Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The Wolf Woman of Mobile Alabama

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."

Was the creature sighted by the Mobile Alabama community merely a grown feral child who was mistakes as an animal because of it's method of walking on all fours and disheveled appearance?

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!

17 comments:

Pharos said...

This is an unusual case since only part of her body is wolflike. I kind of doubt she was a feral woman, otherwise she probably wouldn't have just disappeared completely, and, feral or not, being feral wouldn't account for hairy wolflike legs (btw, I think that is the first time I've heard the words "pretty" and "hairy" used in the same sentence and separated by an "and" in reference to a woman).

I also have a hard time believing that story of the 19th century wolf girl because it said she was suckling two wolf cubs at the end. Unless she had gotten pregnant, I don't know how she could have had anything for them to suckle.

Sometimes I wonder if sightings like this one are sightings of something like a "bigfoot". I'm not aware of bigfoot sightings being all that common in Europe, but maybe people there have seen some type of cousin to the bigfoot. It seems that not all bigfoots (or is that bigfeet?) look alike anyways. People describe them in varying sizes and varying colors of hair. Despite all the sightings of werewolves, skinwalkers, and bigfoots over the years, it's almost strange that no one has ever been able to clearly and definitively prove they exist. Considering all the differences people have described in bigfoot sightings over the years, I wonder that if someone ever did find a legit carcass of a bigfoot, how many people who've seen what they called a bigfoot would claim that isn't what they saw. So I don't know if even a carcass could completely solve the mystery.

Howard said...

She made her appearance in the very beginning of April....

You mean, right about April Fool's Day? Yeah, I saw that the newspaper clipping was from April 8, but this still looks like an April Fool's Day joke that took off.

cryptidsrus said...

Sounds to me like the Wolf Woman was a Werewolf/Human hybrid.
Love is weird, ain't it???
I guess it's just Love---that's it.
Not my "thing," but to each their own, I guess. :)
Great story, Swope!!!
And welcome back, Sir.
You've been missed!!!

Pastor Swope said...

Thanks Jeff,

I have been wondering lately of the metaphysical nature of Bigfoot. Good points.

Pastor Swope said...

Thanks Howard,

The time frame would put the sightings beginning around April 1st. They did have over 50 calls, but who would want to do some thing like this?

Be that as it may, many did see the creature. If it began as a hoax did it end with mass hysteria or a demonic manifestation?

Pastor Swope said...

Thanks Cryptidsrus,

You know I knew this family of mountain folk back when I ministered in New Castle PA, they were....well...I better not get into it.

Good to be back!

Pharos said...

Yeah, I'm starting to wonder if bigfoot is some sort of inter-dimensional being. It seems odd that they are so hard to find. If they only spend part of their time in this plane of existence, then that might explain why they are so hard to find.

I think a lot of sightings might be misidentifications or hoaxes. But there have been so many sightings over the years, even if half of them were misidentifications or hoaxes, that would still leave a large number of the sightings unexplained.

There are still people who believe in fairies, elves, and gnomes...I think the majority of the population of Iceland still believes in them. Some people refer to them as "elementals", and are usually thought of as some sort of inter-dimensional type of beings. Sort of like spirits of the forest. Maybe bigfoot is a type spirit of the forest...only a much bigger one.

alanborky said...

Swopsie, this might be an example of what I call The Translation Problem.

Supposedly, when someone claims to've seen something strange, the nay-sayers immediately claim they've foolishly reinterpreted something known into something unknown.

The truth is, though, when people see something unknown, they immediately attempt to reinterpret it into something known.

The history of Science is larded from end to end with scientists overlooking breakthrough items by automatically assuming that since they already know everything there is to know about their subject that what they've encountered must therefore be nothing more than a slightly odd looking version of something else.

I'd actually go even further and point out if the scientific claim matter is really only energy distributed throughout vast amounts of space is true, then maybe our perception of matter being solid is merely an interpretation, something we've been raised to believe.

I'd then point out that 'wolf woman' is in fact a chimaera - a very ancient idea indeed - and suggest her appearance may be a symbolic attempt by our 'onboard universal interpreters' to come as close as possible to signalling to our individual culturally limited preconceptions something of her true nature.

Just a suggestion.

Howard said...

Your illustration looks more like a Sphinx than anything. At the same time, it looks less frightening than the monster that terrorized Thebes.

Cheryl said...

Thanks for the trailer - can't wait for the movie....delTorro is FRIGHTENING anyway - he'll be a GRRREAT (pun intended) wolfman!

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Anonymous said...

Firstly Jeff - it is not unusual for individuals to spontaneously lactate. I had a dog that never carried any puppies, yet would nurse litters of kittens every chance she got. It's common in billy goats of the dairy breeds as well and reffered to as "precocious milking".
Stranger still are the reports of spontaneous lactation in human men.
A SriLankan man breastfed his 2 infant daughters after the death of his wife.
http://community.babycenter.com/journal/chinjenny/3003875/men_can_breastfeed...
So it is entirely possible that the alleged wolf girl could have suckled pups.
Secondly, Pastor, could you point me to the source that says skinwalkers cannot use the skins of wolves or coyotes? I have never encountered that particular taboo in my research.

Unknown said...

Ok... A few nights ago I was finishing up cooking for Christmas, I went out the back door to smoke, when I was chased by what sounded to be canine. I could hear it and feel it, but I couldnt see it because it was dark. I just moved to South Central Baldwin County, just across the Bay from Mobile. I asked a few questions of my Wife who has lived here her whole life. She told me that several years ago a young man beat on the door, of this same house, in the middle of the night claiming to have been chased by a large animal, also one of her daughters said that her and severl friends were chased into the house by a snarling creature just a couple of years ago. I am 42, and do not scare easily. I was terrified the other night 12/25/12 at 2:45 am. What is out here? It isn't just me who has been chased.

andis said...

I live in Mobile & we had a creature in my neighborhood for about a year that frequently came in my yard. It was big enough to pick & carry off grapefruit, generally came around shortly after dark, frequently walked around on my roof & would then settle above my bed. I tried baiting it (it liked fruit, did not like bread)but it was very canny about humans. I could hear it under my window but it would stay tight up against the house. When I stepped away then stepped back all the fruit was gone. Possum & raccoon would sit & eat, this would snatch & run.It liked a thick tree behind my shed & would bring its "treasures" there- old balls, a frayed rope, a small old stuffed toy. It once made sort of a sling in the tree with the rope- wound it back & forth between branches but obviously could not make a knot. It once made a big round "nest" on the ground out of 23 pine boughs, but it was in my dry creekbed so I could not leave it to block my drainage. One twilight I was doing last minute raking when something started tossing stuff at me from high up in a neighbor's tree.When the weather got cold it came around the house more, neatly opened my & my neighbor's outdoor cushions and took the stuffing. It was noisy moving through brush, & other animals were afraid of it (possums & raccoons pointedly avoided the section of the yard with her tree, my mother's dog visited, went back near the tree, came running with her tail between her legs & tried frantically to get out of the yard, which is fenced). We had a week of severe cold & rain , it repeatedly came on my porch, even jiggled the doorknob, then would go on the roof or under the deck. I was gone the last several days of that cold snap, when I came back I found some screens pulled awry & a partial what looked like a sort of human handprint but with shorter thicker fingers. No one ever saw a sign of it after that, we assumed it died in the cold & wet. It seemed to be childsized, & the one time I was close to it it stank.

Anonymous said...

Aaron Morgan If you read this i live in mobile and if its ok with you and your wife id like to do an investigation to see if maybe i can shed some light on what is chasing yall. That goes for you as well Andis. If either of you would let me id like to do an investigation to see what i can find. You can email me at big_steve456@yahoo.com

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Unknown said...

I saw one in Florida. Something you never forget.