; Phantoms and Monsters: Pulse of the Paranormal

Friday, July 15, 2011

Reader Response: The Ozark Howler and a Big Apple Shape Shifter


I received the following email in response to Was It The Ozark Howler?:

I have seen this creature very close to Jasper, Arkansas. I have lived in the Arkansas Ozarks for over 20 years. I never knew what it was until recently doing research. And I do believe I know where they are. I first had visual sight of one was off HWY 65 on HWY 256, heading towards Welcome Home. When I saw it I couldn't believe my eyes, I had never seen anything like it, what shocked me the most and what was most memorable was the horns coming out of it's forehead, very much cat like, but it was it's face with it's horns that really shocked me. I drove as if in shock from a car crash not believing what I saw, until I started doing research on the subject. For over 10 years, in a remote region close to Mountain View, Arkansas, you can hear the howl every single night, usually after midnight. I never knew it was until I did the research, it is very elk like, almost like a horn, but definitely a howl. If anyone is brave enough I can show you where exactly to go to hear this, and where I made visual contact.

I also received several responses to my post Witness: The North Georgia Mothman, including the following email that describes a Mothman-like entity in the boroughs of New York City:

Sir - These are true experiences from my 60 year lifetime of strange experiences. I send you these that they may help me get in contact with the others that have had encounters with these things during the times I did. There were originally they posted at my first website in the early 90s. These are both about giant bird like entities that I encountered. The first one was when I was just a child circa 1958 -1968, then the another when I was in my early 20s. Both of which I had witnesses for.

Though I mainly speak about my UFO encounters there are other things that I experienced during my life time that are just as weird. I will start with a creature me and my brother Ralph called depending on how it appeared at the time it manifested different names. It was called Mr. Gonzwell , A Gonzwell , or just Gonzwell. This was during the time we where living at that hated tenement 1530 Brook Ave.

We both were very young and again told this thing was just a nightmare so it was relegated to the status of a Dream Demon as with all things I write I do not ask for belief for that does not really matter to me I know what I say here is true so what others may believe is of no importance to me.

I write this with hopes that some one reading it may have seen this creature and will get in contact with me. These encounters occurred from 1958 thru 1968. I will list here some of this creatures appearances and behavior.

Gonzwell was a large creature of human dimensions. It looked like a combination of a man, a bat and a bird. It was covered with a fine dark gray rat like fur and had huge owl like multi-spectrum iridescent eyes. If you looked into its eyes it would paralyze you. It had a eagle like beak, and huge bat like wings. The Entity seemed to be able to stretch its neck and shape shift. It would sometimes first appear as a large black bird, crow, or raven. At times it appeared as a tall silhouette of a man wearing a long black cape, or poncho wearing a wide brimmed bowler hat he only spoke when in this form. He would with anger speak of what man kind was doing to the world. Only in this form did we call it Mr. Gonzwell. It seemed mainly to come during the warmer months.

I seemed to be the main focus of this creature but Ralph had several encounters with it also. It like all the other creatures encountered while we live there would come to, and through the window of our bed room and stand there staring in, calling to you in your head to look at it. It seemed to be able to stretch is neck like an ostrich for at times it would seem not to move from its place in the window yet be able to get its face right up into your face.

It once told me this place was its home and it did not like what had been done to it. I was a kid I thought it meant it once lived in our apartment and died and was a ghost or a spirit that was haunting the alley like the other things that came to the window.

As with everything that happened to me I told my mother of this creature and she said it was just a dream but told me how I could defeat these monsters in my dreams.
She said to just tell them to leave you alone or you would wake up and that would destroy it. That worked fine in my nightmares and for awhile the household was able to finally get through a night of uninterrupted sleep without me waking them up screaming at the top of my lungs.

Then one night while my two aunts Dutes (Ruth) and Bob (Barbara) were visiting I had a "dream" encounter with Gonzwell. In it I found myself setting in the living room of our apartment alone with the shades up at night time. Our living room had two windows separated by a twelve foot wall at night with the shades partially lowered it made me think the house was watching me through these two huge darkened eyes faking sleep while in truth it was peaking at me.

Normally I would have immediately pull them all the way down to close these eyes. Suddenly in this dream the shades were up to the tops of the window and I could feel the cold watching on me coming from them. I went to pull the shades down but knew being short I'd have to stand up in the window to do it. But for me to do this meant that any one or anything standing out in the darkness of the roof would see me as I did so but I could not take the stare of darkness coming through them. As I started toward the window, the radio came on, and a male voice on it said "Gonzwell has been spotted in your neighborhood what ever you do, do not draw the shades it's the only way he can enter your home." Now I was in a pretty fine mess. Leave them up and let the terrible watching continue or pull them down and invite Gonzwell to enter.

My nightmares had finally reached a new level of cruelty to me one fear was used to force me to face the other. I sat still in that dream for what seemed hours terrified of the darkness watching me through those damned darkened windows yet horrified to draw the shades. Stupid nightmare huh? I know it sounds like that but if you knew the trauma I had and have of darkened windows you would understand the fear caused by the thought that some one or something was out there in the darkness watching me. That was and is still a deep terror I deal with to this day, though at least I can now walk to a darkened window and pull the shades with out almost dropping dead from terror. But to continue......

Finally if just to bring end to it I ran over and lowered the shade of one of the windows. A black spot appeared on it and began to grow until it filled it then as if it was a black opened door Gonzwell stepped from it. I quickly pulled the trump card that I had use with success for almost six months by then and screamed at it, "If you do not leave me alone I will wake up and that will destroy you!" "That won't help you now" was its only response and it started toward me. I woke up in bed with my two brothers Ralph laying beside me, and Chuck at the head of the bed.

I wasn't afraid, in fact I was invigorated, I had just defeated the King of the Dream Demons. Then I saw a black spot appear on the drawn window shade which then swelled into the same black doorway I had seen in my dream and through it stepped Mr. Gonzwell who then said, "I told you that would not help you now!" I screamed as loud as I could, "Daddy Daddy there is a man in the room, there is a man in the room!" "Mattie why don't you go in there and see what's the matter with that boy I got work tomorrow." was the only thing I heard him say. "Me?!" I heard my mother say" Didn't you hear him say there was a man in the room, you go in there, your the only other man in the house, I'm getting ready to go under this bed!" That's when came the familiar chorus I hadn't heard for six months or so before then...."Butch turn to the wall close your eyes and go to sleep!!!"

I look back to Gonzwell he was bending over my brother Ralph as if to reach for me.
I must have fainted because the next thing I remember was my mothers screaming, "Oh my GOD!" I sat up and looked in time to see her rushing Ralph out of the room. Then I saw where Ralph had been sleeping was covered with blood. During the night he had a terrible nose bleed. I thought I had hit him in the nose during my nightmare but there was so much blood it covered the corner of the bed where his head had laid.
It was to be years later when I got an inkling of what may have happened that night.

We moved soon after that but that was just because we were finally excepted into the new project that were opened. This was a real happening and have become one of those stories told about the table at every big family gathering. Not one will pass that my Aunt Ruth, Aunt Bob or my Aunt Gerlene who lived down stairs did not ask
"Butch do you still remember that night when you screamed there was a man in your room?" After we moved I thought that was to be the last I saw of Gonzwell but it was not...

I had not seen this creature for years then, when I was about sixteen, one night it entered my dreams and I just lost it and attacked it. In the dream I became a bigger version of myself that I called Posey ( my given name after my grandfather).
He wrestled Gonzwell to the ground and held it down and demanded for it to leave me alone its only response was. "I only want to be your friend." "The only way you can be my friend is to leave me alone " was Poseys answer.

That was the last time I saw Gonzwell and the first and last time I saw the bigger dream version of me called Posey. Years later I heard of the Mothman and read the book. The book describes a creature that was very similar to Gonzwell and to my surprise, and horror it was seen around the time we were having encounters with this Entity.

Years later I found out that the land that our homes were built upon was once sacred Native American burial grounds. Was that what Gonzwell meant about what it did not like about what we did to the land? Could it have been a nature spirit? I was to also learn years later that there is Native American in my blood line from my fathers side my Grand mother was Cherokee. When Ralph left the army he brought me a group of books he said I should read they were the works of Carlos Castaneda.

In the Teachings Of Don Juan I was first to hear of the Nagual form that some times comes out of people, a bigger version of themselves (Posey?). I also learned you had to wrestle and ally in order to defeat it, and was how I had finally defeated Gonzwell.

Then there was its statement once I had pinned it to the floor and would not release it, "I just want to be your friend." was it saying It wanted to be my ally?
Then many years later I learned of implants in the nose. Ralphs bleeding after the night Gonzwell came through the shade. They demolished 1530 Brook Avenue and for some reason have not yet built on the land there.

What was Gonzwell?

I don't know but the only connecting link I can see in these bizarre happenings is that the area in which it manifested was all once considered sacred lands. In fact all the areas I lived in, in the Bronx may have at one time been just that. Could this be the reason for the many kinds of encounters of Entities, sightings of UFOs, and strange phenomena that I had while I was living in the Bronx?

If that is so then why am I still dealing with the same phenomena now that I live in Brooklyn? This is something I think should be looked into by investigators of the paranormal. It's too bad that these lands were destroyed and built upon so long ago but it seems they have maintained their energy field or what ever it is that draws these things despite Man's ignorance, indifference to, and wanton destruction of these one time ancient and sacred sites. What do you think?

NOTE: I'm not going to comment on these revelations but I'm sure the readers would welcome your thoughts...Lon