When UFOs and the Field of Cryptozoology Cross Paths: Eerie Animals and Alien Monsters

As strange as the following words seem, it's a fact there is a distinct link between bizarre beasts and the UFO issue - as you'll see now. We'll begin with an undeniably weird case. Back in November 1980, a then-serving English policeman named Alan Godfrey had a profound UFO encounter in Todmorden, Yorkshire – a pleasant locale that has its origins in the 17th century. Godfrey’s encounter came just five months after he was involved in the investigation of a curious death in town. The victim was a man named Zigmund Adamski. As most people will know, the not exactly common name of Adamski is a very famous one in Ufology. It was just one of those strange synchronicities that proliferate when the UFO phenomenon looms large. As for Godfrey’s UFO encounter, it occurred under cover of darkness, in the pre-dawn morning of November 29, 1980, while he was out on patrol in his police-car. As he drove along one particular stretch of road, Godfrey was amazed by the sight of what he first thought was a bus positioned oddly in the road. As Godfrey got closer, however, he could see it was something else entirely. It was actually nothing less than a somewhat egg-shaped UFO.

There then followed an experience that contained certain, key elements of the UFO phenomenon, such as missing-time, and recollections of being taken on-board a craft. However, the entity Godfrey was confronted by on the craft was not the typical black-eyed, dwarfish “Gray.” Rather, it was a human-looking figure dressed in a long gown and sporting a beard. In that sense, there was more of a “Contactee”-style component to the incident. But, there was even more to the affair, too. And this is where things become intertwined with matters of the paranormal kind. While undergoing hypnotic regression, Godfrey said that also aboard the UFO was a large black dog.

This was not the first encounter Godfrey had with an anomalous hound. Years earlier, he had seen a ghostly Labrador. There was also an odd occasion – in the 1960s, and near Todmorden – when what seemed to be a woman with a large black dog stepped out in front of Godfrey’s vehicle, causing him to slam the brakes on. Both the woman and the dog vanished. It just so happens that Todmorden has in its midst centuries-old legends of what are known as the “Gabriel Hounds.” They are akin to the UK’s wider, ancient, phenomenon of so-called “Phantom Black Dogs” of the kind that inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to pen the Sherlock Holmes novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles. How weird is that? I'll tell you: extremely weird! Now, onto another strange affair involving UFOs and weird creatures. One of the strangest of all UFO encounters ever reported? No doubt!

November 28, 1954, an attack by hairy, small creatures: Shortly after the witching-hour, Jose Ponce and Gustavo Gonzalez had a nightmarish encounter on the outskirts of Caracas, Venezuela. As they drove, the dark road was suddenly lit up by what the astonished pair could only describe as a bright ball of light, with a circumference of around three feet. It swayed slightly in the air, not unlike a small boat bobbing along on the water. The two slowed down their vehicle as they approached it, eventually coming to a complete halt. It was then, suddenly, that astonishment was replaced by outright terror. While Ponce stayed inside the van, Gonzalez cautiously exited the vehicle; he began to slowly and tentatively walk towards the hovering globe. Suddenly, Gonzalez found himself thrown to the ground by an unseen force. The reason why the attacker was unseen - for a few seconds, at least – was because of its size. Or, rather, its profound lack of size. Gonzalez, to his shock and fear, was finally able to see what had assaulted him: a small, hair-covered creature that was built like a man, but which was only around three feet in height. Acting on impulse and adrenalin, Gonzalez attempted to plunge his knife into the body of the creature, only for the knife to bounce off it.

In mere seconds, another hairy dwarf was on the scene, and temporarily blinded Gonzalez with a bright light that emitted from a powerful, flashlight-type device. Shocked to the core, Ponce gathered his wits together and jumped out of the van to help his friend, who was stumbling around, his eyesight still affected by the powerful beam that hit him with full force. To Ponce’s growing concern, two more of the hairy creatures surfaced out of the shadows, and both making their way towards the men – and armed, no less, with large rocks. Although the presence of the rocks suggested to the men that the hairy things were ready to kill them, with hindsight it seems they were only a defensive measure, in the event a last resort-style situation developed. Fortunately, it did not. The small things raced to the ball of light and, somehow, launched themselves inside it, despite its equally small size and vanished in the blink of an eye.

How about the Loch Ness Monster and aliens? It's an amazing fact that Nessie (or, possibly, a colony of such creatures) has a link to one of the world's most famous monsters. August 14, 1971: ETs and a monster: According to Swedish Jan-Ove Sundberg, twenty-three at the time, on August 14, 1971, and at some point between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m., he was in a section of woodland above Foyers Bay, Loch Ness, Scotland, when he came across something staggering. No, not a fully-grown Nessie roaming around. Sundberg near-stumbled upon a landed UFO and its presumed extraterrestrial crew! The craft was situated in a clearing, giving the impression that its pilots had chosen the site deliberately, since it gave them the opportunity to land and hide their presence – that is, until Sundberg inadvertently foiled their plan.

The craft was, to say the least, a decidedly odd one. It was around thirty feet in length, dark gray in color, and cigar-shaped. It had a significantly sized section on top that reminded Sundberg of a large handle. The overall image was that of a giant iron used for getting the creases out of clothing. Amazement turned to concern when, out of the trees, came a trio of figures: all humanoid in shape, of approximately human proportions, and dressed in outfits that closely resembled the outfits worn by divers. In fact, at first, Sundberg assumed they were divers, from a then-active team that was searching the depths of Loch Ness for the monster. It became apparent the three were not divers, however, when they entered the odd-looking craft via a panel and the craft took to the skies, vertically, for about sixty feet. After which it began to move horizontally over the hills and in the direction of nearby Loch Mhor. 

Now, onto September 7, 1971: In the same way that UFOs have been seen over monster-infested Loch Ness, Scotland, they have also been seen over Okanagan Lake, British Columbia. The witnesses were the Shelley family from New Hampshire who were actually at the lake hoping to catch a sight of the legendary monster. Instead, they encountered something very different but no less amazing. As they scoured the lake with binoculars for Ogopogo, they were amazed to see a large ball of blue light race across the stretch of lake in front of them, at a very low level above the surface of the water. Most amazing of all, as they continued to watch the blue globe, it suddenly plunged into the water, never to be seen again.

November 6, 2002, a dazzling UFO near Loch Ness: the outskirts of the town of Inverness, Scotland were the location of a UFO encounter reported to me personally in 2016. The witness had read my book, Nessie, which focuses on the long and rich history of paranormal phenomena recorded in and around Loch Ness and nearby Inverness. According to the witness, Roger Carter, while heading out of town for a long, work-based drive to the English city of Bristol, his car was suddenly enveloped in a near-blinding light – to the extent that he was forced to slam on the brakes, fearing that he would slam into the surrounding trees. Carter leapt out of the car and looked up. Such was the brilliance of the light, he could not make out anything at all – beyond the light itself. And, particularly puzzling, absolutely no noise could be heard either. In seconds, the light was gone – as was its source. A shaken Roger Carter continued on his journey, keeping a careful look at the skies above for the next few miles.

February 18, 2014 was the date a monstrous creature surfaced: one of the very earliest examples of a shapeshifting monster that may actually be an alien is Lilith. Her name is highly appropriate, too: in English it means “night hag.” Not exactly the kind of thing any of us should aspire to cross paths with. Lilith’s dark origins can be found in the ancient mythology and folklore of Mesopotamia, and particularly so within the culture of the Babylonians. Despite the fact that she was described as a beautiful woman, with long and flowing hair, there was nothing positive about Lilith. She would regularly manifest in the homes of sleeping men, slip into their beds, and have sex with them. The purpose of which, ancient lore maintains, was to allow Lilith to steal sperm from her victims and use it to create hideous, demonic babies. 

Almost certainly connected to Lilith were Lilitu and Lilu, who play major roles in the lore of the Sumerian people, thousands of years ago. This paranormal pair, too, was focused on terrifying people in the middle of the night, violating them, and then vanishing back into the darkness from which they came.  Joseph McCabe, a noted expert on these two demon-like entities, and the author of The Story of Religious Controversy, described them as “ferocious beings” that were part-animal and part-human. Martin Baker’s encounter with just such a creature led him to conclude that, rather than being a demonic entity, his encounter with an entity that looked like Lilith was actually an alien-human hybrid engaged in gene-splicing experiments. Maybe, Baker is right on the money. And you know what? Well, I'll tell you: Since 1995, Puerto Rico has been the domain of a deadly and allegedly bloodsucking creature that has infamously become known as the Chupacabra – a beast many believe to be an extraterrestrial. Long before the now-legendary beast was on anyone’s radar, however, there was another vampire-like monster roaming around on the island. It was known as the Moca Vampire – its name taken from the municipality of Moca, which can be found in the northwest of the island, and which is home to around 40,000 people. Unlike the Chupacabra – sightings of which continue to this very day – the “Vampiro de Moca,” as it was referred to on Puerto Rico – was a monster of a definitively “here one minute and gone the next” kind.

The controversy all on February 25, 1975. That was when the population of Moca was plunged into a collective state of fear. And it was hardly surprising. Numerous ranchers reported how their farm animals were being violently slaughtered under cover of darkness and systematically drained of massive amounts of blood. The first area targeted was the Barrio Rocha region, where several goats, at least four pigs, numerous chickens, and more than a dozen cows, were all found dead, with puncture marks on their bodies, and deep claw-like wounds on their skin, and all missing one vital ingredient: blood. By the end of the first week in March 1975, the death count was close to three dozen. It was in this same week that an important development was made: the blood-sucking culprit was finally seen, up close and personal, so to speak. The witness was a woman named Maria Acevedo, who caught sight a monstrously-sized, screaming and screeching winged beast that landed atop her home, and which clambered about her zinc roof, making an almighty racket in the process. It was clearly no normal bird: around four to five feet in height, it was described as being similar in appearance to a pterodactyl, a presumed-extinct, flying reptile of the Jurassic era. Whatever the true nature of the monster, it quickly took to the skies and vanished into the starry darkness. And guess what? Multiple UFO encounters were seen at the same time and at the same locales. Surely not a coincidental affair. Somehow, Cryptozoology and Ufology are inter-linked...