Night Jumpers

The author of this rather fast paced compilation of creatures that terrify, defies the more popular theories on the nature of cryptids and beasties of legend when he gives them an evil supernatural origin. Who am I to argue? I find and report and like my hero in this field, Nick Redfern, I strive to keep an open mind. That's why Nick is at the top of my favorite researcher/investigators of strange phenomena.

Now to William B. Stoecker's list of legendary nightmares.

Since time immemorial people have reported encounters with fabulous and often terrifying creatures, many of them seemingly supernatural and able to appear, haunt a region for a time, and then vanish. Even the ones that appear to be real, live physical animals are, apparently, never killed or captured. People all over the world have legends of dragons and of sea and lake monsters, most of them described in remarkably similar terms, and usually they resemble recent accounts of lake monsters supposedly haunting the depths of Loch Ness, Lake Champlain, Lake Okanogan, and other locales. People almost everywhere have legends of other races of humanoid beings living here on Earth or in some realm very near to us, often located underground, or reached by journeying underground. These include a bewildering array of giants, dwarves, gnomes, fairies, elves, and leprechauns, many of them resembling the beings that, today, are associated with UFOs. UFO experiencers have reported diminutive grays, reptoids (also reported in swamps and other desolate areas even when no UFOs are observed), mantis-like insectoids, seemingly human “Aryans,” and, less commonly, a variety of other creatures. In ancient times people saw trolls and wild men; today they report Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and the yeti.

Sometimes these hairy humanoids are associated with UFOs. Then there are the Men in Black, or MIBs that reportedly question or even harass or threaten UFO witnesses; some suspect that these beings may themselves be UFO entities and possibly supernatural. In addition, there are seemingly normal, well known animals that appear out of place, like the phantom “panthers” and other big cats seen in England. The term “panther” refers to a big cat with a black coloration, most common among the spotted cats like leopards and jaguars. Somehow these big cats always seem to elude capture, rather like the kangaroos reported in the US; I shall have more to say about them later.

Writers such as Loren Coleman and the late John Keel have researched and written entire books on this subject, but a brief summary can be useful, and helps us to see similarities between many of these creatures. With a little study, intriguing connections and patterns emerge.
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