Mysterious America

The Ultimate Guide to the Nation’s

Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots,
and Creepiest creatures

by SHEHIRYAR AHMED

All rights reserved with the

author
 Contents

1. Bigfoot in ILLINOIS
2. Mothman of point pleasant
3. The Jersey Devil
4. Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine
5. Mad Gasser of Mattoon

Bigfoot in ILLINOIS
Big foot is like a male gorilla in appearance. Bigfoot is commonly
reported to have a strong, unpleasant smell by those who have
claimed that they have seen this creature.

For more than a century, reports have filtered out of rural and
southern Illinois about strange, man-like beasts that resemble a cross
between man and ape.

The stories of Bigfoot have been passed along from generation to

generation and have long been recorded by both professional and
amateur researchers.

The most famous Bigfoot sightings have taken place in the Pacific
Northwest; such creatures do occasionally turn up in Illinois.

The earliest sighting that I could find occurred around 1912. A woman
named Beaulah Schroat reported that her and her brothers often
spotted huge, hairy creatures near their home in Effingham. This may
have been the first sighting in Illinois, but it was not the first one in the
Great Lakes region. As far back as 1839, witnesses in Michigan City,
Indiana were reporting a "wild child" near Fish Lake. Today, we would
call such a creature "Bigfoot".
Another report comes from the early part of the last century. In this
brief snippet, we find that a "huge gorilla" was seen in the woods near
Elizabeth in July 1929. Then, in 1941, the Reverend Lepton Harpole
was hunting squirrels near Mt. Vernon and encountered a large
creature that "looked something like a baboon". He struck it with his
rifle and fired a warning shot that sent it back into the bushes. More
sightings of the same creature occurred the next year.

Jumping ahead, a grayish-colored creature was spotted by Steven

Collins and Robert Earle in 1962. It was standing in a riverbed east of
Decatur, just off of East Williams Street Road. The monster was
standing in the water, looking straight at them. At first, they thought
they were seeing a bear, until they noticed its strange, human-like
features. The creature vanished into the woods and the witnesses
told the local newspaper that it was "like no other animal we had ever
seen before."

In May 1963, another strange creature was seen in Centreville,

Illinois and just across the Mississippi in St. Louis. The initial reports
came in from St. Louis when several children reported a "half man,
half woman with a half bald head and a half head of hair". It was said
to have been seen around the Ninth Street housing project and often
disappeared into the old tunnel around Twelfth Street. The sightings
were taken quite seriously by the police and during interviews with
researcher Loren Coleman, Patrolman Bill Conreux of the St. Louis
Police Department noted that "Those kids were sincere. They saw
something." He added that "Supposedly it fought with a man near the
Patrick Henry School."

The sighting began on May 9 and by the 18th, had moved east
across the river to Centreville, Illinois, which is located near East St.
Louis and Cahokia. One man, James McKinney, who saw the
creature here, described it as being "half man and half horse". It
made an appearance just in front of his house and he called the
police, who never managed to catch up with this mysterious figure.
According to Loren Coleman, the authorities received over 50 calls in
a single night about this creature. The sightings eventually dropped
off and by May 23, the monster was apparently gone.
In September 1965, four young people were parked in a car near an
undeveloped area outside of Decatur called Montezuma Hills. The
area would later become a housing addition but at that time, it was a
secluded "lover’s lane". The young couples were sitting in the car
when a black, man-like shape approached the vehicle. The creature
seemed massive and frightened the teenagers badly. They drove off
in a panic but after dropping off their dates at home, the two young
men returned to the area for another look. They once again saw the
monster and it walked up to their car as though it were curious. The
boys were too scared to get out, but even with the windows rolled up,
they could smell the monster’s terrible smell. They quickly called the
police to the site and with several officers as support; they made a
thorough, but fruitless, search of the woods. The police officers on the
scene said they had no idea what the young people had witnessed,
but they were obviously very frightened by whatever it had been.

A more recent encounter with a man-like beast occurred near Essex,

Illinois in July 2000. A witness named Andrew Souligne was driving
into a local cemetery one night when a large, hairy shape walked out
in front of the car. The creature froze in the headlights and turned
towards the car, apparently stunned by the bright lights from the
vehicle. Souligne (and the other passenger of the car) were pretty
shocked themselves and the driver immediately put the car into
reverse and back away from the monster. Moments later, the ape
moved into the woods and vanished.

Since the 1970’s, Bigfoot sightings in Illinois have been infrequent,

but they do occur.
 Mothman of Point
Pleasant
Most observers describe the Mothman as a winged man-sized
creature with large reflective red eyes and large wings. The creature
was sometimes reported as having no head, with its eyes set into its
chest.

The weird events connected to the Mothman began on November 12,

1966 near Clendenin, West Virginia. Five men were in the local
cemetery that day, preparing a grave for a burial, when something
that looked like a "brown human being" lifted off from some nearby
trees and flew over their heads. The men were puzzled. It didn't
appear to be a bird, but more like a man with wings. A few days later,
more sightings would take place, electrifying the entire region.

Late in the evening of November 15, a young married couple had a

very strange encounter as they drove past an abandoned TNT plant
near Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The couple spotted two large
eyes that were attached to something that was "shaped like a man,
but bigger, maybe six or seven feet tall. And it had big wings folded
against its back." When the creature moved toward the plant door,
the couple panicked and sped away. Moments later, they saw the
same creature on a hillside near the road. It spread its wings and
rose into the air, following their car, which by now was traveling at
over 100 miles per hour. "That bird kept right with us," said one of
the couple. They told Deputy Sheriff Miller Halstead that it followed
them down Highway 62 and right to the Point Pleasant city limits.
And they would not be the only ones to report the creature that night.
Another group of four witnesses claimed to see the "bird" three
different times.

Another sighting had more bizarre results. At about 10:30 on the

same evening, Newell Partridge, a local building contractor who lived
in Salem, was watching television when the screen suddenly went
dark. He stated that a weird pattern filled the screen and then he
heard loud, humming noises from the outside that rose in pitch and
then ceased. "It sounded like a generator winding up," he later
stated. Partridge’s dog began to howl out on the front porch and
Newell went out to see what was going on.

When he walked outside, he saw Bandit (dog) facing the hay bar.
About 150 yards from the house. Puzzled, Partridge turned a
flashlight in that direction and spotted two red circles that looked like
eyes, he believed and the sight of them frightened him. Bandit, an
experienced hunting dog, and protective of his territory, shot off
across the yard in pursuit of the eyes. Partridge called for him to
stop, but the dog paid no attention. His owner turned and went back
into the house for his gun, but then was too scared to go back outside
again. He slept that night with his gun propped up against his bed.
The next morning, he realized that Bandit had disappeared. The dog
had still not shown up two days later when Partridge read in the
newspaper about the sightings in Point Pleasant that night.

One statement that he read in the newspaper chilled him to the

bone. Roger Scarberry, one member of the group who spotted the
strange "bird" at the TNT plant, said that he entered the city limits of
Point Pleasant; they saw the body of a large dog lying on the side of
the road. A few minutes later, on the way back out of town, the dog
was gone. They even stopped to look for the body, knowing they had
passed it just a few minutes before. Newell Partridge immediately
thought of Bandit, who was never seen again.

A Mothman sighting was again reported on January 11, 1967, and

several other times that same year. Fewer sightings of the Mothman
were reported after the collapse of the Silver Bridge, when 46 people
died. The Silver Bridge, so named for its aluminum paint, was an eye
bar chain suspension bridge that connected the cities of Point
Pleasant, West Virginia and Gallipolis, Ohio over the Ohio River. The
bridge was built in 1928, and it collapsed on December 15, 1967.
Investigation of the bridge wreckage pointed to the failure of a single
eye-bar in a suspension chain due to a small manufacturing flaw.
There are rumors that the Mothman appears before upcoming
disasters, or that the Mothman causes disasters.

Over time, many would come to believe that the sightings of

Mothman, as well as UFO sightings were all related. For nearly a
year, strange happenings continued in the area.
 The Jersey Devil

The Jersey Devil is a legendary creature said to inhabit the Pine

Barrens in southern New Jersey. The creature is often described as a
flying biped with hooves, but there are many variations. And many
different people have described it many different ways over the years.

The historic states along America’s Atlantic Seaboard have given

birth to hundreds of ghostly tales and unusual stories over the years.
One of the strangest is undoubtedly that of the Jersey Devil, a
creature that is believed by some to be a mythical creature and by
others, a real-life monster of flesh and blood. Its origins date back to
when New Jersey was still a British colony.

According to the legend, Mrs. Jane Leeds came from a poor family
who eked out an existence in the Pine Barrens of Jersey, a rugged
place with vast forests, sandy soil and patches of swamp. In 1735,
Mrs. Leeds discovered that she was pregnant with her 13th child. She
complained to her friends and relatives that the “Devil can take the
next one”, and he did. When the baby was born, he was monster! He
immediately took on a grotesque appearance and grew to more than
20 feet long, with a reptilian body, a horse’s head, bat wings and a
long, forked tail. He thrashed about the Leeds home for a bit and then
vanished up the chimney. The creature, or the “Jersey Devil” as he
was dubbed, began haunting the Pine Barrens.

As the story spread, even grown men declined to go out at night. It

was said that the beast carried off large dogs, geese, cats, small
livestock and even occasional children. The children were never seen
again, but the animal remains were often found. The Devil was also
said to dry up the milk of cows by breathing on them and to kill off the
fish in the streams, threatening the livelihood of the entire region.

In 1740, the frightened residents begged a local minister to exorcize

the creature and the stories stated that the exorcism would last 100
years, however the Devil returned to the Pine Barrens on at least two
occasions before the century was over. Legend has it that naval hero
Commodore Stephen Decatur visited the Hanover Iron Works in the
Barrens in 1800 to test the plant’s cannonballs. One day on the firing
range, he noticed a strange creature winging overhead. Taking aim,
he fired at the monster and while some say that his shot struck it, the
Devil continued on its path.

The second sighting took place a few years later and this time the
Devil was seen by another respected witness. Joseph Bonaparte, the
former king of Spain and the brother of Napoleon, leased a country
house near Border town from 1816 to 1839. He reported seeing the
Jersey Devil while hunting game one day in the Pine Barrens.

In 1840, as the minister warned, the Devil returned and brought terror
to the region once again. It snatched sheep from their pens and
preyed on children who lingered outside after sunset. People all
across South Jersey locked their doors and hung a lantern on the
doorstep, hoping to keep the creature away.

Then, in 1909, the Jersey Devil returned again and literally thousands
of people spotted the monster or saw his footprints. It became so bad
that schools closed and people refused to go outside.

A police officer named James Sackville spotted the monster while

walking his beat one night. He was passing along a dark alley when a
winged creature hopped into the street and let out a horrific scream.
Sackville fired his revolver at the beast but it spread its wings and
vanished into the air.

Eyewitness accounts of the Devil filled the newspapers, as well as

photos and reports of cloven footprints that had been found in yards,
woods and parking lots. The Philadelphia Zoo offered a $10,000
reward for the capture of the Devil, but there were no takers.

The most recent sighting of the creature was said to have been in
1993 when a forest ranger named John Irwin was driving along the
Mullica River in southern New Jersey. He was startled to find the road
ahead of him blocked by the Jersey Devil. He described it as being
about six-feet tall with horns and matted black fur. Could this have
been the reported Jersey Devil - or some other creature altogether?
Irwin stated that he and the creature stared at one another for several
minutes before the monster finally turned and ran into the forest.

Today, there are only a few, isolated sightings of the Jersey Devil. It
seems as though the paved roads, electric lights and modern
conventions that have come to the region over the course of two and
a half centuries have driven the monster so far into hiding that it has
vanished altogether. The lack of proof of the monster’s existence in
these modern times leads many to believe the Devil was nothing
more than a creation of New Jersey folklore. But was it really?

If it was merely a myth, then how do we explain the sightings of the

creature and the witness accounts from reliable persons like
businessmen, police officers and even public officials? They are not
easy to dismiss as hearsay or the result of heavy drinking. Could the
Jersey Devil have been real after all? And if so, is it still out there in
the remote regions of the Pine Barrens - just waiting to be found?
 Lost Dutchman’s Gold
Mine

Located just east of Phoenix, Arizona is a rough, mountainous region

where people sometimes go... only to never be seen again. It is a
place of mystery, of legend and lore and it is called Superstition
Mountain. According to history, both hidden and recorded, there
exists a fantastic gold mine here like no other that has ever been
seen. It has been dubbed the “Lost Dutchman Mine” over the years
and thanks to its mysterious location, it has been the quest of many
an adventurer... and a place of doom to luckless others.

What strange energy lingers here? What has caused dozens of

people who seek the mine to vanish without a trace? Is the answer
really as the Apache Indians say? Does the “Thunder God” protect
this mine... bringing death to those who attempt to steal it? Or can the
deaths be linked to other causes? Are they caused, as some have
claimed, by the spirits of those who have died seeking the mine
before?

Let’s explore all of these questions and journey back into the haunted
history of the Lost Dutchman Mine... and uncover the numerous
deaths and the violence that surrounds it.
Superstition Mountain
Superstition Mountain is actually a collection of rough terrain that has
gained the name of a single mountain. The contour of the region
takes in thousands of cliffs, peaks, plateaus and mesas and even
today, much of it remains largely unexplored. Despite the tendency
by many to call this a range of mountains, it is in reality, only one. It is
certainly not the highest mountain in the region, but it has the
reputation of being the deadliest. Over the course of several
centuries, it has taken the lives of many men and women and has
perhaps caused a madness in them that has encouraged them to kill
each other.

The Apache Indians were probably the first to set eyes on the
mountain, followed by the Spanish conquistadors, the first of which
was Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. He came north from Mexico in
1540 seeking the legendary “Seven Golden Cities of Cibola”. When
he reached the region, the local Indians told him that the mountain
held much gold, although they refused to help the Spaniard explore it.
They were in too much fear of the “Thunder God”, who was said to
stay there, and who would destroy them if they dared to pass upon
his sacred ground.

When the Spaniards tried to explore the mountain on their own, they
discovered that men began to vanish mysteriously. It was said that if
one of them strayed more than a few feet from his companions, he
was never seen alive again. The bodies of the men who were found
were discovered to be damaged and with their heads cut off. The
terrified survivors refused to return to the mountain and so Coronado
dubbed the collection of peaks, Monte Superstition, which explains
the origin of the infamous name.

The Dutchman
First of all, I guess we should clear up one popular misconception
about Jacob Walz (or Waltz depending on the story you hear) and it’s
that he was not a “Dutchman”. He was actually from Germany and
born there in the early 1800’s. He came to America in 1845 and soon
heard about the riches and adventure that were waiting in the frontier
beyond New York. His first gold seeking took him to a strike in North
Carolina and from there he traveled to Mississippi, California and
Nevada... always looking for his elusive fortune.

Walz worked the gold field of the Sierra Nevada foothills for more
than ten years, never getting rich, but turning up enough gold to get
along. By 1868, he was in his fifties and wondering if he was ever
going to find his proverbial “mother lode”. The Indians had nick-
named him “Snowbeard” because of his long, white whiskers and it
isn’t hard to picture him as one of those grizzled old prospectors who
were so common in western films.

That same year, Walz began homesteading in the Rio Satillo Valley,
which is on the northern side of Superstition Mountain. Soon after he
arrived, he began to hear stories from the local Indians about
supernatural doings around the mountain, about a fierce god... and
about vast deposits of gold.

Most stories about Jacob Walz say that he spent the next 20 years of
so prospecting for gold around the Arizona Territory. He often worked
for wages in other men’s mines while he searched from his own
fortune. It was during one of these jobs that he met Jacob Weiser,
most likely while he was working at the Vulture Mine in 1870.

One version of the legend claims that Walz was fired from the mine
for stealing gold and soon, the two “Dutchman” struck out on their
own and vanished into the land around Superstition Mountain. Not
long after, they were seen in Phoenix paying for drinks and supplies
with gold nuggets. Some claimed this gold was the stolen loot from
the Vulture Mine, while others said that it was of much higher quality
and had to have come from somewhere else. Regardless of where it
came from, the two men would spend the gold around town for the
next two decades.

There have been a number of stories about how the men found the
“lost” mine. According to some, they stumbled upon it by accident.
Others say that killed two Mexican miners, who they mistook for
Indians, and then realized the men were mining gold.... but the most
accepted version of the story is that they were given a map to the
mine by a Mexican don whose life they saved.

The man was said to have been Don Miguel Peralta, the son of a rich
landowner in Sonora, Mexico and a descendant of the original
discoverer of the mine. The Dutchmen saved Peralta from certain
death in a knife fight and as a reward; he gave them a look at the
map to the mine. He was later said to have been bought out of the
mine by Walz and Weiser.
At some point in the years that followed, Jacob Weiser disappeared
without a trace. Some say that the Apaches killed him, while others
maintain that Walz actually did him in. (As you can see, there is a lot
of speculation to the legend).

But Walz was always around, at least part of the time. Long periods
would go by when no one would see him and then he would show up
in Phoenix again, buying drinks with gold nuggets. It was said that
Walz had the richest gold ore that anyone had ever seen and for the
rest of his life, he vanished back and forth to his secret mine, always
bringing back saddlebags filled with gold. Whenever anyone tried to
get information out of him, he would always give contradictory
directions to where the mine was located. On many occasions, men
tried to follow him when he left town, but Walz would always shake
his pursuers in the rugged region around the mountain.

By the winter of 1891, an old Mexican widow named Julia Elena

Thomas, who owned a small bakery in Phoenix, befriended the aged
miner. Apparently, they became romantically involved and Walz
promised to take her to his secret mine “in the spring”.... but she
never saw it. The Dutchman died on October 25, 1891 with a sack of
rich gold ore beneath his deathbed.

Immediately after word reached town about Jacob Walz’s death, a

number of men who had heard the Dutchman speak of the mine over
the years rode out for the mountain in search of the mystery. They
never found it... and in fact, two of the prospectors, Sims Ely and Jim
Bark, spent the next 25 years searching in vain for what they called
“The Lost Dutchman Mine”.

The search has since fueled more than a century of speculation.

Theories as to the mine’s location have filled dozens of books and
pamphlets. Literally hundreds of would-be prospectors have searched
the Superstition Mountain region and most have come home with little
more than sunburns......
But there are also many who have not come home at all.

It is certainly a haunted spot. Haunted by an unknown energy that

claims the lives of men? Haunted by the ghost of the Dutchman,
Jacob Walz? Or haunted by the spirits of the countless men and
women whose lives have been taken because of it?

That answer is as mysterious as the location of the Lost Dutchman

Mine itself......
 Mad Gasser of Mattoon

There is no greater phantom attacker in the history of the unexplained

in America than the legendary “Mad Gasser of Mattoon”, a bizarre
figure who wreaked havoc in a small Illinois town in 1944. This
creature turned out to be so elusive that law enforcement officials
eventually declared him nonexistent, despite dozens and dozens of
eyewitness reports and actual physical evidence that was left behind
at the scene of some attacks.

Making matters even more interesting was a series of nearly identical

attacks that took place in Botetourt County, Virginia in 1933 -1934.
Social scientists declared that the attacks in Mattoon had been
nothing more than mass hysteria, but how could the Illinois residents
have known anything about the events in Virginia, which were barely
publicized, in order to duplicate them so closely?

Both of these series of attacks involved a mysterious figure (dressed

in black) who came and went without warning, left little in the way of
clues behind and for some reason, sprayed a paralyzing gas into the
windows of unsuspecting residents. The gas was never identified in
either case and both cases involved fairly isolated areas where the
attacks took place. The homes that were attacked in Virginia were in
a rural county and Mattoon, at that time, was a small, Central Illinois
town with no large cities in the vicinity. Also, police officials were
totally stumped in both cases.

So, who (or what) attacked the unsuspecting citizens of Illinois and
Virginia? Was it a mad scientist? A government agency? A visitor
from another planet? No one will ever know for sure, but the records
of the unknown are plagued with cases of mysterious attackers who
appear and vanish without explanation, kill on the innocent without
warning and then vanish completely, leaving no trace behind. Could
such attackers come from another time and place? Another
dimension? I’ll let the reader judge that for himself. Just remember
though, if these attacks can happen in the places that follow - they
are capable of happening anywhere… even where you live!

The Mad Gasser Strikes!

In 1933, Botetourt County, Virginia was a quiet area of the state and
had never really experienced much out of the ordinary. That all began
to change on December 22 when the home of Mrs. and Mrs. Cal
Huffman, near Haymakertown, was attacked by a mysterious figure
that was unlike anything seen, or even heard of, in the region before.

At around 10:00 that evening, Mrs. Huffman stated that she grew
nauseated after smelling a strange gas that had been apparently
sprayed into her house. She decided to go on to bed, but her
husband remained awake and alert to see if the lurker who had
sprayed the gas might return. A half-hour later, another wave of gas
filled the room and Huffman immediately went to the home of his
landlord, K.W. Henderson. Here, Huffman telephoned the police. An
Officer Lemon was dispatched to the scene and he stayed until
around midnight. Immediately after he left, another gas attack was
launched on the property, filling both floors of the house. All eight
members of the Huffman family, along with Ashby Henderson, were
affected by the gas. Ashby and Cal Huffman had been keeping watch
for the return of the prowler and thought that they saw a man running
away after the attack.

According to reports, the gas caused the victims to become very

nauseated, gave them a headache and caused the mouth and throat
muscles to restrict. Alice, the Huffman’s 19 year-old daughter, was
most affected by the gas and she had to be given artificial respiration
in order to revive her. She was said to have experienced convulsions
for some time afterward. Her doctor, Dr. S.F. Driver, later reported
that while part of her condition was caused by extreme nervousness
over the attack, he had no doubt that the gas attack was responsible
for the fact that her condition continued.

However, no one could determine what kind of gas was used (Dr.
W.N. Breckinridge, who assisted with the police investigation, ruled
out ether, chloroform and tear gas) or who could have sprayed it into
the house. The only clue that Lemon found at the scene was the print
of a woman’s shoe beneath the window the attacker was thought to
have sprayed his gas through.

The authorities were growing more concerned. Prior to this, they had
believed the gassings had been nothing more than pranks played by
some mischievous boys. Now the county sheriff’s office was forced to
admit that if this had been the case, the boys would have been
caught long before. They had begun to investigate the idea that a
mentally deranged person might be the culprit, perhaps even an mad
gas victim from World War I.

The Mattoon police chief issued what he felt was the final statement
on the gas attacks on September 12. He stated that large quantities
of carbon tetrachloride gas were used at the local Atlas Diesel Engine
Co. and that this gas must be causing the reported cases. It could be
carried throughout the town on the wind and could have left the stains
that were found on the rag at one of the homes.

As for the "Mad Gasser" himself, well, he was simply a figment of

their imaginations. The whole case, he said “was a mistake from
beginning to end.”

Not surprisingly, a spokesman for the plant was quick to deny the
allegations that his company had caused the concern in town,
maintaining that the only use for that gas in the plant was in their fire
extinguishers and any similar gases used there caused no ill effects
in the air. Besides that, why hadn’t this gas ever caused problems in
the city before? And how exactly was this gas cutting the window
screens on Mattoon homes before causing nausea and paralysis?

The official explanation also failed to cover just how so many identical
descriptions of the "Gasser" had been reported to the police. It also
neglected to explain how different witnesses managed to report
seeing a man of the "Gasser’s" description fleeing the scene of an
attack, even when the witness had no idea that an attack had taken
place!

The real stories of what happened in Mattoon and Botetourt County

are still unknown and it is unlikely that we will ever know what was
really behind these strange events. It is certain that something did
take place in both locations, however strange, and theories abound
as to what it may have been. Was the "Mad Gasser" real? And if he
was, who was he? And if he was real, could he have been the same
figure in both cases? It’s hard to ignore the similarities between the
two cases, from his method of operation to the unusual form of
attacks. In Virginia though, the Gasser was not always reported as
being alone as he was in Mattoon, but then again, what about the
identical reports of prints left by a woman’s shoe?

Stories have suggested that Mattoon’s Gasser was anything from a

mad scientist to an ape-man (although who knows where that came
from?) and researchers today have their own theories, some of which
are just as wild. Could he have been some sort of extraterrestrial
visitor using some sort of paralyzing agent to further a hidden
agenda? Or could the "Gasser" have been an agent of our own
government, who came to an unclear Midwestern town to test some
military gas that could be used in the war effort? It might be telling
that once national attention came to Mattoon, the authorities began a
policy of complete denial and the attacks suddenly ceased...

Whoever, or whatever, he was, the "Mad Gasser" has vanished into

time and, real or imagined, is only a memory in the world of the
unknown. Perhaps he was never here at all - perhaps he was, as
Donald M. Johnson wrote in the 1954 issue of the Journal of
Abnormal and Social Psychology, simply a "shadowy manifestation of
some unimaginable unknown."

But was he really? How do we explain the sightings of the “Mad

Gasser” that were made by people who did not even know the
creature was alleged to exist? Or identical sightings from independent
witnesses who could not have possibly known that others had just
spotted the same figure. Was the “Gasser”, as some have suggested,
a visitor from a dimension outside of our own, thus explaining his
ability to appear or disappear at will? Was he a creature so outside
the kingdom of our imaginations that we will never be able to
comprehend his motives or understand the reason why he came to
Mattoon?