"Haunted By A Phantom Ape"

That's the title of a new article from me at Mysterious Universe...

And here's how it begins...

On several occasions, I have written here at Mysterious Universe about the phenomenon of what I call “anomalous apes.” Most cryptozoologists are of the opinion that the likes of Bigfoot, the Yeti of the Himalayas, the Yeren of China, and the Yowie of Australia are wholly flesh and blood animals of a presently unknown type. There are, however, more than a few reports of such creatures that seem far more phantom-like in nature. It’s important to note that there is nothing new about anomalous apes. To demonstrate that, we have to turn our attentions to a certain book written back in 1954.

Elliott O’Donnell (1872-1965) was an author of many books on the world of the supernatural. They included Ghostly Phenomena (1913), Confessions of a Ghost Hunter (1928), and Strange Cults & Secret Societies of Modern London (1934). And, in 1954, there was Dangerous Ghosts. It’s this book to which we need to turn our attentions. In its pages O’Donnell said to his audience that “…Mrs. James, a reader of my books, told me, when I was living in London, an extraordinary story of Mr. Ward, one of her girlhood friends, who was haunted by a phantom ape.”