Uncategorizable Weirdness: Aliens, Mummies, Fairies, and Dark Swamps

When I write this blog I always enjoy categorizing the stories I tell. That one's a Bigfoot encounter, that one's a ghost story, that one's a witch story. Humans like to categorize our experiences, and those of us who write about legends and the paranormal are no different. We want to put things into neat little buckets.

However, reality doesn't always fit into neat little categories. We try to impose order, but strange phenomena are much less orderly than we want. They can be downright slippery. Here are a couple stories that illustrate this.

STORY ONE: LITTLE MUMMIES IN THE WOODS

The year was 1974. It was the night of August 20. Around 9:30 pm a man was driving near Derry, New Hampshire on Route 42. We'll call him Joe R., since his real last name isn't known.

As Joe R. was driving down the wooded road he saw a large object ("as big as a house," he later swore) flying across sky ahead of him. It flew from east to west. It was bright like the sun, white, and somehow blurry. It went down behind the trees between Exit 4 and Exit 5. Several similar smaller objects flew down after it.

Curious about what he had just seen, Joe R. pulled over and walked into the woods. He didn't find the shiny object, but he saw something even stranger: two small "mummy-like" humanoids walking in the woods. They were about 40 yards away from him. When he saw them Joe R. became scared and ran back to his car.

Joe later told his story to two UFO investigators, and their account was later found by Albert Rosales, the great collector of humanoid encounters. I found the story on a UFO site, and it is truly a UFO sighting in the literal sense of the term "unidentified." What was the bright shiny object? When I read the story my first assumption was that it was some kind of extraterrestrial craft, but that isn't really specified. Joe never saw a spaceship for flying saucer, but simply a glowing white light that flew across the sky and disappeared into the woods. There is no indication of where it came from.

And what of the two little mummy creatures? I suppose if the light were spaceship they might be aliens that came out of it, but again it's not clear if that's what happened. Joe R. saw a light go down behind some trees, then he saw two little creatures walking in the woods. The two phenomena seem connected but it's not clear how.

I am particularly hesitant to label this as an alien encounter because of the location. Derry has a long history of strange humanoid creatures. For example, folklore from the 19th and early 20th century claimed the area was the home of a fairy named Tsienneto. Derry was settled by Scotch Irish immigrants and they clearly brought some of their fairy lore with them. Tsienneto was supposed to be a beautiful fairy queen, but in 1956 a man named Alfred Horne saw a small green humanoid while cutting Christmas trees in the woods. The creature had floppy ears like a dog, eyes with a reptilian nictitating membrane, and stumpy toeless legs. Horne tried to capture the creature but fled when it let out an earth-piercing shriek.

The story of Joe R.'s encounter fits into Derry's weird history of weird humanoids. I have no idea what these creatures are (if the stories are true). Are they fairies? Are they aliens? Are they renegade Christmas elves? Are they all different beings that just happened to find their way to Derry? They don't seem to fit into any clear category.

STORY TWO: A DRIVE THROUGH A DARK SWAMP

Here's another case of a strange, unidentifiable humanoid sighting, this time from 1990. Two residents of Bridgewater, Massachusetts were driving down Route 138 en route to a dog track in Raynham. As they drove down the road they saw a strange man standing next to the guardrail:

His clothes were old-looking, dirty and dusty, his skin was pale gray and the detail that stood out most was his hair, very dry looking, thin and brittle, sticking off from the sides of his head in a strange manner. 

The two Bridgewater residents went past him to the track, but when they reached their destination they realized it was not open that night. They turned around and drove back the way they came. They  were surprised to see the man was no longer by the guardrail. They had only been gone a few minutes, and Route 138 at that area goes through a very dense swamp. There was no place for the strange man to go, unless he went into the dark, night-time swamp.

I found that story on the same UFO site where I found Joe R.'s story, so someone thought there was something weird about the man near the swamp, but what? He could have just been a homeless person living in the swamp. But once again the location is important.

Route 138 goes right through the infamous Hockocmock Swamp, which is a hotspot for paranormal encounters and is itself smack in the middle of the even more infamous Bridgewater Triangle. Given the location, this story's inclusion on a UFO site makes a little more sense. UFOs are often seen in the Bridgewater Triangle, although there wasn't one in connection with this story. The human mind wants to make connections. There must be something strange about a strange man in strange location. Maybe he was a ghost? A swamp spirit of some kind? A fairy there to lure people away from the road and into the darkness?

I don't think we'll ever know the answers to these questions. We have an urge to give order to our world, but sometimes the world has other, weirder plans.

The Modern Fairies of New England: Have You Seen a Pukwudgie?

When the earliest English settlers came to New England they noticed that something was missing from their new home.

Back in merry old England, humans lived in a landscape inhabited by various supernatural entities. Some of them did make their way to New England. For example, there were plenty of witches to persecute here, and somehow the Devil followed the devout Puritans all the way across the Atlantic to their New Jerusalem wilderness. (He's a tricky one!) After a while the landscape also began to fill up with ghosts as the first generation of settlers passed away.

So what was missing? The fairies. In England fairies lurked in the woods, under the hills, and in the barns and fireplaces. Fairies could even be seen walking in the marketplace by those who had the second sight. But here in New England no one saw any fairies.

Several New England authors remarked on this:

• The novelist and minister Sylvester Judd (1813 - 1855) wrote, "There are no fairies in our meadows, and no elves to spirit away our children." 
• In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850),  Reverend Dimmesdale says of his illegitimate daughter: "But how strangely beautiful she looks, with those wild flowers in her hair. It is as if one of the fairies, whom we left in our dear old England, had decked her out to meet us." (Emphasis is mine.)
• Poet and folklorist John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892) wrote, "Fairy faith is, we may safely say, now dead everywhere ... It never had much hold upon the Yankee mind, our superstitions being mostly of a sterner and less poetical kind."

Happily, I can say these writers were incorrect. The fairies were biding their time, waiting to find the right shape to show themselves to the new invasive inhabitants of this region.

Of course, the various Indian groups native to New England had experiences with the small magical beings who lived in the forests, but the Indian myths and traditions about these beings were specific to Native American languages and ways of life. They weren't necessarily a good fit for the European-style agricultural and industrial society.

A few of the English settlers had brought their fairy traditions with them, but they never really took hold. When the Irish came they brought even more vibrant fairy beliefs, and some of them took root. For example, the town of Derry in New Hampshire was settled by Scots-Irish immigrants. Derry's Beaver Lake is supposedly inhabited by a fairy named Tsienneto, who helped folk heroes like Hannah Duston and John Stark. Although she has a name that sounds Native American, there is no record of Tsienneto before the Scots-Irish founded Derry. Written records of Tsienneto seem to only date back to the early 20th century. Tsienneto is still known in Derry, but not much beyond that town.

The fairies that are probably best known in New England are the pukwudgies. I'm using the word fairy in its older sense, referring to any magical humanoid being, because pukwudgies are certainly not beautiful winged ballerinas like Tinkerbell. According to legend, the pukwudgies are ugly gray-skinned humanoids that stand two to three feet high and live in wild places. They are often associated with the Hockamock Swamp and the Freetown State Forest in Massachusetts, but they have been seen in other locations as well. Pukwudgies are said to be quite malevolent. For example, they are known to sometimes push unsuspecting hikers off cliffs, and can make things burst into flames.

A quick search of YouTube will show you some videos about pukwudgies. They've been featured on TV shows like Monsters and Mysteries in America. Local paranormal investigators have also posted some interesting videos about these magical little neighbors of ours.



I recently found a nice pukwudgie account in the comments section on Christopher Knowles's blog The Secret Sun. The anonymous commenter writes that he went for a winter hike in the woods near New Hampshire's Pease Air Force Base with his wife, baby and four-year old son. The four-year old ran off the down the path ahead of his parents. When he came back,

He said something like, 'So daddy, I saw a little man over there. He had a basket of candy around his neck, and he wanted me to reach in and take some. But I said no, and that I had to come back to talk to you.'

Well, so that immediately caught my attention, as you might imagine.

The parents were unable to find the little man, and the boy simply said the man had been standing next to one of the trees and that he had skin the color of metal. The parents were creeped out and quickly left the area.

  
Pukwudgies are said to be creatures from Wampanoag folklore. That is and isn't true. The term pukwudgie is relatively new to New England. Before the Europeans arrived the local Indians used words like makiawisug to describe fairies, who were considered mischievous but not malevolent like the pukwudgies.

According to anthropologist William Simmons, pukwudgie is actually a word that means "little people" or "fairy" in the Ojibwa language. The Ojibwa live in the Midwest and parts of Canada, not New England.

It seems "pukwudgie" was first used to describe New England fairies by the Mashpee chief Clarence Wixon, also known as Red Shell. Wixon was involved in the Pan-Indian political movement and was familiar with Indian myths and legends from across North America, including those of the Ojibwa. He used the word pukwudgie in a tale he told author Elizbeth Reynard, who included it in her 1934 book The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod. It spread from Reynard's book into common usage.

Just because the word is relatively new to the region doesn't necessarily mean the pukwudgies are. Perhaps they were just waiting for the right time to show themselves. I also think that culture plays a big role in how individuals perceive the supernatural. While the polytheistic Native Americans of New England were able to see the land's spirits as the mischievous or playful makiawisug, modern European Americans who are the product of a monotheistic worldview have a tendency to see supernatural beings as sinister and dangerous. We don't see the playful makiawisug, we see the grim and dangerous pukwudgies. John Greenleaf Whittier was right when he said our superstitions were "of a sterner and less poetical kind."

I will be contributing a chapter about New England fairies to an upcoming book about fairylore. Please contact me through the comments section or my email address if you have seen a fairy in New England, and particularly if you've encountered a pukwudgie. I'd love to hear your story!

Fairies at a New Hampshire Inn

Lots of witches and ghosts lurk in New England folklore, but not many fairies. Why is that?

The poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote, "Fairy faith is, we may safely say, now dead everywhere ... It never had much hold upon the Yankee mind, our superstitions being mostly of a sterner and less poetical kind." He also claims that any fairy beliefs found in New England were brought here in the 1700s by Irish Presbyterians.

That quote is from Prose Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, which was published around 1866. He then goes on to provide a story to prove the Irish brought the fairies with them.

Poet John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807 - 1892.

In the early 1800s, a surly, unhappy man decided to open an inn in New Hampshire. Business suffered because of his dour personality and "poverty came upon the house and its tenants like an armed man." The man's wife, who was of Irish descent, remained hopeful despite the dire financial situation. A better day would come, she told her husband and daughters.

The inn's business did improve, but for an odd reason: a troupe of fairies took up residence in the building. Although they were invisible to mortal eyes, their quiet, squeaky voices could be heard by everyone who visited the tavern. It was noted by several visitors that they spoke in a distinct Yankee/Irish dialect.

Word spread throughout the area about the fairies, and curious crowds gathered to hear them speak - and to spend money on food and drink. Life was good for the innkeeper, his wife, and three daughters.

Gradually, though, people began to question the reality of the fairies. Why had they taken up residence in New Hampshire? How come no one could see them? Whittier claims these doubts arose because fairies just weren't part of New England culture:

Had the place been traversed by a ghost of disturbed by a witch they could have acquiesced in it very quietly; but this outlandish belief in fairies was altogether an overtask for Yankee credulity. As might have been expected, the little strangers, unable to breath in an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion, soon took their leave, shaking off the dust of their elfin feet as a testimony against an unbelieving generation.

Some skeptics said the fairies weren't even real. The skeptics claimed some men from Massachusetts had come to hear the fairies and pried away a board in the ceiling - to reveal the innkeeper's three daughters upstairs speaking like the fairies. The skeptics also claimed that once the hoax was revealed the fairy visitation stopped. The innkeeper's wife dismissed this rumor, claiming instead that the fairies had simply gone back to Ireland.

I have a few rambling thoughts on this story. It does seem Whittier was correct that New Englanders were happy to believe in supernatural beings, but only if they were scary and malevolent. The witchlore and ghost stories from this area are full of gruesome creatures and grim situations. You don't encounter too many playful magical creatures in the folklore of this area, but there are a few exceptions.

Whittier doesn't name the town where the inn stood, but only gives the first letter of its name: S. There aren't many New Hampshire town names beginning with S, and since Whittier lived most of his life in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts I suspect the inn was in southern New Hampshire. Maybe it was in Salem, or possibly Sandown?

Southern New Hampshire does seem to have a stronger fairy tradition than other parts of New England. You can see my post about Tisenetto, the Derry fairy, here. Some people also claim this little green man seen in the 1950s was another version of the Derry fairy. You can find some more speculation on the topic of fairies in New Hampshire here.

UFOs in Derry, and Bigfoot in the Orchard

My tastes in New England folklore are pretty broad. Sometimes my attention is captured by a 17th witchcraft story, sometimes by something more contemporary and paranormal. I say that because I was planning to write about an old witchcraft story from the New Hampshire mountains today, but at a party last night someone told me something too good to ignore. The witch story will wait until next week.

My friend David lives on Beaver Lake in Derry, New Hampshire. While talking with him at a birthday party for a mutual friend he asked me if I knew about the UFOs that had been seen in his neighborhood. When I said no, he pulled out his cellphone and showed me this video:



I don't know if the video is real or not, and I certainly don't like the creepy "UFOs are Satanic" preface. However I do think it is interesting and, like all UFO videos, a little freaky. What are these lights? Why are they hovering over a small lake in a residential neighborhood? I'm sure we'll never have authoritative answers to those questions, but David said he and his neighbors have also seen the lights in the sky.

As I wrote a few years ago, Beaver Lake is connected with some of the rare fairy folklore found in New England. A fairy named Tsienneto supposedly lived in the lake, and helped local heroes Hannah Duston and John Spark (who coined the phrase "Live free or die").

Some authors who write about the paranormal, like Patrick Harpur or Jacques Vallee, claim fairies and UFOs are two sides of the same coin. They're both both visitors from another world, but while our ancestors often placed this other world underground or in a mystical realm, we place it in outer space. Maybe Tsienneto has just upgraded her mode of transportation.

By the way, this isn't the first time UFOs have been seen in Derry. In October 1973 multiple witnesses saw a UFO splash into the waters of Rainbow Lake. According to an article in the Derry News, police divers searched the lake but did not find anything.

Here's another interesting video I found while poking around on YouTube. The video was uploaded recently, but apparently it is really from 2010. A Hubbardston, Vermont man noticed that apples had been disappearing from his orchard. When he set up a camera to capture the thief he got a photo of Bigfoot!



I love apples myself, so I can sympathize with Bigfoot here.

Next week I'm going to write about something "Olde Tyme", but as this week's videos show lots of strange things continue to happen in New England. 

Hannah Duston Part II - Was She Helped by a Fairy?

OK, here's the follow up to my initial post about Hannah Duston.

One of the big mysteries surrounding Hannah is how she managed to murder and scalp 10 of her captors while they slept. Wouldn't someone have screamed and woken everyone else? A few years ago I found one possible answer to this question in Eva Speare's 1932 collection, New Hampshire Folk Tales.

According to one Mrs. J. G. MacMurphy of Derry, New Hampshire, a benevolent fairy queen named Tsienneto (Neto for short) lived in Derry's Beaver Lake. Neto took pity on Hannah when she and her captors stopped by the lake as they were heading away from Haverhill, and promised to "accompany her unseen by her captors and to supply all her needs." Neto followed Hannah and the Indians up the Merrimac river, and eventually cast a spell over the Indians so they would sleep soundly while Hannah killed them. Afterwards, Neto helped Hannah and her companions return safely to Haverhill.

Hmmmm. I don't know if I'm entirely satisfied by Mrs. MacMurphy's explanation.

The local Indians certainly believed in beings that are similar to European fairies. But why would a local native American fairy help a Puritan English settler against local Indians? The Puritans wanted to eradicate native supernatural beliefs. Would Neto really help someone who was probably anti-fairy?

I've never seen this story anyplace except Eva Speare's book, so it's possible Mrs. MacMurphy made Tsienneto up. However...

There is a Tsienneto Road in Derry (although there's no proof its named after a fairy) and the Hollow Hills ghost site mentions a different Tsienneto story from another Eva Speare book, Stories of New Hampshire. In that story, Tsienneto saves someone named John Stark from being shot. I'm assuming it's Revolutionary War hero John Stark, who is famous for coining the phrase "Live Free or Die."

Maybe there's something to this Tsienneto legend after all. I'll have to find Stories of New Hampshire. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any information about Tsienneto!