Beware of the Bug People! Mysterious Encounters with Insect-Like Humanoids

Among all the bizarre encounters in the paranormal world with inexplicable aliens and entities, there seems to be quite an array of different shapes and sizes, ranging from the alien "Greys" to Lizard People, to everything in between. Yet some are even more bizarre than others, involving what appear to be bug people or insect men. (Hi Brent. Just a reminder. We've found that people respond to "oids." People like "oids," so from here on out let's call them "Bugoids" or something like that. Thanks.- the MU Editing Team) So as I was saying, there have been a lot of encounters with what are typically described as Bug People, excuse me, "Insectoids," and here we will look at a selection of truly strange such cases from all over the world. 

Our first reports come from all the way back in the 1950s. From the files of paranormal researcher Albert S. Rosales comes a report from 1958 from somewhere in southern Germany. The witness claimed that as a child he had had many encounters with insectoid beings that would approach him, examine him, and even kidnap him through levitation. The report on these creatures reads:

“The figures were similar in structure to the classic ‘little grays,’ but without the oversized heads, instead with heads of normal size. Head shape from the front resembled that of an acorn, with big round eyes like those of a cricket. In general insect-like in appearance. The beings looked like they were ‘cloned’ and came ‘floating’ into the room, one behind the other, like they were ‘under remote control.’ At this point the witness was in a complete panic and unable to move in his bed. Only with difficulty he was able to turn his head. Fear outweighed everything. Screaming was impossible. The bed was moved, literally moved out of place and the bed covers were pulled away. Touching, especially in the abdomen area was painful. Consciously he recalls floating up to the ceiling. This incident occurred several times.

His other would find him bathed in sweat and the bed soaked in sweat, the bedding, untidy and ‘kicked away.’ He always articulated the situation precisely and interpreted the figures as “little devils,” knowing that the humanoids actually didn’t look like that. The witness stated that the figures appeared out of nowhere and floated into his bedroom. As if they had materialized in his room. A ‘buzzing,’ like a kind of ringing in the ears, could be heard and there was a smell of “vinegar” in the air. The creatures were about 120cm tall and appeared insect-like. They had a graceful, gray-black body that could apparently penetrate everything (walls, doors, etc).”

What was going on here? From that same year, there is the case of a witness in Depew, New York, who at the time was driving through a violent thunderstorm on her way to visit her son. Visibility was poor, to say the least, and she was inching along at very slow speeds when she came across what she initially considered a crashed airplane on the center parkway. The report continues as follows:

“A large shape was visible, and a slim rod at least fifty feet high was illuminated and getting shorter as though it were sinking into the ground. Her motor slowed down and as she came closer her car stopped completely. She became panicky and tried desperately to start it as she had no lights. Her first thought was to get out and see what was happening, but she suddenly saw two shapes rising around that slim pole which was still growing shorter. They were suspended but moving about it. They seemed to be like animals with four legs and a tail but two front feelers under the head, like arms. Then before she could even react the figures disappeared, and the shape rose, and she then realized that it was a saucer. It spun and zoomed about ten feet off the ground and up into the air and she could not even see where it went. Her lights suddenly came on. She started the car and it was all right. She pulled up to the location got out with a flashlight and walked over to where it had been sitting. A large hole was melted in the snow about a foot across and grass was showing on it. The grass was warm, but nothing was dug up around there.”

Strange, indeed. Another one of the weirder of these reports is an account chronicled by UFO researcher Linda Moulton Howe in her book Glimpses of Other Realities, Vol. II: High Strangeness. She tells the tale of a witness named Linda Porter, who claimed to have had an incredibly odd encounter with a telepathic mantis-like humanoid in a hallway in 1961 and that it had whisked her off to another dimension via what she called an “interdimensional tunnel.” The next thing she knew, Porter was with a “Praying mantis being in a light-filled room,” and she said:

“I remember the being slowly coming around the corner and facing me. He stood very still and simply waited as if he knew how frightening he appeared to me. Eventually he began to talk to me (telepathically). He seemed to possess a great deal of dignity and gave the impression of being quite old. He walked me to this room (filled with dense light). The memory ends with me about to enter the room and the thought ‘Translated Into the Light’ has to do with what happened.”

Adding to the utter strangeness of this case, Porter, who had been born with a heart defect, claimed that she had had her soul transferred by the creature into a cloned body of herself that was healthy and that the creature had explained to her in-depth about other dimensions and travel between them. Very weird stuff, indeed. In another peculiar account from UFO BC, there is a witness who says that she and her friend had been captured by tall, insectoid humanoids and then subjected to some sort of violent, gruesome medical procedure. She would say:

“I stood there helpless for the longest time, not knowing what to do but feeling a real sense of panic. Something had to be done quickly. All of a sudden there were two Beings that appeared next to my friend. They seemed to push me right aside and silently went right to work on her, like skilled surgeons. They stood to her left, standing together and working furiously on my friend. I had no idea who they were, what they were doing, but the first thing I thought of was ‘are they aliens’??? I stood there and watched…I thought they looked like Praying Mantises. Alien Praying Mantises…
 
Then I focused on my friend and saw her head was split wide open, like these aliens sliced it perfectly open. I saw freshly sliced raw flesh and these Aliens/Praying Mantis were busily removing pieces of bone, rock or whatever from her brain. This did not look anything like what I would imagine the inside of a brain to look but it was just such a clean cut. These two Alien/Praying Mantis worked quickly, without speaking one word. I seemed to black out and don’t remember any more of it.”

What was going on here? What were they doing? What happened to the friend? Was this all a hallucination or is there anything more to it? Who knows? From 1967 we have a report from Rosales originating from Catalina Island, in California, where 12-year-old Paul Nelson was visiting his parents along with his best friend Michael. One day they went inside their boat to chat and read comic books, and while there experienced a bout of missing time, with their next memory being waking up the next morning. The report continues:

“While Paul was unable to convince his parents that anything unusual had happened, both Paul and his friend knew that the event was strange. Two weeks later, Paul was alone in his Reseda California home when he had another strange experience. He was alone in his room when the door began to rattle. He jumped up and threw it open. To his shock, he saw the shadow of a small figure running down the hallway. He chased after it but found nothing. Paul did not know how to explain these experiences and did not connect it to the UFO phenomenon. Many years later now married, and Doctor Paul underwent hypnosis to recover his lost memories. As Paul underwent regression, his first surprise was that he was not aboard a UFO, but instead appeared to be in an underground base. Paul says he was taken to a round walled room. It seemed to him that it was more of an underground facility than onboard a ship. The walls had a kind of rock-like facet to them. And he was lying on a rock-like table. It gave the impression that he was in a cavern rather than in a ship. Under hypnosis Paul recalled his friend Michael nearby, also being examined. His next surprise was that the beings were not what he expected. The beings were not the “typical” grays; they were more like the “Praying Mantis” type. They were slightly bigger than the grays and a little more Insectoid-like. They wore tight-fitting uniforms. There was even a color to them, but he could not recall what the color of the tight-fitting jump-suit like things. He thinks that there was one in the group that wore a tunic-like outfit, more loosely fitting over it. He could not tell how tall they were since he was lying on his back. But they did not look particularly tall.”

Weird. Another bonkers report comes to us from the site Phantoms and Monsters, from a witness who says that he has had multiple encounters with some sort of bizarre insectoid, and was just a boy at the time of his first. He claims he had lived with his family in a remote mountain area of the wilderness of Ontario, Canada when one day in 1968 he looked out the window to see something that would leave an indelible impression on his young mind, and which he can clearly remember to this day. He says of what happened:

“We had the windows open in the house as air conditioners were not common in 1968. It was a very hot that night. I shared a room with my brother and sister. I woke up during the night and looked out the window into the backyard and in front of a bush about 8 feet away was a small thin creature with shiny black skin. It looked like a small girl but at the same time it kinda looked like an insect. It was crouched on its legs and was leaning forward with one hand on the ground and was looking at me. It had what looked like thin antennas or like needles sticking out from each side of its head and one on top. That's all I remember and when I told my mom she said it was a dream.”

He would have two more sightings of the same creature over the years, each time being told that it was a dream, but he wasn't so sure. Was this all in his head or was there something more to it? The witness himself goes on to say that he feels it might have been an alien presence, and this would certainly fit into numerous reports that seem to definitely be linked to the UFO phenomenon. Moving along into the 1970s, in 1973, Mike Shea was driving in Cooksville, Maryland to visit a friend when about 15 minutes outside of Baltimore he noticed a beam of light strike a barn 150 feet from his car. He then saw a huge hovering object with a ring of alternating red and yellow lights that suddenly went out as the beam shut off. Shea was filled with a feeling of dread at the time, and he felt an electric current running down his spine as the object positioned himself overhead. At the same time, he sensed that something was coming up from behind him. The report says of what happened next:

“The next thing he knew he was feeling quite relaxed and was approaching his destination. He had somehow lost two hours of time. Years later under hypnotic regression he remembered seeing four figures standing at the side of the road. He then realized the figures were creatures dressed in a black kind of plastic armor. They had black faces and appeared to be wearing helmets with a line down the middle that came to a point. The beings looked like huge grasshoppers with long arms and bowed legs. Three of the creatures were large. The fourth one was small and wore a black silky suit with a zipper up the front, somehow this being seemed “ancient” to the witness. He then saw a large shiny craft hovering nearby emitting a low whirring sound and a smaller craft on the ground. Eventually he was taken inside one of the crafts, put on a table, and examined. Various organic samples were collected from his body.”

A truly far-out encounter from Rosales’ files happened in 1977 near Albi, Tarn, in France, where a student known only as “Emma” was staying at a remote French farmhouse in a hamlet located about fifteen miles from Albi. One day Emma was outside sketching a farmhouse when she heard what sounded like wind chimes, which spooked the farmhouse owners’ dog badly, sending it off to hide. Emma herself was a little unsettled and went into the farmhouse, after which the chimes seemed to get louder and more random, like “someone playing random notes on a xylophone.” Suddenly the sounds stopped to leave her in silence, and she had the strange sensation that someone was about to knock at the door. Movement caught her left eye and she turned to see something green rushing past the window outside. She hurried to the door and slid the bolt on in one swift movement. Then there came a clicking sound as if someone were tapping on the door with a cane. The whole strange episode is described as follows:

“Who is it?” Emma asked, and she could feel her heart pounding in her bosom. There was no reply. They looked at the yellow telephone and the piece of paper lying next to it on the table in the corner. The number of the neighbor was on that scrap of paper. There was a raspy sound on the other side of the door. Years later, when Emma would go on holiday to the US, a hissing Diamondback rattlesnake would bring the memory of this rasping sound back. “I said who is that?” Emma yelled again, and she felt her throat dry up with fear. Again, there was no reply, just a continuation of the hissing sound and a rapping of something on the door. Emma crept to the window and looked through the net curtains. What she saw would haunt her for the rest of her life. Emma can only describe the thing standing outside the front door as something which looked like a gigantic cricket, or maybe a grasshopper, standing about 5ft 7: on two legs. It had two pairs of thin light green arms hanging by its side, and what looked like a long dark green penis, about 12 inches in length, protruding from its lower abdomen. This phallus began to shake and vibrate, generating the hissing sound the teenager had just heard. The head of this terrifying creature looked just like the head of an overgrown grasshopper with huge black shiny domed compound eyes, quivering antennae, but no wings. It had a small o-shaped mouth which seemed to have a bubble growing from it, and its head twisted to face Emma as she appeared at the window.

The exchange student screamed and ran up the stairs, and when she was halfway up, she saw a double-barrel shotgun leaning against the wall in a corner, so she quickly descended the stairs and grabbed it. Her trembling hands tried to break the heavy shotgun open, but she couldn’t do it. She heard the thing rapping at the door with its insect-like limbs, and she tried again to open the shotgun as she looked around for ammunition. Emma located the opening lever and she found that it slid sideways in a swinging movement to open the shotgun. She instinctively opened a drawer in the phone table and there was a cardboard box which rattled with a metallic sound when she touched it. She lifted the lid off the box and saw about a dozen brass cartridges. She put two of them into the chambers and snapped the shotgun shut. She aimed it at the center of the door and shouted, “Get out of here!” She fired, and a hole, about six inches in diameter, appeared in the middle of the wooden door. The recoil slammed the stock of the shotgun hard into the girl’s shoulder. A ringing sound echoed in the teen’s ears. The firing of the shell had almost deafened her. The face of the creature was now turned slightly so that one of its black domed eyes was looking through the hole in the door, and that hissing sound was getting louder from the stridulation – the vibrating of the entity’s penis against its plated abdomen. Emma felt dizzy with fear, and as she slid the lever on the shotgun sideways to open it, she felt as if she were dreaming, because her mind simply could not take in the nightmarish reality of what was happening. The girl pulled ou the spent shells and put two more in. She aimed the shotgun at the hole, hoping to blow that creature to “kingdom come,” but it made a tweeting sound and flitted away from the hole, just as Emma was about to squeeze the trigger.

The girl lowered the barrels and she grabbed two more shells from the cardboard box in the open drawer, then went up the stairs to her room. She went to the window and looked out. There was no sign of that creature below – but then something caught Emma’s eyes; it looked like two twigs sticking out from the trunk of an ancient, gnarled tree opposite. With a cold shudder in her bowels, she realized it was the antennae of the abominable and repulsive insectoid; it was hiding behind the old Quercus (oak). At this point the teenager heard the telephone ringing downstairs, she backed away from the window and hurried out of the room, holding the shotgun with its barrels facing the ceiling. She went downstairs, close to tears now, and she picked up the handset with her free hand and held the deadweight shotgun with the other. She pressed her left ear against the earpiece and heard a voice which said, “Hello?” “Is that you, Antoine?” Emma asked, almost smiling now. “Hello,” the voice replied, “Open the door. Open the door.” Emma was about to open the door when the voice at the other end of the line became raspy for a moment. “Open the door…” The caller developed a very noticeable lisp now. Emma somehow knew it was that creature out there. It had called her, and she didn’t know how it could do that, but this did not sound like Antoine. “Open the door, open the door” said the ersatz caller, and Emma yelped and slammed the handset down before retreating away from the telephone.

There was a rapping at the window downstairs and Emma reflexively blasted two of the panes of that window to silica dust with the shotgun. She quickly ejected the warm shells and with a ringing in her ears, she inserted two new cartridges. She walked slowly backwards up the stairs, back to her room, where she kept watch from the window. The antennae had gone from behind the trunk of the oak, and Emma prayed that the creature had gone back to wherever it had come from. She waited at the window for what seemed like an hour, but only fifteen minutes had elapsed when something bizarre happened. The teenager was filled with great relief when she saw Antoine peep out from behind the oak. He waved at Emma to get her attention, and then he made a rapid beckoning gesture with his left hand. “Has it gone?” Emma shouted at him, “Where is it?” Antoine continued to beckon Emma, and the girl thought that there was something not quite right about her host. She could plainly see that it was Antonine peeping out from behind the trunk of the tree, and yet there was something the teen could not put her finger on which was telling her to stay put. 

Fortunately, Antoine and his wife Anais returned home much earlier than expected and they immediately saw the gaping hole in the front door. Emma ran out to them with the shotgun and urged the startled couple to come into their home at once in case the “thing” was still around. Antoine eventually calmed Emma down and Anais wen to fetch Figaro from the barn. Anais could obviously see from the dog’s behavior that something had frightened him, but the couple simply could not believe Emma’ strange account of the ‘giant grasshopper’ with its rude vibrating appendage. About an hour after the couple returned, Anais made a chilling discovery behind the oak tree. She found what initially looked like a large burst balloon, but when she and her husband took a closer look, they could see that it was some deflated effigy – and a very lifelike one – of Antoine, just to his waist. It had the exact skin color and parts of the deflated figure were coated in what felt like royal blue cloth which resembled the same colored shirt Antoine was wearing. The face and ‘hair’ were made of the same rubbery material, and the mask of the pneumatic model of Antoine wore an eerie smile. Within an hour, the material this blow-up simulacrum was made out of began to disintegrate into thin hair-like fibers until most of it was blown away in the wind. Emma refused to stay at the house and two days later she went home to Sussex. Just what the insect-like thing was which had apparently been out to sexually assault the English exchange student is a complete mystery.”

Stories of insectoids continued on into the 1980s, when in 1981 a witness named Samuel Rivera was out fishing at a local pond with some friends. While they were there they saw a light in the sky, which got closer and brighter as they watched on in awe. They then saw a darker object descend from the light and they hid in a ditch. The object landed and out of it came a blond “German” man and a being which shocked the witness, as it appeared to be a “humanoid cockroach”. The two walked around the area, the cockroach humanoid was carrying some kind of ‘camera’ and seemed to be taking pictures of leaves on the ground, the pond, and one of the witnesses’ fishing poles. They soon went back inside and the ship disappeared at an incredible speed into the vastness of the sky. According to the witness the roach-like humanoid wore a sort of band tied to its shiny golden-colored belt and the German (or Nordic) wore a white uniform with silver and lilac details.

In 1984, a former military pilot by the name of Vladimir Sengin was on vacation in Yalta, Crimea, in Ukraine, to go hiking in the mountains. During one of these hikes, he was suddenly filled with a deep sense of anxiety, which eventually faded, but then came back even stronger about half an hour later. The report from Albert S. Rosales reads:

“There were no other people nearby, and the Latvia felt completely uncomfortable. And then, according to him, he could not stay on his feet, he sat down and began to look around until he saw something strange and terrible. He saw a creature that looked like a giant grasshopper or mantis. Its body seemed to be encased in a tight suit, resembling metal that shimmered in the rays of the sun. The alien stretched out a ‘hand,’ to which some devices were attached, and a scattering of bluish rays were aimed at Sengin. Vladimir then lost control of his body. Each of the directed bluish clumps of light slightly warmed the area where they struck Vladimir. There were dozens of them, and they seemed to wander around Vladimir’s body as if scanning it. Vladimir could not move, not even his eyelids – his whole body had gone into a stupor. This lasted for several minutes, after which Vladimir felt the rays slowly heat up. At that moment, the fear reached its climax. It seemed to him that the rays were about to pierce his body, but something completely different happened. The terrain around them began to change – the landscape dissolved, and he and the creature found themselves in a black space. The light from the blue rays made it possible to see the alien – he, indeed, looked like a giant insect, the size of a man. Then a light began to shine around Vladimir, it was a new reality that was ‘forming.’ And it was both interesting and frightening. 

Around him was a world of gigantic insect-like intelligent beings. Their colonies were very different from human cities, but in the meantime, robotic machines apparently worked for them. The aliens themselves were mainly engaged in the absorption of knowledge, through the consumption of orange crystal lattice like objects. Suddenly, Vladimir realized that the was familiar with the place, and he apparently knew ‘everything about it.’ He understood what every building stood for, and what kind of work was done inside, and somehow he knew the alien language perfectly. At that moment, Vladimir looked around and saw the mantis like alien standing next to him. “What have you done?” Vladimir exclaimed. To which the interlocutor replied, “You are one of us. Your soul originally belonged to our brother. You don’t want to stay with us?” the creature asked. To which Vladimir did not immediately give an answer. He realized that the alien creature was right – everything around native, familiar, maybe even dearer than what he had in the world of people. With the exception of his daughter and his wife. Remembering them, Vladimir replied, “Take me back to my world. I am not one of you, I am a man.” “Well, it’s a pity,” the insectoid brought his hand closer to Vladimir and dozens of blue rays rushed towards his body again. A few minutes later Vladimir found himself near the summit of the mountain, alone. Naturally, he did not tell anyone about the incident for many years. Only after moving to Canada, did Vladimir decide to share his experience.”

The first in this series of encounters from the 2000s allegedly happened in 2002 at Stephens State Park, north of Hackettstown, New Jersey, where two men had been fishing at dusk along the Musconetcong River when they saw something very odd indeed. A friend of one of the witnesses would tell Lon Strickler, of Phantoms and Monsters of the surreal events that would transpire:

"Apparently about a year ago my friend and his brother were down at Stephen's State Park fishing right around dusk. During this time, while his brother was roughly 50 yards downstream fishing, he said he felt this strange vibration in his right ear and from that he turned and looked to the right. When he turned and looked to the right he said he saw this 6 to 7 foot praying-mantis-looking-man... just standing there and unable to believe that he could see him. He said the creature was black and gray and to be quite honest, the way my buddy was telling me this story, I was having a tough time. I know he saw this thing... because I could see it in his face."

Strickler would end up digging up another sighting of what seemed to be a very similar creature in the same vicinity, which was seen by another fisherman as well. The witness claims that he had been out fishing in at the river with his boss in 2004, and they had both been waist-high in the water when he says he just suddenly noticed a very outlandish entity making its way up the opposite bank. He explains:

"I just "Caught it". Movement out of the corner of my eye to my left and there it was---Humanoid. Tall. 6 foot at least --no reference points-- but I sense 6'6" - 7'. Moving away from me back up the bank. (I am chest-high in the river) The first thing I see was the 'grasshopper' thigh, but bending forward like a human. Then the whole form. He is looking at me over his shoulder, moving up the bank, astonished, amazed. What, that I am in the water in a strong current, that I can see him? But yes we lock eyes and this creature is astonished-- I get the sense that he can't believe I am in the water, that he can't believe I have seen him, that I am not perturbed at all-- something of all three, I still don't know-- just astonishment and he is actually trying to get away from me and the water! Triangular Head. Huge, slanted black eyes. Just like a Praying Mantis. It's whole body was gangly, nobby, ((Nobby!) but you could still sense it was powerful, and no-- I would not say it was a "Big Bug"-- it was definitely humanoid despite the mantis/insect qualities.

 Again, I stress the strong impression that The Mantis Man was cloaked and I "caught it" just right; it abruptly found itself against a "new"/blank background and was adjusting quickly. No, I do not believe it "slipped" into another dimension/plane. I detected movement and first saw that strong left thigh, (and strong right calf) then the whole thing and immediately those eyes/face. The whole encounter was only a couple of seconds. I can not tell you with any strong certainty what its feet or hands looked like --I wasn't looking there-- but I can tell you that its arms were "normal", and not the literal Mantis forelegs I have recently seen in drawings of these “Aliens"."

The detail that it seemed so surprised to be seen is interesting, although it is hard to know what to make of that. One very odd report that has made the rounds was given on UFO BC, by a witness calling himself “Jim G,” who lives in London, England. He claims that one evening in August of 2001 he woke to find two of these entities looming over his bed, apparently watching him as he slept, and they looked very much like some sort of insectoid humanoids. One entity was cloaked in a robe but had what seemed to be a shiny black exoskeleton like that of a beetle, while the other was more of the classic description of a Mantis Alien, standing 7 feet tall and all segmented limbs and mantis head, with no noticeable clothing. Jim explains the mantis creature and the weird events that would play out thusly:

"All I recall was that it was tall. At least 7 foot, it had to bend its neck because of the height of the ceiling. Its head was pointed with large eyes. Its for-arms were extremely long and moved in a jerky fashion. The cloaked figure was closer, crouching by my bed, so I couldn’t tell how tall it was, but I could clearly see that it was wearing some kind of overlapping ridged amour? Including a metallic looking breastplate that had a series of circles on it. Its head was dome-like with emotionless facial features. Its eyes were large and surrounded again by detailed ridges. It acted in a way that reminded me of a robot or insect.
 
I remember thinking to myself, nobody's going to believe this! A bloody giant sized mantis and medieval-style dressed alien, what the hell is this? Before this incident, although I hadn't see one, I was familiar with the gray (alien) types but I had never heard of the praying-mantis types. At this point, the mantis bent its upper body, over my bed and directly above me. In its hand it was holding a long metal object that looked like a needle. A green light shot directly from the needle and into my right eye. Maybe it’s a laser, I am not sure, but I do know it felt very painful. I could see all the veins from my eye, the same effect you get when an Optician checks your eyes. I screamed but no noise came out. I then felt something stick into my skull! I’m not sure what because by that time I had my eyes closed. I pretended to sleep and went into deep panic! My mind was racing at a million miles per hour. I heard a great whooshing sound and when I next reopened my eyes thankfully they had gone."

Interestingly, the creature in this case also seemed to simply dematerialize into thin air as the horrified witness looked on. Yet another sighting comes from Hackettstown, New Jersey, along the same river. The witness claimed to have encountered the same entity in 2011 as he drove along a place called Newburgh Rd, and he would say of what he saw:

“As I drove near the bridge over the river, I noticed to my left something (I thought a fisherman) standing in the river just off the south bank. I slowed the car and looked closer. It wasn't a person and it was transparent-like with a weird shape. It moved slowly towards the bank and into the trees. I drove further so I could see it coming out of the trees. That's the last I saw of it. It was tall, 8 ft. or so and had long thin arms hanging off of it. The color was a pale brown, but I could see through it! The head was small compared to the body."

There have been other sightings of something weird lurking in the area as well, and it all leaves one to wonder just what in the world it could be.  Another seemingly similar creature, although much smaller than these previous accounts, was also reported, this time in 2011 along the Thames River, in Connecticut. The woman claims she had been driving home from work at around midnight when she saw something she could not explain. She says:

“I saw a small 1 1/2 to 2-foot-tall Praying Mantis humanoid running on the side of Pequot Avenue in New London, CT. The avenue runs alongside the Thames River and I was driving southbound on Pequot when I saw it on the side of the road directly on my left. It was a mahogany brown color and it looked exactly like the CGI version on the show. I stopped my car and watched it and it was looking right at me the whole while as it ran towards a storm drain. It never took its eyes off me then it jumped down the storm drain.”

We also have the case of a witness called “Ricky,” who called in his experience on the show Coast To Coast AM on September 27, 2016. He says that at the time he had been on what was supposed to be a fun, family camping trip at the Sequoia National Forest, located in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains of California and known for its towering, ancient giant sequoia trees. With its majestic trees lending it an otherworldly ambiance, this place already looked like something from a dream world, but it would get utterly bizarre one evening after everyone had gone to bed and the witness stayed up gazing upon the flickering embers of the bonfire they had made. He explains:

“At about 9 o'clock, everyone decides to go to sleep and my friend and I were left staring at the bonfire. I decided it was a good time to listen to music so I went to my sister's forerunner and I was opening the back to grab my Ipod. And as I opened the back door, I heard something come out of the tree. It didn't come out of the tree. It was almost like it was holding on and it fell. And I heard this huge thump. I could feel it. And as I... I had a flashlight on me. I looked over at the tree I heard the fall from and I swear on my life and I swear to God, honest to God, I saw a 6 to 7-foot-tall praying mantis. And as I laid eyes on it, I completely lost breath. I was completely taken aback. It took a step back and it became completely invisible. I could not believe what I saw.
 
I slammed the door and I ran back to the campfire. I alerted my friend. I woke everyone up and no one would believe me. I was really upset because I knew what I'd seen. So that happened and my friend didn't believe me. He was laughing at me and then all of a sudden I could hear all these things surrounding us and finally when I brought it to my friend's attention, he kinda put his ear to it and he heard it too. Finally, I was patrolling the campground with my flashlight and I could just hear these things surrounding us and I heard like this clicking sound, it was like (makes clicking sound). It was really strange. I was so scared.”

What was this creature and how can we reconcile it with anything known to exist in those woods? From 2016 there are several reports from the files of Albert S. Rosales. One report of this kind was found in the files of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and describes a very weird encounter that purportedly occurred in April of 2016, in the area of Zygi, Cyprus. The witness explains that she had been hanging out with friends in her yard when they saw a UFO, followed by what they assumed to be its occupant, which was of a decidedly insectoid appearance. She says:

“My two friends and I had just finished our meal and were out in the garden talking and drinking (not alcohol). One of my friends had gone into the kitchen to refill their glass, whilst me and my other friend remained outside. After a moment of silence, my friend pointed out an unusually bright 'star' moving across the sky, assuming it may have been a comet or something. After a brief moment, I looked up at it again to realize that it was stationary; around 75-100ft above the treeline. I sat there, staring at this 'thing', just in complete shock. Every 15 seconds or so it would lower its altitude, until it was only a couple of feet from the tree tops. The weirdest part about this is that absolutely no noise had been emitted thus far. I tried to get out of my chair to hurry inside, but I felt an overwhelming feeling of paralysis, as did my friend. I turned to her and asked her what was going on, but she looked frozen in fear.
 
After what felt like hours, something appeared from around the trees underneath the triangular craft. It was a humanoid figure, with a head similar to that of an ant, and skin like a crocodile. It had extremely small eyes in proportion to its head, and long, thin appendages. It walked right up to the fence, before sharply turning and sprinting into the darkness of the trees. After a brief moment of complete fear, dread and anxiousness, the craft moved in a linear path towards the West, before becoming no longer visible. During this time, my friend who had gone to refill her glass watched the entire event through the window. She recalls, although neither me or my other friend do, that the creature had some sort of device in its 'hand', and that it held it up briefly before its disappearance.”

A weird report happened that same year at Joshua Tree National Park, California. Witness Rea Dove had gone there to go camping with some friends and the trip started off with them going off to meditate. However, things would soon take a swift turn into the bizarre. The report reads:

“We found a spot next to a small dried out wash to one side of us and tall bushes surrounding us. We set up our chairs facing each other as we meditated, something we practice in order to raise our consciousness for sharper perception,” she noted. Soon, the person sitting to her left, via his third eye vision, told her that two bright basketball sized light flashes were going off next to her about three feet off the ground and 15 minutes apart. Dove, of course, could not see anything but she began to feel something and it was weird. “I could feel on the back of my head something similar to what some would refer to as hair rising. It felt like someone was standing directly behind me. About this time I said out loud, “They’re here!” The person seated next to Dove noted that he could feel them too. “We didn’t know who they were but intuitively knew that non-human beings were very near us. We could feel their presence.” Dove attempted to communicate in the mind, and at one point felt a connection though it felt emotionless. “This being felt void of any strong feelings that I could pick up on although there did seem to be a hint of curiosity on his part,” she recalled. 

With her eyes closed she saw the being, with what some would call your third eye or intuitive vision. She only saw the outlining shape of the being’s head. It was like that of an elongated upside down triangle. At the same time, the person sitting next to her also intuitively picked up on a feeling of an insect with an elongated upside down triangular head, as well. Then with eyes still closed, she saw in her inner vision an approaching tall maybe six foot non-human being walking down the wash that was directly in front of her up towards the person to her left. Surprised, she opened her eyes and could still see the being approaching. 

According to Dove, the being seemed to be ‘phasing’ in and out ever so slightly as he walked. “He had his head turned to the side looking directly at her. It was as if he was not actually touching the ground as he walked but was gliding over it smoothly like on an elevator belt. He stopped within two feet of the person to my left, then turned slightly towards me almost brushing against the person’s side which was felt on the arm of my fellow participant as a light brush. The being then phased out I could no longer see him for a moment. Then suddenly I sensed the being standing directly in front of me very close and watching me intently. It felt like a presence of warm energy. I could strongly sense the energy of this being.”

Dove attempted to communicate in her mind with the being, pushing thoughts of benevolence and peace. “He was still looking straight at me. His body then faded out leaving only the outline of his head with large round dark shiny eyes…I then asked him telepathically, ‘Who are you?’”. As she waited for a response, his face slowly moved closer to hers until it stopped one foot away from hers. He drew in closer still as his face phased out completely leaving only his two dark eyes at eye level with my own eyes, fixated on her keenly and piercing her as though he was trying to read her. She would open her eyes then close them, then open them again but his eyes were still there. His eyes drew in closer still and in an intensely piercing fashion he said to her, slowly telepathically, “We are of the Earth, we are from ancient line going back eons.” Then his eyes dissolved into the night as she started feeling this strong connection like ‘connecting the dots’ from this being and that mysterious gold ant that was in her tent the night before. She would see this ant-like being in her mind and then the visual would suddenly switch to the ant then back to the being again. This repeated several times back and forth. She felt a great respect for this being and the ant equally. They all sat in stillness and quietness for quite a while afterwards feeling the being’s continued presence surrounding them. Dove felt as though there were more than on insectoid like being there with them. 

In the years since her experience, she wondered if the being she saw was connected to the Hopi Ant People. “Could these ant like insectoid beings that I met not to be confused with mantis like beings, Greys or other similarly described beings, possibly be the same ant people of the legends and lore of the Hopi and other indigenous peoples. I believe that his is entirely possible and I get a strong sense that after my experience with them that this is the case. The Hopi peoples have described ant-like beings that were friendly, helpful and acted as teachers. They were kind and were an ultra-peaceful peoples. The one I met certainly fit all of these characteristics.”

What are we to make of such accounts as we have looked at here? The idea of encountering Insectoids seems absurd, like something out of a bad science fiction movie. Are these, as some reports seem to suggest, extraterrestrials? Are they some sort of interdimensional interlopers? Or are they merely lies, hoaxes, or figments of the imagination? Whatever the case may be, Insectoid encounters remain some of the weirdest paranormal encounters out there.