This piece from Lon Coleman is asone with the reports relating to the Mothman out of the Appalachians . We do not seem to have many reports so far,even though we are covering both sides of the Atlantic .
What becomes clear is that thisis a creature distinctly separate from the much more observed VampirePterodactyl showing up in the Great Plains . It is clearly a giant owl capable of the samestyle of flight as any large owl which is significantly different than that ofmost birds.
As I have posted before, itappears to be a variation of any giant horned owl that we are familiar with.
1 It will cover a wide hunting range late at night andnever be easily identified even in daylight. Again it is nocturnal and thus rarely seen in flight easily.
2 It is an owl and feeds of rabbits and the like that itcatches on open ground. There isobviously plenty of such food. The othersmaller owls feed of much smaller prey.
3 It roosts in deep woodland inside excellent cover andalways retains the option of a quick flight making human capture nearly impossible. Thus a large population is actually possible,however unlikely we may believe that to be.
4 This is negative evidence but we do not appear to haverelated cattle deaths.
5 If seen in flight, it will be seen at a distance and atheight and be seen only in silhouette making recognition nearly impossible toeven an expert who will merely dismiss as another large Eagle or Hawk. I once had the privilege of observing a lowflying Swamp Hawk in Ontario
6 This observation difficulty has also hidden the VampirePterodactyl in plain sight as its head lacks the distinctive Pterodactyl shape,although the tail is a giveaway if it is close enough (observed once perhaps)
What is more, a giant owl is actuallyquite plausible and a body would be instantly recognized as such. So even with the scantest of eye witnessreports, we know what we are seeing and it has an honored place in our menagerie. The same is not true for the VampirePterodactyl. No scientist in his rightmind is going to champion that cause even possibly with a body in tow. Yet as Sherlock Holmes so succinctly had it,after all other possibilities are ruled out; it is time to consider the impossible,however confounding.
We have a predator and an ampleprey supply and they need each other.
The History of the Owlman
THURSDAY, MAY 19, 2011
A few weeks ago I was informed of a large flying being seen in avillage in southeast Wales
Mawnan is a village in southern
In another sighting, two people saw it standing in a large tree, near theMawnan church. At first the witnesses thought someone was playing a trickon them by being dressed in a costume. But as they observed the creature, itflew up into the air, and away from the area. After it flew away, there was acrackling or static noise heard in the trees for some time.
In a 1996 sighting a woman reported seeing a strange glob of glowing lightfloating over the church. She watched as the light faded away, only to bereplaced by another one a short distance away. The color of the lights wasorange-red.
In 2003 two teenage girls were out after midnight driving in avehicle, when they wanted to listen to some music. They wanted to have themusic playing loudly, so not wanting to disturb local neighbors, they drove tothe Mawnan church which is isolated and empty at night. After theywere at the church for a few minutes the girls observed a glowing orpulsating blog of colored light hovering over the church, after awhile itvanished and the girls returned home.
in September of 2009 a 12 year old girl named Jessica Wilkins or JessicaWilkinson encountered the Owlman of Mawnan. This is the first sighting that Ihave heard of in several years and only the second this century.
The creature has been described as a monstrous thing resembling a mix of 3beings; an owl, a bear, and a man. The creatures height is estimated as 7 feettall. It has large flapping wings that are covered with grayish-brown feathers.The legs and body are also covered with feathers.
The eyes are large, slanted and glow bright red. On top of it's head are pointyears, it's feet have large, black crab-like claws.
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The History of the Owlman
A letter written by Tony 'Doc' Shiels - April 1976: "A very weird thinghappened over the Easter weekend. A holiday-maker from Preston, Lancs., told meabout something his two young daughters had seen ... a big, feathered bird-manhovering over the church tower at Mawnan (a village near the mouth ofthe
"There have been no reports, so far as I know, of anybody else seeing theBird-Man ... even if it turned out to be just a fancy dress hang-glider, you'dthink someone else would have spotted him ... but Mawnan is not a place forhang-gliding! I really don't know what to think ... it's as if a whole load ofweirdness has been let loose in the
For a period between the late autumn of 1975 and the early spring of 1977 itseems that
There were dramatic extremes in the weather - droughts and floods – heat wavesand frozen wastes. The local animal life went (figuratively and literally)crazy; one unfortunate woman was imprisoned in her house by hordes of attackingbirds which literally beat themselves to death against the walls of her house,which was dripping red with their blood. Another woman was similarly imprisonedby a mob of feral cats, dog attacks trebled, swimmers were attacked by dolphins(who also saved other swimmers from drowning), and there were reports thatcattle belonging to local farmers had developed the power of teleportation.Most interesting to the fortean were the burgeoning numbers of UFO sightingsand the reports of three entirely different sets of mystery animal in theregion; Morgawr (the
The first reports of these 'creatures' in print were in an obscurebooklet entitled Morgawr-the monster of
Although not widely read outside Cornwall, this booklet was availableextensively throughout the county and was read by many people including twoyoung girls of fourteen, SallyChapman and Barbara Perry, who in early July1976 were camping in the woods by Mawnan Old Church when they, too,saw the Owlman.
They met Tony on
Sally described what they had seen: "It was like a big owl with pointedears, as big as a man. The eyes were red and glowing. At first, I thought thatit was someone dressed up, playing a joke, trying to scare us. I laughed at it,we both did, then it went up in the air and we both screamed. When it went upyou could see its feet were like pincers"
Her friend added some details of her own: "It's true. It was horrible, anasty owl-face with big ears and big red eyes. It was covered in grey feathers.The claws on its feet were black. It just flew up and disappeared in thetrees".
Although as Tony admitted at the time, it is possible that the two young ladieswere trying to hoax him, he is convinced that they were genuine.
He separated the two girls and had each of them draw a picture of what she hadseen. The two pictures are dissimilar enough to rebuff suggestions of collusionbut have enough points in common, both with each other, and with the otheraccounts of the 'creature' to be considered as a significant piece of evidence.
Both girls made brief additional notes underneath their pictures. Sally's read:"I saw this monster bird last night. It stood like a man and then it flewup through the trees. It is as big as a man. Its eyes are red and shinebrightly".
And Barbara wrote: "Birdman monster. seen on third of July, quite late atnight but not quite dark. Red Eyes. Black Mouth. It was very bigwith great big wings and black claws. Feathers grey."
The two girls agreed on most points with their pictures although Sally thoughtBarbara had 'done the wings wrong'. At the same time as Sally and Barbara weretalking to 'Doc' on
"It has red slanting eyes and a very large mouth. The feathers are silverygrey and so are his body and legs, the feet are like a big, black, crab'sclaws. We were frightened at the time. It was so strange, like something out ofa horror film. After the thing went up, there were crackling sounds in thetree-tops for ages. Our mother thinks we made it all up just because we readabout these things, but that is not true. we really saw the bird-man, though itcould have been someone playing a trick in a very good costume and make up. Buthow could it rise up like that? If we imagined it, then we both imagined it atthe same time".
Two years later, a young lady called 'Miss Opie' saw 'A monster, like adevil, flying up through the trees near old Mawnan Church Old Mawnan Church
As soon as anything really exciting happens, I'll let you know. It would beterrific if I really could get a picture of our feathered friend, but, he onlyseems to pop up for young girls ... and I ain't one!"
The Owlman, as it was now generally known, (it appears that Tony coined thename in late 1976), was seen again on the 2nd August by three young, unnamedFrench girls. The landlady of the boarding house in which they had been stayingtold Tony that the three girls had been frightened by something "very big,like a big, furry bird with a gaping mouth and round eyes" This was allthat the landlady could tell him, so Tony left a message for the girls tocontact him, but as always seems to be the case he never heard anythingfurther. Many commentators on the case have questioned Tony's role in theaffair. One investigator, Mark Chorvinsky of Strange magazine even claimed thatbecause so many of the sightings were connected with him, that Tony had madethe whole thing up. Such people do not understand the reticence of the Cornishpeople. They do not like to talk to outsiders, and I am convinced that if ithad not been for Tony's presence in the area as a trusted 'local' the affairwould never have been made public. The case of the French girls for example. Tonywrote to me in 1995 explainiing how he had become involved: "The Frenchgirls were students (at Camborne Tech - now known as
Their landlady 'phoned me aboutthis sighting. Remember, at the time, I was getting quite a lot of mediacoverage. People reported weird shit to me"... Two years later thecreature re-appeared when, "an enormous, bird-like creature" was seenflying "over the Helford River and into the trees near Grebe Beach
At Hallowe'en 1986 Tony was at the centre of a media storm when the Bishop of
He had indeed visited the church with a local radio team, but the "hugecrowd of people" turned out to be ONE rather shy bloke called 'Dave'. Hetold me that there was no blasphemy, no swearing, no naked witches and nocigars, and that the wizard had entered the church, muttered a few things underhis breath in a foreign language and then left again. It turns out that theradio team had approached my friend and asked him what he had planned to do tocelebrate Hallowe'en. He said: "Buy me a drink and I'll show you."
This the radio people did, only to find that like many wizards, my friend has alegendary capacity for the stuff. Finding at the end of the evening that theyhad nothing to show for their severely depleted expense accounts, I have a sneakingsuspicion that someone decided that it would be a good idea to concoct abizarre tale of blasphemy and psychic mayhem.
In 1989 a young man called 'Gavin' and his girlfriend 'Sally' (not their realnames), encountered the Mawnan Owlman. This was perhaps the most importantsighting to date from a cryptoinvestigative point of view, because it is theonly sighting that cannot in any way be linked to Tony 'Doc' Shiels. I haveinterviewed 'Gavin' on a number of occasions and am convinced of his veracity.This is his story in his own words:
"We had a torch and I was shining its beam across trunks about fifteenfeet off the ground. I am fairly sure that the animal was standing in a largeconifer tree and the illustration we made after the sighting (but not til wegot home actually) does depict the animal in a conifer tree, but I'm not thatsure now. Here is the actual sighting as written down in my diary:
'Every couple of hours we would walk along the fringe of the wood. This was thethird time that evening and it was beginning to get dark. From a distance treeslooked black but closer up the branches and trunks could be seen. We saw theanimal at about 9.30 pm. It was standing on a thick branch with its wings sortof held up at the arms. I'd say that it was about five feet tall (but pleaseread on). The legs had high ankles and the feet were large and black with twohuge 'toes' on the visible side. The creature was grey with brown and the eyesdefinitely glowed. On seeing us its head jerked down and forwards, its wingslifted and it just jumped backwards. As it did its legs folded up. We ran away.
"We had a pretty good idea what it looked like. We didn't know what to doabout it, and essentially vowed never to tell anyone. I last saw Sally abouttwo years ago and talked about it then. She was as unkeen to share theinformation then as she was earlier, and I promised I wouldn't tell anyoneabout her involvement, but I could 'do what I liked' with my interpretation. Irespect this and have never disclosed any information about her'.
To date the most recent sighting of the Mawnan Owlman, took place, allegedly,at the end of the summer of 1995 and is chronicled in a letter sent to SimonParker, the night editor of the Western Morning News in Truro. It reads:
"Dear Sir, I am a student of marine biology at the
The thing had long bird legs which terminated in large black claws. Itsaw me and arose, 'floating' towards me. I just screamed then turned and ranfor my life.
"The whole experience was totally irrational and dreamlike (nightmare!).Friends tell me that there is a tradition of a phantom 'owlman' in thatdistrict. Now I know why. I have seen the phantom myself. "Please don'tpublish my real name and address. This could adversely affect my career. Now Ihave to rethink my 'world view' entirely. Yours, very sincerely scared... 'EyeWitness'."
We have her name and address, but we have respected her wishes and kept heranonymity. We have tried a little piece of covert investigation into thisparticular eyewitness but have drawn a blank whenever we tried to investigatefurther. I think that it would be unwise to wholeheartedly accept this accountas genuine, but it is included for the sake of completion.
We are left now with what devotees of TV gameshows would no doubt call the$64,000 question. Does the Owlman exist? and if it does what is it?
I quite understand the unwillingness of researchers like Mark Chorvinsky toaccept such a bizarre tale purely on the evidence presented by such a notoriousfigure as 'Doc' Shiels. After all, by his own admission he is a 'charlatan' anda 'thimble rigger', and he has even told me not to "invest belief inanything" especially him! (and this is a man I count as a close and dearfriend). The discovery of 'Gavin' and his succinct and believable eyewitnesstestimony provided an invaluable corroboration to the vast body of 'Shiels-channeled'evidence, and has persuaded even some noted sceptics that there is something tothe story after all.
Graham McEwan has suggested that such 'creatures' are quasi-animate thoughtform manifestations created by the unconscious mind of a lonely traveller. Theveteran explorer and mystic Alexandra David-Neel writing in With Magicians andMystics in
In my more frivolous moments I wonder whether Mark Chorvinksy was sort of rightafter all. Maybe 'Doc' had made the whole thing up, perhaps after he had beenreading John Keel's classic The Mothman Prophecies (about a similar apparitionin West Virginia during 1967), and had decided in a spirit of genuinely surrealmischief that it was perhaps time that Cornwall had something similar tocounterpoint its very own sea monster. Perhaps this very act of creation helpedform a tulpa which then got out of hand. If so then I suspect that Tony was assurprised as anyone else when other people started to report sightings of thecreature.
Another theory that I have adopted at various times is linked with the sex ofthe witnesses. With the one exception - the young man who has asked to beidentified only as 'Gavin' the only people to have seen the creature have beenyoung women. Even 'Gavin' was accompanied by a young woman at the time. Couldthe owlman be a sort of three dimensional, feathered poltergeist? An apparition'invoked' by the peculiar hormonal and emotional changes which affect youngwomen at this time?
Maybe the combination of these conditions - which as anyone who has ever shareda house with a teenage girl will know can be quite devastating, with somethinginate in the psychical infrastructure of the area surrounding Mawnan Old Churchhas a synergistic effect, producing the apparition that has become known as TheOwlman of Mawnan.
As Oscar Wilde said, 'the truth is never pure and seldom simple'. Perhaps thereal identity of the Owlman of Mawnan, and indeed other similar 'creatures'seen across the globe is some, all, or none of the explanations given above, orperhaps, more probably, we shall never know! - Jonathan Downes - www.cfz.org.uk
Mawnan,
One theory which has been presented to explain the Owlman sightings waspublished in 1985 by researchers Janet and Colin Bord in their book AlienAnimals. They suggest that the church, which seems to be at the center of mostsightings, may have been built on a ley line, a straight line which passesthrough and links several ancient sites, and speculated that the appearance ofthe Owlman may be a manifestation of earth energy. However in a later bookModern Mysteries of the World, published in 1989, the two retracted this theoryand stated that they believed that the sightings were probably of an escapedaviary bird rather than a paranormal phenomenon.
Others have suggested this more straightforward explanation that Owlmansightings were actually that of an escaped aviary bird, such as an Eagle Owl, aspecies that can grow more than two feet long, with a wingspan of nearly 6feet. This is supported by a report by Karl Shuker in regards to a late 1980’ssighting of the Owlman in which the witness described it as four foot high,with two large toes on the front of each foot, it reportedly ducked down andforwards before it took off. Shuker stated in his report that this descriptionand behavior calls to mind a very large owl.
A hand full of researchers have made the connection between the Owlman and theMothman, a dark, winged humanoid that haunted
Sources:
Downes, Jonathan - "The Owlman and Others" - CFZCommunications - 2001
Redfern, Nick - "Three Men Seeking Monsters: Six Weeks in Pursuit ofWerewolves,Lake Monsters
Redfern, Nick - "Three Men Seeking Monsters: Six Weeks in Pursuit ofWerewolves,
Janet and Colin Bord - "Alien Animals" – 1985
