The Strange Report 14 April 7, 1999 An Occasional E-mail Newsletter from the editors of Strange Magazine http://www.www.strangemag.com Still on the Trail of the Goatman by Mark Opsasnick and Mark Chorvinsky Web Watch by Mark Chorvinsky and Douglas Chapman Book Review Reviewed by Douglas Chapman ______________________________________________________ Still on the Trail of the Goatman by Mark Opsasnick and Mark Chorvinsky In his article, "On The Trail Of The Goatman" (Strange Magazine #14, Fall 1994), Mark Opsasnick presented the history of this Prince George's County, Maryland cultural creature hero. Eyewitness testimony and newspaper accounts of the legendary half-monster, half-man beast were offered-some suggesting it may be a real Bigfoot-type entity, others portraying a mythical folklore figure-though no definitive conclusion concerning the popular mystery was drawn. In the aftermath of Strange #14, new information and viewpoints arrived at the offices of Strange Magazine, providing additional material to the already vast collection of Goatman data on file at the Strange Archives. The new information resulted in interviews with two individuals who were intimately connected with the Goatman. Their perceptions of and attitudes toward the Goatman exemplify the two predominant approaches toward strange phenomena. Goatman: Created in 1959? Dorothy Fletcher: "It's just a myth." The first to contact us was Dorothy Fletcher, a 29 year resident of Fletchertown Road in Bowie, Maryland. Dorothy provided some interesting background history on this forgotten region, explaining that a 300 acre portion of land surrounding Fletchertown Road was originally purchased by her husband Austin Fletcher's grandmother, Virginia Fletcher. When Virginia obtained the parcel from William Bowie in the late 1800's, she quickly went to work renaming the winding dirt path that crossed the land "Fletchertown Road" and established family settlements, thus creating the informal community name "Fletchertown." Only one other group was allowed to settle on the land, the Brown family, with their section of the territory labeled, appropriately enough, "Browntown." This region of Fletchers and Browns constituted one of the few established black settlements in P.G. County in the 19th century. While commercial expansion and housing developments have obliterated the once rural and now newly paved and widened Fletchertown Road over the last ten years, members of the Fletcher and Brown families have still maintained homes on the avenue and hold their family histories close to their hearts. Dorothy Fletcher moved to Fletchertown Road in September 1966 and she recalled that Goatman stories abounded since the days when she began courting her future spouse, Austin Fletcher, several years earlier. Austin in turn claims that the first year he ever heard the term "Goatman" used was 1959. Dorothy's recollections on the subject portray the Goatman as a cultural entity as opposed to some type of living creature. "It's just a myth," she told us from her office at the Montgomery County Department of Social Services. "There was supposed to be an old guy-a tramp-who lived out in the woods and people would claim to see him looking for food but as far as some type of actual Goatman, something half and half-no. There was nothing like that ever. We used to talk about the Goatman thing a lot, our families, because it concerned the kids, but no one had ever seen it." Dorothy continued, "Back then Fletchertown Road was a little winding road and we were outside all the time. We'd stay up late at night and we never used to lock the doors. Sometimes we'd see deer and foxes, but nothing like a monster. The Brown family had goats and chickens and things like that, but I really believe the kids spread that whole Goatman story. Austin said it started in 1959 and it really took off after those newspaper articles in 1971." Animal Mutilation and Hairy Human Sightings April Edwards: "Not Folklore." Those same newspaper articles which appeared in the Prince George's County News and Washington Post in October and November 1971 (detailed in "On The Trail Of the Goatman" in Strange 14) caused a bit of anguish for both residents of Fletchertown Road and nearby Zug Road, beyond the railroad tracks. One key eyewitness, 16-year-old April Edwards, owned a puppy dog named Ginger who unfortunately was found decapitated and was the subject of a front page article in the November 10, 1971 edition of the Prince George's County News, with additional coverage of this event appearing in the November 30, 1971 Washington Post. Edwards, now a 39 year old school bus driver and mother of five residing in Fredericksburg, Virginia, contacted us with her feelings on the subject. "My dog was the one [that was found mutilated]. His head was cut off and the papers made it out that a train hit him and to this day I just can't get it through my brain that a head can be thrown that far from a train. I think that Goatman thing tore the head off and ate the body." April was more than willing to talk about the strange events and set the record straight. "We were living in the house on Zug Road and I had seen it on the night in question. It just looked like a hairy man to me. It was on two legs and stood upright, though it did crouch over when it ran, like a hunchback. It had long hair. I think it was human. I don't think it was part this or part that, but it was something. I could see John and Willie when they were chasing it. They all had baseball bats and I could see it go over the railroad tracks squealing, making like a high-pitched cry. It was weird. John said it was the Goatman. I really don't know if that thing was a Goatman, but it was something." April saw the creature on one more occasion and it made a lasting impression. "I saw it one time after that out by Mr. Hayden's junkyard and all of this was in a matter of two weeks. The second time it was looking for food or something. This thing was for real. I saw it with my own eyes and so did my mother and other family members and neighbors. I was scared to death because seeing something like that, when you're a kid especially, scares you to death. For a long time after that I locked my bedroom door and my windows because I was really afraid." Still slightly bitter about how the local papers handled the matter, April is still very certain today of her experiences. "People came here and called it folklore and the papers made us out to be ignorant hillbillies who didn't know any better. It really got to me because no one can tell me I didn't see what I know I saw. People may have made up a lot of stuff over the years but what I saw was real and I know I'm not crazy. I can understand how folklore gets started and passed on but this was not folklore. I don't know what it was. It may have been some kind of old hermit or man covered with hair but I believe it killed my dog and was living in the woods around there for some time." The cultural vs. the "nuts and bolts" approaches to Goatman (and strange phenomena in general) are exemplified by Dorothy Fletcher and April Edwards. Many of those who study strange phenomena find eyewitness accounts to be very compelling, while others are attracted to the cultural hypothesis as a way of understanding the creation and perpetuation of what they see as living folklore. Generally the chosen approach reflects the belief system, frame of reference, and propensities of the researcher. We prefer to take a multi-pronged approach to this field, testing various theories against the facts of the case, taking each subject on a case by case basis, rather than superimposing a single favorite theory on every case. The Goatman case is complex enough that anyone can delve into it and emerge with a conclusion that will support their belief system. In that sense the Goatman is, like so many other strange subjects, a Rorshach test that makes it possible for researchers to see in it what they will. * Strange Magazine issue 14, including the article "On the Trail of the Goatman," is available from Strange Magazine, PO Box 2246, Rockville, MD 20847; fax 301-460-1959, phone 301-881-3530 (Dream Wizards), or at www.strangemag.com/back issues ________________________________________________ WEB WATCH by Mark Chorvinsky and Douglas Chapman SHATTER YOUR MIND "My primary interest is finding new ways to continually expand creativity by melding art, science, mathematics and other seemingly-disparate areas of human endeavor," writes Clifford A. Pickover, an author, inventor, and IBM Research Staff Member. "I seek not only to expand the mind, but to shatter it." He succeeds at this in his amazing website <http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/home.htm>, with its brain-stretching activities, its computer art, and its blurbs on books that should be of interest to Strange readers, including his latest: Strange Brains and Genius: The Secret Lives of Eccentric Scientists and Madmen. This volume covers such subjects as Nikola Tesla, Oliver Heaviside, and other brilliant but strange people. His other books include Time: A Traveler's Guide; The Alien IQ Test; and The Science of Aliens. GLOBE GHOSTS ON FILM The website for The Philadelphia Ghost Hunters Alliance <http://members.aol.com/Rayd8em/index.html> is full of alleged ghost photos from sites including Gettysburg, Bristol Cemetery, Fort Mifflin, etc. Many of the pix are of apparent globular spirits. There is a useful section of Tips on the best equipment to use when photographing "remnants of what was once a human being," as well as ways to avoid false-positive images which are actually photographic but not ghostly anomalies. The PGHA believes in ghosts, yet applies skepticism to photographic endeavors in an effort to achieve more reliable results. CRYPTOZOO ONLINE Check out Chad Arment's information packed site entitled "Zoological Miscellanea and Assorted Natural History Items" at www.herper.com. Chad's site is full of material of interest to all cryptozoology (and cryptobiology) enthusiasts. Green mammals, humming snakes, carnivorous plants, unusual wildlife, Bigfoot, and many other topics fill the pages. Strangemag regulars will also enjoy some surprises of non-zoological interest such as North American earthworks and effigy mounds. Fortean investigators would do well to read Arment's online version of his publication "The Search for Enigmatic Animals: A Guide to Cryptozoological Investigation Techniques," found at this site. NESSIE CENTRAL Visit Nessie's official website <http://www.myspace.co.uk/nessie/> to experience the legendary monster of Loch Ness in ways both familiar and new. The concise yet expansive site catalogues Sightings, Nessie Hunters (Robert Rines, etc.), Film Evidence, the Geology of the Loch, and Stories about the beloved but controversial beast; it also offers Nessie's Loch Ness Times, Nessie's Chatterboard, Nessie's Diary, and sources for both Ceramic Nessies and Nessie's Favourite Shortbread. One useful list, the Index of Waterbased Monster Sightings, lists for each case the Observer, the Time, the Date, the type of Motion, and a Description. Full of sonar contacts, "nessie" photos, and other great visuals, the site will please all those who enjoy the world's favorite cryptozoological enigma. BLACK PHANTOM DOGS The Phantom Dogs feature in Strange 19 was extremely popular. Those who crave even more material on the Black Dog phenomenon may want to pay a visit to At the Edge, an e-zine exploring "new interpretations of past and place in archeology, mythology, and folklore." Spectral hound fans will find two excellent, fully referenced articles by Bob Trubshaw--"Black Dogs in Folklore" and "Black Dogs: Guardians of the Corpseways." Articles on British Earth Mysteries and the piece by Jeremy Harte on Dragon Lore from Wales will also be of interest to many of our readers. _________________________________________________ BOOK REVIEW Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen Cambridge University Press, New York, 1997, 325 pp., hardcover, $24.95. Reviewed by Douglas Chapman The Grim Reaper has been in evidence in Strange Magazine lately, but Figments of Reality introduces the Grim Sower-symbolizing the large-scale creation and seeming wastage of lifeforms so that the genetic legacies can go on. But this tendency is only a minor topic here, in a book that works towards a valid method of encountering the universe's complexities with fewer blinders. What humans can understand, though, must be in some sense a "lie-to-children." The authors write: "Because human beings experience reality indirectly, through the medium of their senses, there is room for genuine and reasonable disagreement about the nature of reality." Science can no longer be thought of as absolute truth. Subjectiveness rules. Our inner "ringmaster" organizes data, on the lookout for defining features. The processing layers of the mind pull up recognitions of patterns, and language facilities are used to express the patterns recognized. "'Self' is not a thing, but a process...." The authors write of how, to humans, actions take place in external reality, and thus what we call free will is more than merely an illusion-"it is a figment rendered real by the evolutionary complicity of mind and culture." In the authors' view, intelligence, as such, existed as a potential in "phase space" until humankind happened into it and reacted to it-and the resultant feedback loop had gigantic results. Life potentials can be used in many ways. That humans are the shape they are does not mean that extraterrestrial lifeforms should be the same. For example, feeding from tall branches is different in elephants and giraffes. Long prehensile noses and long necks are both valid solutions for the same problem. Evolution is generally considered a fact, but those who disagree point out the elements that are not yet understood. The authors here emphasize the process's dynamics-which to them is like water filling an invisible landscape. Humans are not yet aware of the "landscape's" real parameters, shaped by various needs of survival abilities such as flight or speed. Structures change, and find whatever use an entity can manage. In the evolution of an eye, there never was half an eye, but there were structures between the extremes of a light sensitive surface and a full eye-with varying sensing levels. Evolution is not as simplified as some have made it. Our present concept of an "Eve," a female supposedly the ancestor of us all, is a gross example-"...she represents a particular molecular sequence for mitochondrial DNA, embodied in a population of women possessing that molecule, from whom all modern mitochondrial DNA molecules descend." This sequence likely dates back long before the divergence of humans and chimpanzees. "Primitive" creatures primitive can have more of our capabilities than we credit them for. A famished cat can use complex communication strategies to let human stewards know what it wants from the immediate future. Consciousness is a continuum, not something absent in animals and present in humans. Human imagination has created more complex sense-and nonsense-than most, with results more often useful than not, since humans are a species that can bend its own mind. The "realities" that humans choose are sometimes odd ones, though, since "truth" is not the only factor involved in the construction of cultural myths. A large selection is possible. Forteans tend to be aware of this. Simplex minds think in single "lines" of thought, complex minds explore in the areas immediately around such intersecting "lines," while multiplex minds search in the unknown territory between them. As the global culture knits closer, the latter mode of thinking becomes desirable-if one can achieve it. This book considers the ways sentient beings experience and think about reality, and promotes multiplex awareness. ________________________________________________ EMAIL Email your letters to the editor to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Strange Magazine http://www.www.strangemag.com PO Box 2246, Rockville, MD 20847 Letters to the Editor/E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone 301-460-4789 Fax 301-460-1959 Strange Bookshop 301-881-3530 If you do not wish to receive this occasional publication, please go to http://www.mailexperts.com/strangemag to remove yourself from the mailing list. Editor: Mark Chorvinsky Contributors this Issue: Douglas Chapman, Mark Chorvinsky, Mark Opsasnick -- subscribed to strangemagazine as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
