Peacock High-Strangeness

This is weird. Well, kind of...

In Wisconsin new reports have surfaced of sightings of peacocks and Bigfoot. So what? Well, this is not the first time peacocks and bizarre beasts have appeared in the same story.

In 2004, me and Jon Downes (pictured proudly posing below in the El Yunque Rain-Forest), of the British-based Center for Fortean Zoology, traveled to Puerto Rico with the SyFy Channel's Proof Positive show to film an episode on the Chupacabras. While we were there, Jon and I headed out to a farm high in the hills where the owner had lost an entire collection of peacocks to what he believed was the diabolical predator, the Chupacabras.

As the crew filmed, a familiar story was told to us of animals drained of blood; of vampire-style puncture wounds on the necks of the birds, and of an overwhelming paranoid fear that would pervade the entire area after darkness fell.

Moving on, in my 2008 book, There's Something in the Woods, I related the strange saga of a large, monkey-type creature seen crossing a field and a road next to the ancient Chartley Castle, Staffordshire, England in 1986. Yep, that's the castle:

The same field was the site of a Crop Circle I investigated in 2006 - inside of which were a number of peacock feathers (see the photo at the top of this post).

And here's the field and the Crop Circle:

Then, there are the following words of good mate Neil Arnold that appear in his Shadows in the Sky book. There's no attendant beast in this case, but it's still a weird peacock-themed saga:

"One of the most baffling ghost bird stories appeared on the BBC website in November 2006 under the heading, ‘Ghost peacock baffles rescuers’, after motorists in East Sussex had claimed to have run over a bird that left no trace. The mystery began when a female witness, driving on the A267 near Five Ashes, called wildlife rescuers to say she’d hit a peacock. The following day a lorry driver also claimed to have run over the bird. Rescue co-ordinator Trevor Weeks, examined the site of the alleged road kill but could find no trace of the bird. The arches of the lorry were examined but no sign of blood or feathers could be found..."

So what does all this mean? Damned if I know! If only John Keel or Charles Fort were still around to help us figure it out...