FOXSYLVANIA

Men are such pigs, sometimes…or so I’ve been told, and can well believe, especially after seeing a recent episode of Monsters and Mysteries in America which dished up one monster and two mysteries. Season 3 seems to be running a bit short on monsters, and so is plugging in more “mysteries,” which in this trilogy included a ghost story and a paranormal segment. That floats my boat, however, as I like a little variety in my viewing diet!

Now the Pigman of Vermont is described as having a man’s body with a pig’s head; he’s massive, muscular, has claws for hands but human feet, and parades around naked. He makes squealing sounds that also carry a shrieking component, and has been seen in the “Devil’s Washbowl” area of Northfield, a place used as a lover’s lane by local teenagers. In fall of 1971, a group of teens at a dance went outside to the woods where they supposedly saw a kneeling creature eating roadkill. Inside a cave in the Devil’s Washbowl area, a type of nesting area has been found, together with bones that were mostly feline. In another reported episode, a couple were making out in their car when the guy went to answer a “call of nature,” encountered the Pigman, and was physically thrown into the underbrush. Their screams drove the creature away, allowing the couple to escape in their car although the guy bore claw-like scratch marks on his chest.  In yet another reported incident, a group of young people walking through the woods had branches thrown in front of them repeatedly and heard squealing, occurrences which encouraged them to flee the area.

Now stories of a “Pigman” supposedly date back to the 15th century, with one story maintaining that a young man handled his pigs with cruelty, meeting one night with a bad end at the claws of the Pigman.  His body was never found, and in one account had been eaten…I do so love stories with a happy ending!  One accounting for the Pigman’s existence holds that he was a physically deformed child living in a feral way…

A second episode was a kind of ghost story from Jamestown, North Carolina detailing the appearances of “Lydia the Hitch Hiker,” the spirit of a young woman woman killed in a car accident in the 1920’s who is now bound to the underpass where she died, still trying to make her way home.  In one accounting from 1924, a man picked up a woman of beaten appearance who rode silently with him, at one point indicating by gesture the home of her residence.  When the man approached the resident of the house to advise them that he was returning their daughter home, the woman present indicated that her daughter had died years ago.  Returning to his car, the motorist found that his passenger had utterly vanished!  Another appearance of the spirit in 1972 was reported, when two young men traveling in a car saw a girl sitting by the side of the road who appeared to have been in a car accident; they originally bypassed her, but returned to offer aid, at which time the passenger of the vehicle became severely alarmed by the figure, urging the driver to pull away.  As they did so, the figure supposedly shrieked, “Come back!” A song, “Bringing Mary Home,” may reflect the case, and an investigator found that the unfortunate spirit’s name may have been Mary rather than Lydia.– A good spooky tale!

The final segment focused on “Project Stargate” supposedly conducted at Fort Meade during the height of the Cold War in an effort to turn psychics into soldier-spies.  Recruits were supposedly capable of “remote viewing,” a controversial psychic phenomena where an individual can project his consciousness, in this case to spy on our enemies.  Exercises involved discerning a “target” in a sealed envelope.  Subjects were also asked to see into the future, with one participant reportedly foreseeing the attack on the USS Stark.  Research was also done by Stargate into UFO activity, with one participant in 1982 perceiving a 300′ long object.  In 1984 when asked to focus on coordinates, one remote viewer perceived an encounter with a race of aliens in the distant past of which we are supposedly the descendants, a thread often found in science fiction…