Werewolf of Defiance

Defiance, Ohio, a sleepy little town, about 55 miles south of Toledo, had a series of unusual encounters in 1972 that will become whispered legend in the years after. Defiance is your average, small, Midwestern American town. Most of the people who live there make their living by working at one of the handful of factories around the area. Defiance is best known for its Fort Defiance, which has a colorful historical significance . So what happened in Defiance all those years ago? Possibly the oddest couple of Dogman encounters ever reported.

On July 25th, 1972, when two employees a local freight train company were working the graveyard shift, inspecting railcar braking systems. Ted Davis, one of the witnesses, during an interview with the Toledo Blade said, “I saw these two hairy feet. Then I looked up and he was standing there with a big stick over his shoulder. When I started to say something, he took off for the woods.” The creature was also described as having, “huge, hairy feet, fangs, and it ran side-to-side like a caveman in the movies.”

About a week after the first encounter, Davis claims to have seen the creature, at the same place as the first encounter, the rail yard. He said it looked at him from the edge of the woods, and the turned and left. That same night, a grocer reported an attack from a hairy, animal-headed creature wielding a two-by-four.

In a small town, nothing stays quiet for long. About a week after the initial events, the local newspaper caught wind of the unusual story. The headlines wrote “Horror Movie Now Playing on Fifth St.” and opened with the famous poem from The Wolf Man:

“Even a man who is pure of heart,

And says his prayers by night,

May become a wolf when the wolf bane blooms,

And the moon is clear and bright.”

The Crescent News, the local newspaper, and the Toledo Blade, ran a total of four articles about the incident. The longest of the articles focused on the local police force’s investigation into the incident. Headed by Donald Breckler, the police chief at the time, the police searched extensively for the “werewolf”. Although the general public thought that it to be a bored teenager’s prank, Chief Breckler considered the club-wielding, animal-faced assailant was a threat to the community. Eventually, after days of looking and no results, the search soon ended.

It is worth noting that Defiance, Ohio is no stranger to unusual phenomena. Within the past fifty years Defiance has seen hundreds of Unidentified Flying Objects, a Dracula lookalike running amuck, and numerous other tales of the weird.
Later this year, Ken Gerhard will be running a symposium about the Dogman and it is located in the town of Defiance. You can find more info here.

Here is one of the articles about the Defiance Werewolf

UFO in Cleveland, New YouTube Video

A recent UFO video has surfaced and is currently making its rounds through the internet. A YouTube "underground" UFO news profile known as SecureTeam10 originally posted the video on the 13th of this month.

You can watch SecureTeam's video here.

I am undecided about the video, on one side, it is far away and doesn't have the crisp shape and distinct features that many hoaxes do, but it also gives off that hoax vibe.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

The Diversity of Ohio's Bigfoot

As I have said previously, I have the great privilege of living in such a diverse state when discussing the weird. Ohio is a hotbed of everything from UFOs, to ghosts, to Bigfoot. Ohio is probably known in most cryptozoology circles for its large number of Bigfoot sightings.
Not only is Ohio in the top five for most Bigfoot sightings in the USA, it also is home to a handful of its own hairy humanoids.

The Grassman is probably the best known of Ohio's Bigfoot creatures. The name pertains to an old folk story repeated to children in order to scare them into behaving. The Grassman was equatable with the Bogey-man, if children were bad, he would kidnap them and devour them. He was known as the Grassman because he was said to lurk in tall grasses.
Grassman reappeared in cultural memory when Bigfooters in Ohio began to find large domes of reeds and grass around Ohio. The domes appeared to be woven like baskets. It was quite logical to dub the creatures making these domes, Grassmen.

Monster Quest's rendition of the Grassman

Another Ohio ape-man is the Minerva Monster. I recently did a blog post reviewing an excellent documentary about the Minerva Monster. You can find it here.

The Minerva Monster was the name given to a large, hairy ape-like humanoid seen in Minerva, Ohio in 1978. The creature quickly became ingrained within the town's culture. There is even a small festival dedicated to the creature every year.

The poster for the documentary on the Minerva Monster

The final weird ape-man I will talk about is called Orange-Eyes.

This creature is best known for its habit of visiting popular teen make-out points and peering into the windows of cars. It is named for its extremely bright, glowing eyes which are a fluorescent orange. The act of probing cars and make-out points is actually common for Bigfoot creatures.

Ohio is full of Bigfoot creatures. If you have another regional name for one or have seen a Bigfoot in Ohio, tell me about it in the comments!

Fairies.... In Ohio?

Fairies have been getting increasing amounts of attention in the field of the unknown. More and more people are examining reports of fairies from around the world. I recently received two reports from someone I know. He would prefer to remain anonymous so I will refer to him only as "Paul".

Paul has been hunting almost all of his life, and he swears up and down that he has never seen anything like that since.

Paul's first encounter happened on April 19, 2010 at around 6 AM. He was turkey hunting in thick brush and since the sun had not come up, the area was cast with a greyish tint. He was facing a dirt road when he saw "Small white cat or cat-like mammal coming down [the road] toward me, followed by 2 small independent blue orbs of light." He described the orbs as "blue, about 3 ½ to 4 feet off the ground, moved in single file and followed the white creature," he also specified that the orbs moved independently of each other. The cat slowly turned down the road and walked away, the orbs followed.
Paul said that he felt that the area was protected. He even said that he, "shot 2 tom turkeys later that month. Both got back up and ran away. I have not experienced that since, I have killed a total of 15 turkeys in my hunting career and I have never had that happen."

His second story is even more strange.

On September 26, 2010, Paul was deer hunting in a tree stand, on a friend's property. He was surrounded by weeds and trees. Around 4:30 PM, he began to hear a strange buzzing sound near his head. After a split second, a large, brownish tan winged creature flew close in front of his face. He said it was larger than a Dobson fly or dragonfly. He described it as a small, 8 inch tall, humanoid with two sets of wings. He said the wings were moving extremely fast. The encounter lasted about five seconds and then the winged creature flew away into the woods. He got the impression that the creature did not want him to shoot anything and was protecting the area.
Paul said that the elderly woman who owned the property passed away later that year. In her will, she wanted her son to plant a ring of trees right in front of where the 'fairy' was seen by Paul. The son also, after being told about the encounter, said that there have been previous encounters and that he wasn't surprised, given his mother's enthusiasm for the Little People.

This is the sketch by "Paul" of the fairy creature he encountered in September of 2010

I think these two stories are very interesting. Paul is an experienced hunter and still says he has no idea as to what he encountered those two days.

Something I think is very interesting is that both sightings have the element of a sense of protection for the wilderness, which is commonplace in fairy lore. Also, note the face of the winged creature, it resembles that of a Grey alien. 

Interesting stories. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Wright Patterson Airbase UFO

Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio has been connected with UFOs since the very beginning of ufology. There are many who claim that it houses parts of the Roswell UFO, the Kecksburg crash (including possible inhabitants) and the remains of one or more Bigfoot.
Basically, if it is weird, Wright Patterson has likely has it.

That being said, the connection doesn't stop there, the county that the base is in and surrounding counties generally have more numerous amounts of sightings than other parts of Ohio.

Recently, the internet has been buzzing about two different videos of an unusual object which surfaced a few days ago.

You can watch the videos here.

I think that these videos are interesting. When I watched them, I was reminded of a well known ufological phenomenon, the Black Knight Satellite.
There certainly is a similar shape between them.

What do you think? Hoax, military craft, alien ship, or mysterious ancient satellite? Let me know in the comments.