-American settlers. Hall said some settlers saw their livestock carried off by enormous birds they called booger owls, and such sightings have persisted into the present, across America and across the Southwest.
In a chapter of Cryptozoology and the Investigation of Lesser-Known Mystery Animals, New Mexico journalist Jerry A. Padilla recounted a Taos woman’s encounter with an owl she estimated to be at least 4 1/2 feet tall.
This incident reportedly took place in the 1950s, not far north of the New Mexico-Colorado state line, when Taos resident Rosa M. Lucero was a little girl. Lucero recalled the giant owl wandering silently from a cluster of willows, walking back and forth and just staring at her and her grandmother, Elena Bustos Lucero, as the two of them frantically gestured the sign of the cross.
“It just walked around in the garden by the willows,” Rosa M. Lucero said in the above-mentioned book. “My grandmother was convinced it was a nagual - someone taking the form of an owl - because she herself said that in all her long life she’d never encountered an owl so large and unafraid of people.”
Though generally described as making a hooting sound, owls are sometimes also said to hum. The Internet is studded with mentions of owls humming as coyotes howl, owls humming the sounds of the night and barn owls humming people to sleep. Taos Tales, by Elsie Clews Parsons, includes a northern New Mexico oral history of a coyote who “went singing and at the end of every song he said like the owl, hum! hum! (grunt).”
A much better-known hum in northern New Mexico is the notorious Taos Hum - a low, pulsing throb of a sound that torments about 2 percent of Taos’s population, causing anxiety, dizziness, headaches, nosebleeds and insomnia. Many people have suggested possible explanations - a government project, aliens, mass hysteria - but the Hum’s cause remains unknown.
Would it be ridiculous, though, to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the Taos Hum might be caused by man-sized owls - the Bighoot - humming throughout the New Mexico woods?
This evidence presents a somewhat rational explanation for the Mothman as some giant bastard owl. Whether a mutation or relic animal, one this for certain - happening upon one would be an unnerving encounter.
Sources csicop.org/sb/show/mothman_revisitedinvestigating_on_site, blogster.com/anaibendai/mothman-mystery-solved, s8int.com/eyewit12.html, dailylobo.com/index.php/article/2007/04/enormous_prehistoric_owls_may_have_migrated_from_cuba_to_a_town_near_you
Top illustration credit Copyright © Yasmin Foster
I would like to thank Yasmin Foster for her generous contribution of the gorgeous artwork, it’s a very neat interepretation of Mothman as an actual owl. Please check out more of her artwork at http://yasminfoster.blogspot.com
Cryptid Chronicles readers, what do YOU think??
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Does The Mothman Exist?
100+ witnesses report sightings
From November 1966 to Dec. 1967 at least 100 people witnessed the Mothman in and near Point Pleasant, WV. The first reported sighting was when five men were in a cemetery, preparing for a burial. Suddenly a strange and frightening creature flew off of nearby trees and flew right over their heads. They reported that it looked like a brown human with huge wings, that glided, not flapped. The creature was about 7 feet tall and had huge red eyes. The men’s stories all matched each other’s and they were all clearly distressed.
The following year was full of reported sightings. One night two married couples drove past an old abandoned TNT plant near Point Pleasant, WV, when they noticed something shaped like a man, but with wings. It stood about seven feet tall. It had it’s wings folded against it’s back. They sped away. A few moments later, they saw it again on a hillside along the road. They were panicking. It spread it’s wings and rose into the air, following their car. It followed them to Point Pleasant. Four more witnesses claimed to see the creature three different times that same evening. 
The news of this creature spread all over the world very quickly, and the creepy man-bird was dubbed the Mothman.
John Keel, a paranormal investigator spent most of that year seeking out the Mothman. He wrote a book, The Mothman Prophecies, which was later adapted into a movie.
In Dec. 1967 the Silver Bridge collapsed killing forty-seven people. Keel stated he had been recieving mysterious and eerie phone calls, and had been warned about the bridge, but not knowing the truth behind it, he hadn’t wanted to start a panic. He was no where near the bridge when the tragedy happened. Many people blame the collapse on the strange sightings of that year. There is no real proof on this.
There were no Mothman reports in the immediate aftermath of the December 15, 1967 collapse of the Silver Bridge, giving rise to legends that the Mothman sightings and the bridge collapse were connected.
Claims of later sightings
UFOlogist Jerome Clark writes that many years after the initial events, members of the Ohio UFO Investigators League re-interviewed several people who claimed to have seen Mothman, all of whom insisted their stories were accurate. Linda Scarberry claimed that she and her husband had seen Mothman “hundreds of times,” sometimes at close range, commenting, “It seems like it doesn’t want to hurt you. It just wants to communicate with you.”
Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman claims that sightings of Mothman continue, and told USA Today he re-interviewed witnesses described in Keel’s book who said Mothman was “a huge creature about 7 feet tall with huge wings and red eyes” and that “they could see the creature flapping right behind them” as they fled from it.
The Sound of a Monster
Often encountered, but never caught. This appears to be the legacy of Mothman, which has haunted us all long after its last sighting.
In April 1976, after Jerome Clark had returned home from his investigatory jaunt through the Rio Grande Valley, talking to eyewitnesses about the weird batman reports down there, he was interviewed by telephone by Vic Wheatman, who co-hosted with Loren Coleman for a fortean radio show on Boston’s WBUR-FM. The interview, taped for later broadcast (it eventually aired May 24), went without incident. It was only when Wheatman and Coleman had the technical staff play the tape back that they realised something extremely odd had occurred.
Midway through the conversation, Coleman asked Clark if he saw any similarity between the Texas Big Bird reports and the “Mothman” reports ten years earlier. “Very definite similarity,” Clark replied. “Now, John Keel, of course, is the man who did the research on Mothman. Keel claimed that there is a connection between these sightings and UFOs. if there’s any such connection with the Big Bird, I was unable to prove it… All I know is that this thing doesn’t have any business existing in the Rio Grande Valley or anywhere. This is really something out of the ordinary. I have no idea where it is coming from.”
As he spoke these lines, Clark heard nothing of the ordinary on his end. Neither did Wheatman and Coleman on theirs. Yet on the tape, immediately after the word “sightings” in the third sentence, there is a loud unmistakable and very startling EEPPP! sound — precisely the sound Mothman is supposed to have made. (“It squeaked like a big mouse,” one of the original Mothman witnesses had commented in 1966.)
When radio station presonnel heard the sound, they could offer no explanation, unless it originated with Clark, which it didn’t. It remains a spooky episode in our lives, and makes us wonder about the mechanisms of this phenomena.
Theories
For some critics, there is nothing in the original accounts of the “Mothman” sightings that cannot be explained by misidentifications of a few sandhill cranes or turkey vultures. After the initial November 1966 sightings of Mothman in the TNT area near Point Pleasant, Robert Smith of the biology department at West Virginia University was reported to have said he thought it was a sighting of a rare sandhill crane. Zoologists at Ohio University, however, pointed out that the crane would be a rare sight indeed in Ohio and West Virginia, since it lived on the plains of Canada.
Shown pictures of the sandhill crane, witness Roger Scarberry scoffed at the suggestion. Mary Mallette, who also saw it, said: “I just wish Dr. Smith could see the thing.”
The gathering of all reports under the umbrella term, “Mothman,” was unfortunate. John Keel’s interviews and later writings tend to lump all of the large, man-sized, gray-bodided, red-glowing eyed creature reports together. While any of us, with hindsight, can now clearly see that some of these reports were entirely mundane bird sightings, Keel was in the middle of a vortex. Separating the wheat from the chaff must have been difficult as he was bombarded with new reports and his own personal saga of troubles in Point Pleasant. But real birds were undoubtedly part of the mix.
In the midst of the flap, a snowy owl and a turkey vulture were “caught.” A detailed multiple witness sighting in Lowell, Ohio, near Cat’s Creek (70 miles north of Point Pleasant), on November 26, 1966, had four people seeing a flock of four large birds in some tree for two hours. Eyewitness Ewing Tilton said they appeared to be 4-5 feet tall with a 10 foot wingspan. “They had dark brown backs with some light flecks. Their breasts where gray and they had five-to six-inch bills, straight, not curved like those of hawks or vultures,” said Tilton. Another witness, Marvin Shock, reported the heads had a “reddish cast.” This sighting may have been a view of common birds, needless to say, perhaps sandhill cranes.
But clearly, other things were going on.
Giant Owls
Cryptozoologist Mark A. Hall, the author of a thought-provoking article called “Bighoot — The Giant Owl” in Wonders Vol. 5, No. 3., September 1998, theorizes that Mothman may be a giant species of undiscovered owl.
Hall defines “Bighoot” as: “A bird of prey in the order of Strigiformes. In size larger than all other owls. Never scientifically described. Observed in the wild in the eastern U.S.A. in the states of Ohio and West Virginia. Folklore of similar birds is found elsewhere in the world.”
Hall’s treatment is the first clearly zoological and cryptozoological re-examination of the Mothman reports — separating the tangibles from the paranormal theories of John Keel. Hall lists evidence to link the Mothman sightings to a large unknown owl in the area.
Hall notes that these birds have been around Point Pleasant for a very long time, as their presence is noted in many Indian legends. The American Indians called them “Flying Heads” or “Big Head,” quoting the Iroquous, the Tuscarora, and the Wyandot Indians as saying, “They were huge, bodiless heads, covered in long hair from which protruded sharp nailed claws. With open mouths and fiery eyes the Big Heads flew about in storms, the wind keeping them up by their masses of hair.”
Researcher Hall uncovered this entry by William Connelly in this description among the Wyandots from Ohio: “The Flying Heads plagued the Wyandots. They were more dangerous and troublesome during rainy, foggy, or misty weather. They could enter a cloud of fog, or mist, or rime [ice], and in it approach a Wyandot village unseen. They were cruel and wicked hooh-kehs and cannibals. They caused sickness; they were vampires, and lay in wait for people, whom they caught and devoured. They carried away children; they blighted the tobacco and other crops; they stole and devoured the game after the hunter had killed it.”
One surprising tidbit that Hall discovered was a report of a large bird from the early 1900s at Point Pleasant, West Virginia. It certainly sounds like a precursor to the Mothman accounts of years later — in exactly the right area. In a book called Haunted Valley and More Folk Tales by James Gay Jones, an emeritus professor of history and Glenville State College, Hall found this gem:
In the early 1900’s at Pt. Pleasant, a large bird with the head of a man and a wingspan of at least 12 feet was seen. It appeared just prior to or immediately after the occurance of a tragic event… It was also seen by rural farm families in Mason, Jackson, Roane, Clay and Kanawha counties. By World War I, birdman was observed flying over Looneyville, up Johnson Creek, down Gabe in Roane County thence down Elk Valley into the Kanawha. Its monstrous size and dark reddish feathers which glistened in the sunlight cast fear in all who saw it. Parents kept children indoors after sightings. After World War II people said they were chased by a huge bird while traveling on the highways of Mason, Jackson, and Wood counties near the Ohio River.
In the post-World War II era Hall notes, people reported being chased by mysterious birds on the roads where Mothman would later be seen. “These birds, in common with the enormous Thunderbirds,” he writes, “seem at times to take advantage of the artificial air currents created by automobiles. The effect on humans in the vehicles is startling, but the birds are looking for a natural advantage. Soaring flight is important to large birds… It is their automobiles that have created this situation.”
Mark Hall senses that Mothman/Bighoot may have developed a protective mimicry that “has been utilized by the giant owls to disguise themselves as upright trees and logs lying on the ground… An example of this mimicry in action comes in a report from a woman in Ohio who observed something she could not understand. She saw this thing at Rocky Fork Lake in southern Ohio around August of 1982. About a year later she saw a similar sight at the same lake.”
The witness said that “…while fishing in Rocky Fork Lake in Ohio we drifted into a pristine cove on the SW side and noted with utter disbelief an old tall topless tree trunk approx 9-10 feet height, 112 inches around, move about 4 ft. sideline. (This was on shore about 20 ft. inland aming like-looking trees, with underbrush.) Again it moved, only this time there was a partial twisting or rotation from the top 18-24 inches. It slowly maneuvered backward (keeping erect like a tree) into the woods with NO NOISES from it or underbrush as graceful as a bird thru a tree. It stopped in the mid of a sunlight clearing…”
She then writes that “wings unfolded with a span greater than most small airplanes.” After awhile she reports it returned to its “tree appearance.” She saw the “semblence of two eyes” and thought it was watching them. The sun went down and the sight was lost to view. Then: “One year later, same lake and a half mile or so from that first cove this figure appeared near shoreline again. (It seemed taller or leaner.) This time [I] got a look at its legs and feet — yellowish grainy like chicken legs… they were so thin and short for its height. Three long slender toes with a hooked toe or nail on lower leg.”
For Hall, Bighoot, the North American giant owl, is the answer. Keeping an open mind, I see it as one option among many.
A hand full of researchers have made the connection between the Mothman and the Owlman, a ‘huge great thing with feathers, like a big man with flapping wings’ reported in Cornwall, Uk. Although some physical descriptions of the two seem to match up, the Mothman is thought to be a harbinger of doom whose appearance is preceded by a great disaster, however nothing that would be considered a disaster has occurred in the almost 30 years of Owlman sightings.
To this day the origins of the Mothman remain a mystery and the sightings of the creature remain unexplained.
Sources: Mothman and Other Curious Encounters By Loren Coleman
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothman
christineritter.hubpages.com/hub/Does_The_Mothman_Exist
Top Illustration credit to Duncan Hopkins beyondbeyond.com
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The Island of Java, formed mostly as the result of volcanic activity, is the worlds 13th largest island, and the 5th largest island of Indonesia. Java is one of the most densely populated regions on earth and with a population of roughly 124 million is also the most populated island in the world. It is because of this overpopulation that the rainforests of Java have all but disappeared in recent times, the Gunung Halimun National Park is one of the last remaining stretches of lowland forest on the island. What remains Java’s once great rain forests supports a wide array of wildlife including over 23 mammal species, over 200 bird species, over 500 forms of plant life and according to the native population of the forests is the home to a large unidentified winged creature known as the Ahool.
The Ahool, named after its call, a long ahOOOooool, is said to be a bat like creature, and is described as the size of a one year old child with a gigantic wing span of roughly 12 feet. It is reported to be covered in short, dark grey fur, have large, black eyes, flattened forearms supporting its leathery wings and a monkey like head, with a flattish, man like face. It has been seen squatting on the forest floor, at which times its wings are closed, pressed against the Ahool’s body, its feet appearing to point backwards. It is thought that the Ahool is a nocturnal creature, spending its days concealed in caves located behind or beneath waterfalls; its nights spent skimming across rivers in search of large fish upon which it feeds.
One account of the Ahool occurred in 1925 when naturalist Dr. Ernest Bartels, son of noted ornithologist M.E.G. Bartels, was exploring a waterfall on the slopes of the Salek Mountains when a giant unknown bat, the Ahool, few directly over his head. Two years later in 1927, around 11:30 pm, Dr. Ernest Bartels encountered the Ahool again, this time he was laying in bed, inside his thatched house close to the Tjidjenkol River in western Java, listening to the sounds of the jungle when he suddenly heard a very different sound coming from almost directly over his hut, this loud and clear cry seemed to utter, A Hool!
Grabbing his torch Dr. Bartels ran out of his hut in the direction the sound seemed to be heading. Less than 20 seconds later he heard it again, a final A Hool! which floated back towards him from a considerable distance downstream. As he would recall many years later, he was transfixed on the sound, not because he did not know what produced it but rather because he did, the Ahool.
At one time, Bartels had suggested that perhaps the creature was not a bat, but some type of bird, possibly a very large owl, but this theory did not sit well with others and was greeted with passionate denials by his friends, who assured him in no uncertain terms that they were more than capable of distinguishing a bat from a bird.
Bartels accounts of the Ahool were passed down to cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson by Bernard Heuvelmans, and after much research Sanderson concluded that the Ahool is a form of unclassified bat. Sanderson took special interest in the Ahool because he too had met with such a creature, but not in Java, his encounter took place in the Assumbo Mountains of Cameroon, in western Africa. Sanderson thought that the Ahool could be an Oriental form of the giant bat like creature he witnessed in Africa; this creature was known by the African natives as the Kongamato.
Some researchers have suggested that the Ahool may be a surviving population of pterosaur, a flying reptile thought to have gone extinct around the time of the dinosaurs, some 65 million years ago. Indeed the description of the Ahool does match what we currently know about pterosaur species, including large forearms supporting leathery wings. The majority of investigators seem to agree however that the Ahool is more than likely a form of unknown giant bat, looking to the creatures reported facial features as evidence against the flying reptile theory. A third, less popular theory, also based on the reported facial features of the Ahool is that this beast may be the worlds first reported case of a flying primate.
Regardless of which theory you may subscribe to it may only be a matter of time before we find out exactly what the Ahool is. With the continued destruction of Java’s rainforests the Ahool’s habitat continues to shrink which may lead to more encounters with the creature by modern man as we encroach further on its home. Unfortunately the destruction of the Ahool’s home may also lead to its extinction before we even get a chance to fully understand its identity.
The Evidence
There is currently no physical evidence to suggest the existence of a creature like the Ahool living in the rainforests of Java.
The Sightings
In 1925, naturalist Dr. Ernest Bartels, son of noted ornithologist M.E.G. Bartels, was exploring a waterfall on the slopes of the Salek Mountains when a giant unknown bat, the Ahool, few directly over his head.
In 1927, around 11:30 pm, Dr. Ernest Bartels encountered the Ahool again. Bartels was laying in bed, inside his thatched house close to the Tjidjenkol River in western Java, listening to the sounds of the jungle Bartels suddenly heard a very different sound coming from almost directly over his hut, this loud and clear cry seemed to utter, A Hool!
From Wiki:
The ahool is a flying cryptid, supposedly a giant bat, or by other accounts, a living pterosaur or flying primate.
Like many cryptids, it is not well documented, and little reliable information - and in this case, no material evidence - exists. Named for its distinctive call A-hool (other sources render it ahOOOooool), it is said to live in the deepest rainforests of Java.
It is described as having a monkey/ape-like head with large dark eyes, large claws on its forearms (approximately the size of an infant), and a body covered in gray fur. Possibly the most intriguing and astounding feature is that it is said to have a wingspan of 3 m (10 ft). This is almost twice as long as the largest (known) bat in the world, the common flying fox.
According to Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark, it was first described by Dr. Ernest Bartels.
Bartels published regular accounts of his work while exploring the Salak Mountains on the island of Java.
One speculation on its existence by the cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson is that it might be a relative of Kongamato in Africa. Others have suggested it were a living fossil pterosaur, on account of its supposedly leathery wings. As is known today, most pterosaurs seem to have had wings that were covered with a downy fluff to prevent heat loss; this may or may not have been necessary in a tropical environment depending on these animals’ metabolism. On the other hand, there might be an entirely mundane explanation:
Two large earless owls exist on Java, the Spotted Wood-owl (Strix seloputo) and the Javan Wood-owl (Strix (leptogrammica) bartelsi). They are intermediate in size between the Spotted Owl of North America or the Tawny Owl of Eurasia, and an eagle owl (horned owl), being 40–50 cm (16–20 in) long and with a wingspan of perhaps 1.20 meters (4 ft). Despite this discrepancy, wingspans are usually overestimated[verification needed]in flying animals not held in hand (see also Thunderbird), especially by frightened observers.
Size nonwithstanding, the Javan or Bartels’s Wood-owl seems an especially promising candidate to resolve the ahool enigma: it has a conspicuous flat “face” with large dark eyes exaggerated by black rings of feathers and a beak that protrudes but little, and it appears greyish-brown when seen from below. Its call is characteristic, a single shout, given intermittently, and sounding like HOOOH!
Like most large owls, it is highly territorial in breeding season and will frighten away intruders by mock attacks from above and behind. Its flight, being an owl, is nearly completely silent, so that the victim of such sweeps usually becomes aware of the owl when it is homes in snarling and with outstretched talons (held at “breast” height to the observer), and would just have time to duck away. The Javan Wood-owl is a decidedly rare and elusive bird not often observed even by ornithologists, and hides during day. It is found in remote montane forest at altitudes of probably around 1,000-1,500 meters, and does not tolerate well human encroachment, logging and other disturbances.
From its appearance and behavior, the Javan Wood-owl matches the characteristics of the ahool surprisingly well, despite the cryptid at first glance giving the impression of a mammal. Observer error due to the circumstances of being dive-bombed in a remote gloomy forest by a fierce snarling and clawing bird may well account for the apparent discrepancies. Notwithstanding, the wood-owls of Java are not generally mentioned in cryptozoological discussions of the ahool, and most authors of cryptozoologial works seem to be entirely unaware of the birds’ existence.
Be that as it may, it is not resolved how well the owls are known to locals, especially the local name - if any - and whether they are present in locations of ahool reports would seem to be highly relevant.
