FOXSYLVANIA

In its current incarnation, MonsterQuest defines “monsters” broadly, ranging from long-reported cryptic creatures like Bigfoot to alien encounters with UFO’s, and even supernatural beings like ghosts or jinn. The second episode of MonsterQuest’s season 5 was unified by all of these encounters being experienced and reported by military personnel.

The first installment of episode 2 took place in post-Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003 where a marine went sweeping for explosives with a buddy in the sub-basement of Hussein’s palace. Behind a foreboding boiler room door, the marines encountered a 6′ tall, black figure that passed through him and his companion, and was described as feeling hateful. They felt a “new type of terror,” as if they had released something. A wooden sculpture seen later supposedly resembled what they had seen…

The second installment concerned the experiences of an American air traffic controller serving in Lakenheath, England in 2002. In the house where he lodged, books were stacked not by he or his wife’s hands in the center of a room. Stair and door sounds were heard in the dwelling, even when the couple was absent to visit the U.S. Fearful, the man’s wife took their baby to live elsewhere, leaving the controller living alone. A Bible was moved, the man felt a hand pressing him down in bed, heard doors banged in the nursery, and saw a figure in the doorway of the bathroom. Other airmen also saw spectral presences. It turned out that the housing had been constructed over an old Anglo-Saxon cemetery where 427 people were buried in a situation similar to that seen in the movie Poltergeist.

The third story drew from the 1980 experiences of an airman sent as a second lieutenant for survival training or “fear school” in remote sections of the Colville National Forest in in Washington, that state having had 700 sightings of Bigfoot going back to the 1920’s. The airmen were to head individually in different directions of the forest all lightly equipped, and basically survive the night there. After setting up a primitive camp, one airman wandered off exploring, falling asleep in a comfortable rotted tree stump to awaken after darkness to see eyes beholding him that were centered 7′ to 8′ above the ground. He found his way back to his camp but was pursued by the creature, and had a sleepless night as the presumed Bigfoot circled his camp, getting to within 2′ to 3′ of his shelter. Fortunately, the creature was gone by daylight, and the airman successfully rejoined his companions.

The fourth installment concerned previously classified information regarding a disc-shaped unidentified flying object seen in Franklin, Kentucky in January 1948. Several Mustang F-51D fighters from the Kentucky National Guard were sent to investigate, one flown by a decorated WWII vet, Captain Mantell, who at 15,000 feet reportedly saw a metallic object of tremendous size. He pushed his aircraft up to over 25,000 feet at which point the fighter nose-dived following a spiral pattern, broke apart, and crashed, killing the pilot. While there was wild speculation following the incident, Project Blue Book contended that the pilot passed out from lack of proper oxygen equipment at that high altitude, and died pursuing a Skyhook weather balloon, which he would not have known about…

Lastly, in 2003 in Iraq, the series reported that a USAF serviceman may have seen a Jinn in a shelter. He initially saw Iraqui soldiers who were seen as ghosts or residual energies when he then saw a muscular, 12′ tall figure with beady eyes that charged and passed through him before passing through a wall. A jinn (or djinn) is a supernatural being from Islamic and Arabic folklore that exists alongside humans and angels in a hidden, unseen world. They possess free will, can choose good or evil, and have abilities like shapeshifting and flight. Some are benevolent spirits while others are malevolent…

While monsters are defined broadly here, as the series tells us these servicemen “confronted an enemy beyond their understanding, and lived to tell the tale.”