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In Search of the British Bigfoot
By Nick Redfern
FATE :: July 2005
There can be few people fascinated by the mysteries of this world and beyond who have not heard of the North American Bigfoot, the Yeti—or Abominable Snowman—of the snow-capped Himalayas, and Australia’s very own man-beast, known as the Yowie.
What is perhaps less well known, however, is the rich body of data that exists on sightings of similar creatures in the British Isles. At first glance, the idea that jolly old England could be home to a hidden race of large, ape-like animals seems manifestly absurd; the country is less than 1,000 miles in length, it has a bustling population of 60 million, and, although the British scenery is certainly beautiful, its forests and mountains are hardly of a size that would allow for a species of Sasquatch-sized beasts to flourish in stealth. And yet people have seen such animals with surprising regularity—and for centuries, too.
Ralph of Coggershall, whose 800-year-old account concerning a wild man captured on the east coast of England at a town called Orford, is a classic example. In Chronicon Anglicanum, he wrote: “In the time of King Henry II, when Bartholomew de Glanville was in charge of the castle at Orford, it happened that some fishermen fishing in the sea there caught in their nets a wild man. He was naked and was like a man in all his members, covered with hair and with a long shaggy beard. He eagerly ate whatever was brought to him, but if it was raw he pressed it between his hands until all the juice was expelled. He would not talk, even when tortured and hung up by his feet. Brought into church, he showed no signs of reverence or belief. He sought his bed at sunset and always remained there until sunrise. He was allowed to go into the sea, strongly guarded with three lines of nets, but he dived under the nets and came up again and again. Eventually he came back of his own free will. But later on he escaped and was never seen again.”
On the cold and moonlit night of January 21, 1879, a man was riding home with his horse-and-cart from Woodcote in the county of Shropshire to Ranton, Staffordshire, England. Enveloped in darkness, he pulled his jacket tightly around him to keep out the biting wind. Approximately a mile from the village of Woodseaves and while crossing a bridge over the Birmingham and Liverpool Canal, the man got the shock of his life. Out of the trees leapt a horrific-looking creature. Jet-black in color and with a pair of huge, glowing eyes, it was described by the petrified witness as being half-man and half-monkey.
The creature jumped onto the back of the man’s horse (which bolted out of sheer fright) and a fierce battle for life and limb began atop the cart. Incredibly, according to the man, when he attempted to hit the beast with his whip, it simply passed straight through its body. Suddenly and without warning the spectral man-beast vanished into thin air, leaving an exhausted horse and its shell-shocked owner in a state of near collapse. As with the events 600 years previously at Orford, the mystery of the “Man-Monkey of Ranton” (as the creature came to be known) was never resolved.
As the researcher Andy Roberts notes, Ben Macdhui, at 1,309 meters, is the second highest mountain in the British Isles and lies in the heart of the Scottish mountain range known as the Cairngorms. Atop the mountain is a high plateau with a sub-arctic climate, often covered in snow for months at a time. Weather conditions can be extreme and unpredictable. Sadly, the Cairngorms have been defaced by ski lifts and restaurants but until recently remained remote, and still require considerable physical effort and mountain craft to navigate successfully.
The wild nature and relative inaccessibility of the area has contributed to its popularity, and the Cairngorms have been a playground for climbers, walkers, skiers, naturalists, and those who love the high and lonely places for hundreds of years.
While on Ben Macdhui, various witnesses to a phenomenon known as the Big Gray Man have described encountering footsteps; a sensation of a “presence”; sightings of a large, hairy, man-like animal; and an overpowering sense of panic. Sightings span more than a century and the experience has been terrifying enough to compel witnesses to flee in blind terror, often for several miles. Whatever the nature of the beast, it seems content to remain hidden deep within the safety of the Cairngorms and far away from civilization ...
Read the rest of this article in the July 2005 issue of FATE
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