mysterious america

8/9/2019 Mysterious America

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Mysterious America

The Ultimate Guide to the NationsWeirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots,

and Creepiest creatures

by SHEHIRYAR AHMED

All rights reserved with theauthor


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Contents

1. Bigfoot in ILLINOIS2. Mothman of point pleasant3. The Jersey Devil4. Lost Dutchmans Gold Mine5. Mad Gasser of Mattoon

Bigfoot in ILLINOIS


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Big foot is like a male gorilla in appearance. Bigfoot is commonlyreported to have a strong, unpleasant smell by those who haveclaimed that they have seen this creature.

For more than a century, reports have filtered out of rural andsouthern Illinois about strange, man-like beasts that resemble a crossbetween man and ape.

The stories of Bigfoot have been passed along from generation togeneration and have long been recorded by both professional andamateur researchers.

The most famous Bigfoot sightings have taken place in the PacificNorthwest; such creatures do occasionally turn up in Illinois.

The earliest sighting that I could find occurred around 1912. A womannamed Beaulah Schroat reported that her and her brothers oftenspotted huge, hairy creatures near their home in Effingham. This mayhave been the first sighting in Illinois, but it was not the first one in theGreat Lakes region. As far back as 1839, witnesses in Michigan City,Indiana were reporting a "wild child" near Fish Lake. Today, we wouldcall such a creature "Bigfoot".


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Another report comes from the early part of the last century. In thisbrief snippet, we find that a "huge gorilla" was seen in the woods nearElizabeth in July 1929. Then, in 1941, the Reverend Lepton Harpolewas hunting squirrels near Mt. Vernon and encountered a largecreature that "looked something like a baboon". He struck it with hisrifle and fired a warning shot that sent it back into the bushes. Moresightings of the same creature occurred the next year.

Jumping ahead, a grayish-colored creature was spotted by StevenCollins and Robert Earle in 1962. It was standing in a riverbed east ofDecatur, just off of East Williams Street Road. The monster wasstanding in the water, looking straight at them. At first, they thoughtthey were seeing a bear, until they noticed its strange, human-likefeatures. The creature vanished into the woods and the witnesses

told the local newspaper that it was "like no other animal we had everseen before."

In May 1963, another strange creature was seen in Centreville,Illinois and just across the Mississippi in St. Louis. The initial reportscame in from St. Louis when several children reported a "half man,half woman with a half bald head and a half head of hair". It was saidto have been seen around the Ninth Street housing project and oftendisappeared into the old tunnel around Twelfth Street. The sightingswere taken quite seriously by the police and during interviews with

researcher Loren Coleman, Patrolman Bill Conreux of the St. LouisPolice Department noted that "Those kids were sincere. They sawsomething." He added that "Supposedly it fought with a man near thePatrick Henry School."

The sighting began on May 9 and by the 18th, had moved eastacross the river to Centreville, Illinois, which is located near East St.Louis and Cahokia. One man, James McKinney, who saw thecreature here, described it as being "half man and half horse". It

made an appearance just in front of his house and he called thepolice, who never managed to catch up with this mysterious figure.According to Loren Coleman, the authorities received over 50 calls ina single night about this creature. The sightings eventually droppedoff and by May 23, the monster was apparently gone.


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In September 1965, four young people were parked in a car near anundeveloped area outside of Decatur called Montezuma Hills. Thearea would later become a housing addition but at that time, it was asecluded "lovers lane". The young couples were sitting in the carwhen a black, man-like shape approached the vehicle. The creatureseemed massive and frightened the teenagers badly. They drove offin a panic but after dropping off their dates at home, the two youngmen returned to the area for another look. They once again saw themonster and it walked up to their car as though it were curious. Theboys were too scared to get out, but even with the windows rolled up,they could smell the monsters terrible smell. They quickly called thepolice to the site and with several officers as support; they made athorough, but fruitless, search of the woods. The police officers on thescene said they had no idea what the young people had witnessed,

but they were obviously very frightened by whatever it had been.

A more recent encounter with a man-like beast occurred near Essex,Illinois in July 2000. A witness named Andrew Souligne was drivinginto a local cemetery one night when a large, hairy shape walked outin front of the car. The creature froze in the headlights and turnedtowards the car, apparently stunned by the bright lights from thevehicle. Souligne (and the other passenger of the car) were prettyshocked themselves and the driver immediately put the car intoreverse and back away from the monster. Moments later, the apemoved into the woods and vanished.

Since the 1970s, Bigfoot sightings in Illinois have been infrequent,but they do occur.


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Mothman of PointPleasant


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Most observers describe the Mothman as a winged man-sizedcreature with large reflective red eyes and large wings. The creaturewas sometimes reported as having no head, with its eyes set into itschest.

The weird events connected to the Mothman began on November 12,1966 near Clendenin, West Virginia. Five men were in the localcemetery that day, preparing a grave for a burial, when somethingthat looked like a "brown human being" lifted off from some nearbytrees and flew over their heads. The men were puzzled. It didn'tappear to be a bird, but more like a man with wings. A few days later,more sightings would take place, electrifying the entire region.

Late in the evening of November 15, a young married couple had a

very strange encounter as they drove past an abandoned TNT plantnear Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The couple spotted two largeeyes that were attached to something that was "shaped like a man,but bigger, maybe six or seven feet tall. And it had big wings foldedagainst its back." When the creature moved toward the plant door,the couple panicked and sped away. Moments later, they saw thesame creature on a hillside near the road. It spread its wings androse into the air, following their car, which by now was traveling atover 100 miles per hour. "That bird kept right with us," said one ofthe couple. They told Deputy Sheriff Miller Halstead that it followed

them down Highway 62 and right to the Point Pleasant city limits.And they would not be the only ones to report the creature that night.Another group of four witnesses claimed to see the "bird" threedifferent times.

Another sighting had more bizarre results. At about 10:30 on thesame evening, Newell Partridge, a local building contractor who livedin Salem, was watching television when the screen suddenly wentdark. He stated that a weird pattern filled the screen and then he

heard loud, humming noises from the outside that rose in pitch andthen ceased. "It sounded like a generator winding up," he laterstated. Partridges dog began to howl out on the front porch andNewell went out to see what was going on.

When he walked outside, he saw Bandit (dog) facing the hay bar.About 150 yards from the house. Puzzled, Partridge turned a


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flashlight in that direction and spotted two red circles that looked likeeyes, he believed and the sight of them frightened him. Bandit, anexperienced hunting dog, and protective of his territory, shot offacross the yard in pursuit of the eyes. Partridge called for him tostop, but the dog paid no attention. His owner turned and went backinto the house for his gun, but then was too scared to go back outsideagain. He slept that night with his gun propped up against his bed.The next morning, he realized that Bandit had disappeared. The doghad still not shown up two days later when Partridge read in thenewspaper about the sightings in Point Pleasant that night.

One statement that he read in the newspaper chilled him to thebone. Roger Scarberry, one member of the group who spotted thestrange "bird" at the TNT plant, said that he entered the city limits of

Point Pleasant; they saw the body of a large dog lying on the side ofthe road. A few minutes later, on the way back out of town, the dogwas gone. They even stopped to look for the body, knowing they hadpassed it just a few minutes before. Newell Partridge immediatelythought of Bandit, who was never seen again.

A Mothman sighting was again reported on January 11, 1967, andseveral other times that same year. Fewer sightings of the Mothmanwere reported after the collapse of the Silver Bridge, when 46 peopledied. The Silver Bridge, so named for its aluminum paint, was an eye

barchainsuspension bridge that connected the cities ofPointPleasant, West Virginia and Gallipolis, Ohio over the Ohio River. Thebridge was built in 1928, and it collapsed on December 15, 1967.Investigation of the bridge wreckage pointed to the failure of a singleeye-bar in a suspension chain due to a small manufacturing flaw.There are rumors that the Mothman appears before upcomingdisasters, or that the Mothman causes disasters.

Over time, many would come to believe that the sightings of

Mothman, as well as UFO sightings were all related. For nearly ayear, strange happenings continued in the area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Bridge_(bridge)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminiumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyebarhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyebarhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_bridgehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Pleasant,_West_Virginiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Pleasant,_West_Virginiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohiohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_Riverhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Bridge_(bridge)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminiumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyebarhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyebarhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_bridgehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Pleasant,_West_Virginiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Pleasant,_West_Virginiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohiohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_River


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The Jersey Devil

The Jersey Devil is a legendary creature said to inhabit the PineBarrens in southern New Jersey. The creature is often described as a

flying biped with hooves, but there are many variations. And manydifferent people have described it many different ways over the years.

The historic states along Americas Atlantic Seaboard have givenbirth to hundreds of ghostly tales and unusual stories over the years.One of the strangest is undoubtedly that of the Jersey Devil, acreature that is believed by some to be a mythical creature and by


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others, a real-life monster of flesh and blood. Its origins date back towhen New Jersey was still a British colony.

According to the legend, Mrs. Jane Leeds came from a poor familywho eked out an existence in the Pine Barrens of Jersey, a ruggedplace with vast forests, sandy soil and patches of swamp. In 1735,Mrs. Leeds discovered that she was pregnant with her 13th child. Shecomplained to her friends and relatives that the Devil can take thenext one, and he did. When the baby was born, he was monster! Heimmediately took on a grotesque appearance and grew to more than20 feet long, with a reptilian body, a horses head, bat wings and along, forked tail. He thrashed about the Leeds home for a bit and thenvanished up the chimney. The creature, or the Jersey Devil as hewas dubbed, began haunting the Pine Barrens.

As the story spread, even grown men declined to go out at night. Itwas said that the beast carried off large dogs, geese, cats, smalllivestock and even occasional children. The children were never seenagain, but the animal remains were often found. The Devil was alsosaid to dry up the milk of cows by breathing on them and to kill off thefish in the streams, threatening the livelihood of the entire region.

In 1740, the frightened residents begged a local minister to exorcizethe creature and the stories stated that the exorcism would last 100

years, however the Devil returned to the Pine Barrens on at least twooccasions before the century was over. Legend has it that naval heroCommodore Stephen Decatur visited the Hanover Iron Works in theBarrens in 1800 to test the plants cannonballs. One day on the firingrange, he noticed a strange creature winging overhead. Taking aim,he fired at the monster and while some say that his shot struck it, theDevil continued on its path.

The second sighting took place a few years later and this time theDevil was seen by another respected witness. Joseph Bonaparte, theformer king of Spain and the brother of Napoleon, leased a countryhouse near Border town from 1816 to 1839. He reported seeing theJersey Devil while hunting game one day in the Pine Barrens.

In 1840, as the minister warned, the Devil returned and brought terrorto the region once again. It snatched sheep from their pens and


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preyed on children who lingered outside after sunset. People allacross South Jersey locked their doors and hung a lantern on thedoorstep, hoping to keep the creature away.

Then, in 1909, the Jersey Devil returned again and literally thousandsof people spotted the monster or saw his footprints. It became so badthat schools closed and people refused to go outside.

A police officer named James Sackville spotted the monster whilewalking his beat one night. He was passing along a dark alley when awinged creature hopped into the street and let out a horrific scream.Sackville fired his revolver at the beast but it spread its wings andvanished into the air.

Eyewitness accounts of the Devil filled the newspapers, as well asphotos and reports of cloven footprints that had been found in yards,woods and parking lots. The Philadelphia Zoo offered a $10,000reward for the capture of the Devil, but there were no takers.

The most recent sighting of the creature was said to have been in1993 when a forest ranger named John Irwin was driving along theMullica River in southern New Jersey. He was startled to find the roadahead of him blocked by the Jersey Devil. He described it as beingabout six-feet tall with horns and matted black fur. Could this have

been the reported Jersey Devil - or some other creature altogether?Irwin stated that he and the creature stared at one another for severalminutes before the monster finally turned and ran into the forest.

Today, there are only a few, isolated sightings of the Jersey Devil. Itseems as though the paved roads, electric lights and modernconventions that have come to the region over the course of two anda half centuries have driven the monster so far into hiding that it hasvanished altogether. The lack of proof of the monsters existence inthese modern times leads many to believe the Devil was nothingmore than a creation of New Jersey folklore. But was it really?

If it was merely a myth, then how do we explain the sightings of thecreature and the witness accounts from reliable persons likebusinessmen, police officers and even public officials? They are noteasy to dismiss as hearsay or the result of heavy drinking. Could the


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Jersey Devil have been real after all? And if so, is it still out there inthe remote regions of the Pine Barrens - just waiting to be found?


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Lost Dutchmans GoldMine

Located just east of Phoenix, Arizona is a rough, mountainous regionwhere people sometimes go... only to never be seen again. It is aplace of mystery, of legend and lore and it is called SuperstitionMountain. According to history, both hidden and recorded, there

exists a fantastic gold mine here like no other that has ever beenseen. It has been dubbed the Lost Dutchman Mine over the yearsand thanks to its mysterious location, it has been the quest of manyan adventurer... and a place of doom to luckless others.

What strange energy lingers here? What has caused dozens ofpeople who seek the mine to vanish without a trace? Is the answerreally as the Apache Indians say? Does the Thunder God protectthis mine... bringing death to those who attempt to steal it? Or can thedeaths be linked to other causes? Are they caused, as some have

claimed, by the spirits of those who have died seeking the minebefore?

Lets explore all of these questions and journey back into the hauntedhistory of the Lost Dutchman Mine... and uncover the numerousdeaths and the violence that surrounds it.


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Superstition MountainSuperstition Mountain is actually a collection of rough terrain that hasgained the name of a single mountain. The contour of the regiontakes in thousands of cliffs, peaks, plateaus and mesas and eventoday, much of it remains largely unexplored. Despite the tendencyby many to call this a range of mountains, it is in reality, only one. It iscertainly not the highest mountain in the region, but it has thereputation of being the deadliest. Over the course of severalcenturies, it has taken the lives of many men and women and hasperhaps caused a madness in them that has encouraged them to killeach other.

The Apache Indians were probably the first to set eyes on themountain, followed by the Spanish conquistadors, the first of which

was Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. He came north from Mexico in1540 seeking the legendary Seven Golden Cities of Cibola. Whenhe reached the region, the local Indians told him that the mountainheld much gold, although they refused to help the Spaniard explore it.They were in too much fear of the Thunder God, who was said tostay there, and who would destroy them if they dared to pass uponhis sacred ground.

When the Spaniards tried to explore the mountain on their own, theydiscovered that men began to vanish mysteriously. It was said that ifone of them strayed more than a few feet from his companions, hewas never seen alive again. The bodies of the men who were foundwere discovered to be damaged and with their heads cut off. Theterrified survivors refused to return to the mountain and so Coronadodubbed the collection of peaks, Monte Superstition, which explainsthe origin of the infamous name.

The Dutchman

First of all, I guess we should clear up one popular misconceptionabout Jacob Walz (or Waltz depending on the story you hear) and itsthat he was not a Dutchman. He was actually from Germany andborn there in the early 1800s. He came to America in 1845 and soonheard about the riches and adventure that were waiting in the frontierbeyond New York. His first gold seeking took him to a strike in NorthCarolina and from there he traveled to Mississippi, California and


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Nevada... always looking for his elusive fortune.

Walz worked the gold field of the Sierra Nevada foothills for morethan ten years, never getting rich, but turning up enough gold to getalong. By 1868, he was in his fifties and wondering if he was evergoing to find his proverbial mother lode. The Indians had nick-named him Snowbeard because of his long, white whiskers and itisnt hard to picture him as one of those grizzled old prospectors whowere so common in western films.

That same year, Walz began homesteading in the Rio Satillo Valley,which is on the northern side of Superstition Mountain. Soon after hearrived, he began to hear stories from the local Indians aboutsupernatural doings around the mountain, about a fierce god... and

about vast deposits of gold.

Most stories about Jacob Walz say that he spent the next 20 years ofso prospecting for gold around the Arizona Territory. He often workedfor wages in other mens mines while he searched from his ownfortune. It was during one of these jobs that he met Jacob Weiser,most likely while he was working at the Vulture Mine in 1870.

One version of the legend claims that Walz was fired from the minefor stealing gold and soon, the two Dutchman struck out on theirown and vanished into the land around Superstition Mountain. Notlong after, they were seen in Phoenix paying for drinks and supplieswith gold nuggets. Some claimed this gold was the stolen loot fromthe Vulture Mine, while others said that it was of much higher qualityand had to have come from somewhere else. Regardless of where itcame from, the two men would spend the gold around town for thenext two decades.

There have been a number of stories about how the men found the

lost mine. According to some, they stumbled upon it by accident.Others say that killed two Mexican miners, who they mistook forIndians, and then realized the men were mining gold.... but the mostaccepted version of the story is that they were given a map to themine by a Mexican don whose life they saved.

The man was said to have been Don Miguel Peralta, the son of a rich


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landowner in Sonora, Mexico and a descendant of the originaldiscoverer of the mine. The Dutchmen saved Peralta from certaindeath in a knife fight and as a reward; he gave them a look at themap to the mine. He was later said to have been bought out of themine by Walz and Weiser.At some point in the years that followed, Jacob Weiser disappearedwithout a trace. Some say that the Apaches killed him, while othersmaintain that Walz actually did him in. (As you can see, there is a lotof speculation to the legend).

But Walz was always around, at least part of the time. Long periodswould go by when no one would see him and then he would show upin Phoenix again, buying drinks with gold nuggets. It was said thatWalz had the richest gold ore that anyone had ever seen and for the

rest of his life, he vanished back and forth to his secret mine, alwaysbringing back saddlebags filled with gold. Whenever anyone tried toget information out of him, he would always give contradictorydirections to where the mine was located. On many occasions, mentried to follow him when he left town, but Walz would always shakehis pursuers in the rugged region around the mountain.

By the winter of 1891, an old Mexican widow named Julia ElenaThomas, who owned a small bakery in Phoenix, befriended the aged

miner. Apparently, they became romantically involved and Walzpromised to take her to his secret mine in the spring.... but shenever saw it. The Dutchman died on October 25, 1891 with a sack ofrich gold ore beneath his deathbed.

Immediately after word reached town about Jacob Walzs death, anumber of men who had heard the Dutchman speak of the mine overthe years rode out for the mountain in search of the mystery. Theynever found it... and in fact, two of the prospectors, Sims Ely and JimBark, spent the next 25 years searching in vain for what they called

The Lost Dutchman Mine.

The search has since fueled more than a century of speculation.Theories as to the mines location have filled dozens of books andpamphlets. Literally hundreds of would-be prospectors have searchedthe Superstition Mountain region and most have come home with littlemore than sunburns......


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But there are also many who have not come home at all.

It is certainly a haunted spot. Haunted by an unknown energy thatclaims the lives of men? Haunted by the ghost of the Dutchman,Jacob Walz? Or haunted by the spirits of the countless men andwomen whose lives have been taken because of it?

That answer is as mysterious as the location of the Lost DutchmanMine itself......


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Mad Gasser of Mattoon

There is no greater phantom attacker in the history of the unexplainedin America than the legendary Mad Gasser of Mattoon, a bizarrefigure who wreaked havoc in a small Illinois town in 1944. Thiscreature turned out to be so elusive that law enforcement officialseventually declared him nonexistent, despite dozens and dozens of

eyewitness reports and actual physical evidence that was left behindat the scene of some attacks.

Making matters even more interesting was a series of nearly identicalattacks that took place in Botetourt County, Virginia in 1933 -1934.Social scientists declared that the attacks in Mattoon had beennothing more than mass hysteria, but how could the Illinois residents


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have known anything about the events in Virginia, which were barelypublicized, in order to duplicate them so closely?

Both of these series of attacks involved a mysterious figure (dressedin black) who came and went without warning, left little in the way ofclues behind and for some reason, sprayed a paralyzing gas into thewindows of unsuspecting residents. The gas was never identified ineither case and both cases involved fairly isolated areas where theattacks took place. The homes that were attacked in Virginia were ina rural county and Mattoon, at that time, was a small, Central Illinoistown with no large cities in the vicinity. Also, police officials weretotally stumped in both cases.

So, who (or what) attacked the unsuspecting citizens of Illinois andVirginia? Was it a mad scientist? A government agency? A visitorfrom another planet? No one will ever know for sure, but the recordsof the unknown are plagued with cases of mysterious attackers whoappear and vanish without explanation, kill on the innocent withoutwarning and then vanish completely, leaving no trace behind. Couldsuch attackers come from another time and place? Anotherdimension? Ill let the reader judge that for himself. Just rememberthough, if these attacks can happen in the places that follow - theyare capable of happening anywhere even where you live!

The Mad Gasser Strikes!

In 1933, Botetourt County, Virginia was a quiet area of the state andhad never really experienced much out of the ordinary. That all beganto change on December 22 when the home of Mrs. and Mrs. CalHuffman, near Haymakertown, was attacked by a mysterious figurethat was unlike anything seen, or even heard of, in the region before.

At around 10:00 that evening, Mrs. Huffman stated that she grewnauseated after smelling a strange gas that had been apparentlysprayed into her house. She decided to go on to bed, but herhusband remained awake and alert to see if the lurker who hadsprayed the gas might return. A half-hour later, another wave of gas


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filled the room and Huffman immediately went to the home of hislandlord, K.W. Henderson. Here, Huffman telephoned the police. AnOfficer Lemon was dispatched to the scene and he stayed untilaround midnight. Immediately after he left, another gas attack waslaunched on the property, filling both floors of the house. All eightmembers of the Huffman family, along with Ashby Henderson, wereaffected by the gas. Ashby and Cal Huffman had been keeping watchfor the return of the prowler and thought that they saw a man runningaway after the attack.

According to reports, the gas caused the victims to become verynauseated, gave them a headache and caused the mouth and throatmuscles to restrict. Alice, the Huffmans 19 year-old daughter, wasmost affected by the gas and she had to be given artificial respiration

in order to revive her. She was said to have experienced convulsionsfor some time afterward. Her doctor, Dr. S.F. Driver, later reportedthat while part of her condition was caused by extreme nervousnessover the attack, he had no doubt that the gas attack was responsiblefor the fact that her condition continued.

However, no one could determine what kind of gas was used (Dr.W.N. Breckinridge, who assisted with the police investigation, ruledout ether, chloroform and tear gas) or who could have sprayed it intothe house. The only clue that Lemon found at the scene was the print

of a womans shoe beneath the window the attacker was thought tohave sprayed his gas through.

The authorities were growing more concerned. Prior to this, they hadbelieved the gassings had been nothing more than pranks played bysome mischievous boys. Now the county sheriffs office was forced toadmit that if this had been the case, the boys would have beencaught long before. They had begun to investigate the idea that amentally deranged person might be the culprit, perhaps even an mad

gas victim from World War I.

The Mattoon police chief issued what he felt was the final statementon the gas attacks on September 12. He stated that large quantitiesof carbon tetrachloride gas were used at the local Atlas Diesel EngineCo. and that this gas must be causing the reported cases. It could be


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carried throughout the town on the wind and could have left the stainsthat were found on the rag at one of the homes.

As for the "Mad Gasser" himself, well, he was simply a figment oftheir imaginations. The whole case, he said was a mistake frombeginning to end.

Not surprisingly, a spokesman for the plant was quick to deny theallegations that his company had caused the concern in town,maintaining that the only use for that gas in the plant was in their fireextinguishers and any similar gases used there caused no ill effectsin the air. Besides that, why hadnt this gas ever caused problems inthe city before? And how exactly was this gas cutting the windowscreens on Mattoon homes before causing nausea and paralysis?

The official explanation also failed to cover just how so many identicaldescriptions of the "Gasser" had been reported to the police. It alsoneglected to explain how different witnesses managed to reportseeing a man of the "Gassers" description fleeing the scene of anattack, even when the witness had no idea that an attack had takenplace!

The real stories of what happened in Mattoon and Botetourt Countyare still unknown and it is unlikely that we will ever know what was

really behind these strange events. It is certain that something didtake place in both locations, however strange, and theories aboundas to what it may have been. Was the "Mad Gasser" real? And if hewas, who was he? And if he was real, could he have been the samefigure in both cases? Its hard to ignore the similarities between thetwo cases, from his method of operation to the unusual form ofattacks. In Virginia though, the Gasser was not always reported asbeing alone as he was in Mattoon, but then again, what about theidentical reports of prints left by a womans shoe?

Stories have suggested that Mattoons Gasser was anything from amad scientist to an ape-man (although who knows where that camefrom?) and researchers today have their own theories, some of whichare just as wild. Could he have been some sort of extraterrestrialvisitor using some sort of paralyzing agent to further a hiddenagenda? Or could the "Gasser" have been an agent of our own


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government, who came to an unclear Midwestern town to test somemilitary gas that could be used in the war effort? It might be tellingthat once national attention came to Mattoon, the authorities began apolicy of complete denial and the attacks suddenly ceased...

Whoever, or whatever, he was, the "Mad Gasser" has vanished intotime and, real or imagined, is only a memory in the world of theunknown. Perhaps he was never here at all - perhaps he was, asDonald M. Johnson wrote in the 1954 issue of the Journal of

Abnormal and Social Psychology, simply a "shadowy manifestation ofsome unimaginable unknown."

But was he really? How do we explain the sightings of the MadGasser that were made by people who did not even know the

creature was alleged to exist? Or identical sightings from independentwitnesses who could not have possibly known that others had justspotted the same figure. Was the Gasser, as some have suggested,a visitor from a dimension outside of our own, thus explaining hisability to appear or disappear at will? Was he a creature so outsidethe kingdom of our imaginations that we will never be able tocomprehend his motives or understand the reason why he came toMattoon?

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