My Strange New Mexico

Monsters in the Woods

Posted on Sunday, November 11, 2007 at 01:38PM by Mike Smith in Roswell Edition Column | 8 Comments

In a town like Roswell it can sometimes seem as if aliens are coming out of the woodwork.  Cardboard cutouts of them adorn store windows throughout downtown Main Street, their green painted images decorate the windows of the local Wal-Mart, and a few large inflatable ones loom from select street corners during special events.

And then, sometimes, they literally come out of the woodwork.

Such is the tale of one Peter Brown (if indeed that is his real name), who reported seeing a strange humanoid creature in a wooded area near Roswell.

According to his full testimony, Mr. Brown was raking leaves in front of his home at dusk when he heard a "loud roar" from the "woods" nearby.  Abandoning his rake for a shotgun, he went out to the grove of trees to investigate.  Upon entering he saw a white figure dash by, and then, according to him, heard a "small voice" right behind him.  Turning around to find nothing he then heard another loud roar, this time directly behind him.  When he turned around he beheld a bizarre sight: a small, white humanoid, somewhat similar to a Roswell alien, with a bald head and black eyes.  But, unlike a Roswell alien it also had clawed hands and feet, as well as elf-like ears.  To top it all off, the strange creature screamed, spread its bat-like wings, and flew away, presumably never to be seen again.

This rather fantastic story was told via About.com’s paranormal section under Your True Tales — a place where people can go to share their sightings of scary creatures and experiences of strange events.

The site has only one requirement when submitting stories: "It must be, to the best of your knowledge, TRUE."

However, there are undoubtedly going to be a few people who take advantage of this policy to make up crazy stories just for fun.  So, the first thing one must ask oneself after reading such a tale online is: How much, if any, credence should one give to such a story, especially when the witness himself cannot be located for questioning?

Veteran cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, and author of the classic Mysterious America, believes witnesses, not the sightings themselves, are the key to determining the truth of a story.

"I approach an eyewitness as the primary piece of evidence that must be investigated," Coleman said.  "What is their background?  Mental status?  Psychological makeup?  Any reasons for publicity?  History of claims, lying, deception, arrests, trouble, problems?  Or supernatural involvement?  Or is there a line of credible character supporters who can back up the positive nature of this witness?"

Coleman was a primary researcher in one of the most celebrated one-time cryptozoological sightings ever to be recorded, that of the Dover Demon.  The Dover Demon is a creature that, unlike Bigfoot and others, has only been glimpsed in major sightings over the course of two days, never to be seen again.  The humanoid creature, described as having a large head, small body, and bright orange eyes, remains surprisingly well known to this day and even has a figure made of its likeness all the way in Japan.

"In the case of the Dover Demon case, yes, it was one combined incident, but was strengthened by a factor of four plus, because multiple examinations of each witness found no deception or hoaxing was occurring.  Each of those people appear to have seen what they said they saw.

"Due to the fact that most witnesses who solely place their sighting on the Internet remain unknown, I do not take Internet sighting as worthy evidence of anything. It could be fiction or fact, but just reading the details online tell me nothing.  It translates to be reading a short fictional story, only." said Coleman.

While we were unable to track down or find any listings of a Peter Brown in Roswell, we will still take a closer look at this fascinating encounter and take up the daunting task of attempting a case study without actually meeting the witness.

To start off, there are several problems with Mr. Brown’s written testimony, least of all the strange monster.  First of all, at one point in Mr. Brown’s account of the events he refers to the wooded area as a "forest" and also as "the woods." There is one heavily wooded area in Roswell, the Pecan Orchards on the north side of town, but there’s really nothing here that could be considered a forest, unless the author used "forest" for lack of a better word.

And, if the creature was described as being small in stature, then how could it generate such a "loud roar"?  Unless, again, the author used the word "roar" for lack of a more accurate term, such as screech.

Also, most witnesses who have such a bizarre sighting will usually keep quiet about it in fear that the public will think them crazy.

On the other hand, Dr. Donald Burleson, the state director of MUFON in Roswell, had this to say:  "As you mentioned, very often someone with such an experience would be reluctant to report it for fear of ridicule or incredulity, but then again that has been changing in recent years with all the 'press' about UFOs, aliens, abductions, encounters, etc., etc., to the effect that people seem to be getting less hesitant about filing reports and passing their accounts along."

Dr. Burleson continued to say of such accounts, "I don't dismiss them outright but I do reserve the right to have considerable evidence before I invest full belief in anything.  Unfortunately, in many situations witnesses could not reasonably have gathered such evidence whether the happening is objectively real or not."

On the objective side, if we are to give this story any serious consideration at all, we must also look at other accounts similar to it.  Believe it or not, strange winged humanoids are occasionally seen in the world, the most famous of which was Mothman in Point Pleasant, Virginia, in the late 1960s.  Recently, in 2006, there was a Wisconsin sighting of something called "Manbat."

What Brown saw could also have been a chupacabra.  Although a recent rash of chupacabra sightings in Texas suggested the creatures look like dogs, earlier accounts from the mid 1990s had wide and varying descriptions of the chupacabra, with some of them described as having clawed hands and feet, a face vaguely typical of a Roswell alien with almond shaped eyes, and in rare instances—wings.  Perhaps what Mr. Brown saw was a chupacabra of the flying variety.

Some even claim there is a race of genetically created winged humanoids within a secret base in Dulce, NM.  It’s even rumored there are underground tunnels running from Dulce to Los Alamos and Roswell.

As for the creature’s strange elf-like ears, although this would seem to detract from any sort of credibility, it actually enhances it. A miniature alien invasion is reputed to have happened in 1955 Kelly, Kentucky, in which creatures resembling an alien gray, albeit with clawed hands and floppy pointed ears, attacked a farmhouse!  The creatures didn’t have wings, but they apparently were said to float through the air at times.  The event and the creatures, now called Kelly’s Little Men, are not quickly dismissed by UFO investigators and are still discussed to this day.

When asking Geraldine Sutton Stith, the daughter of the farmer in the story above, if being from a family that has seen something strange has made her more sympathetic and believing of others who have seen similar things she said, "Some people I am sympathetic towards, others I think are just idiots looking for their five minutes of fame.  That goes for Bigfoot, aliens or any other encounter with something strange.  You have your people who are honest and did witness something, others are just wanting that attention…I know my dad went through something because I could see the fear in his eyes and he didn't like talking about it."

The folkloric element of the Roswell sighting should not be quickly dismissed either.

"It occurs to me that there is something mythic— not in the sense of falsehood necessarily, but in the 'eternally repeated archetypal pattern' sense of the term—about seeing such creatures," said Dr. Burleson upon first reading of the sighting.  "The witness did think it elf-like, and of course elves and ‘little people’….and the like are, in popular accounts, as old as time itself; Native American folklore is full of stories of such creatures, as is of course the folklore of Ireland and as is many another culture."

In the account Brown said that upon entering the woods he saw something white dart by before hearing a small voice behind him, before turning around to find nothing, then heard another loud roar, turned around and saw the creature.  In myth and folklore “little people” are often associated with being tricksters, which could account for it switching places so quickly, producing a loud roar despite its small stature, etc.  A heavily wooded area is also logical if Mr. Brown did in fact see such a creature.

So in the end, should the real witness ever turn up, will the Roswell woods monster someday join the ranks of the Dover Demon, and Kelly’s Little Men?  Or is the creature merely the product of a story someone decided to make up, publish on the Internet, and set it in Roswell, New Mexico—the go to place for strange events.

More or less it just seems that people wish to tell and believe fantastic stories.  As Mike Smith always says, "The great thing about so many of these stories, is that you can't lose with them.  If they do turn out to be true, that's amazing!  There are aliens, or monsters, or secret passages underground, wow!  And if they don't—it's still phenomenal that these ideas exist at all, that people felt a need or a compulsion or a desire to create them."

And Mr. Brown, if you really are out there, we would still certainly like to talk with you.

…And maybe apologize.

***

For further information and in-depth case studies on the Dover Demon, Kelly’s Little Men, Phantom Clowns, and a whole variety of strange happenings, check out Loren Coleman’s newly revised Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation's Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures .

And for a whole book on the Kelly’s Little Men Incident check out Alien Legacy by Geraldine Sutton Stith, the daughter of the farmer who warded off the aliens.