Empire unusual suggested

78 PASSPORT TO MAGONIA
conjunction of the modern world—with its technology—and
ancient terrors—with all the power of their sudden, fugitive, irrational
nature. We are in a very privileged position. Neither
Wentz nor Hartland was able to interview people who had just
observed the phenomena they studied. Most of their witnesses
spoke of days gone by, of stories heard by the fireplace. We feel,
on the other hand, that we can almost reach out into the night
and grab those lurking entities. We are hot on their trail; the air
is still vibrating with excitement, the smell of sulphur is still there
when the story is recorded.
Take, for instance, the story of the Air Force colonel 27 who was
driving at night on a lonely Illinois road when he noticed that a
strange object was flying above his car. It looked, he said, like a
bird, but it was the size of a small airplane. It flapped its wings
and flew away. This is the type of horror story adolescent girls
sometimes tell their mothers when they come home late and a bit
nervous. But an Air Force colonel?
During November-December, 1966, West Virginia was
plagued by a similar "bird," called "The Mothman" by imaginative
reporters. One witness, twenty-five-yeaT-old Thomas Ury, who
lives in Clarksburg, met the creature at 7:15 A.M. on November
25,1966, in the vicinity of Point Pleasant. It was a large gray thing
which rose from a nearby field. "It came up like a helicopter and
veered over my car," he told John Keel, who spent many days in
the area investigating the reports. 28 He accelerated up to 75 M.P.H.,
but the "bird" was still there, casually circling the car. It appeared
to be about six feet long, with a wingspread of eight to ten feet.
According to other witnesses quoted by Keel, the figure had large,
round, glowing red eyes.
On January 11, 1967, Mrs. McDaniel saw the "Bird" herself in
broad daylight. She was outside her home when she observed what
appeared to be a small plane flying down the road almost at tree-top
level. As it drew closer she realized it was a man-shaped object with
wings. It swooped low over her head and circled a nearby restaurant
before going out of sight.
Mrs. McDaniel, who works in the Point Pleasant Unemployment
Office, is known in the community as a rational and responsible
person.
Now consider this report:
THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH 79
The intruder was tall, thin and powerful. He had a prominent
nose, and bony fingers of immense power which resembled claws.
He was incredibly agile. He wore a long, flowing cloak, of the sort
affected by opera-goers, soldiers and strolling actors. On his head
was a tall, metallic-seeming helmet. Beneath the cloak were closefitting
garments of some glittering material like oilskin or metal
mesh. There was a lamp strapped to his chest. Oddest of all: the
creature's ears were cropped or pointed like those of an animal,
Was it a prankster in a Batman dress? It seems entirely possible.
Especially when we take into account the fact that the
"bird" was carrying something on its back and made incredible
leaps—actually flying, on one occasion—above the heads of
would-be captors. There is only one trouble with this explanation:
the latter episode took place not in West Virginia in 1966 but in
the dark lanes of a London suburb, in November, 1837. Like The
Mothman of Point Pleasant, the mysterious flying man of London
was ignored by authorities as long as possible. Finally, a resident
of Pcckham wrote a letter to the Lord Mayor, and the censorship
could no longer be maintained. Nightly, horse patrols searched
the countryside; Admiral Codrington set up a reward fund (still
unclaimed, by the way). And J. Vyncr, in a remarkable article
about the mystery, 29 informs us that even "The old Duke of
Wellington himself set holsters at his saddle bow and rode out
after dark in search of Springheel Jack."
On February 20, 1838, a girl of eighteen, Jane Alsop, of Old
Ford, near Bow, London, heard a violent ringing of the frontdoor
bell. Going out, she faced the "most hideous appearance" of
Springheel Jack. He wore shining garments and a flashing lamp
on his chest. His eyes resembled glowing balls of fire! When Miss
Alsop uttered a cry, the intruder grabbed her arm in clawlike
fingers, but the girl's sister rushed to her rescue. The visitor spurted
a fiery gas in Jane's face, and she dropped unconscious. Then
Jack fled, dropping his cloak, which was picked up at once by
another shadow who ran after him.
Two days earlier, though not revealed until after the Old Ford
incident had made headlines, a Miss Scales, of Limehouse, was
walking through Green Dragon Alley. The alley was a dim-lit pas-