Page 35 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - Vol 24 No 2 - February 24 2015

9 Greatest Monsters in North America
The 9 Greatest Monsters
in North America
Continued from Page 32
(6. Jersey Devil, New Jersey) The marauding
misanthrope reappeared later in the week in
Camden, where a local woman found the beast
attempting to eat her dog. She hit it with a
broomstick and it flew away.
The pesky monster was never brought to
justice, but it has continued to infiltrate weird
and popular culture, as well as the world of
sports, thanks to NHL team the New Jersey
Devils.
7. Champ, Lake Champlain, New York
Champ (or "Champy," if you're feeling casual),
is said to inhabit the waters of the largest lake in The Mothman was said to be "between five and
Upstate New York's Adirondacks. The official
Lake Champlain Region website offers a brief
history lesson, noting that both the local
Abenaki and Iroquois tribes had lake-creature
legends, and giving a shout out to the lake's
namesake, 17th century explorer Samuel de
Champlain, who reported seeing unusually
large fish in his journals (albeit nothing terribly
monstrous).
Champ's reputation grew with sightings
in the 1800s; in 1819, a sea captain with
astonishingly vivid recall, or more likely
imagination, spotted "a black monster, about
187 feet long, and with a head that reared over
15 feet out of the water ... [with] three teeth,
eyes the color of an onion, a white star on its
forehead, and a belt of red around the neck."
The creature put in multiple appearances
in 1873, inspiring P. T. Barnum to promise
$50,000 to anyone able to capture the beast.
(Alas, nobody stepped forward to collect the
reward.) Over 100 years later, a family on
holiday produced a much-analyzed photo said
to capture "America's Loch Ness Monster" in
action. Thanks to that image, and because it's
simply more fun to suspect that one's vacation
spot just might be home to an unknown
creature, Champ fever continues in the area; as
recently as November 2014, a team of
cryptozoologists claimed to have made
recordings of the underwater beast.
But the Lake Champlain region's
website notes, the creature enjoys tongue-in-
cheek legal protection from the bordering states
of Vermont and New York ... so any 21st
century wannabe Barnums are out of luck.
Image via Lakechamplainregion.com.
8. Mothman, West Virginia
The Mothman went Hollywood in 2002's The
Mothman Prophecies, bringing the foreboding
winged creature to the attention of Richard Gere
fans the world over. That the Mothman tales are
tied to a real-life tragedy makes the story even
more poignant, and eerie.
The first sighting was November 15,
1966, and inspired the following immortal
headline in local rag the Point Pleasant Register:
"Couples See Man-Sized
Bird...Creature...Something."
According to Prairie Ghosts, the
sightings continued into 1967; author Joel Keel,
who wrote the book that served as the basis for
the Gere film, estimated that "at least 100
people personally witnessed the creature
between November 1966 and November 1967."
seven feet tall, wider than a man, and shuffled
on human-like legs. Its eyes were set near the
top of the shoulders and had bat-like wings that
glided, rather than flapped, when it flew.
Witnesses also described its murky skin as
being either gray or brown and it emitted a
humming sound when it flew."
True believers say the Mothman's raison
d'être became clear December 15, 1967, when
the Silver Bridge, a suspension span over the
Ohio River that connected West Virginia and
Ohio, collapsed during rush hour; 46 people
perished. Though the official story was that the
bridge was simply old and overloaded, the
timing of the Mothman's appearance and the
disaster is too tempting of a coincidence for
many to ignore.
The jury's out on whether the creature
was warning the people of Point Pleasant about
the impending collapse, or whether he was the
cause of it. At any rate, it doesn't seem like the
town holds a grudge, considering it's home to a
Mothman museum, statue, and annual festival.
Who says paranormal activity is bad for
business?
9. Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp, South
Carolina
Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries
offered this chillingly cheesyre-enactment of
The Night Chris Davis Met the Lizard Man of
Scape Ore Swamp.
A teenager at the time of his encounter,
Davis became a cryptozoological celebrity of
sorts; coverage of his tragic 2009 death made
great mention of his involvement in Scape Ore
Swamp's greatest mystery. []
Doctor Claims She Died
And Went To Heaven And
Was Warned Of Her Son’s
Death
A doctor from Wyoming claims that in a near-
death experience, one in which she says she also
saw heaven, she was forewarned about her son’s
death, which did in fact happen some years
later.
Dr. Mary Neal, who claims she went to
heaven, learned in June 2009 that her son Willie
had been involved in a roller skiing accident,
where he was struck from behind by a driver in
a vehicle and killed when he was just 19.
At the time, Neal was just completing
her personal memoir about her NDE (near-death
experience,) in which she claims that she was
warned of her son’s death a decade before it
happened.
Back in 1999, Neal, an orthopedic spine
surgeon, went kayaking in Chile with her
husband, Bill, and their friends when she got
pinned beneath a waterfall where she was
trapped for 12 minutes, according to the
Huffington Post.
One of the friends in the group, EMT
Tom Long, spoke to Jonas Elrod from In Deep
Shift with Jonas Elrod, a show on the Oprah
Winfrey Network, telling her that after 90
seconds his friend, Dr Neal, couldn’t have been
breathing anymore.
As Long said, “I don’t know what
happened. We’re 24 minutes into it; she’s dead.
Blue, waxy, no heartbeat, no breathing, cold-to-
the-touch dead.”
However, miraculously, the mother-of-
three was resuscitated and suffered no brain
damage, as a result of the incident.
After regaining consciousness, Neal said
that she had gone to heaven, “I could feel my
spirit peeling away from my body. I rose up and
out of the water and I was immediately greeted
by a group of people, beings, spirits,” she
claimed.
According to Neal, the spirits were
thrilled to greet her, and she equated the
experience with returning home after a long
journey, “The senses were different. I mean the
beauty was incredibly intense,” Neal said,
adding, ‘They did tell me about the future death
of my oldest son. They didn’t tell me the date or
the time, but it was very clear that would be
happening.” []