Bigfoot, Séances and Ouija-Boards

In my book, Wildman: The Monstrous and Mysterious Saga of the British Bigfoot, I discuss a strange decades-old affair involving a hair-covered wild man and a séance - in the English city of Coventry, no less!

Here's how I describe it in the pages of Wildman:

"The late Stan Gooch, the author of a number of books, including Creatures from Inner Space and The Paranormal, told of his encounter with nothing less than what seemed to be a Neanderthal man at a séance held at a house in the English city of Coventry in the 1950s!

"In Gooch’s very own words, during the course of the séance, something both primitive and primeval materialised before the shocked attendees:

"'This was a crouching ape-like shape, which became clearer as the moments passed. I guess it approximated to most people’s idea of what an ancient cave man would look like. Yet one could not make out too much detail – the eyes were hidden, for example. It stood in half shadow, watching us, breathing heavily as if nervous. I must say, though, that I sensed rather than heard the breathing. I could not decide whether our visitor was wearing the skin of some animal, or whether it had a rough coat of hair of its own.'

"All attempts to question the man-beast, and have it join the circle, were utterly fruitless, and, eventually, it melted away into nothingness. Nevertheless, Gooch never forgot the experience and later mused upon the notion that what he had seen on that fateful evening was a ‘classic Neanderthal.'

"Rather interestingly, Gooch, in later years, penned a number of books, including The Neanderthal Question and The Neanderthal Legacy, which theorised that we, as Homo sapiens, are the result of a hybrid mix of Cro-Magnon man and Neanderthal man."

And there ends that particular extract. But there's still more: this is not the only occasion when dabbling into the world of séances has resulted in the manifestation of a hair-covered, ape-like entity.

As I also note in the pages of Wildman: "A Polish medium born Teofil Modrzejewski, but who adopted the name of Franek Kluski succeeded in summoning a wide range of beasts that have become absolute staple parts of Cryptozoology: A mysterious ape [emphasis mine] a giant, spectral bird, a huge cat, and a ghostly hound were just some of the Tulpas that put in appearances during Kluski’s early-20th century séances."

So, where is all this leading? Well, to my latest Mysterious Universe article, that's where!

It starts as follows and tells a story not at all unlike those of Gooch and Kluski, but from the United States:

"...In the week leading up to Christmas 2007, I found myself on the receiving end of one of the strangest stories ever to darken my path. It has been my experience that when people are looking to speak with someone about their encounters with the unknown, they seek out those most amenable to what they have to say. By that I mean: most of my cryptozoological work is focused upon those fringe cases that exhibit evidence of high-strangeness and paranormal qualities. And so, the bulk of the reports that are brought to my attention usually tend to present such eerie qualities, too. Laura’s certainly did.

"She was thirty-six, lived in Rochester, New York, and worked for the Post Office. Laura related to me a remarkable and disturbing series of events that occurred to her and several friends in the summer of 1985 – events that began with attempts to contact the spirit world and culminated in the manifestation of a fearful, hairy man-beast."

And here's the complete article.

I don't pretend - at all - to know why such creatures should appear during séances. But, they seemingly do, and at widely varying geographical locations, too. Any thoughts???