Cryptids in Suburbia — Part 2

Written by:John CarlsonParanormal Experiencer

John Carlson (A.K.A. The Paranormalist) is a bipedal hominoid who can sometimes be found stalking the sidewalks of New Jersey USA or lurking at his favorite neighborhood watering hole. His wife and sons have put up with his interest in and occasional confrontations with the paranormal. John encourages readers of this website to share any personal experiences, if they wish to do so. You are not alone.

This is the second part of Cryptids in Suburbia, our exploration of reports of anomalyous creatures in populated regions.

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Well, it’s been about seven months since I finished “Cryptids in Suburbia — Part 1”. My apologies for the long delay. Work and family responsibilities have taken precedence, cut into my writing time, and sapped me of the energy to stay up late into the night to write on my blog. However, my interest in the unknown never flags, and I have been giving a lot of thought to how I’d like to conclude the subject that I’d begun in Part 1 of this post.

So, the question remains: what are we to make of out-of-place animals and sightings of strange creatures in populated regions of the world? Sure, we’ve all heard accounts from loggers and campers of Bigfoot encounters deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest.  And we’ve heard stories about the Yeti seen high in the Himalayas and in the remote mountains and forests of China. Tales by the native people Sumatra tell of the small upright-walking hominid orang pendek living deep in the rain forests of their country, and from the jungle swamps of the Congo we hear of the sauropod-like mokele-mbembe. For those who are at least somewhat open-minded, the idea that these reports could be true isn’t outside the realm of possibility. After all, there are still remote places in the world, and to think that there could still be undiscovered species living there isn’t that outrageous an idea.

But how should we react to reports of Bigfoot and other anomalous creatures in the backyards of and parks of our suburbs and cities? Could they all be hoaxes or simply common animal species that have been misidentified? Of course, that could be the case,  but if we entertain the possibility that some of these reports may actually be genuine, then we have to consider the true nature and origin of these sightings.

During the past several months I’ve received some intriguing emails and comments on this website, as well as having read some fascinating articles. One of the emails that I received told of a Bigfoot sighting in Livingston, NJ — a very populated area some 35 miles west of where I live in northeastern New Jersey. The writer claimed to have seen a large, hairy hominid cross his path as he was driving, and disappear into the shrubbery at the side of the road. The next day the witness returned to the area with another individual who took a plaster cast and several photos. The footprints were indeed unusually large and wide and had left an impression over an inch deep into the icy mud at the roadside, indicating that it was a large creature of substantial weight. The witness and his associate noted that, although they each weighed over 220 pounds, neither of them made an impression in the frozen mud.

Big Red Eye - NJ Bigfoot
Big Red Eye – NJ Bigfoot

Recently too, I received an email from a woman who formerly worked as a reporter for a major New Jersey newspaper based out of Sussex County in the northwestern part of NJ. She’d read my article Bigfoot in New Jersey and went on to tell me that during the three years that she worked for the newspaper she became aware of a large archive of stories dating back to the 1970s about sightings of the NJ Bigfoot, known locally as “Big Red Eye” because he is often reported as having glowing red eyes. She went on to say that, although the newspaper generally did not comment on the Bigfoot reports that they received, her editor was very matter-of-fact about the subject of its existence, and New Jersey State Police at the local barracks were aware of the creature despite their refusal to go on record about it. Furthermore, shortly after she left the paper, a calf was torn to shreds on a farm in Sparta, NJ. The mutilation was officially blamed on a black bear, but a story the newspaper that she’d worked for proposed that the job had been done by “Big Red Eye” saying he was “back after so many years.”

I also found an article by Nick Redfern to be very intriguing. In it, Nick tells us of an email that he received from a man named Barry who claimed to have seen a “diminutive man-beast” of roughly three feet in height and covered with rust-colored fur in New York City’s Central Park. As Barry later explained to Nick in a subsequent interview, he was taking a walk on one of the Central Park’s many paths during his lunch break on a sunny mid-day afternoon in June or July, when this odd being came bursting through some foliage and onto the path some twenty feet in front of him. It stopped and stared intently at Barry for several seconds, before dashing off again and disappearing beneath a bridge inside the perimeter of the park. Redfern went on to say that the man seemed very sincere and honestly embarrassed as he related this story to him.

I could go on with numerous accounts of strange creature sightings and out-of-place animals in populated areas, but I’d like to return to the question at hand: what are we to make of these reports? Again, it may be conceivable to many people that unknown species exist in the remote wilds and forests of our planet, but can we make a case for the existence of such creatures in our own cities, suburban backyards, and highly populated regions of the world? And is it logical to assume that all such reports are mistaken identifications of common animal species, or simply lies?

Personally, I believe that there most definitely are undiscovered species of animals — perhaps even hominids — that roam the wildlands that still remain on our planet, and I’d like to go on record in saying that I have a great deal of respect for those dedicated individuals that have devoted their time, effort and resources in searching for evidence of their existence. However (of course there’s always a however) I also believe that some of these creatures inhabit planes of existence that are parallel to our own, and have the ability to move between these different planes of reality. I say this not to diminish or belittle the efforts of cryptozoologists, but to explore the possibility that at least some percentage of these sighting might be attributed to beings/creatures that don’t fully exist in what we understand as “reality”.

This theory, of course, is not an original one and has been proposed by numerous researchers, including such luminaries in the field of the paranormal as Jacque Vallee, John Keel, and Philip Imbrogno, among others. What we may think of as separate, disparate areas — UFOs, Sasquatch, encounters with alien entities, and “little folk” — may indeed all be part of the same phenomena. The concept that other realities could be intruding on our own is one that I’ve come to believe more and more as I’ve pondered these questions. My own strange childhood experiences of meeting small beings and my odd missing time experience leads me to believe that this could be the case (either that, or there’s something very wrong with me). While I know this may raise the hackles of those dyed-in-the-wool cryptid hunters and nuts-and-bolts UFO researchers, I honestly feel that this is a consideration that we can no longer ignore.

Please feel free to comment on this post and let me know what you think.

4 thoughts on “Cryptids in Suburbia — Part 2”

  1. I live on the southside of Atlanta in the middle of a older, well developed area. Three years ago, I kept sensing what I took to be a Bigfoot in the neighborhood, a psychic communication if you will. One evening I decided to place a whole head of garlic on the rear of my pickup as a “peace offering/gift” and just to see what would transpire. The next morning, the garlic had vanished and beside the truck were two sticks in a perfectly symetrical cross formation, a classic “stick sign”. I took it as a thank you for the garlic. I’ve never seen any other physical signs nor have I smelled, head, or seen any trace of a creature. However, some evenings I feel myself in communication with “something” out there and can’t but think it is some extra-dimensional being. There is an overgrown abandoned alley out back of me that we call the Bigfoot lot and in summer, garlic or some type of leek grows wild in the wooded area there. I have to wonder how these plants came to be established there, who may have originally planted it and why.

    Reply
    • Psychic phenomena or contact in conjunction with Bigfoot and other unknown entities is an interesting subject. I’ve read about it before, but it’s something I’d like to look into further. Of course, the idea of psychic communication with these creatures doesn’t go over well with those who are in the “Bigfoot-is-an-undiscovered-North-American-ape” camp. Yet, you still hear a lot of similar stories. It does mesh well with what the Native Americans have said about Sasquatch. To them, he’s not just some species of animal, but a guardian or big brother and is in fact quite intelligent.

      Thanks for telling us about this, Phil.

      Reply
  2. I must agree with your assesssment of this topic, something is just too far out of place with these incidents as well as being so frequent as to seem almost commonplace. Like my own sister telling me of seeing some very small (3-4 inches tall) people dressed in green and red in her kitchen one afternoon! Go figure! I also was told by a now deceased brother-in-law that he saw five or six creatures that walked on two feet about six feet tall with small wings on their backs and horse shaped heads, two small hooved forearms the lower legs also had hooves. He described the Jersy Devil to me years before I ever heard of that creature and this sighting took place in the deserts of California, near Indio California! Again go figure, that is nowhere near New Jersey. And as a police officer many years later I had people call for police assistance in dealing with strange creatures that would never be (still) present when we arrived on scene. You are right some things reported could very well be a real world animal still unknown to science and others seem too other worldly, to be taken seriously however(and like you say there is always a however), we must take them seriously and not belittle those who are reporting them, seriously and I might add; with true fear! I think that there are many different kinds of incidents, some could be(may be), interdiminsional and others could be real animals, and still others could be spiritual (in a religious sense). Well written my friend.

    Reply
    • Thank you, Bob. I’ve had a few reports, firsthand and secondhand, from police officers who have had encounters with the unknown. Considering that law enforcement officers deal with so many different types of incidents and often patrol remote areas at all hours of the night, it’s not surprising that men and women in your profession have had some strange experiences. The difficulty is that many patrolman and law enforcement specialists are hesitant to share their experiences because of the negative impact that it could have on their careers. Thanks for checking in with your thoughts.

      Reply

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