More Evidence Of Twisted Realities

By James Donahue

Autumn 2004

A spate of sightings of strange and unidentifiable creatures, more reports of unexplained humming noises, mystery holes in the ground and human experiences that defy science flooded the news this summer.

All of the stories seem so incredible we might wonder if the writers aren’t making them up. Yet as an experienced journalist who has always had an eye out for the abnormal, I must say that I have seen and heard such stories as well. Why manufacture incredible tales when reality is often stranger than fiction?

Following are my picks for the most incredible stories of the last few months:

The East African Standard in Nairobi, Africa, told about Eddah Odera, 56, who claims to have given birth to 13 children within five years. The woman, who believes she is the mother of miracle babies, said she has been conceiving without any sexual contact since the birth of her fourth child. Odera was pregnant with all of the children after she reached menopause, the story said.

The UK Independent carried a report of Andrei Tolstyk, a seven-year-old “dog boy” from a remote area of Siberia. The story said the youth was apparently raised by a dog after his parents abandoned him. He was found by social workers who visited the home to find out why Tolstyk wasn’t attending school. After spending his formidable years in the presence only of the family guard dog, the boy could not talk, walked on all fours, attacked and bit people, and sniffed his food before he ate it. The story said he expressed “general feral behavior.”

The Utah papers have been watching David Mitchell, 50, who has become a medical mystery. They say the left side of his brain is shrinking and doctors can’t explain why. He has seen specialists in both Canada and the United States for about 15 years. He suffers from headache and has difficulty with thought patterns. Mitchell also sleeps from 11 to 15 hours a day.

Witchcraft was blamed for a growth on the face of a man in Balawayo, Africa, who checked himself into a local hospital to have it removed. People who saw the growth told the local newspaper the growth looked like a female genital organ. People who knew the man said the growth was not present only weeks earlier. When contacted by the newspaper, a hospital spokesman confirmed that a man was admitted with an “abnormal growth,” but gave no further information.

Byron Hass of Wisconsin is perplexed about a strange 45-inch diameter hole, about 15 inches deep that suddenly appeared in a field where he pastures horses. He said the hole just appeared in hard ground. Also the grass around the edge of the hole is gone. He has no idea how it got there.

Near Maryville, Tenn., Jack Ledbetter claims to have an even more bizarre mystery hole that is literally “evolving” on his property over the past three years. He said he first noticed the hole when it was small and he accidentally stepped in it. Now it has grown to be 20 feet wide, and has a 10-inch hole in its center. The whole thing is shaped like a bull’s-eye. Like the Wisconsin hole, the grass all around the one on Ledbetter’s property has turned black.

People in Maine have been reporting sightings of a strange and terrifying creature that has been seen crossing roads at night, and has apparently attacked some local dogs. Brenda Theberge said she saw the beast cross the road in front of her one evening. “It was sunset and those eyes were just glowing,” she said. She said the thing was the size of a pony, looked something like a hyena and “stared with those glowing eyes in a most menacing way. It was almost hairless.”

At Beeville, Texas, Bud Hendrix told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times he saw yet another strange critter hop across the road in front of his car in the pre-down hours as he was delivering newspapers. He said it had long back legs, short front legs, pointed nose, round ears and eyes like a horse. “I have never seen anything like it,” he said.