Gerald the Bigfoot Goes Missing in Bernardston

On the night of April 22, 2020, thieves stole a large statue of Bigfoot from the Brimfield, Massachusetts lawn of Tod Disotell. Disotell, an anthropologist at UMass Amherst, had appeared on the TV show 10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty and liked to decorate his Bigfoot statue with surgical masks and messages about COVID social distancing. 

Security camera footage showed two showed two hooded figures cutting a chain before absconding with the statue. Happily, police located the statue a few days later in downtown Worcester. Bigfoot was returned to Disotell's front yard. The thieves were never apprehended.

Sadly, Bigfoot thieves have struck again, this time in Bernardston, Massachusetts. On June 22, they stole an 18-inch concrete statue of Bigfoot from the front lawn of Sarah Gray. The statue, which she named Gerald, was a 2021 Christmas gift from her husband and children. 

Photo from The Greenfield Reporter

The Greenfield Reporter has the scoop:

“I was out doing errands and I came back and realized that he was missing from our front yard, off of our stump out here,” Sarah said in her kitchen on Friday. She posted a picture of the statue to Facebook to explain it had disappeared and ask for help finding it. That post got 250 shares and she placed near the stump a large sign asking for the statue’s return, but Gerald remains missing.

“We don’t know what happened. I don’t know if somebody thought he was maybe free,” she said.

Sarah said she did not report the incident to the police because she does not want to burden them with such a matter.

“It was upsetting, but I didn’t want to really involve the police and make a huge deal out of it,” she said. “But for me, it’s very sentimental. I have no hard feelings toward the person that took him or whatever – I would just like my Bigfoot back.”

The Reporter also notes that various friends have shown Gray photos of Bigfoot statues they have seen, but none were Gerald. 

If you've stolen Gerald, please return him! Alternately, if Gerald simply ran off on his own, I hope he returns back to Bernardston and the family that loves him. 

Finding Bigfoot in The Old Farmer's Almanac (and the Flea Market)

Do you read The Old Farmer's Almanac? I do, even though I'm not a farmer (but I am getting old). It's sold at supermarkets and CVS stores here in Boston, so clearly it's not just intended for farmers. It's for anyone who likes weird and possibly useful information

I like it for the astronomical information (full moons, sunrise and sunset times, etc.), and also the weird little facts the editors list for each month. For instance, the 2022 edition of the Almanac notes that J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's notorious first director, died on May 2,  and that stage and TV magician Doug Henning was born on May 3. Fun facts about the cycle of life and death. 

The Almanac also notes that Bigfoot was seen in Hollis, New Hampshire on May 7, 1977. Another fun fact, this time about the weird things that happen in this part of the world. 

I was excited to see this mentioned in The Old Farmer's Almanac, since it's a famous New England Bigfoot sighting. In fact, I wrote about it way back in 2015. I was planning to rewrite that post, but I like the original so much I'm posting it again. I found Bigfoot in the Almanac, but in 1977 some folks found him at the flea market...

Finding Bigfoot At the Flea Market: An Encounter from 1977

When I was a kid my parents often took my brother and me to flea markets and yard sales. It was the 1970s and I guess this was the thing to do. Quite often we didn't find anything good, but every now and then we'd get some great stuff. I still have a large teak Buddha I found, and we definitely found plenty of old paperbacks about weird occult and paranormal topics.

I never had an actual paranormal experience at a flea market, but apparently they do happen. Or at least they did, back in the 1970s.

On the evening of May 7, 1977 a Lowell, Massachusetts man named Gerald St. Louis arrived at a flea market site in Hollis, New Hampshire. St. Louis had brought his wife and two sons with him. The flea market began the next day, and the St. Louises wanted to get a good spot to set up their table early in the morning. After sunset they went to sleep in their pickup truck. Attached to the truck was a small trailer. 

They were awakened that night when their truck began shaking. Standing next to their vehicle was a large humanoid. Mr. St. Louis later described the creature as being 8 or 9 feet high, brown-colored, and covered in long hair. When he turned on the headlights it became startled and ran across the parking lot, jumping easily over a four-foot high fence. Once over the fence it stood and stared at the truck. 

Needless to say the St. Louis family got out of there fast. They drove to the Hollis police station and reported their sighting to Chief Paul Bosquet. The police inspected the area, but found no sign of the creature. The ground was covered in pine needles and not even any footprints could be seen. Well, at least according to the press at the time. I've seen at least one article online that says 16-inch footprints were found in the soil.

Chief Bosquet said he thought the family had seen a bear. Whatever it was, it seriously spooked them. They left Hollis quickly and didn't even take their trailer with them. I guess they got more than they bargained for at that flea market. (Get it? Bad pun.)

Was it just a bear? I have no idea, but someone else had a similar experience a few days earlier. A woman named Regina Evans was camping in Hollis on May 5, 1977 when she was awakened in the middle of the night by someone shaking her trailer. She did not see the culprit, but large footprints were found nearby.

Andre the Giant and Lee Majors in The Six Million Dollar Man.

The 1970s was a heady time for paranormal phenomena. The occult and metaphysical movements of the late 1960s had paved the way for Bigfoot, UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle to conquer America. Bigfoot was featured in movies like The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972),  In Search of Bigfoot (1976), and just plain Bigfoot (1970), where a biker gang tries to save women captured by the cryptid. Bigfoot also showed up on TV. He was actually a bionic robot created by aliens on an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, while on the kids' show Bigfoot and Wildboy he fought crime.

As a result of all this, most Americans knew what Bigfoot looked like and what he did - jump out of the woods, scare people, and then disappear. Were the experiences of the St. Louis family and Regina Evans colored by the media? It's very possible, but something really did shake their vehicles in the middle of the night, and the St. Louises seemed legitimately scared.

Perhaps it was pranksters enacting the role of Bigfoot. It's a time-honored tradition. In ancient Greece people dressed like satyrs and in the Middle Ages they dressed like leafy, hairy wildmen. Dressing in an ape costume and running through the woods might just be part of our cultural heritage. We all think there are monsters in the woods, so someone needs to play the part. 

Or who knows? Maybe there really are creatures lurking in the woods, and they are the ones who change costumes over time, appearing as whatever we expect, a goat-footed daemon to the ancient Greeks and a huge hairy monster to someone who just wanted to go to a flea market.

Bigfoot was not seen again in Hollis, but happily he's still out there somewhere, lurking behind the trees and evading easy categorization.

Stomping through the Snow with Bigfoot in 1976

We had a nice storm last Friday, getting around 10 inches of snow here in the Boston area. I made sure to strap on my boots and stomped around in the snow while it was still fresh.

Forty-five years ago, in December of 1976, someone stomped through the snow near Robinson State Park in Agawam, Massachusetts. Someone who apparently did not wear shoes. Residents of the town found bare footprints, and each footprint was 27 inches long. Someone, or something, quite large had been walking in the snow.

Many people assumed the tracks were made by Bigfoot. It was 1976, after all, and Bigfoot was a popular topic in the mass media. Bigfoot tracks were being seen all across the country. A documentary about the mysterious humanoid, In Search of Bigfoot, had played in movie theaters around the US, and a bionic Bigfoot (from outer space!) had been featured on The Six Million Dollar Man, a popular TV show.  So perhaps it was inevitable that Bigfoot would even appear in Massachusetts. 

Ted Cassidy as Bionic Bigfoot in The Six Million Dollar Man

The Agawam police took the footprints seriously, sending out a "Bigfoot team" to investigate. Bigfoot hunters, who were less common in 1976 than they are now, also came to town. At least one of them, Lee Frank, was invited by a concerned Agawam citizen.

"The prints look good - but "Bigfoot" tracks are a dime a dozen...we really need to see him," said Lee Frank, who reportedly travels all over the United States investigating sightings of the legendary animal.

Frank and other trackers spent Wednesday night camping in zero temperatures beside the footprints in the snow, but failed to spot a 7 to 12-foot monster on the prowl by Westfield River. "Bigfoot" investigators also planned to spend Thursday camping in the woods in hopes of spotting the big fellow.

"Whatever the tracks are, they merit further investigation," Frank said, adding that it is impossible to determine at this point how the tracks were made." ("'Bigfoot' Eludes Team On Overnight Campout", Morning Union (Springfield, Massachusetts), December 31, 1976, from Bigfoot Encounters).

The Agawam police were unsure if the footprints were really made by Bigfoot, or if they were a hoax. It turns out they were a hoax. In early January, the police confiscated two large plywood feet from David Deschenes, a 16-year old Agawam resident. 

"I did it as a joke for the little kids around here, but it got out of hand. The next thing I knew the police were out at two in the morning looking around, taking it seriously. I didn't feel like going out to tell them I was 'bigfoot'", Deschenes said. ("Bigfoot Sorry About Stepping On Law," Kenosha (Wisconsin) News, January 6, 1977, from Bigfoot Encounters).

I find hoaxes really interesting, because even if they are not strictly true, they illustrate what people think might be true. So while Bigfoot was not really running around Agawam, people were willing to think he was. David Deschenes was just enacting something his neighbors thought might be possible. The people in 1976 weren't that different from previous generations of New England residents, many of whom also believed large hairy humanoids were running around the region. They called them "wild men" instead of Bigfoot, although, if real, they were equally tricky and elusive as their modern counterpart. 

David Deschenes may have been a hoaxer, but he was also a trend-setter. In 1977, the company K-Tel produced and marketed plastic Bigfoot snowshoes for children. Kids all across the nation were soon leaving Bigfoot tracks in the snow, just like David had. I wanted these as a kid, but never bought them! I should have followed David's lead and just made my own.

Book Review: Mythical Creatures of Maine

If you ever find yourself in the lonely woods of far northern Maine, be careful going out at night. According to legends, headless giants are sometimes seen wandering the roads in the darkness. Are they dangerous? Probably, but no one has ever gotten close enough to one to find out. No one has been that brave - or that stupid. 

I hadn't heard about the headless giants of Maine until I read Christopher Packard's Mythical Creatures of Maine, which was recently published by Down East Books. Mythical Creatures is a handsome little hardcover book, with full-color illustrations, that describes dozens of strange and wonderful creatures from Maine folklore. The publisher sent me a copy to review, but it was too late - I had already bought a copy for myself. 

Some of the creatures described in this book will definitely be familiar to you, like mermaids (seen in Casco Bay in 1639) and Bigfoot (seen since at least the 1950s, and probably much earlier). Others might be moderately familiar, like the loup-garou, the French-Canadian werewolf, or the Turner Beast, aka the Maine mutant, a strange dog-like animal that was hit by a car in 2006. And some will be downright obscure, like the dungavenhooter, a mouthless crocodile that appeared in tall tales told by lumberjacks. Or those headless giants that roam around at night. 

Packard includes quite a few creatures from the tall tales of lumberjacks and other woodsmen. These are creatures like the aforementioned dungavenhooter or the wamfahoofus, a one-armed monster that lurks in muddy puddles and likes to eat boots. I don't know if anyone really ever believed in these "fearsome critters of the lumber woods," and they may just have been jokey explanations for things like losing your boot in a big mud puddle. Still, they're interesting to read about.

Packard's book is arranged like an encyclopedia or dictionary, with entries for the different creatures listed in alphabetical order, and it's fun to browse through descriptions of creature like the Ice Hornet or Will-O-The-Wisp. But Mythical Creatures also explains which cultures these creatures originated from, like the indigenous Wabanaki tribes, the French, and the English. (Note: legends about the headless giants come from the Maliseet, a Native American tribe found in Maine and New Brunswick). 

An appendix at the end of the book gives a brief but helpful overview of Wabanaki languages and culture, topics probably new to some readers, and Packard describes many creatures and beings from Wabanaki mythology in the book, including Pamola, the guardian spirit of Mt. Katahdin, various little people like the river-dwelling manogmasak and the forest-dwelling mikumwesuk, and the fearsome man-eating giants known variously as the wendigo, chenoo, or kiwakw. 

Much like the headless giants, you don't want to meet a wendigo.

I would recommend this book for anyone who likes folklore, New England history, or even just stories about monsters. So really, probably most people who read this blog!

*****

Speaking of books, I will give a shameless promotion for my own new book, Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts. I've been appearing on a lot of podcasts recently; I was recently on the Weird Tales radio show, which was a lot of fun. 

Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts is available wherever you buy books online!

Bigfoot At the Cemetery Gates

I love Bigfoot stories, and the weirder they are the more I like them. Here is a particularly spooky one from Rehoboth, Massachusetts. I first heard it on the Unsolved Mysteries podcast episode "The Creatures of Hockomock Swamp," but it appeared in the local news before that. 

*****

In the spring of 2019, thirty-seven year-old Tracy Manzella was visiting her parents at their Rehoboth home. Tracy and her siblings had grown up in the house, which is situated on a very woodsy road. As a child, Tracy had always felt like something in the woods was watching her whenever she was outside, but she never saw anything strange. 

Rehoboth sits within the fabled Bridgewater Triangle, and although Tracy was aware of the legends and paranormal sightings associated with the Triangle she had never seen anything strange herself. Members of her family had seen strange lights in the sky or near their house, but not Tracy. Not until that cold, drizzly, spring day in 2019

Tracy had gone for a run on the country roads near her parents' house. As she made her way back, she passed by an old cemetery that sits nestled in the woods about fifty feet from the road. She had gone by it countless times before, but this time as she ran by she saw something very strange. An enormous creature stood in front of the cemetery gates.

Image from the film Abominable (2006)

The creature was humanoid, and covered in stringy red hair. It was massively built, with broad shoulders and a broad chest. It was also really, really tall. Tracy estimated it must have stood fifteen feet high. It reminded her of an ogre or a troll.

What stood out most about this fantastic creature, though, was its face. Although it was not close to the road, Tracy could see fangs, and its gray-skinned face was demonic-looking. She sensed that the creature was evil. 

Tracy was terrified. She was afraid the creature would notice her and chase after her. Luckily it didn't. Tracy ran back to her parents' house, where she drew a picture for her mother of what she had seen. 

She has not seen anything strange since then. In October, 2020, Tracy Manzella told a Taunton Gazette reporter the following:

"It's the last experience in the Bridgewater Triangle that I would have personally wanted to have. Not because of how scary it was, or unsettling, but simply because of all of the legends of the Bridgewater Triangle that I have read about over the years or learned about. To me, the Bigfoot sightings always seemed like the most ridiculous and far-fetched of all of the things that people have seen," she said. "...I just feel like this particular experience is so outlandish that it's hard to believe if someone tells you that this is what they've seen." ("Exploring the Bridgewater Triangle: Our reporter and photographer head out when the lights go down and the legends come out," The Enterprise, October 27, 2020).

In some ways, her encounter seems like a typical Bigfoot sighting: a large hairy humanoid was briefly seen in the woods. On the other hand, the creature was really big, even for Bigfoot. Fifteen feet tall is enormous! The fangs, demonic face, and overall evil vibe are also atypical for Bigfoot sightings. 

Local paranormal investigator Christopher Pittman was quoted in the podcast, saying that almost everyone who reports seeing a Bigfoot in the Bridgewater Triangle describes something slightly different. Witnesses describe creatures of different heights, with different colored fur, and a variety of faces. None of them are the same. So perhaps there isn't a typical Bigfoot encounter, even in relatively small area like the Bridgewater Triangle. 

I don't think that Bigfoot is a physical animal, although many people would disagree with me. I think people who encounter Bigfoot are probably having a mystical experience of some kind, and that Bigfoot is a land spirit or genius loci, as the Romans would call it. The Romans and Greeks believed the wilderness was haunted by satyrs, centaurs, and nymphs. In America, we believe it's haunted by a large hairy humanoid. 

The fact that Tracy saw the giant creature near a cemetery also seems significant somehow, as does its menacing appearance. Cemeteries are of course believed to host to a variety of supernatural beings, including ghosts, vampires, and occasionally demons, but the way this creature blocked the cemetery gate immediately made me think it was some type of guardian.

In several European cultures, people believe that a cemetery is guarded by the spirit of the first being buried there. In many cases the guardian will be a human spirit, but sometimes it might be the spirit of an animal that was killed and buried explicitly for this purpose. For example, in England cemeteries are often guarded by spectral black dogs (called church grims) which are believed to be the ghosts of dogs killed and buried there. Cemetery guardians need not be so specific, either. A local friend of mine will pour out water or leave a coin for the guardian when he visits a cemetery, but I think he just considers the guardian the spirit of the place, not the soul of the first creature buried there. 

So did Tracy Manzella see the cemetery's guardian spirit? I really don't know, and it's not something that can be proven, but the creature's size, position and terrifying visage certainly would prevent anyone from entering that graveyard. It's just speculation on my part, and I certainly don't think the first being buried in the cemetery was a fifteen-foot demonic creature. She may have experienced something else entirely, but I enjoy tying these modern paranormal encounters with older streams of myth and folklore.   

Book Reviews: Folk Magic, Bigfoot, and More Folk Magic

Book, books, books! I have a lot of books about folklore and legends, but somehow alway find room for more. This week I'm reviewing some recent books I really enjoyed. 

First up, let's talk about New World Witchery, by Cory Thomas Hutcheson. This book is a massive, 452-page compendium of magical folklore from across North America. Hutcheson has a PhD in folklore and is the long-time cohost of the New World Witchery podcast, so he really knows his stuff. I was a guest on the podcast several years ago and had a great time. 

Like many of my readers, Hutcheson is also a practicing witch, and New World Witchery is written primarily for an audience eager to get its hands dirty and do some magic. Other people will enjoy the book as well - there's so much information in it! - but he includes exercises and tips for those who want to do more than just read. 

New World Witchery covers a wide range of topics, with chapters on divination, animal magic, counter magic, necromancy, dealing with the Devil, and a whole lot more. The book draws upon the many diverse magical traditions found in North America, including Hoodoo, Southern Conjure, Mountain Magic, Cuaranderismo and Brujeria, Pow-Wow, and Neo-Paganism. Even if you're familiar with a variety of folk magic traditions you'll definitely learn new things. I did. 

For example, in addition to the traditions above, Hutcheson also discusses New England Witchery, which is a favorite topic of mine. I've been studying it for years but I still found new insights in his book. Before reading New World Witchery, I didn't know that Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote an article about the hallucinogenic ointments witches allegedly used to fly to their devilish revels. Now I do! 

Another book in a similar vein, but also very different, is Folkloric American Witchcraft and the Multicultural Experience by Via Hedera. The publisher, Moon Books, sent me a copy for review, but I would have purchased this one anyway. 

Hedera is a practicing witch who lives in the Pacific Northwest, and she is also ethnically multi-racial, which shapes the tone of Folkloric American Witchcraft. 

Every one of my grandparents were a different ethnicity from the other; my siblings, their siblings and I all have different fathers and thus have different genetic backgrounds. My mother was adopted so I spent a good deal of my life immersed in cultures that I am not ethnically related to but very familiar with. It's an old story, an American one, a magical one... (Via Hedera, Folkloric American Witchcraft, p.21)

While New World Witchery provides you with maximum magical information, Folkloric American Witchcraft gives you the inspiration to use it. Hedera does include spells and charms that you can use, but she is more concerned with finding the motivation to practice folk magic in America's weird, messy, and often violent history. 

American folk magic and witchcraft is a crossroads of clashing cultures. Brought together by adversity, theft, enslavement, expansion, love, war and liberty, our culture as Americans is defined by our diversity, and our traditions of magic were birthed first by a synthesis of European, African, and Indigenous spiritual beliefs and superstitions, and then later by all the many parts of the world (Via Hedera, Folkloric American Witchcraft, p. 64)

After reading Folkloric American Witchcraft you'll want to get off the couch and start casting spells. I know money is tight these days for many people, but if you can afford it I would recommend both New World Witchery and Folkloric American Witchcraft. They work together well as companion books. 

Finally, and on a totally different topic, there's Mike Dupler's On the Trail of Bigfoot: Tracking the Enigmatic Giants of the Forest, which was sent to me by New Page Books. I am a Bigfoot fan, and really enjoyed On the Trail of Bigfoot. There are a lot of Bigfoot books out there, and I liked Dupler's book because it provides a nice overview of current thinking about Bigfoot. 

Dupler addresses questions like the following: Does Bigfoot make structures in the woods? How does Bigfoot communicate? If those topics sound dry (and they aren't), you might enjoy the chapter titled, "Is Sasquatch Interdimensional?" Dupler believes Bigfoot is a physical animal, but does speculate about other dimensions. Here's a description of something seen at the famous Skinwalker Ranch in Utah:

While watching from a bluff one evening, team members saw a strange yellow light appear. This glowing anomaly grew and morphed into a tunnel. One of the crew watched the spectacle through binoculars and, to his amazement, a large faceless black humanoid exited the tunnel and lumbered away. The creature seemed reminiscent of a Sasquatch. The tunnel then dissipated as if it had never been there, leaving the creature in the night with the shaken investigators (Mike Dupler, On the Trail of Bigfoot, p. 117)

I love a strange Sasquatch story, and Dupler includes many in his book, including classics from the 19th and early 20th century with titles like "The Salmon River Devil" and "The Beast of Mica Mountain." Trappers and hunters sure seemed to encounter lots of weird, hairy humanoids back then. 

There you have it: books about folk magic, folk magic, and Bigfoot. Perfect beach reading as summer begins!

Tiny Cavemen, A UFO Abductee, and Fairy Folklore in Massachusetts

Did tiny cavemen live on an island in the Connecticut River in the 1970s? Let's face it, that's a bizarre question to ask. Obviously, the answer is no. And yet that claim was made by Betty Hill in 1998.

Her name may be familiar. Betty and her husband Barney claimed they were abducted by a UFO in New Hampshire on September 19, 1961, and their experiences were made into a book (The Interrupted Journey) and a movie (The UFO Incident). The Hills' story was one of the first UFO abduction narratives in America and helped popularize the concept of alien abduction.

The Hills were active in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, but are now best remembered for their UFO encounter. Barney Hill died in 1969 at the young age of 46, but Betty lived until 2005, when she died at age 85. She continued to see UFOs throughout her life, and became a beloved figure in the UFO/paranormal community. Many people came to Betty with their own stories of unexplained phenomena.

Image from Pinterest

In 1998, she contributed several of these stories, all focused on Bigfoot and set in New England, to a book titled The Psychic Sasquatch and Their UFO Connection by Jack Kewaunee Lapersitis. (The Psychic Sasquatch is one of those weird and amazing books that everyone should read.) Betty Hill claimed the following happened near Springfield, Massachusetts:

My informant said that at one spot in the middle of the Connecticut River there was a good-sized island that was uninhabited. Then one day it was inhabited by small, prehistoric-appearing people. They don't know how many of them there were, maybe 50. They lived on the island for three years. No one ever succeeded in getting near them. The police had gone out to the island on boats and had gone onto the island. These small, primitive people could outrun anyone. They would take off running and then could not be found... It is not known how they lived or what they did for food. No fires were ever seen on the island, but they lived there year-round for approximately three years. Then, just as suddenly as they appeared, they disappeared.

... Planes and helicopters had flown over the area, hoping to get pictures, but these little people - they're not really tiny people, but maybe four feet tall or so - would take off running at such speeds that no one could even get pictures of them. These prehistoric looking people would be there one instant, then would start running and in the next instant they would just disappear. 

Hill claimed she was given this information by a local police chief, who also told her the little people were naked and covered with "sparse hair."

There is a lot to unpack here. First of all, the only source for this story is Betty Hill and The Psychic Sasquatch. I don't doubt the sincerity of Betty Hill or Jack Lapersitis, but if small cavemen had really been living on an island in Massachusetts for three years I think more people would know about it. Hill claims anthropologists went to the island, and that local residents would stand on the riverbank trying to see the speedy little cavemen. I think someone would have alerted the press if this had happened.

On the other hand, these speedy miniature cave folk reminded me of New England's most famous magical little people, the pukwudgies. When I say "magical little people," I mean fairies. Like these cavemen, the pukwudgies are generally described as being small and hairy. The word pukwudgie originally comes from the Ojibwa, a Native American group in the midwest, and made its way into New England folklore via local 19th century poets like Henry Longfellow, town historians, and Wampanoag storytellers on Cape Cod. Puwudgie is generally said to simply mean "little people," but poet and folklorist John Greenleaf Whittier thought it meant "little vanisher," which certainly is descriptive of the cavemen Betty Hill discusses. 

Vintage brownie illustration found here. 

People who encounter fairies across Europe and North America often say they wear archaic or old-fashioned clothing. It is rare to meet a fairy wearing yoga pants and a hoodie. This may be because fairies represent the past, whether that's an older way of life, a culture that has vanished, or because they are actually spirits of the dead who remain nearby. The tiny naked cavefolk could easily fit into all these categories. 

Some fairies also appear naked. For example, in Scotland the fairies called brownies generally appear as small, naked, hairy beings. Brownies were said to perform chores for the humans whose homes they inhabited, but would disappear if given a gift of clothing. 

I'm not necessarily saying the tiny cavefolk on the Connecticut river were fairies or brownies, but just that the story about them has themes similar to fairy and pukwudgie stories. If there are fairies in New England, and many people believe there are, I can certainly see why they'd appear as small hairy humanoids. It just feels like the right fit for our stony, woodsy biome and occasionally inclement climate. Flowing gowns and diaphanous wings would not fare well here.  

If anyone has more information on this story please let me know in the comments or by email. I would love to know more about this topic.  

Bigfoot Stole My Laundry: High Strangeness in Connecticut

Here's an interesting and very brief story that appears in Phillip Imbrogno's 2010 book Files from the Edge: A Paranormal Investigator's Explorations into High Strangeness. Imbrogno writes:

Although most Bigfoot sightings come from credible sources, some seem really questionable. For example, in 1992 I received a call from a Connecticut woman who said that a black helicopter landed in her yard and a Bigfoot jumped out, messed up the yard, and stole her clothes hanging on the line too dry. The creature then quickly climbed back into the helicopter and took off. As strange as it sounds, I've heard even weirder reports. Such tales are not this book's focus, but they do exist!

First of all, I have to say this story is amazing. I love the idea of Bigfoot jumping out of a mysterious black helicopter just to act like a bad teenager, messing up someone's yard and stealing their laundry. Amazing! Was Bigfoot piloting the helicopter, or was someone else? Maybe there were two Bigfoots on board, one acting as pilot and one as laundry thief. I want more details.

Getty Images.

I'm not really familiar with Phillip Imbrogno, but some people in the paranormal community claim he has faked his academic credentials. You can look up the details online if you're curious. You may want to take his writings with a grain of salt, and even he says the story about Bigfoot and the helicopter is pretty questionable. 

There is a certain "mix and match" aspect to some contemporary paranormal stories that make them seem even stranger than they normally would. A Bigfoot or UFO story is anomalous by its very nature, but some of these stories are strange hybrids of multiple paranormal ideas. For example, last week's story about ZoZo was "reptoid entity + Ouija board = demon," or possibly "reptoid entity + Ouija board = alien being," depending on when it was told. 

This week's story is the same. Black helicopters have been a feature of UFO and paranormal accounts for decades, and they are often implied to be part of some unnamed government conspiracy. And of course, Bigfoot has been a staple of paranormal stories for decades. When they're mashed together they provide surprisingly entertaining results: "Bigfoot + black helicopter = missing laundry." 

I like old folklore as well as new paranormal stories, but the older folklore was much more standardized. For example, classic witch tales from across New England were all pretty similar, reflecting the shared belief system of our cultural ancestors. Ghost stories were pretty much the same as well. People are much more creative now with their stories of strange encounters. I think there's just a wider range of beliefs these days. Some people think Bigfoot is a reclusive animal, some think he's an alien, others that he's from another dimension. Apparently someone thinks he flies around in a black helicopter pulling pranks. There's a lot of variety. 

A cynic might say this is all caused by capitalism and our ever-expanding range of media outlets. Readers and viewers crave novelty, so authors and TV producers always need to find new stories to tell (and sell). People online need to post weirder and wilder stories in order to get views and likes. You saw a UFO last night or a mysterious large footprint in the snow? Old news! Tell me about black-eyed children who came out of a UFO after you bought a haunted house. Then maybe I'll read your post. Maybe. 

That's the skeptical perspective. On the other hand, humans have been experiencing strange phenomena for thousands of years, and probably will for thousands more. These experiences have always been filtered through our cultural perspectives. The ancient Greeks saw nymphs and satyrs, the Puritans saw witches and ghosts, people in the late 20th century saw UFOs and Bigfoot. As we move into the 21st century American culture is comprised of more viewpoints, and more diverse viewpoints, than ever before. We just have a larger set of cultural filters than people had in the past, so let's enjoy the weirdness that results. And of course, keep an eye on your laundry.

Bigfoot Hunters and A Glowing Light in Maine

You may have heard that an Oklahoma lawmaker wants to create a Bigfoot hunting season in his state. Justin Humphrey is the state representative for a district in Southeastern Oklahoma, an area where many people have seen the mysterious hairy hominid. 

Southeastern Oklahoma is already home to Gasquatch, a giant Sasquatch that stands outside a gas station/convenience store in the town of Idabel. In fact, the business is actually called Gasquatch. And the small town of Honobia has an annual Bigfoot festival every year which features music, food, and lectures by cryptozoologists. Honobia is surrounded by dense forests (logging is the main industry) and a local family reportedly encountered a group of Sasquatch in January of 2000. The Sasquatch stole deer carcasses from an outdoor refrigerator in an encounter called the Siege of Honobia. 

Photo of Gasquatch from this site. 

Humphrey's office was flooded with angry calls and emails after he announced his intention to create a hunting season. Bigfoot fans were outraged and assumed he was encouraging people to kill the creature. He was quick to clarify the bill's intent:

"Our goal is not to kill Bigfoot. We will make that everyone understands what we want to do is trap Bigfoot," he said. 

The bill would also create a $25,000 reward for anyone who captures the creature. 

"I have been in the woods all my life and I have not ever seen any sign of Bigfoot," Humphrey said. "I have never heard Bigfoot, but I have some people that I know that are good, solid people who I will guarantee you 100 percent have said they have had experience with Bigfoot. So, I know there are people out there that you will not convince that Bigfoot doesn't exist." (from TheHill.com)

Humphrey's main goal is to promote tourism in his part of the state. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't think anyone is going to capture or kill Bigfoot, because Bigfoot probably isn't a physical creature. It's quite possible he's just a creature of legend or folklore, like the Easter Bunny. It's also possible he's something more ontologically tricky. 

Maybe he's a spirit of some kind, or an extradimensional being. Maybe those are just two ways of saying the same thing? The ancient Greeks might have said he was a daimon, an intermediary being between gods and men. The ancient Romans might have called him a genius loci, a spirit of a particular place like a forest. Whatever they called him, they wouldn't have tried to trap and kill him. If anything, they would have made an altar and left offerings for him. 

Bigfoot stories have always contained hints this hairy monster is more than just an animal. Witnesses report Sasquatches disappearing into thin air, tracks stopping in the middle of nowhere, and even receiving telepathic communications from the creatures. Bigfoot sightings are also associated with strange lights in the sky or UFOs, as this story from New Gloucester, Maine shows:

The main witness along with two other individuals was exploring a 60 acre sand pit when they saw an extremely bright light. They were terrified at first but decided that they would investigate. They continued walking toward the light until it led them to a section of the pit enclosed by thick trees with a small opening in the middle. At this point they saw a large upright being approximately 8 feet tall, covered with hair and piercing ice blue eyes. Frozen with fear they stood as still as possible until the creature noticed them and bolted into the trees. The witnesses then left the area. (Albert Rosales, Humanoid Encounters: 2008 - 2009: The Others Amongst Us)

This sighting supposedly occurred on October 25, 2008 at 1:27 a.m. A few take aways from this story. First, I do not recommend wandering around sand pits after dark. Monsters or not, that's a recipe for trouble. Second, normal animals are not accompanied by mysterious bright lights! I see lots of animals in my neighborhood - rabbits, raccoons, turkeys, and even coyotes. Their appearance is not heralded by unexplained lights. But here are some things whose appearance is accompanied by bright lights: ghosts, demons, divine beings, extraterrestrials, and even angels. 

Image from Amazon.

The witness and their friends were terrified when they saw the bright light, and I was reminded that angels in the Bible often say "Fear not" when they appear. I'm not saying Bigfoot is an angel, just that radiant supernatural incursions into the human world are often frightening. We've all seen bright lights before and not been afraid. But most of us haven't seen a bright light in a sandpit after midnight that leads us to a huge hairy creature. Oh, and it all happened the week before Halloween.

If this story's true, I don't think any hunters would be able to capture that Bigfoot. Even if it's not true, it still reflects what a lot of people think about Bigfoot. He's not an animal, and can't be shot or trapped. It's fine that Justin Humphrey wants to create a Bigfoot hunting season but I think there might be some disappointed hunters out there.

One last note. The day I started writing this post I got an email about some UFO sightings in Maine. One of them - a UFO abduction - supposedly happened in New Gloucester in 1973. The abduction occurred just north of the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village. This is very close to New Gloucester's sand pit, the Shaker Pit on Route 26, which presumably is where Bigfoot was seen in 2008. This might all be a coincidence, but I'm definitely not visiting that sandpit after midnight. 

Social Distancing, Bigfoot, and a Night-time Theft in Brimfield

Social distancing. It's the phrase on everyone's lips these days - and I hope those lips are hidden behind a mask. Maintaining a safe distance from others is one of the ways we can help end the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Public health experts have been doing their best to spread the social distancing gospel, and they have an unusual ally helping them: Bigfoot. The ever-elusive cryptid has become the unofficial poster boy for social distancing. 

It makes perfect sense. After all, have you ever been closer than six feet to a Sasquatch? Probably not. When someone gets too close to Bigfoot he runs away. Or maybe he throws a boulder. Either way, he doesn't want to catch COVID-19. 

Shortly after the pandemic started in the U.S. I started seeing "Bigfoot: Social Distancing Champion" memes showing up in my social media. I don't know who first created it but the meme has really taken off this spring. Here are just a few samples:

You can buy "Bigfoot: Social Distancing Champion" tee-shirts online, and there is even a Bigfoot: Social Distancing Champion running challenge to benefit U.S. food banks. All participants run on their own, unlike traditional road races.

There are also quite a few videos out there. My favorite is this one from Gatorland, an alligator theme park outside of Orlando. The park's new mascot is Social Distancing Skunk Ape, which is the Florida term for Bigfoot. He's insistent you stay distant! 

Bigfoot's social distancing even made news here in Massachusetts. In April, Brimfield resident Tod Disotell reported that a six-foot tall Bigfoot statue had been stolen from his front yard. Disotell, an anthropologist who has appeared on Spike TV's show 10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty, had been adorning the statue with face masks and signs encouraging social distancing. 

From Twitter

Disotell's statue became something of a local attraction, but was stolen the night of April 22. Security camera footage showed two hooded figures cutting a security chain before absconding with the statue. Happily, police located the statue a few days later in downtown Worcester. Bigfoot is now back in Disotell's front yard to encourage people to maintain social distancing. 

People use the symbol of Bigfoot in all kinds of ways. Corporations put him in a lot of ads, but I find his non-commercial appearances more interesting. During the insanely snowy winter of 2015 (aka Snowmageddon), a Somerville, Massachusetts man in a Yeti costume became an internet sensation. In 2017, a marijuana leaf-covered Bigfoot gained brief fame as Pot Sasquatch. And last fall,  a small Vermont town learned that construction on a bridge was delayed due to Bigfoot. The big monster doesn't usually say much but people find lots of ways to make this shy, quiet cryptid speak for them.

The real Bigfoot hasn't said anything about this current fame, but that's probably because he's out in the woods social distancing. He's setting a good example for all of us. 

*****

Tune into Midnight Society radio this Thursday, June 18 to hear me talk with host Tim Weisberg about cryptids, witchcraft, and other weird New England themes. The show airs live from 10:00 pm - 1:00 am Eastern time. It will be a spooky good time!

Monsterland: Legends, Evidence, and Bigfoot in Leominster, Massachusetts

Although many of my posts about older folklore, I like new folklore as well. It's called paranormal encounters or urban legends these days, but I'm always happy to read about UFOs, hauntings, and encounters with strange cryptids. Sometimes these modern stories are just as weird and scary as the demon-obsessed tales of the 17th century.

Ronny LeBlanc's 2016 book Monsterland discusses legends, paranormal phenomena, and general weirdness in Leominster, Massachusetts. As you can tell by the title, it also includes some monster sightings, and here's a particularly creepy story that appears in it. 

Way back in the 1950s, a man entered a Leominster bar on a warm summer night. He was visibly agitated, and when the manager asked him why the man said he had just seen a "terrifying monster" on the Old Mill Road near the railroad bridge. He asked the manager to call the police to investigate.

Image from the 2018 film Primal Rage: Bigfoot Reborn.

The manager made the phone call and the police said they were on their way. As the man waited for them to arrive he became more and more agitated. Finally, he said he couldn't wait for the police any longer. He was going to go kill the monster himself and bring back its body as proof.

He rushed out of the bar. When the police arrived the manager told them the man had gone to find the monster on his own. The officers drove down to Old Mill Road and found the man's car parked by the side of the road with its lights on. No one was inside. The woods were very dark, so rather than risk getting lost they decided to wait for the man to return. They waited. They waited longer. They waited and waited.

But the man never came back.

After this incident that part of Leominster was nicknamed Monsterland. People reported seeing apelike creatures and finding large humanoid footprints in the ground. Others said their car engines would mysteriously die in the area. Teenagers partied at the railroad bridge party and tried to see the monster. You can see a 2009 video of Old Mill Road and the railroad bridge here.

The woods abutting Old Mill Road now have some condo developments in them, but the legend of Monsterland (and maybe even the monster itself) still lives on. Large areas of Leominster remain undeveloped, including over 4,000 acres in Leominster State Forest.

One way to determine if a story is legend is by how vague the details are. Legends take place on "warm summer night," not on a specific day. Their protagonists are identified generically, like "the man" in the Leominster monster story. They don't have specific names. Legends are vague and archetypal: a warm summer night, a monster, and a man who never came back.

But is there ever any truth behind legends like this one? On June 27, 2010, Bill and Julie Penning took hike in the Leominster woods. As they walked towards their destination (a local reservoir) they heard something moving around in the trees near the trail. Branches crunched. It sounded like a large animal. They assumed it was a deer, but both got a "weird feeling." They kept hiking until the realized they were lost and decided to turn back.

When they got back to area where they heard the animal they got a big surprise:

“We had just been there, and when we came back there were footprints, with five toes, and at least three and a half inches deep in the mud, they were some serious tracks,” Bill said. 

The Pennings both experienced an eerie feeling and decided they wanted to get out of the area. 

“Where it was early spring there was a lot of brush and berries around us, but not a sound could be heard by anything, no birds, or other animals, just a weird feeling,” Julie said. 

Bill said he felt disorientated, and they both spent more time trying to find a way out due to the feelings they had. ("A Sighting Unseen," Leominster Champion, January 13, 2012)

The Pennings contacted LeBlanc, and they returned to the woods to make a plaster cast of the footprints. The foot prints were about ten inches long and much wider than a normal human foot. The depth of the prints indicated they were made by a very heavy creature and the gait was not like that of a human.

Ronny LeBlanc (left), with Bill and Julie Penning in Leominster.

LeBlanc and the Pennings eventually wound up on an episode of Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot, and the experience of seeing the tracks spurred LeBlanc to write Monsterland. He later went on to star in the Travel Channel's Expedition Bigfoot in 2020.

So is there really a monster living in the forests of Leominster? Scientists would tell us no, and it's important to listen to scientists (particularly right now during this pandemic). There's no conclusive evidence indicating large hominids are living in New England. 

However, people have been seeing large hairy monsters in this area for centuries, and I think the Pennings did encounter something. I just don't know what it was. Personally, I don't think Bigfoot (or whatever the Leominster monster is) is an animal. Maybe he's some weird manifestation of our subconscious, maybe he's the spirit of the landscape, or maybe he's visiting from another dimension. And maybe, when I get my courage up, I'll visit Monsterland and find out. 

A Bigfoot Sighting in Vermont: Animal, Spirit, or Legend?

Do you ever visit the website Phantoms and Monsters? If you like stories about the paranormal you should definitely check it out. Every day a new story is posted and most are first person accounts of encounters with.. well, phantoms and monsters.

The site is easily searchable which I appreciate since I can find just the stories from New England. Phantoms and Monsters featured a classic Bigfoot story on January 14 of this year. The author is a longtime Vermont resident. She was driving home with her husband from a hunting trip on a warm day when they saw a large animal in the road. At first they thought it might be a bear:

I came to a stop just yards from it. We both thought it was a bear as it was hunched over with it's back to us. I honked the horn a couple of times but to no avail, the creature continued doing its thing... until it started standing up and up and up... “It had to have been 9 foot tall, maybe 800lbs,” my husband said; reddish brown shaggy fur.

Bionic Bigfoot from The Six Million Dollar Man (1976) 

The creature turns to look at the couple in the car:

It was very apparent that whatever it was, was intelligent. It was a male but the largest animal I'd ever seen close up and my husband was as shocked as I was at the sight of the thing (not being disrespectful). It eyed us for maybe a minute or two looking directly into each of our eyes then turned, took a step towards the side of the road... Then the animal was just gone.

And that's it. The author writes that she was unfamiliar with Bigfoot when she saw this creature but later learned about him when she read a book by cryptozoologist Ivan Sanderson. (You can read the full account here.) Sadly she doesn't provide a date when the sighting occurred.

There is always the possibility that this story is a hoax, but even if it is it still reads like a classic Bigfoot account to me. It has all the usual components of a Bigfoot sighting, like the following:

1. People are just minding their own business when they encounter something strange.
2. At first they think it's an animal, but oh crap! It's a hairy humanoid.
3. The witnesses are amazed at the size of the creature, and sometimes at its intelligence.
4. The creature disappears. 

However, just because most Bigfoot stories are all similar doesn't necessarily mean they're false. Perhaps Bigfoot just acts the same way all the time.

If Bigfoot does exist I personally don't think he/it is an animal. How could people in Vermont not notice 9-foot tall, 800 pound humanoids wandering around? They would be pretty hard to miss. And why haven't all these Bigfoot hunters found anything after all these years? It's entirely possible that Bigfoot is just a creature of folklore, a legend that modern Americans tell about something lurking in the woods. He's our version of the Medieval wildman or the Ancient Greek satyr.

However, if you believe in spirits, I think it's also possible to consider Bigfoot as some type of land-spirit, like the Roman genius loci. A genius loci is the spirit of a particular place; perhaps the Bigfoots people see are the spirits of the American wilderness. Which again make him similar to the wildman or satyrs.

But whether Bigfoot is just a legend or a spirit being, the message of these classic Bigfoot stories is identical: humans are not alone. Something else shares the planet with us, something intelligent, and it's not far away. It's right there in the woods or the swamp, just waiting to show itself to us.

Some Good News: Bigfoot Delays Bridge Construction?

There is a lot of bad news out there right now. A category 5 hurricane (one of the strongest on record) just hit the Bahamas and will probably hit the U.S. mainland this week. There was a mass shooting in Texas, and a boat fire off the coast of California may have killed more than 20 people. There are protests in Hong Kong, and the political situations in the United States and Britain aren't so great either. 

Do you need a break? I know I do. So here's some news from the small town of Bradford, Vermont: Sasquatch may (or may not) have caused delays on a bridge's construction. 

Residents of Bradford (of which there are about 2,800) were surprised last week to find flyer at the town post office addressing rumors that the closure of the Creamery Bridge (which crosses the Waits River) had been caused by the activities of one or more Sasquatch. A photo of the flyer is below:

Photo: Seven Days Vermont.

The flyer caused surprise because this was the first time anyone had heard anything about Bigfoot causing the closure. Rather than quelling the Bigfoot rumor the flyer actually started it. Which was probably the the point...

The bridge is only 100 feet long but has been closed for over a year with no construction work yet done. People in Bradford have been puzzled and annoyed. Alexander Chee, a Dartmouth College professor and Bradford resident, had the following to say:

"Bigfoot is actually the most plausible reason, because I feel like you could build several new bridges in the time that that bridge has been closed," Chee said with a laugh. "And if you can't, what's wrong with you? Really, what is going on?!" (from Seven Days Vermont)

A Vermont transportation official also addressed the rumor:

J.B. McCarthy, the Vermont Agency of Transportation project manager for the Bradford bridge, said the work is simple enough, but errors in design drawings have delayed it. Sasquatch hasn't played a part, he said: "I wish I could blame it on that!" (from Seven Days Vermont)

According to The Boston Globe, additional copies of the flyer have appeared around Bradford on bulletin boards and outside businesses. Most people in town are just accepting the Sasquatch rumor as a hoax and a form of protest against the delayed construction.  

“The only Sasquatch I’ve seen is my boyfriend,” said Sherry Brown, who was working the counter at Village Eclectics near Main Street. 

Amy Cook, a local veterinarian, said, “I have not treated Sasquatch” — but added that she might not be able to say even if she had, given HIPAA restrictions. (from The Boston Globe)

Still, there's a very, very slight chance that Sasquatch may indeed be lurking near town, at least according to Pearl Sullivan, who lives next to the Waits River:

“About a month ago,” she says, “my husband and my daughter and a couple of her friends swam a little ways down the river. There’s a part where the water gets really shallow, and I saw these huge footprints in the water. They just seemed way too big to be ours.” 

She shrugs. 

“And then this comes along.” (from The Boston Globe)

Sasquatch or not, I'm just going to enjoy this weird little story before I get back to reading all the bad news out there. 

Bigfoot, Poltergeists, and Witches: 300 Years of Weird Phenomena

A few weeks ago I posted about the states where you are most likely to see a UFO.  Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire were in the top ten, which makes sense because they are all rural states where you can get a good look at the night sky. After I posted that I wondered to myself, "I wonder if there are any statistics about Bigfoot sightings?"

Well, the Internet has answered my question. A recent article on Ok Whatever examines statistics from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization to determine what states have the highest (and lowest) cumulative number of hairy humanoid sightings.

A Bigfoot carving in Mocksville, North Carolina. 

Washington leads the way with a whopping 666 sightings. And yes, that is the Biblical number of the Beast so apparently the beast in question is Sasquatch. Washington is large and very woodsy which is supposedly the terrain that Bigfoot really likes. California, another large state which also has huge forests, comes in second with 441 reports. 

New England doesn't fare well in this list with Rhode Island and Vermont in the bottom five. Rhode Island is small and densely populated which might explain why there have only been five reported Bigfoot sightings. Vermont, however, is heavily forested and parts of it are quite rural so I would expect more than nine sightings.

The remaining New England states don't have high numbers of sightings either:

Connecticut: 17
Maine: 17
Massachusetts: 35
New Hampshire: 16

Despite low numbers some of the New England sightings are still pretty creepy. And quite familiar to anyone who's read a lot of paranormal accounts or folklore. Take this reported encounter, for example. On May 27, 2016 a married couple in Hancock, New Hampshire was awakened at 3:00 am by strange screaming sounds in the woods near their house. The screaming was followed by a knocking on the outside of their house and the sound of multiple things rustling through the trees and undergrowth. The husband went out on the back deck:

I felt like there were multiple sets of eyes on me. As I stood there I could hear breaking limbs, tree shaking and what sounded like a creature with serious power. My 12 gauge felt like nothing and I knew I better get back in the house. The noises carried on for a half hour.

After hearing something rush right up to him and grunt in the darkness he retreated inside. The noises eventually stopped. In the morning the couple saw broken tree branches and trampled plants near their home.

A camper in Western Massachusetts reported something similar: rocks were thrown at him one night in the fall of 2016.

I was camping in Massachusetts on top of October Mountain by a pond through the evening something was throwing small rocks at my tent I smelled it foul smell like dead fish. Rocks coming on the opposite side about 50 yards away I heard wood knocking I had no idea what it was until I heard some noises a growling sound and some yells this was going on for about 25 minutes then I shined a flashlight Into the Woods, I do not see anything but after that the noises went away the next morning. I woke up I found some broken limbs near where the sounds were coming from.

Although some people actually do report seeing large hairy humanoids many others just report these strange phenomena: knocking sounds, shrieks, rocks thrown by unseen hands, and damaged trees. Is all this really being caused by Bigfoot, who some people claim is just a large undiscovered apelike animal? It sounds like poltergeist phenomena to me. And it would have been familiar to the earliest English settlers of this region.

This type of weird phenomena has been reported in New England for hundreds of years. Here is testimony from John Russell in 1683 about the experiences of one Nicholas Disborough of Hartford, Connecticut:

This providence becomes amazing things: things being thrown at him and his boy, night and day in house and field: sometimes in open places where one might see a quarter of a mile about and no appearance of hand or person to throw them. The things were stones, dirt brickbats, cobs of Indian corn. 

People in New Hampshire and Massachusetts also reported similar occurrences during the 17th century as well. Here is William Morse's description of a strange assault on his house in Newbury, Massachusetts in 1679:

On last Thursday night my wife and I being in bed we heard a great noise about the house of knocking against the roof with sticks and stones throwing against the house with great violence; whereupon I arose myself and my wife and saw not anybody but was forced to return into the house again the stones being thrown so violently against us...

The Puritans interpreted these phenomena as witchcraft and trials often ensued. In fact, William Morses' own wife was eventually convicted of witchcraft. I think in most cases the phenomena can be explained away as pranks played by angry neighbors or relatives, but it's interesting that the same weird things are supposedly happening to people in the 21st century. The only thing that changes is the explanation.

The Puritan settlers understood these phenomena through their religious worldview. Weird sounds and rocks thrown by invisible assailants were caused by witches in league with the Devil. The witches needed to be arrested and punished to stop the phenomena. Three centuries later modern New Englanders understand them through a scientific worldview. Those weird knocking noises and thrown rocks are interpreted as the work of a large as-of-yet undiscovered hominid creature that lives in the woods. We just need to capture a Sasquatch and then we'll understand why they behave the way they do. The Sasquatch explanation is an improvement over the witchcraft one because at least no one is being arrested and executed. 

So which is it, witches or Sasquatch? I suspect it's actually neither. I don't have a good explanation myself, but I suspect in 300 years people will have a totally different interpretation for the same old tricks.