It was late spring last year when my son told me about the Man-Bat. He said he saw it one night walking the dogs on the circle drive, down where the driveway meets the county dirt road. I live on 12 acres out in the hills on the other side of the lake. It's quiet. Lots of trees. He said the Man-Bat was in the tree (see picture). It was a man-like form with wings and big yellow eyes that glow.
My first thought when hearing this description is that it sounds like the Mothman. I did a search online and discovered Arkansas has had several documented Mothman sightings. Mothman is usually described as having red eyes and I saw one article that compared the Mothman with a Sumerian demon called Pazuzu asking the question: are they one in the same?
My son's friend, living at the house at the time, saw the Man-Bat as well. It was a different occasion and the sighting was on the back side of the house, in the trees (see picture).
My son said the dogs reacted to the presence of the creature, barking and trying to attack. My son also said that the creature "faded away." Like turned invisible. Like the visual camouflage used by the Predator.
This point of fact reminded me of something else, from David Paulides Missing 411 investigations into mysterious disappearances of people in national forests. His most recent book describes a sighting made by the wife of a very famous physicist. She was in a deer stand and across the way, in the trees, she saw a human shaped figure that looked like it was made of cellophane and was transparent. She specifically mentioned the Predator camouflage as well to further describe what she saw. It was in the trees, moving from tree-to-tree by leaping from limb-to-limb just like the Predator did in the movie.
It is this similarity that concerns me. This possible connection with the Missing 411 cases. It just occurred to me that one of the biggest mysteries about these cases – how people vanish so suddenly – could be revealed now. Well, think about it, if they're being yanked up into the air off their feet into the trees, this would explain how trails just stop with no more signs or tracks. And then the thing carries the victims with it by moving through the tree tops, not across the ground where tracks could be made. Again, just like the goddam Predator!
Where I live in Arkansas is close to one of these clusters of disappearances in Oklahoma. There have been Missing 411-style disappearances in Arkansas proper but not on the scale to constitute a cluster.
A creature with Predator camouflage and WINGS would completely explain how the people vanish so suddenly and then can end up so far away when bodies are found. And it explains how the bodies completely elude ground searches. It's because they're in the trees, man! The focus of a ground search is on the ground. They're looking for tracks, clothing, personal items, bodies and they're looking for all these things on the ground not up in the trees.
Ever since my son told me about the creature, I've made sure to walk the dogs at unpredictable times throughout the wee hours of the night. I'm always eying the tree tops now. I check those first before I ever start checking for what might be on the ground.
I haven't seen it yet. Which doesn't mean it isn't out there regularly. My dogs go nuts all the time at 4 in the morning barking at things in the dark outside. It's probably deer or wandering dogs. But some times, it could be the thing in the trees, close enough to the house to alert the dogs.
I'm thinking about getting some deer cameras with night vision capabilities to put in the trees around the house so if something lands there and is big enough to trigger the camera – I might get a picture of this predator.
Until then, I'm always overly aware of what's going on in the trees. Most people never give the trees a second thought. All those people who've disappeared and died, they probably didn't give the trees a second thought, either. That is, until they were suddenly jerked out of their shoes straight up into the tree canopy into the face of.... what?
Yeah, exactly. Don't be that poor sucker.
When you're out in the woods, watch the tree tops.
Real closely.
