The Monster Book. Nick Redfern
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reasons, as will now become apparent. It all began on October 1, 1997, as Nigel Wright’s journals reveal:
“Approximately three weeks ago two young men were swimming in Otter Cove [Lyme Bay, Exmouth, England]. As darkness drew in, they decided to make for the shore and change to go home. As they got changed, one of them looked out to sea. He saw what he described as a ‘greenish’ light under the surface. He called to the other young man and they both watched as this light ‘rose’ to the surface of the water. The next thing they knew there was a very bright light shining into their faces. They turned the scene and fled.”
Meanwhile, on the top of the cliffs, equally strange things were afoot. The two young men raced for the car of a relative and breathlessly explained what had happened. Incredibly, she, too, had seen something highly unusual in precisely the same time frame on the road leading to Otter Cove: a strange animal that she likened to “an enormous cat.” Whatever the origin of the beast, however, she was certain of one thing: it was, to quote her, “all lit up”—glowing almost.
On the following day, a dead whale was found washed upon the beach below the cliffs. This did not appear to have been merely a tragic accident, however. Rumors quickly circulated that the culprit was the monstrous, glowing, cat-like thing. On receiving reports that a whale had been found in precisely the area that anomalous lights and a strange creature were seen, Wright launched an investigation.
“The first thing that struck me as I looked on at this scene,” recalls Wright, “was how perfect the carcass was. There was no decay or huge chunks torn from it. Then, as I wandered around it, I noticed that there was only one external wound: in the area of the genitals a round incision, the size of a large dinner plate, was cut right into the internal organs of the mammal. The sides of this incision were perfectly formed, as if some giant apple corer had been inserted and twisted around. From the wound hung some of the internal organs.”
Wright continues: ”I quizzed the official from English Heritage, who was responsible for the disposal of the carcass. He informed me that no natural predator or boat strike would have caused this wound. As I looked at this sight, the first thing that came into my mind was how this looked just like the cattle mutilation cases of recent times.”
Wright was also able to determine that this was not the only time that unusual lights had been seen in the vicinity of Lyme Bay: “No precise date can be given for the evening when a fishing boat encountered a strange light over Lyme Bay,” he wrote, “but, since this was told to me by the skipper of the vessel concerned, I can vouch for its authenticity. The vessel in question was five miles off Budleigh Salterton. The crew became aware of a bright, white-blue light which hovered some distance from the boat. At first they thought it was a helicopter but they heard no engine sounds, nor saw any navigation lights.”
Wright was told by the captain of the vessel that the night had been “bright and clear” and that if the object had made any noise, it would certainly have been “audible for miles.”
Glowing lights had been seen over Lyme Bay by the English Channel. They were bright, silent, and stationary.
“The light remained stationary for about one and a half hours. Judging by the mast of their vessel, which is twenty-eight feet high, the crew estimated that the light was not much higher than that,” adds Wright. “It then very suddenly disappeared.”
The mystery was never solved and the glowing cat-thing was never seen again.
HEXHAM HEADS
On December 10, 1904, a startling story appeared in the pages of the English newspaper, the Hexham Courant. Under the heading of “Wolf at Large in Allendale,” it read:
“Local farmers from the village of Allendale, very near to Hexham, had reported the loss of their livestock, so serious that many sheep were being stabled at night to protect them. A shepherd found two of his flock slaughtered, one with its entrails hanging out, and all that remained of the other was its head and horns. Many of the sheep had been bitten about the neck and the legs—common with an attack made by a wolf.”
The newspaper article continued:
“Hysteria soon set in. During the night, lanterns were kept burning to scare away the wolf, and women and children were ordered to keep to the busy roads and be home before dusk. The ‘Hexham Wolf Committee’ was soon set up to organize search parties and hunts to bring down the beast using specialized hunting dogs, the ‘Haydon Hounds’, but even they could not find the wolf. The Wolf Committee took the next step and hired Mr. W. Briddick, a trained tracker. But he was also unsuccessful, despite searching the woods.”
The residents of Allendale near Hexham suspected a wolf in their midst, even though wolves had disappeared centuries before that. It seems some still survived.
On January 7, 1905, however, there was a major development: the Hexham Courant reported that the body of a wolf had been found dead on a railway track at Cumwinton, Cumbria—which was approximately thirty miles from where the majority of the attacks had been occurring. However, it was the newspaper’s firm opinion that this was not the same creature, but yet another one. In other words, the mystery beast of Hexham was still out there.
Indeed, according to some theorists, there was a whole pack of such animals wildly roaming the countryside of northern England by night. And although the searches for the animal, or animals, continued for some time, they were finally brought to a halt when the attacks abruptly stopped. Hexham’s mysterious and wolfish visitor was gone.
In 1972, however, it may well have returned—albeit in a slightly different guise. And as evidence of this, we have to turn our attention to the bizarre story of the Hexham Heads. The strange saga all began in February 1972. An eleven-year-old boy, Colin Robson, and his younger brother, Leslie, were digging up weeds in their parents’ back yard in the town of Hexham, when they unearthed two carved, stone heads, slightly smaller than a tennis ball and very heavy in weight.
The heads would move by themselves. Household objects were found inexplicably broken. And at one point the boys’ sister found her bed showered with glass.
Crudely fashioned and weathered-looking, one resembled a skull-like masculine head crowned by a Celtic hairstyle; while the other was a slightly smaller female head that possessed what were said to be witch-like qualities, including the classic beaked nose. Shortly after the boys took the heads into their house, a number of peculiar incidents occurred in the family home. The heads would move by themselves. Household objects were found inexplicably broken. And at one point the boys’ sister found her bed showered with glass. It was, however, the next-door neighbors who would go on to experience the most bizarre phenomena of all.
A few nights after the discovery of the heads, a mother living in the neighboring house, Ellen Dodd, was sitting up late with her daughter, who was suffering with a toothache, when both saw what they described as a hellish, “half-man, half-beast” enter the room. Naturally, both screamed for their lives and the woman’s husband came running from another room to see what all the commotion was about. By this stage, however, the hairy creature had fled the room and could be heard “padding down the stairs as if on its hind legs.” The front door was later found wide open and it was presumed that the creature had left the house in haste.
Soon after that incident, one Anne Ross—a doctor who had studied the Celtic culture and who was the author of several books on the subject, including Pagan Celtic Britain and The Folklore of the Scottish Highlands—took possession of the