Implications of Horror Fiction's Natural Antagonists

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

Bela Lugosi is Count Dracula. Source: Wikipedia.

In a previous post, we considered the ethical and metaphysical implications of supernatural villains. In this post, let's consider the implications of horror fiction's natural antagonists.

For those who subscribe to a metaphysical dualism, sources of evil are often divided into supernatural and natural. The latter are often animals or natural disasters. Since such entities and forces are not moral agents, they are not held responsible for the “evil” (destruction, injury, and death) they cause, so there is no ethical dimension to their behavior.

However, when a moral agent controls a natural force or being, a moral dimension does exist, but in regard to the human actors, since they, as moral agents, are responsible for the harm that they unleash through the agency of the natural forces or creatures they direct.

The creature from the Black Lagoon. Source: pri.org

Nevertheless, as anyone who has watched a movie such as King Kong (1933), The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), or Jaws (1975) is aware, wild animals can cause great havoc.

In The Creature, during an expedition to the Amazon, geologists investigate the fossilized remains of an organism intermediate between Earth's marine and terrestrial life forms. Thereafter, the team leader recruits an ichthyologist to assist them, but when they return to their campsite, they discover that the other team members have been killed, supposedly by a jaguar. (In the leader's absence, a surviving member of the species represented by the fossilized remains, curious about the scientists' camp, visits the site, where, frightened by the researchers, it attacks and kills the victims.)

Kay Lawrence and the creature. Source: reddit.com

The expedition then visits the black lagoon at the end of a tributary. When one of their members, Kay Lawrence, goes swimming, she is stalked by the creature, who loses a claw after becoming entangled in one of the drag lines of the crew's ship. Subsequently, the creature kills other members of the expedition until, caught, it is caged aboard the ship.

Escaping, it kills several more of the scientists and captures Kay, taking her to its lair in a cavern. The remaining scientists track the creature, rescue Kay, and kill the monstrous “Gil-man,” shooting it repeatedly.

Although the monster commits several murders, kidnaps Kay, and terrorizes the scientific team, it acts in self-defense, rather than with hostile intent, in an effort to protect itself and, in the case of Kay, perhaps as the result of its seeking a mate.

At no point does the creature intentionally harm anyone, other than in defense of its own life, and its self-defensive behavior is prompted by its instinct for survival, just as its abduction of Kay is an effect of its mating instinct. There is no malice aforethought. The creature does not plan; it does not act with conscious and deliberate intent; and most of its behavior is reactive, rather than causative. Therefore, the creature is not a moral agent.

King Kong meets Ann Darrow. Source: basementrejects.com

King Kong and the great white shark of Jaws are, like the creature from the Black Lagoon, merely animals that react to threats to their lives or, perhaps, with respect to Kong, the mating instinct (although, in his case, this possibility seems a stretch, given his size respective to that of his captive, Ann Darrow; it may be that Kong carries her off simply because he has been conditioned to do so by the natives' periodic practice of offering him a human female sacrifice.)

Indeed, it is often the human characters in such films who cause the reactions of the animals they encounter, hunt, or harass, which, of course, makes the human characters, as moral agents, morally responsible for the resulting destruction, injuries, and deaths their own behavior toward the “antagonists” sets in motion.

God questions Job. Source: wondersforoyarsa.blogspot,com

In Judaeo-Christian-Christian theology, God is a moral agent because he holds Himself morally responsible for the acts he performs. Although his behavior may be mysterious, at times, to human beings, since they lack his omniscience, He declares Himself “righteous” and “without sin,” and holds human beings, his creatures, morally responsible for their lack of faith and trust in Him and His self-characterization, expecting them to trust that He is the perfect moral agent he declares himself to be. It is a sin for them to characterize him as other than he has revealed Himself to them to be. Angels are also moral agents, with free will; some, rebelling against God, were cast into hell; those who remained faithful to Him reside in heaven with Him, as his messengers and servants.

From a Judaeo-Christian perspective, other supernatural agents are either evil in themselves (demons, the “fallen angels” who rebelled against God) or evil because they participate in evil (unrepentant sinners) or allow themselves to be empowered by evil supernatural agents (witches, vampires, werewolves).

From this point of view of this religious tradition, therefore, moral agents can be either supernatural or natural, although, among the latter category of such agents, only human beings, not animals or forces of nature, can be so classified.

Nietzsche, BDSM, and Horror

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

Friedrich Nietzsche. Source: thefamouspeople.com

The title of this post suggests strange bedfellows, as it were. How could there be a link between the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, bondage and discipline (BDSM), and the horror genre? The idea seems ludicrous.

At the very outset of my post, I must clarify that, when I reference Nietzsche, it is as he is misunderstood. Frequently, in the public understanding--or misunderstanding--of Nietzsche's thought, the philosopher's view is not what he actually professes. Nietzsche did not write about a depraved "superman" who defies the morality of the "herd," becoming a "superman" who exists "beyond good and evil," as a law unto himself, only so that he can do as he pleases.

Instead, Nietzsche writes of the happiness that can result from adopting the "aristocratic" values and attributes needed for such a state: wealth, strength, power, and being true to oneself. If one did not adopt such values and attributes, he would become a "slave" by virtue of his poverty, weakness, and powerlessness. However, by adopting and living according to aristocratic values and by using aristocratic attributes, he could become an exceptional person, a "superman," pursuing his own interests and achieving greatness in such pursuits. 

 Alexander the Great. Source: Wikiquote.org

The Nietzschean superman is not Hitler, but Alexander the Great; not Caligula, but Shakespeare; not Nero, but Galileo. The superman is creative, not destructive; a contributor to civilization, not a leech; or, in modern-day terms, a producer, not a consumer.

In the popular understanding (misunderstanding) of the Nietzschean superman, this individual is not an individual who rises to the top of a profession and transforms his world (and, quite possibly, the future world), but a petty-minded, self-absorbed, tyrannical fool who is fortunate to be stronger, both in body and in will, to others and who is able, therefore, to dominate others, a person for whom right is determined by might. With this misunderstanding of the Nietzschean superman in mind, the (perverted) superman's link, in the popular mind, with both the "master" or "dominant" participant in a BDSM relationship and the monster of horror fiction is, perhaps, clear.

 Vacuum bed. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Except to note that many are designed to exalt the dominant while humiliating the submissive participant, we need not delve deeply into the practices associated with BDSM. However, it is necessary, it seems, to characterize the dominant participant in such activities. A survey of BDSM fare shows such a person to be physically powerful, dominant (socially and otherwise), controlling, aggressive, authoritative, often cruel, sometimes merciless, usually narcissistic, and tyrannical. He (or she) tends to prey on others who are physically weaker, submissive, easily controlled, passive, meek, kind or gentle, merciful, altruistic or "giving," and obsequious.

Let's compare the BDSM "master" with human monsters of horror fiction.

 Anthony Hopkins (aka Hannibal Lecter). Source: nl.wikipedia.org

Hannibal Lecter doesn't just kill his quarry; he often eats their corpses afterward, regarding them as much as food as prey. He is thought to be based on Alfredo Balli Trevino, a homosexual Mexican physician-become-serial killer who murdered and mutilated his lover and killed and cut up several hitchhikers.

 Hannibal Lecter (aka Anthony Hopkins). Source en.wikipedia.org

Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter is a cannibalistic serial killer. Intelligent, suave and sophisticated, he cannot abide rude people, for whom, because of their behavior, he has, quite literally, developed a taste. In various of Harris's novels, Lecter is described as a "sociopath," a "monster" who witnessed his sister Mischa being murdered and eaten.

In short, Lecter sounds very much like the mistaken, popular view of the Nietzschean superman who defies the principles of conventional morality, acts strictly for pleasure's sake, delights in dominating others, and is, if not physically superior to others, certainly their intellectual better.

Despite his sophistication and his having become a physician, he, nevertheless, wastes his life in pursuing objectives unworthy of a true Nietzschean superman, who finds happiness in pursuing worthy goals that result in contributions to culture, rather than seeking merely to destroy his inferiors.

Let's examine one other instance of a human "monster," this time one that is featured exclusively in horror films. (Although Lecter appears in movies, too, our analysis is based on his appearance in Harris's novels.)

 John Kramer (aka "Jigsaw"). Source: ru.wikipedia.org

In a sense, John Kramer (aka "Jigsaw"), the villain of the Saw franchise, tests his victims to see whether they possess the superman's will to power. Do they have the attributes to survive? To determine whether they have the right stuff, Kramer subjects his captives to a series of tests which cause them to inflict pain on others (as the dominant participant in a BDSM relationship may often do) or on themselves (as a submissive person who is oriented toward masochism frequently does).

Saw trap: en.wikipedia.org

The tests, furthermore, are meant to represent the "flaws" Kramer sees in his victims' characters. Those who fail his tests die, because, in Kramer's view, they lack "the survival instinct," which Nietzsche would see as preliminary and necessary to the will to power. Ultimately, he hopes the survivors--those who "pass" his bizarre tests--will learn to appreciate their existence and fully embrace life.

Theatrical release poster. Source: wn.wikipedia.org
 

Kramer's narcissism is revealed in his belief that he can and should play God, not only testing his captives' mettle, but also determining, by such tests, who should live and who should die. Indeed, he believes he is doing his victims a favor by imparting a great (but, in reality, a rather mundane) truth: life has great value and should be not only enjoyed, but also fully appreciated.

His quest to impart this simple lesson, he believes, justifies his controlling, aggressive, authoritative, often cruel, sometimes merciless, usually narcissistic, and tyrannical behavior toward those whom he would instruct. It also justifies his infliction of pain on them or, as the case may be, their infliction of pain on others. Although, possessed of a Messiah complex, he believes himself to be a sort of superman, Kramer is, instead, a failed psychopath.

Part of the appeal, in horror, of the misinterpreted Nietzschean superman is his amoral, dominant, and powerful existence. As so conceived, he is wild, "beyond good and evil," a force to be reckoned with, without scruples, qualms, or conscience. He is a bestial human, intelligent but ferocious; rational, but ferocious; subjective, but cruel. He will inflict pain. He will injure, He will kill. He may even cannibalize his victims' remains. At the same time, he is capable of communicating, of enjoying life on his own terms, of doing as he will, whenever and wherever and to whomever he chooses. His victims, on the other hand, are merely things, their humanity denied, whom he uses as he desires, as he pleases, as he needs. They are foils, whose puny opposing traits and values highlight his own superior attributes and values. 

In the safety of their homes or that of movie theaters, audiences enjoy being dehumanized; they enjoy playing the victim; they enjoy being pursued, captured, humiliated, and subjected to the will of one who is motivated only by his own need to appease his desires.

Woman kneeling and bound--BDSM. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
 

But, paradoxically, audiences often play all the roles exhibited by the characters in stories or actors on the screen or stage. They are also the monster, who dehumanizes, pursues, captures, humiliates, and subjects other, lesser men and women to their will, seeking only to appease their own sadistic or monstrous needs.

 Maitresse Francosie. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

In horror movies, we are both the victim and the victimizer, the pursuer and the pursued, the captive and the captor, the humiliated and the humiliating, the killed and the killer. With our own implicit consent, horror makes victims and monsters of us all.

An Essay on the Monstrous

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

Source: Public domain

What is “monstrous”? Does the concept change, thereby altering the understanding of the meaning of the term; do merely the specific instances, the incarnations, so to speak, of the monstrous change; or is there a modification of both the understanding and the incarnations?

 

Source: Public domain

Certainly, the idea of the origin of monsters has changed. Once, monsters were considered omens, or signs warning of divine displeasure, or anger, concerning various types of behavior. Later, monsters were regarded merely as mistakes, or “freaks,” of nature. The origin of monsters, once supernatural, became natural. The hermaphrodite became Frankenstein's creature; the Biblical behemoth became the great white shark of Jaws. (Between these extremes, perhaps, as the great white whale, Herman Melville's Moby Dick.)

 

 Source: Public domain

Prior to the shift from a supernatural to a natural cause of monsters, there had been a shift in the way in which the world, or the universe, was understood. When God had been in charge of the universe He'd created, the universe and everything in it had had been meaningful; in God's plan, there was a place for everything, and everything was expected to stay in its assigned place. The universe was an orderly and planned place, because it had been created according to God's plan, or a design, and existence was teleological. Monsters were beings or forces that disrupted the orderliness of the universe, sought to disrupt God's plan, or showed disobedience to God's will, either by tempting others to sin or by giving in to sin (and sin itself was, quite simply, disobedience to God's will). Anything that differed form God's plan was a monster or was monstrous.

Source: Public domain

When the idea of an accidental, mechanical universe replaced the concept of a divinely created and planned universe, only nature existed (or, if God were to be granted existence, He was seen, first, as indifferent to the universe, as the Deists viewed him, or as irrelevant.) Offenses became unnatural actions, behavior which was not grounded in nature. Anything that “went against nature” was a monster or monstrous. Indeed, a naturalistic understanding of the universe is seen in the change in viewing monsters and the monstrous that is indicated in the etymology, or history, of the word “monster,” which, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, originally referred to a “"divine omen (especially one indicating misfortune), portent, sign” and, only about the fourteenth century became understood as meaning “malformed animal or human, creature afflicted with a birth defect.”

 Source: Public domain

Although some continue to believe that God exists, that He created the world and human beings, the latter in his own “image and likeness,” according to a plan and that the universe is consequently not only orderly, but purposeful, teleological, and meaningful, many others believe that God either does not exist or, if He does, His existence is inconsequential and that human beings must chart their own courses. In the former conception of the universe, wrongdoing is evil, and it is evil because it involves intentional disobedience to God's will; in the latter conception of the universe, wrongdoing is immoral because it is counter to that which is natural. In the former universe, the monstrous takes the form of demons and unrepentant sinners. In the latter universe, evil takes the form of “freaks” of nature, such as maladapted mutants, victims of birth defects, or the psychologically defective: grotesques, cripples, and cannibals.

Alternatively, in a naturalistic universe, monsters may be social misfits. Not only serial killers, sadists, and psychopaths, but also any group that is unconventional, or “other,” or is vilified or ostracized by the dominant social group (e. g., a community or a nation), examples of whom, historically, include homosexuals, Romani people, “savage” “Indians,” current or former martial enemies, cult members, and so forth.

 

Source: Public domain

Our line of inquiry leads, at last, a question and a conclusion. First, what happens when we run out of monsters? As our ideas of the monstrous change, monsters lose their monstrosity: homosexuals, Romani people, Native Americans, the nations that joined together as World War II's Axis powers, members of religious organizations once condemned as “cults” and “sects” have, today, become acceptable. Their members are no longer monsters. As the pool of candidates for monstrosity shrinks, what shall become of the very idea of monstrosity itself? Who will become the monsters of the future, when all the monsters of the present and the past are no longer considered monstrous?

 

Source: Public domain

 The answer to this question, it seems, is that we shall be left with the few actions that are universally condemned, that are unacceptable in all lands, everywhere. We might list among such behaviors incest, rape, premeditated murder that is unsanctioned by the state (that is not, in effect, condoned as a necessary wartime activity), child abuse, and, perhaps, cannibalism, which leaves, as monsters, the incestuous lover, the rapist, the murderer, the child abuser, and the cannibal. These could be the only monsters that remain in the future.

Source: Public domain

But they won't be. Here's why: horror is a type of fantasy fiction. As such, it includes characters, actions, places, causes, motives, and purposes that are unacceptable in more realistic fiction or drama. There is room for demons and witches, alongside werewolves and vampires, as well as the monsters embodying truly universally condemned behaviors and the people (or characters) who perform them. For this reason, horror fiction will never be without the monsters of old, even if, metaphysically, epistemologically, scientifically, and otherwise, they have long ago worn out their welcome. Fantasy has had, has, and always will have a home for them.

Meanwhile, however, the history of horror fiction has provided a way to identify threats that, rightly or wrongly, dominant societies have considered dangerous to their welfare or survival, and these threats, once they are seen as no longer threatening, have likewise shown what perceived menaces, in the final analysis, are not dangerous to social welfare, just as they identify the true menaces, the true monsters, that are condemned not just her or there for a time, but everywhere, at all times.

Gigantic Horrors

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Today, we know that gigantism is caused by the excessive production of the growth hormone somatotropin during puberty, prior to the fusion of the epiphyseal growth plate. Gigantism may also be influenced by the hormone insulin-like growth factor-I, or somatomedic-C. Genetic mutations account for about half the cases of gigantism; various genetic disorders are also associated with the condition.

Wadlow standing next to his father

According to medical science, a giant is any person who is seven feet tall or taller. Some well-known giants include Robert Wadlow (8'11”), who performed for he Ringling Brothers Circus; wrestler Andre the Giant (André René Roussimoff) (7'4”); and Anna Haining Bates (7'11”), a Canadian actress who also performed for the W.W. Cole Circus. More than a few basketball players are also seven feet tall or taller, thereby qualifying as giants, including Shaquille O'Neal (7'1”), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (7'2”).

In pre-scientific literature, giants are depicted as much stronger than ordinary men and women and, the “gentle giant” notwithstanding, are often represented as hostile or cruel.

Goliath, the giant Philistine defeated by David, was 6'9” according to the Dead Sea Scrolls, but he was 9'9” according to the Masoretic Text, which is the authoritative source of the Old Testament.

 Alleged skull of a member of the Biblical Nephilim

Other Biblical giants include the Nephilim, most commonly thought to have been the offspring of demons and mortal women, which, of late, have encouraged several hoaxes pertaining to the alleged discoveries of their skeletal remains.

 

Children of Uranus and Gaia, the Cyclopes were mythical giants, although their height is unrecorded. The best-known Cyclops is the cannibalistic Polyphemus, who consumes four of Odysseus's men. Norse mythology is replete with giants, including Fafner and Fasolt, who seized the goddess Freyja.

One reason that giants frighten is that their size reminds us of our own relative insignificance and vulnerability. Effortlessly, giants could squash us like so many bugs. We would be totally at their mercy, and, if they lack mercy, if they are hostile and cruel, as they are often depicted, especially in horror fiction, then we are clearly at risk of being injured or killed—and possibly even eaten!

Another reason that giants frighten is that, by virtue of their vastly increased size, whatever special or unique abilities they have are also proportionately increased. If a hornet measures about 1.8 inch long, or 45 millimeters, and its stinger is normally 0.24-inch, or six millimeters, long, then a 10-foot-long (3.05-meter) hornet would have a stinger about one foot, three inches (0.4-meter) long!

Some horror movies depict threats from giant animals, including insects. Among such fare are the giant ants of Them! (1954); the giant wasps of The Food of the Gods (1973); which, for good measure, also features giant rats; the giant spiders of Ice Spiders (2007) and Arachnid (2001); the giant mosquitoes of Mosquito (1995); the praying mantis of The Deadly Mantis (1957); and others.

Giant reptiles appear in several horror movies, including Alligator (1980); Freshwater (2016); Anaconda (1997); Boa vs. Python (2004), Crocodile (2000); Curse of the Komodo (2004); Mega Snake (2007); Reptilicus (1961); The Giant Gila Monster (1959); and others.

Another popular giant menace is the ape: the ape of Ape (1976); the gorilla of King Kong (1933); and the gorilla of The Mighty Gorga (1969); the gorilla of Rampage (2018); and others.

Worms, fish, crustaceans, and marine mammals are featured in quite a few horror films: Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957); Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959); the snakehead fish of Frankenfish (2004); the octopus of It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955); and others.

Various dinosaurs, another favorite giant monster, appear in Attack of the Sabretooth (2005); The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953); The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1953), Carnosaur (1993); Dinoshark (2010); King Dinosaur (1955); The Last Dinosaur (1977); Legend of Dinosaurs & Monster Birds (1977); Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus (2010); Planet of Dinosaurs (1977); and others.

Only a few science fiction horror films feature giant humans, among them The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), War of the Colossal Beast (1958), Attack of the 50-Foot Woman (1958); The Cyclops (1957); and The War of the Gargantuas (1966) among them.

Horror Story Plot Formulas

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

In every horror movie, there is, of course, a protagonist and an antagonist. For convenience, I'm going to refer to them as the monster and the hero. Of course, the monster, both human and non-human, and the “hero” can just as easily be a girl or a woman as a boy or a man.

For there to be a story, there has to be conflict, and the major and most important type of conflict, that between the monster and the hero, results from their encounter. Therefore, they must come together, usually in the first part of the story. Writers have come up with a variety of ways for the monster and the hero to meet, if not greet, one another. These methods of encounter, in turn, help to establish various narrative formulas.

Some of these formulas we might call The Return, The Invasion, The Trespass, The Act of Vengeance, and The Fish Out of Water. Here are the breakdowns of these plots and a few examples of each.

The Return

Beginning

A monster (an ancient evil) awakens or returns.

Middle

The monster becomes active again.

End

By learning the monster's origin or nature, the hero eliminates or neutralizes the monster.

Examples: Summer of Night, It

The Invasion

Beginning

A monster moves into a community foreign to itself.

Middle

The monster becomes active in its new surroundings, behaving as it did in its original habitat.

End

By learning the monster's origin or nature, the hero eliminates or neutralizes the monster.

Examples: Dracula, 'Salem's Lot

The Trespass

Beginning

Trespassers disturb or threaten a monster's habitat.

Middle

The monster defends its turf.

End

The trespassers capture or kill the monster, escape from the monster, or are killed by the monster.

Examples: The Descent, Poltergeist, King Kong, The Thing

The Act of Vengeance

Beginning

The monster or his or her loved one is wronged.

Middle

The monster seeks to avenge him- or herself or a loved one.

End

The monster is imprisoned, killed, or otherwise neutralized or escapes.

Examples: The Abominable Dr. Phibes, I Know What You Did Last Summer, A Nightmare on Elm Street

The Fish Out of Water

Beginning

The hero, relocated to a strange new environment, usually that of the monster, is out of his or her depth.

Middle

The monster, at home in the environment, maintains the upper hand against the hero.

End

The hero kills the monster or escapes or is killed by the monster.

Examples: Open Water, Backcountry, Jaws.

Note: A future post may present other horror story plot formulas.

The Horror at Martin's Beach

(Original title “The Invisible Monster”)

by Sonia Greene

I have never heard an even approximately adequate explanation of the horror at Martin's Beach. Despite the large number of witnesses, no two accounts agree; and the testimony taken by local authorities contains the most amazing discrepancies. 

 

Perhaps this haziness is natural in view of the unheard-of character of the horror itself, the almost paralytic terror of all who saw it, and the efforts made by the fashionable Wavecrest Inn to hush it up after the publicity created by Prof. Ahon's article "Are Hypnotic Powers Confined to Recognized Humanity?" 
 
Against all these obstacles I am striving to present a coherent version; for I beheld the hideous occurrence, and believe it should be known in view of the appalling possibilities it suggests. Martin's Beach is once more popular as a watering-place, but I shudder when I think of it. Indeed, I cannot look at the ocean at all now without shuddering. 
 
Fate is not always without a sense of drama and climax, hence the terrible happening of August 8, 1922, swiftly followed a period of minor and agreeably wonder-fraught excitement at Martin's Beach. On May 17 the crew of the fishing smack Alma of Gloucester, under Capt. James P. Orne, killed, after a battle of nearly forty hours, a marine monster whose size and aspect produced the greatest possible stir in scientific circles and caused certain Boston naturalists to take every precaution for its taxidermic preservation. 
 
The object was some fifty feet in length, of roughly cylindrical shape, and about ten feet in diameter. It was unmistakably a gilled fish in its major affiliations; but with certain curious modifications such as rudimentary forelegs and six-toed feet in place of pectoral fins, which prompted the widest speculation. Its extraordinary mouth, its thick and scaly hide, and its single, deep-set eye were wonders scarcely less remarkable than its colossal dimensions; and when the naturalists pronounced it an infant organism, which could not have been hatched more than a few days, public interest mounted to extraordinary heights. 
 
Capt. Orne, with typical Yankee shrewdness, obtained a vessel large enough to hold the object in its hull, and arranged for the exhibition of his prize. With judicious carpentry he prepared what amounted to an excellent marine museum, and, sailing south to the wealthy resort district of Martin's Beach, anchored at the hotel wharf and reaped a harvest of admission fees. 
 
The intrinsic marvelousness of the object, and the importance which it clearly bore in the minds of many scientific visitors from near and far, combined to make it the season's sensation. That it was absolutely unique—unique to a scientifically revolutionary degree—was well understood. The naturalists had shown plainly that it radically differed from the similarly immense fish caught off the Florida coast; that, while it was obviously an inhabitant of almost incredible depths, perhaps thousands of feet, its brain and principal organs indicated a development startlingly vast, and out of all proportion to anything hitherto associated with the fish tribe. 
 
On the morning of July 20 the sensation was increased by the loss of the vessel and its strange treasure. In the storm of the preceding night it had broken from its moorings and vanished forever from the sight of man, carrying with it the guard who had slept aboard despite the threatening weather. Capt. Orne, backed by extensive scientific interests and aided by large numbers of fishing boats from Gloucester, made a thorough and exhaustive searching cruise, but with no result other than the prompting of interest and conversation. By August 7 hope was abandoned, and Capt. Orne had returned to the Wavecrest Inn to wind up his business affairs at Martin's Beach and confer with certain of the scientific men who remained there. The horror came on August 8.

It was in the twilight, when grey sea-birds hovered low near the shore and a rising moon began to make a glittering path across the waters. The scene is important to remember, for every impression counts. On the beach were several strollers and a few late bathers; stragglers from the distant cottage colony that rose modestly on a green hill to the north, or from the adjacent cliff-perched Inn whose imposing towers proclaimed its allegiance to wealth and grandeur. 
 
Well within viewing distance was another set of spectators, the loungers on the Inn's high-ceiled and lantern-lighted veranda, who appeared to be enjoying the dance music from the sumptuous ballroom inside. 
These spectators, who included Capt. Orne and his group of scientific confreres, joined the beach group before the horror progressed far; as did many more from the Inn. Certainly there was no lack of witnesses, confused though their stories be with fear and doubt of what they saw. 
 
There is no exact record of the time the thing began, although a majority say that the fairly round moon was "about a foot" above the low-lying vapors of the horizon. They mention the moon because what they saw seemed subtly connected with it—a sort of stealthy, deliberate, menacing ripple which rolled in from the far skyline along the shimmering lane of reflected moonbeams, yet which seemed to subside before it reached the shore. 
 
Many did not notice this ripple until reminded by later events; but it seems to have been very marked, differing in height and motion from the normal waves around it. Some called it cunning and calculating. And as it died away craftily by the black reefs afar out, there suddenly came belching up out of the glitter-streaked brine a cry of death; a scream of anguish and despair that moved pity even while it mocked it. 
 
First to respond to the cry were the two life guards then on duty; sturdy fellows in white bathing attire, with their calling proclaimed in large red letters across their chests. Accustomed as they were to rescue work, and to the screams of the drowning, they could find nothing familiar in the unearthly ululation; yet with a trained sense of duty they ignored the strangeness and proceeded to follow their usual course. 
 
Hastily seizing an air-cushion, which with its attached coil of rope lay always at hand, one of them ran swiftly along the shore to the scene of the gathering crowd; whence, after whirling it about to gain momentum, he flung the hollow disc far out in the direction from which the sound had come. As the cushion disappeared in the waves, the crowd curiously awaited a sight of the hapless being whose distress had been so great; eager to see the rescue made by the massive rope. 
 
But that rescue was soon acknowledged to be no swift and easy matter; for, pull as they might on the rope, the two muscular guards could not move the object at the other end. Instead, they found that object pulling with equal or even greater force in the very opposite direction, till in a few seconds they were dragged off their feet and into the water by the strange power which had seized on the proffered life-preserver. 
 
One of them, recovering himself, called immediately for help from the crowd on the shore, to whom he flung the remaining coil of rope; and in a moment the guards were seconded by all the hardier men, among whom Capt. Orne was foremost. More than a dozen strong hands were now tugging desperately at the stout line, yet wholly without avail. 
 
Hard as they tugged, the strange force at the other end tugged harder; and since neither side relaxed for an instant, the rope became rigid as steel with the enormous strain. The struggling participants, as well as the spectators, were by this time consumed with curiosity as to the nature of the force in the sea. The idea of a drowning man had long been dismissed; and hints of whales, submarines, monsters, and demons now passed freely around. Where humanity had first led the rescuers, wonder kept them at their task; and they hauled with a grim determination to uncover the mystery. 
 
It being decided at last that a whale must have swallowed the air-cushion, Capt. Orne, as a natural leader, shouted to those on shore that a boat must be obtained in order to approach, harpoon, and land the unseen leviathan. Several men at once prepared to scatter in quest of a suitable craft, while others came to supplant the captain at the straining rope, since his place was logically with whatever boat party might be formed. His own idea of the situation was very broad, and by no means limited to whales, since he had to do with a monster so much stranger. He wondered what might be the acts and manifestations of an adult of the species of which the fifty-foot creature had been the merest infant. 
 
And now there developed with appalling suddenness the crucial fact which changed the entire scene from one of wonder to one of horror, and dazed with fright the assembled band of toilers and onlookers. Capt. Orne, turning to leave his post at the rope, found his hands held in their place with unaccountable strength; and in a moment he realized that he was unable to let go of the rope. His plight was instantly divined, and as each companion tested his own situation the same condition was encountered. The fact could not be denied—every struggler was irresistibly held in some mysterious bondage to the hempen line which was slowly, hideously, and relentlessly pulling them out to sea. 
 
Speechless horror ensued; a horror in which the spectators were petrified to utter inaction and mental chaos. Their complete demoralization is reflected in the conflicting accounts they give, and the sheepish excuses they offer for their seemingly callous inertia. I was one of them, and know. 
 
Even the strugglers, after a few frantic screams and futile groans, succumbed to the paralyzing influence and kept silent and fatalistic in the face of unknown powers. There they stood in the pallid moonlight, blindly pulling against a spectral doom and swaying monotonously backward and forward as the water rose first to their knees, then to their hips. The moon went partly under a cloud, and in the half-light the line of swaying men resembled some sinister and gigantic centipede, writhing in the clutch of a terrible creeping death. 
 
Harder and harder grew the rope, as the tug in both directions increased, and the strands swelled with the undisturbed soaking of the rising waves. Slowly the tide advanced, till the sands so lately peopled by laughing children and whispering lovers were now swallowed by the inexorable flow. The herd of panic-stricken watchers surged blindly backward as the water crept above their feet, while the frightful line of strugglers swayed hideously on, half submerged, and now at a substantial distance from their audience. Silence was complete. 
 
The crowd, having gained a huddling-place beyond reach of the tide, stared in mute fascination; without offering a word of advice or encouragement, or attempting any kind of assistance. There was in the air a nightmare fear of impending evils such as the world had never before known. 
 
Minutes seemed lengthened into hours, and still that human snake of swaying torsos was seen above the fast rising tide. Rhythmically it undulated; slowly, horribly, with the seal of doom upon it. Thicker clouds now passed over the ascending moon, and the glittering path on the waters faded nearly out. 
 
Very dimly writhed the serpentine line of nodding heads, with now and then the livid face of a backward-glancing victim gleaming pale in the darkness. Faster and faster gathered the clouds, till at length their angry rifts shot down sharp tongues of febrile flame. Thunders rolled, softly at first, yet soon increasing to a deafening, maddening intensity. Then came a culminating crash—a shock whose reverberations seemed to shake land and sea alike—and on its heels a cloudburst whose drenching violence overpowered the darkened world as if the heavens themselves had opened to pour forth a vindictive torrent. 
 
The spectators, instinctively acting despite the absence of conscious and coherent thought, now retreated up the cliff steps to the hotel veranda. Rumors had reached the guests inside, so that the refugees found a state of terror nearly equal to their own. I think a few frightened words were uttered, but cannot be sure. 
 
Some, who were staying at the Inn, retired in terror to their rooms; while others remained to watch the fast sinking victims as the line of bobbing heads showed above the mounting waves in the fitful lightning flashes. I recall thinking of those heads, and the bulging eyes they must contain; eyes that might well reflect all the fright, panic, and delirium of a malignant universe—all the sorrow, sin, and misery, blasted hopes and unfulfilled desires, fear, loathing and anguish of the ages since time's beginning; eyes alight with all the soul-racking pain of eternally blazing infernos. 
 
And as I gazed out beyond the heads, my fancy conjured up still another eye; a single eye, equally alight, yet with a purpose so revolting to my brain that the vision soon passed. Held in the clutches of an unknown vise, the line of the damned dragged on; their silent screams and unuttered prayers known only to the demons of the black waves and the night-wind. 
 
There now burst from the infuriate sky such a mad cataclysm of satanic sound that even the former crash seemed dwarfed. Amidst a blinding glare of descending fire the voice of heaven resounded with the blasphemies of hell, and the mingled agony of all the lost reverberated in one apocalyptic, planet-rending peal of Cyclopean din. It was the end of the storm, for with uncanny suddenness the rain ceased and the moon once more cast her pallid beams on a strangely quieted sea. 
 
There was no line of bobbing heads now. The waters were calm and deserted, and broken only by the fading ripples of what seemed to be a whirlpool far out in the path of the moonlight whence the strange cry had first come. But as I looked along that treacherous lane of silvery sheen, with fancy fevered and senses overwrought, there trickled upon my ears from some abysmal sunken waste the faint and sinister echoes of a laugh. 

 

10 People Mistaken for Imaginary Creatures

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

10 Andrew Swofford

Apparently, some spirits of the dead are transvestites. Perhaps too embarrassed to buy clothes of their own (or too poor—most ghosts, it seems, have little or no need, as a rule, for cash, checks, credit cards, or bank accounts), one apparition decided to raid the closet Maddie, of a University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Maddie and her roommates live off-campus, in the Edge Apartments on Oakland Avenue, but it was Maddie whose shirts and pants went missing. The ghost proved more tangible than most, leaving its handprints on the apartment's bathroom wall.

 

When she heard “rattling” in her closet on February 4, 2019, Maddie went to investigate, thinking maybe a raccoon had been trapped inside. That's when she caught the ghost red-handed (so to speak). He was wearing her socks and shoes and had heisted a bag of her clothes. He tried on one of Maddie's hats, before inspecting himself in her bathroom mirror and, after complimenting her appearance, asked for a hug, but never touched her.

The ghost turned out to be 30-year-old Andrew Swofford. He was arrested on fourteen felony counts, including larceny and identity theft, and held on a $26,000 bond. Maddie and her roomies have since moved out of the apartment, having found their flesh-and-blood intruder more unnerving than the ghost they'd believed was haunting their abode.

9 Krushna Chandra Nayak

In August, 2018, forty-five-year-old Nakula Nayak and his brother Shyam Nayak, both of whom lived out of town, in Chhelianala, India, came to the village of Angikala to notify a relative, Sahadev Nayak, that their mother had died. Due to the lateness of the hour, the brothers stayed overnight with Sahadev.

Around midnight, Nakula went outside, to a field close by, to relieve himself. Coincidentally, Sahadev's cousin, Krushna Nayak, was working outdoors. The night was quite dark, and when Krushna saw  Nakula, Krushna mistook the visitor for a ghost.

 

Terrified, Krushna began beating Nakula with a lathi, a heavy, iron-bound bamboo stick. During the struggle, Nakula managed to wrest the weapon from Krushna and began to strike his assailant, believing his attacker to be a ghost, just as Krushna had mistaken Nakula for a spirit. Nakula's assault on Krushna proved fatal, and Nakula was arrested by the Turumunga police after Krushna's family lodged a complaint against him.

8 Unidentified Helena, Montana, Man

Was the shooter's reason for shooting at a 27-year-old Helena man nothing more than a lame excuse, or did the gunman really believe that his quarry, who was setting up targets on public land, a Bigfoot?

The victim told police bullets came flying at him, left and right, as he positioned the targets. When additional rounds were fired at him, he sought cover among trees. Later, he emerged to “confront” the shooter, who drove a black Ford F-150 full-size pickup truck.

The Helena man said the man who targeted him in December, 2018, had mistaken him for Bigfoot. “I don’t target practice,” he explained, “but if I see something that looks like Bigfoot, I just shoot at it.” To prevent others from making a similar mistake, the shooter suggested that his victim wear an orange vest.

Initially, police were skeptical of the man's report, because he was unable to describe the alleged shooter, did not want to file charges, and was reluctant to speak to deputies. Authorities were unable to locate a truck in the area that fit the description of the Ford F-150 pickup.

Then, a woman reported a similar incident involving a man who drove a vehicle of the same color, make, and model and had shot at her. She was able to provide a solid description of her assailant.

“We’re working to find this person,” Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said. “It is of great concern that this individual might think it’s okay to shoot at anything he thinks is Bigfoot.” If apprehended, the shooter could be charged with attempted negligent homicide.

7 Wendy Thinnamay Masuka

In April, 2018, thirty-seven-year-old Zimbabwe pastor Masimba Chirayi killed Wendy Thinnamay Masuka while baptizing her. The adult congregant had reacted violently to the baptism, he said.

 

Her violence indicated to him that she was a “vampire possessed by demons,” and he believed that she might “kill people.” To prevent this possibility, Chirayi deliberately “kept her submerged in water until [he] overpowered her.”

Following his appearance in a magistrate's court in Zimbabwe, the pastor was granted bail.

6 Helaria Montepon Gumilid

Mistaking Helaria Montepon Gumilid, a 79-year-old widow, for an aswang (a carnivorous shape-shifter that may appear to be an ordinary person, despite “reclusive habits or magical abilities,” Helaria's daughter-in-law, Myrna Damason Gumilid, age 49, and Myrna's two sons, Rene Boy Gumilid, age 28, and Joseph Damason Gumilid, age 23, hacked her to death.

 In April, 2014, the victim had been visiting her mentally-ill grandson in Zamboanga City, Philippines, when she was attacked and killed.  Myrna, Rene Boy, and Joseph bound Helaria, “slit her armpits,” hacked her to death, and removed one of her organs to prevent her from “regenerating.”

Authorities arrested the suspects, whom they planned to charge in the horrific crime.

5 African Man

In October, 2010, firefighters responding to a report that people had jumped from the third-story balcony of a housing unit in the village of La Verriere, France, discovered seriously injured relatives among the eleven family members who'd made the leap. They also found a two-year-old survivor, a baby, and a nude African man with a knife wound to his hand. The baby later died at a hospital in Paris. (La Verriere is located on the edge of the city.)

Thirteen people were watching television in the apartment when the naked man, hearing the baby cry, rose to prepare a bottle for the child. His wife screamed, “It's the devil! It's the devil!” His sister-in-law stabbed him in the hand, and he was thrown out of the apartment.

 

When he tried to return, the others panicked, leaping from through the window, one man with the two-year-old girl in his arms. The man crawled away, hiding in bushes tow blocks away. “I had to defend myself,” he screamed. Seven of the jumpers required medical treatment for multiple injuries.

No hallucinogenics and no indication of the practice of any occult rituals were found. The assistant prosecutor from Versailles, Odile Faivre, admitted, “A number of points remain to be cleared up.”

4 James Velasco

Hacked, bitten, and beaten, James Velasco was killed by his grandfather, Orak Mantawil, during a December, 2015, power outage at their family-owned residence in Bliss, Barangay Nituran, Parang, Maguindanao.

Mantawil was carrying his four-year-old grandson in his arms when he mistook James for a tiyana, a vampire who assumes the form of a child or a newborn infant. He apologized to his family and the boy's parents, saying that he was drunk and cannot recall what happened after he saw James as a tiyana. He told investigators that he does not “use drugs.”

 James's parents brought charges of parricide against Mantawil. “He could no longer bring back my child’s life even though he asked forgiveness,” said Fatima Velasco, James's mother and Mantawil's daughter. She also said, “My child sustained human bites. It appeared like his blood was sucked.”

Mantawil has been arrested and will be subjected to a psychological examination and a drug test.

3 Stella

After Stella was caught tiptoeing on graves at Luveve Cemetery in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, in 2018, a crowd meted out vigilante justice, beating the woman, who they regarded as a witch searching for corpses she could cannibalize.

A Luveve resident said, “I was on my way to work when I saw a woman with torn, dirty clothes talking to herself while tiptoeing on the graves. I quickly called out to other people passing by.” When asked her name, the woman repeatedly replied “Stella.”

 The crowd set upon her, whipping her until she wailed in pain. Police rescued her when they arrived on the scene, and Stella was taken to the police station, where, Bulawayo police spokesperson Inspector Abednico Ncube said, she was found to be “mentally unstable” and to be guilty of nothing more than of having been “at the wrong place at the wrong time.” A family who'd reported the woman missing identified her as a relative.

2 Zana

Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at the University of Oxford, said a West African DNA strain might belong to a human subspecies.

The DNA sample was taken from a hirsute, auburn-haired, 6'6”-tall, mid-19-century African slave named Zana who lived in mid-19th-century Russia proves she was 100-percent African, despite the fact that she didn't look like any modern African group of people.

In fact, according to a Russian zoologist, “her expression . . . was pure animal.”

 

 Sykes suggests that she and her ancestors left Africa 100,000 years ago to dwell in the region of the Caucasus Mountains. His most astonishing claim, however, is that Zana might have been a yeti, or so-called abominable snowman.

Several critics are more than a bit skeptical of Sykes's claims. For example, Jason Colavito points out that, by Sykes's own admission, the geneticist “has found no genetic evidence that yet points conclusively to a pre-modern origin for Zana” and suggests that the characterization of her as being more “animal” than human might have a racist origin: “As best I can tell, there are no nineteenth century primary sources related to Zana, and all of the accounts of her large, apelike appearance derive from local lore recorded more than a hundred years after the fact, and during a time when Black Africans were routinely described as apelike, particularly by isolated rural populations with little or no contact with other races.”

It seems possible that Sykes has mistaken Zana for a yeti, when, in fact, she was actually a 19th-century African slave.

1 Horseman (Centaur)

Ancient people also sometimes mistook people for imaginary creatures.

Imagine the shock that ancient Greeks and other Mediterranean peoples experienced when they first witnessed mounted Eurasian soldiers invading their lands. The cavalry was unknown to them. The horsemen must have seemed a perfect union of man and horse, a hybrid fusion of the human and the equine. Such warriors would have been terrifying, and warriors wielding shields and striking with swords must have seemed invincible.

As Bjarke Rink observes in his book, The Rise of the Centaurs, “The impact of cavalry action upon farming societies was shattering”—and this sight was the origin of the mythical creature known as the centaur, a presumed hybrid of man and beast that the ancient Greeks mistook for true monsters: “The weird creature that captured the world's imagination for thousands of years was not a myth at all, but the first sighting of fighting horsemen by the peasant farmers of Greece.”