Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mysterious America
Mysterious America
Mysterious America
by SHEHIRYAR AHMED
1. Bigfoot in ILLINOIS
2. Mothman of point pleasant
3. The Jersey Devil
4. Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine
5. Mad Gasser of Mattoon
Bigfoot in ILLINOIS
Big foot is like a male gorilla in appearance. Bigfoot is commonly
reported to have a strong, unpleasant smell by those who have
claimed that they have seen this creature.
For more than a century, reports have filtered out of rural and
southern Illinois about strange, man-like beasts that resemble a cross
between man and ape.
The most famous Bigfoot sightings have taken place in the Pacific
Northwest; such creatures do occasionally turn up in Illinois.
The earliest sighting that I could find occurred around 1912. A woman
named Beaulah Schroat reported that her and her brothers often
spotted huge, hairy creatures near their home in Effingham. This may
have been the first sighting in Illinois, but it was not the first one in the
Great Lakes region. As far back as 1839, witnesses in Michigan City,
Indiana were reporting a "wild child" near Fish Lake. Today, we would
call such a creature "Bigfoot".
Another report comes from the early part of the last century. In this
brief snippet, we find that a "huge gorilla" was seen in the woods near
Elizabeth in July 1929. Then, in 1941, the Reverend Lepton Harpole
was hunting squirrels near Mt. Vernon and encountered a large
creature that "looked something like a baboon". He struck it with his
rifle and fired a warning shot that sent it back into the bushes. More
sightings of the same creature occurred the next year.
The sighting began on May 9 and by the 18th, had moved east
across the river to Centreville, Illinois, which is located near East St.
Louis and Cahokia. One man, James McKinney, who saw the
creature here, described it as being "half man and half horse". It
made an appearance just in front of his house and he called the
police, who never managed to catch up with this mysterious figure.
According to Loren Coleman, the authorities received over 50 calls in
a single night about this creature. The sightings eventually dropped
off and by May 23, the monster was apparently gone.
In September 1965, four young people were parked in a car near an
undeveloped area outside of Decatur called Montezuma Hills. The
area would later become a housing addition but at that time, it was a
secluded "lover’s lane". The young couples were sitting in the car
when a black, man-like shape approached the vehicle. The creature
seemed massive and frightened the teenagers badly. They drove off
in a panic but after dropping off their dates at home, the two young
men returned to the area for another look. They once again saw the
monster and it walked up to their car as though it were curious. The
boys were too scared to get out, but even with the windows rolled up,
they could smell the monster’s terrible smell. They quickly called the
police to the site and with several officers as support; they made a
thorough, but fruitless, search of the woods. The police officers on the
scene said they had no idea what the young people had witnessed,
but they were obviously very frightened by whatever it had been.
When he walked outside, he saw Bandit (dog) facing the hay bar.
About 150 yards from the house. Puzzled, Partridge turned a
flashlight in that direction and spotted two red circles that looked like
eyes, he believed and the sight of them frightened him. Bandit, an
experienced hunting dog, and protective of his territory, shot off
across the yard in pursuit of the eyes. Partridge called for him to
stop, but the dog paid no attention. His owner turned and went back
into the house for his gun, but then was too scared to go back outside
again. He slept that night with his gun propped up against his bed.
The next morning, he realized that Bandit had disappeared. The dog
had still not shown up two days later when Partridge read in the
newspaper about the sightings in Point Pleasant that night.
According to the legend, Mrs. Jane Leeds came from a poor family
who eked out an existence in the Pine Barrens of Jersey, a rugged
place with vast forests, sandy soil and patches of swamp. In 1735,
Mrs. Leeds discovered that she was pregnant with her 13th child. She
complained to her friends and relatives that the “Devil can take the
next one”, and he did. When the baby was born, he was monster! He
immediately took on a grotesque appearance and grew to more than
20 feet long, with a reptilian body, a horse’s head, bat wings and a
long, forked tail. He thrashed about the Leeds home for a bit and then
vanished up the chimney. The creature, or the “Jersey Devil” as he
was dubbed, began haunting the Pine Barrens.
The second sighting took place a few years later and this time the
Devil was seen by another respected witness. Joseph Bonaparte, the
former king of Spain and the brother of Napoleon, leased a country
house near Border town from 1816 to 1839. He reported seeing the
Jersey Devil while hunting game one day in the Pine Barrens.
In 1840, as the minister warned, the Devil returned and brought terror
to the region once again. It snatched sheep from their pens and
preyed on children who lingered outside after sunset. People all
across South Jersey locked their doors and hung a lantern on the
doorstep, hoping to keep the creature away.
Then, in 1909, the Jersey Devil returned again and literally thousands
of people spotted the monster or saw his footprints. It became so bad
that schools closed and people refused to go outside.
The most recent sighting of the creature was said to have been in
1993 when a forest ranger named John Irwin was driving along the
Mullica River in southern New Jersey. He was startled to find the road
ahead of him blocked by the Jersey Devil. He described it as being
about six-feet tall with horns and matted black fur. Could this have
been the reported Jersey Devil - or some other creature altogether?
Irwin stated that he and the creature stared at one another for several
minutes before the monster finally turned and ran into the forest.
Today, there are only a few, isolated sightings of the Jersey Devil. It
seems as though the paved roads, electric lights and modern
conventions that have come to the region over the course of two and
a half centuries have driven the monster so far into hiding that it has
vanished altogether. The lack of proof of the monster’s existence in
these modern times leads many to believe the Devil was nothing
more than a creation of New Jersey folklore. But was it really?
Let’s explore all of these questions and journey back into the haunted
history of the Lost Dutchman Mine... and uncover the numerous
deaths and the violence that surrounds it.
Superstition Mountain
Superstition Mountain is actually a collection of rough terrain that has
gained the name of a single mountain. The contour of the region
takes in thousands of cliffs, peaks, plateaus and mesas and even
today, much of it remains largely unexplored. Despite the tendency
by many to call this a range of mountains, it is in reality, only one. It is
certainly not the highest mountain in the region, but it has the
reputation of being the deadliest. Over the course of several
centuries, it has taken the lives of many men and women and has
perhaps caused a madness in them that has encouraged them to kill
each other.
The Apache Indians were probably the first to set eyes on the
mountain, followed by the Spanish conquistadors, the first of which
was Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. He came north from Mexico in
1540 seeking the legendary “Seven Golden Cities of Cibola”. When
he reached the region, the local Indians told him that the mountain
held much gold, although they refused to help the Spaniard explore it.
They were in too much fear of the “Thunder God”, who was said to
stay there, and who would destroy them if they dared to pass upon
his sacred ground.
When the Spaniards tried to explore the mountain on their own, they
discovered that men began to vanish mysteriously. It was said that if
one of them strayed more than a few feet from his companions, he
was never seen alive again. The bodies of the men who were found
were discovered to be damaged and with their heads cut off. The
terrified survivors refused to return to the mountain and so Coronado
dubbed the collection of peaks, Monte Superstition, which explains
the origin of the infamous name.
The Dutchman
First of all, I guess we should clear up one popular misconception
about Jacob Walz (or Waltz depending on the story you hear) and it’s
that he was not a “Dutchman”. He was actually from Germany and
born there in the early 1800’s. He came to America in 1845 and soon
heard about the riches and adventure that were waiting in the frontier
beyond New York. His first gold seeking took him to a strike in North
Carolina and from there he traveled to Mississippi, California and
Nevada... always looking for his elusive fortune.
Walz worked the gold field of the Sierra Nevada foothills for more
than ten years, never getting rich, but turning up enough gold to get
along. By 1868, he was in his fifties and wondering if he was ever
going to find his proverbial “mother lode”. The Indians had nick-
named him “Snowbeard” because of his long, white whiskers and it
isn’t hard to picture him as one of those grizzled old prospectors who
were so common in western films.
That same year, Walz began homesteading in the Rio Satillo Valley,
which is on the northern side of Superstition Mountain. Soon after he
arrived, he began to hear stories from the local Indians about
supernatural doings around the mountain, about a fierce god... and
about vast deposits of gold.
Most stories about Jacob Walz say that he spent the next 20 years of
so prospecting for gold around the Arizona Territory. He often worked
for wages in other men’s mines while he searched from his own
fortune. It was during one of these jobs that he met Jacob Weiser,
most likely while he was working at the Vulture Mine in 1870.
One version of the legend claims that Walz was fired from the mine
for stealing gold and soon, the two “Dutchman” struck out on their
own and vanished into the land around Superstition Mountain. Not
long after, they were seen in Phoenix paying for drinks and supplies
with gold nuggets. Some claimed this gold was the stolen loot from
the Vulture Mine, while others said that it was of much higher quality
and had to have come from somewhere else. Regardless of where it
came from, the two men would spend the gold around town for the
next two decades.
There have been a number of stories about how the men found the
“lost” mine. According to some, they stumbled upon it by accident.
Others say that killed two Mexican miners, who they mistook for
Indians, and then realized the men were mining gold.... but the most
accepted version of the story is that they were given a map to the
mine by a Mexican don whose life they saved.
The man was said to have been Don Miguel Peralta, the son of a rich
landowner in Sonora, Mexico and a descendant of the original
discoverer of the mine. The Dutchmen saved Peralta from certain
death in a knife fight and as a reward; he gave them a look at the
map to the mine. He was later said to have been bought out of the
mine by Walz and Weiser.
At some point in the years that followed, Jacob Weiser disappeared
without a trace. Some say that the Apaches killed him, while others
maintain that Walz actually did him in. (As you can see, there is a lot
of speculation to the legend).
But Walz was always around, at least part of the time. Long periods
would go by when no one would see him and then he would show up
in Phoenix again, buying drinks with gold nuggets. It was said that
Walz had the richest gold ore that anyone had ever seen and for the
rest of his life, he vanished back and forth to his secret mine, always
bringing back saddlebags filled with gold. Whenever anyone tried to
get information out of him, he would always give contradictory
directions to where the mine was located. On many occasions, men
tried to follow him when he left town, but Walz would always shake
his pursuers in the rugged region around the mountain.
So, who (or what) attacked the unsuspecting citizens of Illinois and
Virginia? Was it a mad scientist? A government agency? A visitor
from another planet? No one will ever know for sure, but the records
of the unknown are plagued with cases of mysterious attackers who
appear and vanish without explanation, kill on the innocent without
warning and then vanish completely, leaving no trace behind. Could
such attackers come from another time and place? Another
dimension? I’ll let the reader judge that for himself. Just remember
though, if these attacks can happen in the places that follow - they
are capable of happening anywhere… even where you live!
In 1933, Botetourt County, Virginia was a quiet area of the state and
had never really experienced much out of the ordinary. That all began
to change on December 22 when the home of Mrs. and Mrs. Cal
Huffman, near Haymakertown, was attacked by a mysterious figure
that was unlike anything seen, or even heard of, in the region before.
At around 10:00 that evening, Mrs. Huffman stated that she grew
nauseated after smelling a strange gas that had been apparently
sprayed into her house. She decided to go on to bed, but her
husband remained awake and alert to see if the lurker who had
sprayed the gas might return. A half-hour later, another wave of gas
filled the room and Huffman immediately went to the home of his
landlord, K.W. Henderson. Here, Huffman telephoned the police. An
Officer Lemon was dispatched to the scene and he stayed until
around midnight. Immediately after he left, another gas attack was
launched on the property, filling both floors of the house. All eight
members of the Huffman family, along with Ashby Henderson, were
affected by the gas. Ashby and Cal Huffman had been keeping watch
for the return of the prowler and thought that they saw a man running
away after the attack.
However, no one could determine what kind of gas was used (Dr.
W.N. Breckinridge, who assisted with the police investigation, ruled
out ether, chloroform and tear gas) or who could have sprayed it into
the house. The only clue that Lemon found at the scene was the print
of a woman’s shoe beneath the window the attacker was thought to
have sprayed his gas through.
The authorities were growing more concerned. Prior to this, they had
believed the gassings had been nothing more than pranks played by
some mischievous boys. Now the county sheriff’s office was forced to
admit that if this had been the case, the boys would have been
caught long before. They had begun to investigate the idea that a
mentally deranged person might be the culprit, perhaps even an mad
gas victim from World War I.
The Mattoon police chief issued what he felt was the final statement
on the gas attacks on September 12. He stated that large quantities
of carbon tetrachloride gas were used at the local Atlas Diesel Engine
Co. and that this gas must be causing the reported cases. It could be
carried throughout the town on the wind and could have left the stains
that were found on the rag at one of the homes.
Not surprisingly, a spokesman for the plant was quick to deny the
allegations that his company had caused the concern in town,
maintaining that the only use for that gas in the plant was in their fire
extinguishers and any similar gases used there caused no ill effects
in the air. Besides that, why hadn’t this gas ever caused problems in
the city before? And how exactly was this gas cutting the window
screens on Mattoon homes before causing nausea and paralysis?
The official explanation also failed to cover just how so many identical
descriptions of the "Gasser" had been reported to the police. It also
neglected to explain how different witnesses managed to report
seeing a man of the "Gasser’s" description fleeing the scene of an
attack, even when the witness had no idea that an attack had taken
place!