Sinister Experiments Creating Monsters in the Woods
30:11 Share

At Bright Horizons, infants discover first steps, toddlers discover independence, and preschoolers discover bold ideas. Our dedicated teachers and discovery-driven curriculum nurture curiosity, inspire creativity, and build lasting confidence so your child is ready to take on the world.

Come visit one of our Bright Horizons centers in the greater Chicago area and see for yourself how we turn wonder into wisdom. Schedule your visit today at brighthorizons.com. Of beasts and monsters.

there once was a very mysterious man known only by the name of dr crow and he lived in an isolated house on a secluded rural road in the town of kirtland ohio in the state of cleveland locals believed he may or may not have been a real doctor there were rumors he had had his license to practice revoked or that he was never qualified at all

the same confusion surrounded the number of children who were said to live under his roof some locals said he and his wife had been unable to have children while others said they had one child who suffered a form of disfigurement in that the child's head was enlarged due to a condition known as hydrocephalus or more commonly called water on the brain locally there was the belief that more than one child lived there

people wondered did he run an orphanage as many children have been frequently spotted in the grounds of the house or in the woods there the rumours were this doctor a real or not doctor carried out some rather sinister experiments on these children experiments which were surely not allowed for he had no hospital there that was certain

the experiments he carried out which were said to be barbarous and tortuous were done on the children's heads the locals said in the perhaps mistaken belief that he could cure his own son of the misshapen and swollen head he suffered with but these experiments only served to produce more children with terribly misshapen heads and other disfigurements too which gave them the most hideous appearances

he was probably doing more to them than that too for when these monstrous children were sighted they were unusually placid and docile withdrawn and silent which gave them an even more haunting air people called them the melon heads for years this was said to have gone on until the children could take no more and they formed together to carry out their vengeance upon the master who had so hideously rendered them as monsters

the children launched their assault on the doctor by setting fire to the house and his secret laboratories burning the doctor to death inside and freeing themselves from his imprisonment of them but now free they realized they had not thought through their plan because though they were free they did not know where to go or what to do for they had never known such freedom

and with such horrifying heads they knew they could not simply blend into normal society in despair and desperation they took refuge in the woods surrounding their former home hiding among the thick trees there frightened hungry and scared they were angry too was this the life they had been left with one of isolation and starvation and despair their anger grew with their hunger

they hunted for food and as some died of malnutrition others more fortunate ones lived and they went on to reproduce resulting in even more deformed monstrosities in the new children an insanity too began to set in they also had no moral boundaries they had been taught none and all they could think about was their continued survival in the woods and they grew more adept at stealing live stock and pets

perhaps it was obvious that a natural progression would be to start hunting humans next it began with taking small children who were easier to target and abduct and they were easier to cook cannibalism became natural to the group as it kept them alive well this all sounds like a rather tall tale and of course finding the corresponding historical records to back this up has proven to be exceptionally hard

but there are those who live in that area still who will say that the discovery of mutilated animal carcasses and even dogs or other family pets in the woods could surely only have been done by these hideous inbreeds with their horribly large heads the weird u s team heard an account from a man known only as tony who claims he had a run-in with the melonheads in october two thousand and one

he was with his mother step-father and step-brother when it happened and they were driving on a road in chardon he said we've been driving up and down roads in the same area for almost an hour with no luck what he means when he says they had no luck is because they were so intrigued by the stories of the melonheads that they'd got into their car finally and gone looking for them

they were just about ready to give up and go home when he said we were on this stretch of road that had fields on both sides and an irrigation ditch running parallel with each side of the road just then i look out my window and i saw him a melonhead he or it was running along next to the ditch since the ditch was too wide to jump over it was coming close like it was about to jump then it pulled away at the time we were going forty to fifty miles an hour

the melon head was actually keeping up with us it didn't look anything like i've read in the stories he looked about the same height as me five foot seven and was wearing very ripped-up brown pants held together by what looked like corn husk it wore a white shirt with brown and red stains all over it i'm hoping that the red stains weren't blood its head was a brown tint it had two holes in the sides of its head which i think were ears

its head was swelled up and its eyes were very big just as we turned a curve it jumped into the woods peter mewes of new england folk-lore blog an avid folklorist has collected tales of melonheads in one instance back in the nineteen eighties a group of schoolgirls from notredame high school decided to go out on a joy ride one friday night and in the dark they embarked on having some fun in the car

they drove around aimlessly for a while until deciding to go somewhere spooky for a thrill there was a street in the town of trumbull that had been given the nickname dracula drive due to the tales of strange and creepy things happening there it was a secluded dirt road one of the schoolgirls megan told the other girls that this road was in the melon heads territory in the woods and she went on to describe these bulbous headed monsters who were said to live in the woods and hunt animals and humans

the girls were all incredibly excited by this story and they were all very keen to head to dracula drive in the hope that from the safety of their car they would catch some sight of the melon heads lurking among the trees when they got there they quickly disembarked from the car forgetting all sense of safety and common sense and aided by the car headlights they approached the dark woods there were no houses and no other people around for miles

the girls were giggling nervously among themselves dizzy with the excitement of their adventure and desperate to see one of the grotesquely deformed human monsters now

Almost at the edge of the woods, they suddenly heard the sound of a car driving fast on the road behind them, and turning to see who it was, they were shocked to discover that it was their car, and it was being driven straight towards them. What's more, they now saw who had stolen their car. It was children with disproportionately large heads, clothed in rags. Their eyes glowed orange-yellow, and they were cackling wildly as they headed fast towards the terrified girls.

the car veered away right at the last minute barely missing the girls by inches and then thundered away at speed needless to say the girls began to run desperate to get away from the woods and the melonheads before they came back the group made it safely home but only after running for several hours hiding and panicking perhaps what's worse about the melonheads is that they're not restricted to that one particular spot they've been sighted throughout connecticut apparently

a man called jeff b told a creepy cleveland that i used to live by the woods on wisner road when i was ten years old i had a brief encounter with a melonhead it happened at around ten p m on an autumn night when i heard my dog bark and i ran outside to see what was going on when i got outside to see what the commotion was about i found my dog lying there bleeding i looked toward the woods and saw what i believed to be a small figure with very pale skin and a large head

When it saw me, it ran into the woods. I went out the next morning and followed the tracks, but they stopped near a creek. I'm older now and very sceptical about events like this, but I'm not the only person who experienced something like this. A man called Jimbo said, I grew up in the 70s right down the road from Dracula Drive and went there many times, and it was always creepy. I would ride my bicycle with friends down it because I wasn't old enough to drive, but I was left before dark.

one day i was heading home from town with my mum and sister in the car we drove down velvet street and right in the middle we got stuck behind a horse-drawn buggy that was extremely odd but when we were finally able to pass it that was when the old lady driving it looked to be about one hundred and in the back of the buggy were two melonheads it freaked me out yes and i rarely go back they just stared at us as we passed

i couldn't believe what we saw they are real well another local man says that when he was younger he was out in his friend's car and they were driving around the dirt roads with the woods on both sides when a short man with a bulgur's head ran out of the woods and ran in front of their car they didn't get a clear look of his face but when they turned to where he'd come from they said there were bloody clothes hanging in the trees he said the melon heads will eat you and then leave your bloody clothes hanging from a tree

another local man who was a teenager at the time said he and his friends witnessed a melonhead when he was in high school it happened when he was out with a group of friends at a bonfire in the woods in melonhead territory one of his friends went off to relieve himself in the trees and when he returned his face was as white as a ghost he said he had seen a small child of around five years of age with a huge balloon-shaped head

he said that this child jumped out at him in the woods then ran off laughing wildly his friends told him he was drunk and he must have imagined it but with their curiosity now aroused they decided to go to the spot in the woods where their friend said it happened to check out his claim as he would not back down from telling them about what he had just seen so they searched the woods for several minutes but they found no sign of a balloon headed child

instead they heard cackling laughter and screaming coming from a distance away in a near-by field they all ran over toward the field quickly to investigate and they found no one but four balloon headed children sitting high up in the pine trees gazing down at them

the moon was almost full that night and they could very clearly see their hideously misshapen heads completely horrified by them the group of boys fled back into the woods and to the relatively safer bonfire where there were more people but after a minute or so they were still too frightened to stay and they abandoned the bonfire party in a hurry they never went back to the woods

a local lady called rose says i can tell you that the legend of the melonheads is pretty much a trumbull connecticut fact i grew up by pinewood lake in the nicholls area of trumbull i'd seen a polaroid picture of a melonhead family way back when i was about twelve i never saw any whilst there but you could honestly feel the pressure of something truly evil sitting on top of you when you were either driving or parked there it would hit you immediately and it was more than just an anticipatory thing

you'd be pestering to get the hell out the numerous winding trails of lake town and the sogatuck dunes state park are said to be inhabited by this group of human monsters they have spread it would seem do the melon heads still exist did they ever exist is it just an urban legend and exaggeration or misidentification misidentification of what is it melon heads or aliens in the woods

the sketches that have been made from numerous witness sightings look curiously similar to lamb the supposed entity channelled by alister crowley in a black magic ritual which also looks strikingly similar to the multitude of gray alien sightings we're moving on now to another strange monster the puck

The New Bedford Guide in April 2007 said, Freetown Police add Pukwudgie warning signs to Freetown State Forest. Freetown PD has ordered the placement of a crossing warning sign to call alert motorists to unexpected entries onto the roadway that may call for a reduction of speed or immediate action in the interest of traffic safety. It has been widely reported that the Freetown State Forest is the home of these mythical creatures.

the danger the pukkupujis present to the motoring public is that they can appear and disappear at will by using magical powers the newspaper continues it is believed that pukkupujis also have the following abilities they are masters at remaining undetected in the forests and they control the spirits of their deceased victims unfortunately we have no countermeasures for this

Well, it turns out that this was an April Fools' Day message the newspaper had posted. However, could Pukwudgies really exist? They're believed to be troll-like creatures up to three feet tall, with large hairy faces, spindly legs and large noses. They have the ability to transform their shape at will and become invisible when desired, as well as having the ability to lure people to their deaths in the woods.

long before europeans came to new america the algonquin native americans as well as the mohicans believed in the existence of the pugwidgees who were said to have been more harmonious once although they had always been notorious tricksters and the name itself translates as little wild man of the wood that vanishes

They are known to play harmless tricks on travellers in the woods, although sometimes this can escalate into meanness and outright danger, even turning fatal at times. It's said that they can shapeshift at will into large, fiercer animals, but their own appearance itself is scary enough. They are said to be particularly active in the Bridgewater Triangle, in the southeastern part of the Massachusetts state, including the Freetown State Forest.

a series of suicides at the assenet ledge where people have reported an irresistible urge to jump off it are theorised to be the work of the mischievous and deadly pugwidgees who are responsible for driving these people to their deaths or in other cases simply pushing them from the cliff

well at the asinet ledge inside the forest there is said to be a feeling of dread that comes over you as you approach it in fact more than a dozen suicides have been recorded there each visitor said to have been overwhelmed with a sudden inexplicable need to jump off the ledge often while in the presence of other people throwing themselves off it into the deep quarry below in front of their companions

well in two thousand and ten a man called gregg explained what had been happening to him for years apparently and he believed it was because of a pugwidgee it's a real-life troll he said i don't give a if you don't believe in paranormal stuff or not they're pretty evil my house is built on an old indian grounds ever since i was a kid i've always felt watched in my house and outside i've basically been in a constant state of paranoia we would often have slumber parties and camping tents in the back yard

one night i was probably around nine years old and we got done making marshmallows over the fire and it was time to go to sleep so we all got up to walk over to the tent and we see these little things like elves or little gremlins run out of the tent as we approached it there was a whole pack of them he said i couldn't make out their exact features at the time but they were ugly little things greyish skin long hair on their heads and naked

They ran standing upright, just like you and me. As I got older, it only got worse. When I was eleven on Christmas Eve, I decided to sleep downstairs. I was about to fall asleep when I abruptly heard something coming from the kitchen that sounded like two things whispering back and forth. I sat up quick, with the hairs on the back of my head stood up. I was in shock. I knew it wasn't my parents. I slowly got up, with my knees shaking with fear.

I could still hear this chattering as I came closer to the door. When I entered the doorway again, there they were. Those trolls. Only there were two this time. I ended up running upstairs to my mum. It's all still so vivid in my head. There's been other times when I've been in my bedroom and I've been poked while sleeping, or times I've heard knocking on my wall and it sounds like it's something inside the wall. My

my dad said he saw two goblins the ones i saw had long strands of greasy matted hair and ugly and had long finger nails that looked like claws a man by the name of william russo wrote in his blog then later in his book the creature from the bridgewater triangle and other odd tales of his own personal account of experiences with these creatures he said he was walking his dog near his home around midnight just south of hockamock swamp when a three to four foot creature approached about ten feet in front of him

it was standing just under a street light and he said it was trying to vocalize and trying to beckon him to come to him meanwhile a man called tom says he has seen a puckawoodgee on two occasions the first was when he was walking through freetown state forest one night he said he saw a glow in front of him a glow which seemed to swell as if it was breathing feeling an urge to turn around he saw a two feet tall creature covered in fur with a nose like a wolf

the creature ran off emitting an eerie moan as it did so tom's second meeting with what he believes the puckwojee was in the freetown state forest parking lot he had parked his car and was sitting in it listening to the radio just enjoying the solitude

until he saw the same creature he had seen before in the woods only twenty feet away tom recognized the creature instantly and noted that its eyes were glowing red tom set his car's engine turned on by itself and the radio began to blare panicked he drove out of the forest at speed

a woman named joan said that she was walking her dog along a path in the freetown state forest when out of the blue her dog bolted off into the forest dragging her along when the dog stopped running joan found herself face to face with a small creature it was about two feet high with a gray pale skin and very short legs

its lips were large she said and it had a canine-like nose joan and the creature stared at each other until the dog pulled joan back to the path this in itself was very unsettling for her but to make matters worse the creature started to appear at joan's window in the middle of the night and wake her up these nocturnal visits only stopped she said when she moved away from the area now we come to the case of dear man

From Hockerson, Delaware in 1993, this witness was eight years old when it happened. He was staying with his grandparents at the time in a wooded area.

He said they lived deep in the woods and I always hated it there. It felt like something was always watching. One morning he woke up in his bedroom on the ground floor that he shared with his brother. He pulled the curtains open and it was a bright sunny morning. There was a deer, he said, with the biggest antlers I've ever seen. It was almost pressed against the window and I stared in awe and that's when it changed.

in one smooth movement it reared up on its hind legs and it was no longer a deer but a man he's quick to emphasise that this was not his father nor his grandfather it was he said clearly much younger muscular it exuded strength it stared to the side for a moment and then strode off with purpose

in another case from the wichita mountains national wildlife refuge in oklahoma in two thousand and twelve a man called kyle haying claimed he was out with a friend taking photos of the night sky when a number of animals ran past them giving the impression that they were attempting to flee from something in the forest this was followed by a deathly silence

The two men felt unnerved and they quickly began packing up their photographic equipment to leave when they heard rustling in the bushes. Fearful now, they grabbed their guns but made it back to their vehicle unscathed. Just as they were about to drive away, a deer man emerged from the darkness and started coming towards them, lurching towards them.

hale later said they heard one ear-piercing scream or screech that made his hair stand on end he said he could only liken the scream to the sound a banshee might make of the deer man he says i cannot forget that figure it was not human but it was not any wild life i am familiar with

an unnamed fourteen-year-old witness was playing hide-and-seek at his cousin's house one evening in rural ohio it was around twilight when he suddenly saw some kind of creature emerging from out of the trees his report reads it was getting dark and i was the one searching i heard leaves crumpling and when i turned to look i saw what looked like a deer on its hind legs

this was strange he thought i clearly remember he said seeing dog legs running but the rest of its body was straight up it ran with incredible speed and i knew it wasn't my cousin's he ran fast back to the house one of his cousins he said was running in too he'd seen the same thing he said it still creeps him out to this day because his uncle always told him of how he saw weird things on the property

Well now we come to the dismal swamp monster.

in sweden reykjavik grapevine writes about the museum of hidden beings which is a pictorial book by painter and sometime icelandic cryptozoologist arngrimmar sigurdsson who was inspired by a tale from the eighteen forties when a trader by the name of sigtryggur sigurdsson was walking his usual route home along the beach from husvik when he suddenly saw something strange approaching him

there was a large humanoid creature of a type he had never seen and it was sprinting towards him from the sea the man took fright and ran to a near-by hill picking up a branch to fend off the creature which was quickly upon him attacking him viciously after a long and bloody struggle that saw his clothes torn to tatters he finally landed a heavy blow on its arm breaking it at the elbow

at this the unidentified monster howled and relented and ran back to the sea the man escaped badly injured but lived to tell the tale naming the beast the sea troll well says the cryptozoologist in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many stories of this creature were told but now almost none are

well the great dismal swamp is a large swamp in southeastern virginia and the northeastern north carolina between norfolk virginia and elizabeth city in north carolina estimates suggest the original size of the swamp to have been more than a million acres in seventeen twenty eight william burt the second carried out a land survey and from his observations the swamp became known as dismal

uncovered archaeological artifacts place inhabitants in the swamp since thirteen thousand years ago in the sixteen fifties the olonquin native americans lived here and societies of african-american maroon people lived here too these were people who had fled slavery and hid in the swamp to keep their freedom

richard grant from the smithsonian says it was a thriving place for the runaways who hid in communities among the vegetation which was too thick for horses or canoes says grant when you have been toiling through this sucking ooze with submerged roots and branches grabbing at your ankles dry solid ground feels almost miraculous

it was a difficult landscape to live in obviously and panthers once roamed there says grant the worse it gets as i wade and stumble through the great dismal swamp each ripping thorn and sucking manhole there was a dense tangled hostility there are several lakes here and monsters too it seems the richmond dispatch of march twentieth nineteen o one wrote picturesque lake kilby has beneath its surface a strange monster

it made its appearance yesterday afternoon in the main body of the lake and was seen by a prominent citizen who was accompanied by one of the city fathers but it disappeared before the latter saw it the former gentleman says they were rowing leisurely along when his eyes became riveted upon the monster and he at first thought it was a log but as he approached closer he found it was alive the body was eight feet

Well, one would perhaps automatically assume this must have been an alligator or a crocodile, but it had a head that resembled a man's, with huge black eyes, heavy brows long, with a tail extending six feet, and yellow hair covering the face of whatever it was, says the newspaper. It weighed at least 300 pounds, apparently, and had no legs.

"'The citizen does not know how to account for it. "'They watched for the reappearance of the strange being, "'but it never rose again.'

but this was not the only strange report almost a year later the times of richmond reported on february twenty fifth nineteen o two the strange monster that eats dogs the newspaper says the strange dismal swamp monster which one day this week killed seven of ed smith's dogs ate two of them and later attacked mr smith himself has been seen again

last night frank ames a merchant saw the same sight and suffered from its ravages mr ames apparently lived near bennett creek says the newspaper hearing a strange noise mr ames went out with a pistol he thought at first it was a strange dog when he learned it was the much-sought monster mr ames shot several times but without effect

the thing growled savagely being sent after it six dogs refused to have a conflict and fled in terror they could not be induced to make an attack for the monster vanished unharmed but it appeared again to another person shortly after says the newspaper it appeared at the home of henry jordan and sat defiantly on a covered well the description is like the one furnished by mr smith a large gaunt form long yellow hair and vicious eyes

well page four of the little fool's herald also reported on march twenty first nineteen o two scared by strange beasts virginia farmers they say are alarmed by the monster which terrorized residents of pleasant hill so that they were afraid to leave home at night and the newspaper also describes the account of mr smith's dogs being killed and eaten by the monster

the monster apparently sprang upon smith smith fell and the beast tore his clothing to shreds he finally beat it off but the revolver being corroded would not fire from smith's description the animal is larger than a wolf with shaggy yellow hair long head sunken eyes it is gaunt and vicious

people are wondering they say what will come next the more superstitious regarded the visitation as supernatural and families are having much trouble with their servants the servants were scared of being there they were full of apprehension that they would next be the ones that were attacked and eaten

we'll fast forward to two thousand and eleven now and park ranger pat higgins collated several more recent strange sightings there is something out there he says we can't explain a creature seven and a half feet tall hairy as a shag rug and smelling like a sewer

sherry davis a chesapeake housewife and avid camper told rangers that one morning at two a m she was awakened at her camp-site by a crushing noise and a sharp acrid smell when she turned on her car headlights she spotted the beast for a full fifteen seconds before it disappeared into the thick woods presumably it's still out there or they are still out there rather

At Bright Horizons, infants discover first steps, toddlers discover independence, and preschoolers discover bold ideas. Our dedicated teachers and discovery-driven curriculum nurture curiosity, inspire creativity, and build lasting confidence so your child is ready to take on the world.

Come visit one of our Bright Horizons centers in the greater Chicago area and see for yourself how we turn wonder into wisdom. Schedule your visit today at brighthorizons.com.