The Saltwood & Hythe Mothman | The Dark Histories Podcast

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Sightings of winged creatures flying through the sky have long been a staple of folklore, mythology and legend across the world and across time and cultures. In the ancient world, Gods and monsters were depicted with enormous, scaled and feathered wings, whilst in modern times, sightings have become more and more diverse, from thunderbirds, to the mysterious Mothman. Three years before the one of the most famous sightings of a mysterious flying creature in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, there was a sighting almost 4,000 miles away, across the Atlantic in a quiet market town in the south-east of England that bore a remarkable resemblance and whilst it caused far less of a stir, it certainly drew just as much confusion.

SOURCES

Keel, John (1970) Strange Creatures From Time & Space. London Sphere, London, UK.

Keel, John (1975) The Mothman Prophecies. Saturday Review Press, USA.

Bowen, Charles (1974) The Humanoids. Futura Productions, London, UK

Waters, Thomas (2019) Cursed Britain: A History of Witchcraft and Black Magic in Modern Times. Yale University Press. CT, USA.

Point Pleasant Register (1966) Couples See Man Sized Bird…Creature…Something! Point Pleasant Register, 16 Nov 1966, p1. VA, USA

Tombstone Weekly Epitaph (1890) Found On The Desert. Tombstone Weekly Epitaph, 26 April 1890, p.3. Tombstone, AZ, USA.

The New York Sun (1877) Was It An Angel? The New York Sun, 21 Sep. 1877, p2. NY, USA.

The New York Times (1880) An Aerial Mystery. The New York Times, 12 Sep. 1880, p6. NY, USA

The Daily Mirror (1963) Rector Hunts Ghost Of Love Lane. The Daily Mirror, 25 Nov 1963, p25. London, UK.

The Kentish Express (1963) Rector Hunts Saltwood Ghost. The Kentish Express, 29 Nov 1963, p1. Kent, UK. 

Maidstone Telegraph (1963) Ghost Scares Teenagers. Maidstone Telegraph, 29 Nov 1963, p3. Kent, UK.

Maidstone Telegraph (1963) Was Red Ball Of Fire A Flying Saucer? Maidstone Telegraph, 13 Dec 1963, p1. Kent, UK.

The Kentish Express (1963) Ghost A Flying Saucer? The Kentish Express, 13 Dec 1963, p1. Kent, UK. 

Nottingham Evening Post (1903) Buried On An Island. Nottingham Evening Post, 27 Aug 1903, p3. Nottingham, UK.

Folkestone Express, Sandgate, Shorncliffe & Hythe Advertiser (1903) Death & Funeral of Mr W. T. Tournay. Folkestone Express, Sandgate, Shorncliffe & Hythe Advertiser, 29 Aug 1903, p5. Kent, UK.

Girvan, Waveney (1963) World Round-Up. Flying Saucer Review, Vol. 9, No. 6. Nov-Dec 1963. London, UK.

Girvan, Waveney (1964) The Saltwod Mystery. Flying Saucer Review, Vol. 10, No. 2. Mar-Apr 1964. London, UK.

Clarke, David (2016) A New Demonology: John Keel and The Mothman Prophecies. In: Hunter, Jack, (ed.) Damned Facts : Fortean Essays on Religion, Folklore and the Paranormal. Cyprus, Aporetic Press, 54-68.

Arnold, Neil (2023) The Hythe Mothman, Monster, Ghost or UFO? Fortean Times, FT439 Christmas 2023. Diamond Publishing LTD, London, UK. 

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Sightings of winged creatures flying through the sky have long been a staple of folklore mythology and Legend across the world and across time and cultures in the ancient world Gods and Monsters were depicted with enormous scaled and feathered wings whil in modern times sightings have become more and more

Diverse from Thunderbirds to the mysterious Moth Man three years before one of the most famous modern sightings of a mysterious flying creature in Point Pleasant West Virginia there was a sighting almost 4,000 M away across the Atlantic in a quiet Market town in the southeast of England that

Bore a remarkable resemblance and whilst it caused far less of a stir it certainly Drew just as much confusion this is dark histories where the facts are worse than Fiction hello and welcome to season 8 episode 2 of dark history histories I’m your host as always Ben and I’m here

This week with a story which is I don’t know if it’s cryptozoological UFO logical or or just a very strange story but anyway there’s very little to report this week so we can just pile straight in so let’s go with the story of the Hye mof man throughout history there’s always

Been a long and Rich vein of stories and tals featuring bizarre winged creatures seen in the sky from Spirits monsters gods angels and demons the list of forms and the variety of shapes and sizes is almost endless to take only a handful of examples the Hindu deity of guda is

Described as the flying Mount of Vishnu and often depicted either as a large eagle-like bird or as a part human part bird amalgam complete with a human body and face and the beak and wings of a bird in Russian folklore the Gan is an all- knowing being that spreads

Prophetic messages of creation Gods Mankind and all things in between depicted as a large bird with a woman’s head the Gan is like many similar beings closely tied to the long history of the Greek siren a part woman part bird who would sing alluring songs to the sailors

Tempting them to sail into dangerous Seas a much more modern literary invention the gargoyle is often depicted as a shriveled humanoid form with large claw-like hands and bony bat-like Wings forged from Stone and brought to life as a Golem they were often linked with demonology and cast as the protectors

And guards of many evil characters not entirely far from the Gargoyles the German American folklore creature the snig gaster is often described as a reptile with huge jaws and teeth tentacles and large scaly wings in the early days of German immigration to America the snig gaster was said to have terrorized communities

Of immigrants swooping from the sky to snatch up its victims before sucking their blood from Native America we got the Thunderbird a legendary giant bird able to generate Thunder with its wings and lightning with its eyes listing only a handful of creatures the sheer variety and longevity of the mythological literary or folkloric

Winged silhouette is immediately clear from fafn to smog and from the Japanese tangu to the abrahamic angel the list is seemingly endless with winged creatures featuring in writing from almost every culture around the world from ancient history right up until modern times throughout history however there have been times when Illusions to these

Mythological and legendary creatures have leaked over into the real world where people have seen strange things in the sky and wondered if it might have been a Thunderbird or a gargo or like in Arizona in 1890 some kind of prehistoric giant as reported in the tombstone weekly epap on the 26th of April

1890 found on the desert a strange winged monster discovered and killed on the huacha desert a winged monster resembling a huge alligator with an extremely elongated tail and an immense pair of wings was found on the desert between the wetstone and the huacha mountains last Sunday by two Ranchers

Who were returning home from hkas the creature was evidently greatly exhausted by a long flight and when discovered was able to fly but a short distance at a time after the first chock of wild amazement had passed by the two men who were on Horseback and armed with Winchester rifles regained sufficient

Courage to pursue the monster and after an exciting Chase of several miles succeeded in getting near enough to open fire with their rifles and wounding it the creature then turned on the men but owing to its exhausted condition they were able to keep out of his way and

After a few well directed shots the monster partly rolled over and remained motionless the men cautiously approached their horses snorting with Terror and found that the creature was dead they then proceeded to make an examination and found that it measured about 92 ft in length and the greater diameter was

About 50 in the monster had only two feet these being situated a short distance in front of where the wings were joined to the body the head as near as they could judge was about 8 ft long the Jaws being thickly set with strong sharp teeth its eyes were as large as

Dinner plate and protruded about halfway from the head they had some difficulty in measuring the wings as they were partly folded under the body but finally got one straightened out sufficiently to get a measurement of 78 ft making this hotal length from tip to tip about 160 ft the

Wings were composed of a thick and nearly transparent membrane and were devoid of any feathers or hair as was the entire body the skin of the body was comparatively smooth and easily penetrated by a bullet the men cut off a small portion of the tip of One Wing and

Took it home with them last night one of them arrived in this city for supplies and to make the necessary preparations to skin the creature when the hide will be sent East for examination by the emminent scientists of the day the finder returned early this morning accompanied by several prominent men who

Will endeavor to bring the strange creature to this city before it is mutilated this story appeared to be an exclusive as it was not repeated in tombstone’s second newspaper the Nugget which seems particularly strange given the size of this news of course nothing ever came of the

Story and it appeared to die out with this single piece making it increasingly likely that it was written by a journalistic chancer hoping to revive tombstone’s faltering economy by 1890 the town’s Minds had all been closed due to flooding and perhaps the reporter thought an outrageous story of a

Gigantic flying monster might just be enough to bring the town back from the brink over 70 years later the story was reinvented when rumors surfaced that photographs were said to have existed of a group of Tombstone men standing with a giant flying creature but it was all

Simply a product of the imaginative mind of the author of a magazine article that reprinted the original Epitaph article but with a few added sentences for Maximum Impact he even suggested that the original story had included a photograph of the monster which of course it did not in fact there was not

A single photograph accompanying any story in the entire newspaper as was still common in 1890 where most papers featured only a few wood block Engravings and even they were mostly on the advertisements a sensational as this story may have seemed to be to the average reader it wasn’t entirely

Unusual strange winged monsters and anomalies in the sky were reported with relative frequency throughout the end of the 19th century spurred on by the scientists and inventors who had spent the previous Century looking up at the sky and dreaming of conquering its mysterious ocean-like depths these

Aeronauts as they came to be called had been building balloons and peculiar Wing Contraptions since the end of the 18th century and flight was becoming closer to reality with every passing year though for most people it was still fanciful enough to stir the imagination in Fairly strange ways as such flying

Humanoid sightings always made a good story just like the one that appeared in the press 3 years earlier than the tombstone monster when the Sun newspaper of New York published a letter written to the editor on the 21st of September 1877 by Mr W H Smith was it an angel the remarkable

Cloud that Mr Smith of Brooklyn saw on Tuesday evening to the editor of the sun sir on Tuesday afternoon of this week a few minutes after 6:00 I noticed from my window a very peculiar solitary vapory object in the heavens its position was about where the constellation of the Dipper would be

At the hour Vis due north and 35° above the Horizon in magnitude and Contour it in a marked degree resembled a human form head body and nether limbs the body and limbs robed in shadowy drapery the head which was of brighter Luminosity on the crown and forehead had thick flowing

Hair and the whole figure was extended horizontally with the head Eastward and the front downward but there was another feature quite as marked and that was an appearance as of wings projecting upward and backward from the shoulders and these in due proportion extended to the body and limbs this last name feature

Gave the entirety the appearance of an Angel flying in mid Heaven considered as a cloud it was remarkable that it kept the same outline continuously which is uncommon in those vapory objects while I had it in view for a considerable time as it progressed swiftly towards the

East the Luminosity of the Shadow Angel was of a golden white and it presented a very beautiful appearance against the blue background of the sky in addition to the startling outline of the object the interest in it was greatly increased by it being at the time the only one

Visible in the whole Northern Heavens except some low-lying black clouds on the horizon I called the attention of several persons to it one of whom discovered himself the resemblance I did this account gives one much to be skeptical about firstly the letter itself calls the sighting a cloud which

It almost definitely would have been but secondly it was reported by the Sun newspaper a New York paper that had a habit of spinning T tales for entertainment and sales one prime example being the multi-part feature about the discovery of manbat that lived on the Moon from

1835 3 years later a more interesting piece appeared in the somewhat more reputable New York Times that more closely followed the blueprint for a suspected aeronaut sighting on the 12th of September 1880 though the description of the figure itself seems to owe more to myths and legends than any quirky

Inventor an aerial mystery one day last week a marvelous Apparition was seen near Coney Island at the height of at least 1,000 ft in the air a strange object was in the act of flying toward the New Jersey coast it was apparently a man with bats wings and improved frogs

Legs the face of the man could be distinctly seen and it wore a cruel and determined expression the movements made by the object closely resembled those of a frog in the act of swimming with his hind legs and flying with his front legs of course no respectable frog has ever

Been known to conduct himself in precisely that way but where a frog to wear bats wings and to attempt to swim and fly at the same time he would correctly imitate the conduct of the Coney Island monster when we add that this monster waved his wings in answer

To the whistle of a locomotive and was of a deep black color the alarming nature of The Apparition Can Be Imagined the object was seen by many reputable persons and they all agree that it was a man engaged in flying towards New Jersey about a month ago an object of precisely

The same nature was seen in the air over St Louis by a number of citizens who happen to be sober and are believed to be trustworthy a little later it was seen by various Kentucky persons as it flew across the state in no instance has

It been known to a light and no one has seen it at a lower elevation than a thousand ft above the surface of the Earth it is without doubt the most extraordinary and wonderful object that has ever been seen and there should be no time in ascertaining its precise

Nature habits and probable mission that his aerial Apparition is a man fitted with practicable wings there is no reason to doubt someone has solved the problem of aerial navigation by inventing wings with which a man can sustain himself in the air and direct his flight to any desired Point who is this adventurous

Flyer and what is his object these are questions of immediate and enormous importance of course the first impulse of the unreflecting mind will be to exclaim that the mysterious flyer is an aeronaut who has invented practicable wings and is secretly experimenting with them before making his invention public

This is directly at variance with the known habits and customs of aeronauts had any aeronaut invented a pair of wings he would have advertised long before his invention was perfected that he was in possession of a machine wherewith to make an aerial Voyage to Europe in 24 hours and that he was

Prepared to exhibit it for a few weeks to everyone who would pay 50 cents to see it a little later he would have taken up a subscription to pay the expenses of his proposed Voyage in the interests of Science and would probably have published a book on the science of

Aeronautics then he would have suddenly disappeared taking his wings with him or accidentally burning them and after the first Outburst of indignation on the part of a swindled public he would have been totally forgotten this has been the invariable practice of these ingenious aeronauts who have claimed to be the inventors of

Balloons or other apparatus capable of navigating the air that the mysterious flying man has not followed this custom makes it perfectly clear that he is not a professional aonor Beyond any question either the flying man or some scientific person at present unknown has invented the bats wings and

Frog’s legs with which the flying man now sails through the air why has not the inventor patented this invention and had himself duly written up by the press the reason is obvious the flying man is engaged in some undertaking which he cannot safely Proclaim in other words he

Is an aerial criminal a fact which explains the cruelty and determination visible on his countenance and what can be the nefarious object which this probate wretch has in his view it cannot be simply theft and robbery for it would manifestly be impossible for him in his flying costume to perpetuate burglary or

Highway robbery or to pick pockets it cannot be Plumbing for obvious reasons neither can it be the sale of books published by subscription only yet the flying villain must have an object and we have a right to assume that only a peculiarly nefarious object can induce a

Man to fly in New Jersey or St Louis in hot weather and without an umbrella or mosquito net despite the article’s eventual obvious comedic tone the original description of the man frog bat thing that was flying in the sky was fairly frightening and no doubt would have been

Far less humorous to those that did witness it above the New Jersey Skyline similar flying men or winged creatures appeared sporadically throughout the first first half of the 20th century but it was the 1960s and the 1970s where things began to take a strange turn undoubtedly the most

Infamous case of a winged monster and the one that would more or less create a genre in the encyclopedia of strange sightings happened in Point Pleasant West Virginia in 1966 which saw the birth of a creature known as moth man it was almost midnight on a cold

Tuesday night in mid November when two couples Roger and Linda scarbury and Steven Mary Mallet were driving together along Route 62 a road running parallel with the Cana River from north of Point Pleasant 70 Mi Southeast to Charleston it was a fairly desolate highway it’s two lanes carved through Acres of fields

And Forest dotted with sporadic farmhouses and dilapidated barns the group were around 7 miles north of Point Pleasant as the four approached an area known as the TNT area so named for its aging mostly dismantled National Guards factories that had produced explosives during the second world war and had been long since

Abandoned driving through this area they saw a pair of glowing red eyes in the Distance by one of the crumbled buildings just off of the roadside Roger scarbury who had been driving the car slammed on the brakes and the four watched as a dark shape described by Roger as like a man but

Bigger walked around at the entrance to the buildings it was around 6 to 7 ft tall and had large black wings that folded against its back but it was the eyes that Drew them all in they sat and stared at it for around a minute before Roger snapped

And gunned the car away from the scene as fast as he could as they tore off up the road a second creature or the same one no one could really be sure seemed to appear by one of the many small hillsides that rose up from the road and

Disappeared into the tree line and as they sped past it launched itself into into the air and gave Pursuit the Chevy engine roared as Roger pushed his foot to the floor in an effort to put fresh air between themselves and the creature but no matter how fast the car traveled

The flying beasts seemed to keep Pace even after they had hit 100 milph without looking back they drove to the Mason County Courthouse in Point Pleasant chased all the way by the creature which was screaming behind them apparently squeaking like a big mouse once at the courthouse they pulled up

And ran to find deputy sheriff Millard howad on duty Who Bore the full brunt of the four Panic looking youths blurting out a highly peculiar story seeing the fear on everyone’s faces the deputy took their story more seriously than most might imagine but has he later explained

He had known all four for their whole lives and he had no reason to doubt or suspect them of any monkey in around jumping into his patrol car he followed Roger Chevy back to the spot of the TNT area where they had seen the massive creature but there was no sign of

Anything out of place Roger noticed that a dead dog that had been hit by a car and left rotting on the side of the road they had passed on the way back into town had now gone there was nothing else unusual and no sign of any flying monster just then a loud high-pitched

Garbled noise broke the night’s silence as Deputy holed had tried to call into the station On’s radio only for the speaker to squeal out a surprising noise startled by this sudden sork he turned the radiar off quickly sending everyone back into silence staring out into the darkness the story was pretty big news

Right from the get-go the next morning the sheriff George Johnson called a press conference that everyone involved from the night before attended answering questions for an excited press rooming the next day newspapers featured the story in the local and wider area and the creature was given its legendary

Name Moth Man taken from the character of killer moth from a Batman comic that had been reformatted for a popular TV show at the time as one would no doubt expect the newspaper coverage that featured several quotes from Roger scarbury describing the Moth Man whipped up a good deal of excitement and the

Knights following the initial sighting saw the TNT area flooded with FR Seekers looking for the nocturnal Beast many carrying guns hoping to hunt down the creature the next night on the 17th of November Mrs gross a Point Pleasant based music teacher who lived up opposite the TNT area was awoken at 4:45

A.m. by her dog barking the crowds having long since thinned out and tailed off the TNT area had finally Fallen back into silence and Mrs gross was surprised at the dog who was not normally so vocal pulling herself up out of bed to investigate she saw an object hovering

In the air from her kitchen window that she described as circular and the size of a small house stunned she watched on for a few seconds before the glowing anomaly suddenly shot off into the distance zigzagging away into nothingness as the days passed more and more people continued to flood into the

Outskirts of Point Pleasant hoping to catch a sighting of the creature and many were apparently successful a pair of firemen Paul Yoda and Benjamin Eno saw what they described as a giant bird with glowing red eyes it was definitely a bird they exclaimed but we’d never seen anything like

It a group of teenagers had a similar story to the original sighting and an elderly Point Pleasant businessman chased The Moth Man off his front lawn after he had snapped himself away from staring into its glowing red eyes for several minutes where he said he seemed to lose track of time

Transfixed whilst everyone else buzzed with excitement Roger and Linda scarbury struggled to come to terms with their own sighting and after a week of hearing strange garbled squeaks throughout the night which they could never locate a source for they moved from their house trailer and into the basement of Linda’s

Parents house house where they hoped to feel more secure sightings of The Moth Man continued for over a year with their allegedly totaling over 100 locals who would eventually give their own testimonies of their own sightings in general all the witnesses descriptions followed a similar Trend the monster had

Large glowing red eyes a wingspan of about 10 ft that didn’t seem to Flap him fly and a body the size of a large man as the weeks and months went by several theories emerged that the creature was linked to UFO activity or that it was a

Giant monster that had been living in the abandoned TNT factories or that it was simply a misidentified bird with the sandhill crane often shouldering the blame when the Silver Bridge Connecting Point Pleasant across the Ohio River collapsed on the 15th of December 1967 killing more than 40 people The

Moth Man seemed to Disappear overshadowed by the much more immediate and tragic event seven years later however John kill would link the two in his book The Moth Man prophecies suggesting that Mothman had been some kind of harbinger of Doom nowadays thanks in large part to K Mothman has his own Festival held

Annually in Point Pleasant and he sits high up on the list of Infamous Cryptids from history in 1963 however three years before the scares and mallets had uttered a word about the strange Wing creature with glowing red eyes a remarkably similar event occurred over 4,000 miles away in a small Market town

In Kent England and though it caused just as much confusion as to what the Monster actually was as its West Virginia counterpart the kentish Mothman disappeared into the obscurity of History shortly after it was seen rarely to be spoken of again situated on the Southeast coast of

England 70 mi from London the Market town of he in the county of Kent is a relatively small and quiet little town where the beach front and prominade quickly give way to Rolling Hills and Woodland at one time its beaches would have been the sight of a bustling Harbor

Area that would have been one of the more important ports linking France to England throughout the Middle Ages a picturesque mix of 11th century castles medieval Norman Saxon Georgian and Victorian buildings it’s important to supp port and Market and now long in the past and it exists only as a

Historical town with the Crypt of St Leonard’s complete with one of the largest collections of human bones stands as one of the Sleepy Town’s largest tourist attractions to the north of Hive lies saltwood a small rural Village overlooking the Marshland below complete with its own 11th century castle with

Ties all the way back to the fifth century whose claim to fame is that it once house the Four Knights who would plot and Carry Out The V violent assassination of Thomas Becket the Archbishop of Canterbury whose head they cut in two upon the request of King Henry

II centuries later the old fortress walls were now little more than a private estate for all its quiet Seaside charm was here in saltwood and hee that a brief and much less sustained case of Moth Man feather erupted in the winter of 1963 it All Began on the night of

Saturday 16th of November it was a clear cold night following what had been a drab overcast Winter’s day as the clouds receded opening up to show a blanket of stars temperatures dropped down to just above freezing and thin wisps of fog rolled off the sea creeping Inland 17-year-old painter and decorator

John Flaxton was walking to sandling train station along sandling Road and Narrow Lane flanked with trees and hedges that acted as the main Northern route out of he and cut through the the village of saltwood he was alongside his girlfriend Jenny Holloway his friend mvin Hutchinson who was also with his

Own girlfriend all four of them having attended a party earlier that evening there is some confusion as to whether or not the two couples were walking together or separately depending on the version of the story that you subscribed to though the two available accounts do agree that all four were on the same

Road at the same time as the group rounded an area by sandling Park they noticed a bright star in the sky that appeared to be moving gliding above the tree line by an area known as slay Brook corner where the road turns sharply West to North a

Moment of alarm erupted amongst the four when they realized that Not only was the light moving but it appeared to be moving in the direction towards them we saw a red Flash in front of us said mvin like a red ball of fire going down the hill Flaxton report was similar with a

Little added detail it was uncanny the reddish yellow light was coming out of the sky at an angle of 60° as it came towards the ground it seemed to hover more slowly I grew cold all over as it vanished behind a clump of trees both young men agreed that the

Light had grown larger before coming to a sudden Hal hovering for a moment and then shrinking down disappearing behind a group of trees in a nearby cops all four of them decided they’d seen quite enough and they began to run for the safety of the street lights in

The nearby Village as they began running however the light reappeared described this time as a bright gold oval it was about 80 yards away floating about 10 ft above the ground curiously it seemed to have some level of intelligence as it seemed to move with them as they ran and stopped

When they stopped just as things were in danger of turning into Panic the light once more dipped beneath the trees and disappeared entirely Darkness surrounded the group who were watching the sky intently when a cracking of twigs and branches took their eyes to ground level only to see a

Shambling black creature emerge from the high bushes beside them it was the size of a human but it didn’t seem to have any head there were huge Wings on its back like bat wings this description given to police by mvin Hutchinson may have sounded bizarre but it was somewhat more

Alarming to the officers that all four descriptions dovetailed so well with one description adding that the creature had webbed feet at first no one seemed to know what to make of the strange sighting mvin Hutchinson seemed convinced that the group had seen a ghost which was also

The angle that the local press were taking though the national press did allude to the possibility of black magic when the Daily Mirror wrote a piece on the story published 9 days later Rector hunts ghost of Love Lane a ghost is said to be haunting courting

Couples in a Village Lane and the local Rector is following up rumors that a black magic circle may be responsible for the terror the ghost is reputed to be of William Tor Tor a rich eccentric land owner who was buried 60 years ago on an island in the middle of a lake at

Salwood near he Kent John Flaxton and mvin Hutchinson gave a shortened version of their citing though the Cas seemed to confuse one or two details and then the Rector was back on the case the Rector of saltwood the Reverend Eric Stanton said yesterday several young people in the village have

Come to see me saying they’ve seen the ghost there are rumors that a black magic circle meets in a secret hideout in the village and that they are responsible I have no proof yet that they are working in saltwood but I am determined to get to the bottom of this

Business because it is disrupting Village Life in another interview he claimed I’ve heard rumors that a black magic circle meets secretly in the village I have no proof I’m making my own investigations this is the evil sort of things that they would do the Daily Mirror report was curious

For several reasons first and foremost it seemed that local people were conflating the death of a local character with the appearance of a headless creature with bat wings and webbed feet at the very least William Tor Tor certainly did exist rather than being a figure made up of an overzealous

Journalist or some old local folk Legend and as it turns out his burial was far from normal born in 1849 William T Tor was Lord of brockill Manor and justice for the Peace of the Elum division in his younger days he had enjoyed the social trappings of the rich and the privileged

Hunting and collecting trophies including that of a 9-ft tall polar bear and a large collection of birds that his relatives donated to he toown Hall after his death in later life it seems that he’d grown somewhat reclusive and gained a reputation as an eccentric which was

An accusation that was in no way helped by his somewhat unusual funeral arrangements following his death at the house on the 20th of August 1903 60 years before the high mop Man sighting Tor already having gathered a local reputation for his reclusive nature in later life had applied for a special

Permit to the home office that would allow his body to be interred on a small island in the middle of a lake a few hundred yards from the brockill manor with three temporary Bridges having been built one that was 31 ft long and 12 ft wide in order for his coffin to be

Carried to the island all of the bridges were destroyed immediately following his burial naturally the death of a local member of the Gentry especially one already thought to be an eccentric hermit stirred rumors and it was soon circulated that he’d been buried alongside his dog Daisy after having his

Body wrapped in the the skin of his favorite horse before long the house was being talked of as being haunted and even tor’s death was causing whispered speculation that the entire family had been the victim of a curse frankly the links made by the Rector to the Mothman sighting and the

Ghost of William T Tor seemed tenuous at best and were likely the result of nothing but local folklore the possibility of a black magic circle operating in the area however was something different entirely by the early 20th century Witchcraft and the ult had begun to wne in Britain especially following the

Second world war when people were increasingly living in wealthier urbanized areas with a state that was modernizing health care and a plethora of entertainment on offer in the forms of theater radio and a newly popularized television following the establishment of the public broadcaster the BBC in 1936 as a result fewer people sought

Folk REM remedies or the advice of the long popular healers well known within their communities as witches Wizards and cunning folk by 1950 mentions of Witchcraft had almost entirely fallen from the pages of the newspapers across the country even religion was moving away from mentions of Witchcraft from

The Bible and belief in hell and the devil fell to an all-time low in short as control and comfort increased in people’s everyday lives attribution of Misfortune and struggle to outside forces eroded in turn rural tales and old old folk tales continued however and in the older Generations superstitious and the more

Traditional beliefs survived with these beliefs despite their ever increasing Fringe nature a quiet suspicion began brewing in the new Urban middle classes what exactly was going on behind closed doors in those old rural Villages as commuting became more commonplace and Qui wi rural Villages became enclaves for the everwing middle

Classes who were both a clash with and a common an exponent of the old oral folk tales of their new homes the tales were often taken with a tongue and cheek but deep down a certain paranoia and fear crept quietly across the towns and cities of the country

Bubbling away under the surface of old rural Britain and its folk beliefs mixed with an increas in access to a new spiritual beliefs and the modern anxieties of mass immigration and the Cold War whether or not the Reverend Eric Stanton really did believe there to be an operating black magic circle within

Hive and saltwood is never really concluded there is of course every chance that the press or even the Reverend simply threw in the Witchcraft angle for a bit of fun stiring up anxieties perhaps ultimately it was just not meant to be taken seriously though the Reverend did conclude at least that

He believed the stories in the the area had been true it definitely isn’t a hoax he said several youngsters have told me about the strange things they have seen all were very frightened obviously they have seen something out of their normal experience over the following week the

Story seemed to grow with all the teenagers of hie seemingly jumping on the bound wagon claiming that they had also had ghost sightings up by slabber Corner Graham leit an 18-year-old student told a local newspaper that he had seen the ghost at 18 months earlier I was walking down the hill towards SL

Corner when I saw a red light and then this Eerie bat-like figure appeared I was frightened but I didn’t tell anybody then because I didn’t think they would believe me an elderly local gentleman William we also claimed to have seen a bright bluish white light in the sky that had

Crossed over sanding Road and headed out to sea about a week before the Flaxton and hutchingson sighting a porter at sandling train station also came forward saying that he rode his bicycle to work right past labor at corner routinely and that he had both seen strange lights and heard weird noises on several

Occasions at the same time the landlord of a PB that John Flaxton and mvin Hutchinson had crashed into following their sighting stood up for the two boys saying that they’d been as white as sheets and that it was no joke parties were organized by groups of

People hoping to see The Ghost and many locals began locking their doors at night the Reverend carried out his own stake out on slabber corner but he saw nothing unusual a failure which he blamed on his lack of psychic ability I think you have to have experience with

These things he told another local paper others did see something Keith Croucher a 17-year-old Apprentice electrical engineer had been passing the brockill school football pitch just off sandling road on the evening of the 21st of November 5 days after the creature was first seen when he saw a strange

Light light hovering above the ground I felt a sudden breath of cold wind and saw what looked like a golden Mist beginning to cross the pitch at the center of the Mist was a solid oval light that seemed to move slowly over the ground the whole thing was about 20

Ft Square I was frightened and ran away when I came back it had gone two days later two teenagers John McGoldrick and his friend had gone out into the woods to investigate the sightings hoping to see something for themselves their claims were fairly fantastic if there was any truth behind them at

All in a clearing in the woods we found a vast expanse of bracken that had been completely flattened as if some huge and heavy object had rested there nearby we found three giant Footprints they were clear Footprints almost 2 ft long and about 9 in across they must have been a full in

Deep by the end of the month the he Moth Man story had seemingly come and gone gone with no new sightings interest in the Press quickly waned and though no one seemed to have had any clue as to what the creature scene could have been the mystery seemed destined to go

Unanswered then in mid December two weeks after the last story in the local press had been published a new headline hit the ksh express ghost a flying sorcerer it was a small piece on the front page sandwiched among stories like cat given Kiss of Life and the announcement of the champion beef winner

But it was here that a new story concerning the H mof man emerged that ghost which has been seen by several people at saltwood recently may not be a ghost after all Mr CA Strickland the London identified flying object research organization says it was probably a flying sorcerer Mr Strickland

Spent last weekend at saltwoods Castle Hotel investigating the ghost reports he said the glowing object seen in the sky eyy and reports of balls of light and fire pointed towards a flying sorcerer having landed in the area reports of similar events in other parts of the country have been received but even Mr

Strickland was unable to solve the mystery of the Headless figure with webbed feet which was seen as it turned out Strickland was one of several euphology that had visited hee in order to investigate the strange sightings in the sky above Kent in September of the same year two months before the initial

Sighting a flurry of UFO sightings had been spotted in skies above the southeast County all describing an object with an orange red glow these reports had started in Margate then moved South to Ramsgate and then onto Hearn Bay around 30 Mi north of he in all cases the light was seen hovering in

The sky before rapidly shooting off out across the sea Strickland had visited he alongside Dr B Finch a general practitioner from London the euphology group appeared to be playing their cards quite close to their chest and when they were interviewed by a local newspaper Dr Finch said only that he had been

Investigating a series of sightings and from what he had seen so far he thought they could well be a flying sorcerer in the same piece wavy geran the editor of the flying sorcerer review a bimonthly Journal that had been reporting on the UFO phenomena since 1955 and the publication for whom Finch

And Strickland would publish their investigation thoroughly to down the original citing saying that the creature seen by Flaxton and hutchingson may have been imagination after being frightened by the red glow at the same time as this investigation was underway the two teenage boys John McGoldrick and his friend who had discovered the giant

Footprints claimed to have returned to the area with two reporters on the 11th of December where they found the wood lit up by a strange pulsating light the four kept watch for almost 30 minutes but they saw nothing but the strange light naturally McGoldrick said that they were

Too frightened to go any closer this story is interesting for numerous reasons not least that they seem to back up the original sighting of a creature with web feet however it’s also problematic for just as many reasons in the 13th of December newspaper article from the Maidstone Telegraph that reported about the ethologist

Investigation it had been clearly reported that no evidence of a crater in the ground or any sign of a flying sorcerer or any other object came down has been found furthermore no sign of any article appeared that documented the event an article that most would imagine

To be a Surefire thing had two reporters really accompanied the boys and witnessed the pulsating life firsthand following the report of the ethologists Coming to Town the story of The Hive MF man came to an abrupt end a short article did make its way to the March April 1964 for edition of The

Flying sorcer review but it was short on both detail and conclusions with no more sightings to report the public interest dissipated and the story fell into complete obscurity becoming heavily overshadowed by the far more numerous sightings of the West Virginia Mo Man 3 years later and that story whilst having

Many unique elements followed in the high mothman’s footsteps when it came to its Legacy blurring the lines between cryptozoology and euphology so what really happened in he in 1963 just remains a mystery if it really was a simple ghost sighting then why did Spectre of William T Tor appear as a

Headless web-footed and bat-winged creature and what of the numerous sightings of lights in the sky linking the story with UFOs whilst it seems unlikely that the reverend’s idea that a black magic circle may have somehow summoned the creature and how that this story surely couldn’t hold any water did his theories

Really sound any less bizarre than any of the other stories coming from Kent during the winter of 1963 whatever it was or even if it was nothing at all it remains an interesting Link in The Chronicles of The Moth Man creature and a fascinating prequel that deserves to survive even if it concludes

As little more than a tale of esoteric curio that is almost as confusing in its details as its Big Brother cross the Atlantic in West Virginia so that was the strange very strange story of the he Moth Man and and there is some stuff to talk about after these short advert

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That’s Factor mills.com / darkis 5 and use the code dark histories 5 to get 50% off welcome back so yes the highest Moth Man very strange story uh I think if it wasn’t um for The Moth Man in 66 this story would probably be just completely

Vanished now um because it’s so uh brief um you know in in its I guess the the number of sens is quite sparse um but it’s really fascinating in that it follows so much of the 66 sighting in West Virginia it’s you know the real

Moth man it’s it has a lot of things in common with the real Mothman which I was That’s What drew me to the story in the first place um it’s obviously a much newer story than I’m used to I normally don’t deal with anything sort of post

World War II really that that generally I tend to see that as my cut off point but I I thought this would be a really interesting story to do I and so I kind of broke my own rules and and did one a little later naturally with it being so

Modern I did actually think perhaps I can get in touch with these people involved and I did look them up sadly it seems that um John Flaxton uh passed away in 2013 which is obviously um you know very sad um where either um and to

Be honest a lot of the other names were were also the same I suppose I kind of forget now that the’ 60s was was a long time ago now so yeah um yeah it it it was slightly more challenging than I thought it would be um anyway I love the

Story I thought the monster was hilarious it gave me like proper Star Trek original series Vibes um you know with uh this kind of like I could almost imagine this sort of poyan and cardboard creature coming out of the bushes uh it it was super like practical effects

Right um I say this as a joke but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you get that image in your mind from it I think you get that image in your mind because that’s precisely what how he was described uh you know that that was their frame of reference I

Think that’s how they described him I think it’s yeah it’s no coincidence that he sounds like all of those kind of Boggy creatures that uh were around in science fiction during the kind of 50s and 60s um yeah I like I don’t think that’s any coincidence I think you know that’s

Where the imagination was drawing that description from um I so yeah I guess you can sort of tell from the way I said that that I don’t think the story is true I I don’t the lights and such were interesting um and I’ll come back to

That but the actual sighting of the the the the the M man the the the winged creature with webbed feet I I absolutely don’t believe that to be true whatsoever what I did find interesting was how paranor played a part in all of these sightings going all the way back to the 19th

Century in the sense that in the 19th century you had these sightings and um people tended to have a general mistrust and fear of the aeronauts and and a well Aeronautics and and how flight might potentially change the world around them and how the government might use like

The power of flight against people and so that seemed to be like a a pervading sort of fear and paranoia that crept under all of the stories of people flying seeing like flying objects in the sky in in the 19th century um and I thought that was

Interesting and as time went on the stories changed but the paranoia and the fear was always there so in these kind of Mothman eras that like especially this Hy Moth Man you you essentially like get the Cold War paranoia creeps into the stories and it I I find it very

Apparent it creeps in um so yeah I thought that was really interesting how both stories 100 years apart basically generated by fear and paranoia Moth Man itself like the Virginia story obviously I told a very brief overview of The Moth Man case because you know the West

Virginia Moth Man could be an entire episode all by itself it’s a huge story it’s super famous I probably won’t do it because it’s been done a million times s um but it’s an interesting story original um The Moth Man prophecies was written by a guy called John kill and um

I read a lot I actually read about three of his books and I read a quote from him in later life where he basically said something along the lines of that he The Moth Man was never real and that he didn’t actually believe it at the time

And he wrote that like all of his um descriptions and theories of of these sort of he called them like interplanetary beings he had this like massive theory about um sort of Spacemen and stuff that that that was sort of about like like almost like interdimensional beings and that and but

But basically he came out before his death and said that he never really believed any of them and they were all just simply literally devices and that he meant them to be taken as literary devices um which is a really interesting U-turn but you never know people at the

End of their lives who knows um but yeah that that that’s what he said about the Moth Man which I found quite interesting but yeah I The Moth Man side of things I say I’m not sure I really believe that that in the hi moth man I don’t think

These teenagers saw a webbed feet winged creature I I I think two um teenagers that said they found a footprint that not that was never documented you know that they said they took a two journalists into the woods no story ever came out of it so I don’t believe a word

Those two teenagers said to be frank but what I do find more interesting is the flashing lights and things like that like the UFO side of things I think I find that a little more um sort of it draws me in a little more I can I can

Start getting with the story there I start believing it a little more um because I mean who knows what was in the sky of course this again goes back to what I was saying and it plays into the Cold War propaganda as a lot of euphology did back then yeah it’s it’s

Very interesting um I I think you know yeah there’s every chance that there was like a bunch of sence what it could have been who knows there is a few RAF bases around about that area um or an area RF Bas not really around that area but it’s

Uh it could have seen like military craft I don’t know besides I think people see a lot of things in the sky that are often uh you know well unidentified there’s nothing wrong with the the UAP UFO you know unidentified Monica it doesn’t mean it was of alien origin it

Just means they didn’t identify it and I think people see that all the time and and I don’t really see why this couldn’t have been like a series of sightings um in he at the time again with the the ghost side of it that that’s super bizarre I find that really strange how

They tried to like the press and the locals tried to equate it to a ghost it’s almost like it was two stories and and and the press and people just sort of smashed them together and went yeah that’ll do like they had this story of like local Gentry who was eccentric and

Died in this like mysterious potential curse and so obviously he’s become very ingrained in the local folklore um and so these first Sans were were ghosts of him because that’s obviously who people tack it onto immediately it’s like oh well you know he’s the one that haunts

The local area it must be him despite the fact that he was described as having like wings and webbed feet now I know the guy was a recluse but it was presumably not because he was a hideous like demonic form like he he still looked like a human as far as I’m a

Where why he turn into this head headless kind of bat frog guy is anyone’s guess that’s a very strange part of the story um as is the the Reverend coming out and saying that it he believed it to be black magic um that that’s actually a very interesting topic

Um and I I something that I could potentially delve into in the future um but it’s it’s that the the the concept of um Cold War England and the paranoia of the Rural Life uh is is a fascinating subject of how you know you suddenly had

All these kind of like this new middle class moving out into rural areas despite having like a clash with the traditions because they were all kind of you know like living like modern lives and stuff they they kind of ate up all of that old folklore because you know it

Was It was kind of uh you know rustic and and trendy so they they kind of ate all that up and um but in doing so it it basically kind of like so there a lot I’m getting really off topic now and I won’t bore you too long

But there is a lot of people that say that um uh Witchcraft and black magic and stuff basically died in the 50s and 60s which I I wrote a little about in this episode and how it it didn’t really regenerate until like the 80s and 90s I

I believe that that that’s true to some extent but it it never truly died out and there were always people that believed it and right after till today it’s always been there bubbling under the surface of especially rural England and like I say you had these new middle

Class that moved out there and they they ate up all this folklore and it stirred up a sort of under the surface paranoia that went hand inand again with the Cold War paranoia of the others you know there was something you know some nefarious other that was out to cause

Harm and so like these these kind of uh cold War fears were were easily grafted onto these sort of new fears of old Tales you know and old folklore and suddenly you had these like rural types that people were suspicious of like almost like you know going all the way

Back to the 1600s and people being like afraid of that old lady out on the edges of the village who you know is a bit of a Hermit and so she must be a witch and you had exactly the same thing happen where people would be like you know

These rural people they keep themselves to themselves what are they doing behind closed door doors and you had this really interesting paranoia and that is where the black magic circle idea comes from um I believe and it’s it’s a really interesting subject and something which hasn’t had much study about actually and

I would love to um you know do a PhD or something and write a dissertation all about it but um that will never happen anyway I’ll stop waffling because I’m really going on now and it and and it’s probably not making any sense so um thank you very much for listening I hope

You enjoyed the story it was pretty weird this week uh it’s always nice to throw in a little kind of cryptozoological euphology kind of story I love all that um so I hope you enjoyed it too uh if you have anything you’d like to uh contact me about you can do

So I’m on all social media um also email um contact darkh his.com is the email address you can find all of that in the show notes uh as you can also find the um like uh links for our sponsors and uh links to the website on the website you’ll find everything everything you

Need if you want to contact me or anything else merch uh support the show patreon all that kind of stuff links to that are all either in the show notes or darkh his.com so yes that all does exist so anyway thank you very much for listening I will be back in two weeks

With another episode so until then take care sleep time