For weeks in early April 1971, residents of the Mobile Alabama suburbs of Port City and Plateau had encounters with a strange and bizarre creature.The Wolf Woman of Davis Avenue.
Since the dawn of civilization legends of half human half animal creatures have tantalized the curious and helped build mythologies. The Werewolf is one of the more popular of these anthropomorphic creatures and familiar to use because they have roots in both European and American Indian folklore.
The European tradition is the more familiar strain of the legend concerning the transforming wolf/human. The transformed being was usually an evil man in league with the Devil who would terrorize and feast on the flesh of the innocent population.
In the Native American culture the werewolf is associated with the skin walker. The skin walker can transform him or herself into an animal for a period of time. Like in the European lore, this person uses evil or culturally offensive means to gain the ability to transform, and they cause chaos and violence in the community while transformed.
The Wolf Woman of Davis Avenue was a classical wereperson; it's upper body was that of a human and the lower limbs were that of a wolf.
She made her appearance in the very beginning of April when it began to roam the streets at night. One witness described it as "a woman and wolf, pretty and hairy." After the initial report in the Mobile Register, the newspaper received over 50 calls of encounters and sightings over the following week.
Newspaper Clip supplied by C.U.E.Center for Unexplained Events
Citizens were chased by the creature, stalked, and saw it roaming in their backyards.
No one was hurt or assaulted, and the police took the investigation seriously for the sheer number of reported sightings.
But after little more than 10 days the creature disappeared, never to be seen again.
So what was it?
Witnesses described it as having the upper body of a beautiful woman and the back quarters of a wolf. It ran on all fours, as a wolf would. Most of the sightings took place at night by terrified witnesses.
Perhaps a feral woman? It certainly would not be the first child to supposedly be raised by wolves and then mimic the traits of their adoptive species.
Take the Lobo Wolf Girl of Devil's River
According to Feralchildren.com,
"In May of 1835, the Wolf Girl of Devil's River was born to Mollie Dent, who had gone with her husband to the Beaver Lake area to trap. Mollie was having problems with the birth, so her husband, John Dent, rode to get help from a Mexican-run goat ranch on the Pecos Canyon, but he was struck and killed by lightning before he could return accompanied by the Mexican couple. By the time the Mexicans reached Mollie, she had died, apparently in childbirth. Wolf tracks in the vicinity suggested that the newborn infant had been devoured by the lobo wolves of the area.
However, in 1845 a boy saw a girl, in the company of a pack of lobo wolves, attacking a herd of goats. Less than a year later, a Mexican woman at San Felipe saw two large wolves and a girl devour a freshly-killed goat. She observed the girl run off — first on all fours, and then on two legs.
A hunt was mounted, and after three days the Lobo Girl of Devil's River was caught after fighting wildly to keep her freedom. She was taken to a ranch (really just a two-room hovel) and locked in. Her howling attracted answering cries from wolves far and wide, and a large pack of wolves rushed the corrals, attacking the goats, cows and horses. Shooting started, and in the confusion the girl managed to remove the board nailed over the window and make her escape.
In 1852, a group of frontiersmen surveying a better route to El Paso saw a girl suckling two wolf cubs on a sand bar in the river, who then ran off, carrying the cubs. She would have been 17 in that year; but she was never seen again."
Or was it a skin walker who manifest itself on those late spring nights so long ago?
The community was in an uproar, and the community dared not to venture out at night. Doors that were usually open to invite neighbors for a welcome time of Southern fellowship were closed and locked. For a time in April 1971 the Mobile community was gripped in fear.
Which would be the desired outcome if the creature truly was a practitioner of the Witchery Way, however using the pelt of a wolf or coyote is a strict taboo for a skin walker.
Perhaps the original writers of the story got it right. In the article pictured above the author calls the creature an 'apparition' and 'phantom'.
Something truly terrifying manifested itself in Mobile 38 years ago, and then vanished into the ethereal mist of time.
Where does the Wolf Woman lurk now?
Until Next Time,
Pastor Swope
Update 08/20/2009
New Trailer for the 'Wolf Man', thought I'd add it. Looks interesting!
