The Cloak Man of Clifton Heights, Jack the Terror, and a giant snake

From the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger (Sept. 26, 1916):

A MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, man or woman, wearing a long black cloak and black hood, has caused much excitement in Clifton Heights the past few evenings, and not a few women as well as some or all of the men have become thoroughly frightened by this mysterious creature, now called a "cloak man."

From the Pittsburgh Dispatch (Aug. 25, 1889):

JACK THE TERROR.
A Man Disguised in Woman's Clothes Scares Southside Ladies.

A mysterious creature is prowling around the Twenty-fifth ward. Last evening he went in women's attire to the home of John Scheck, as foreman of the Republic Iron Works, on Sarah street, and told Mr. Scheck he was wanted at the mill. He went immediately. As soon as he had gone this tall masquerader entered his home and scared Mrs. Scheck.

When Mr. Scheck returned from the mill he notified the police, but the man in woman's clothes could not be found.

The same evening he frightened the wife of Harry Brooks, living next door to Scheck's. The men in the neighborhood threaten to harm him if they lay hands on him.

The Mad Gasser of Mattoon (referenced below) had a similar propensity towards genderbending, sometimes seen as a man, sometimes as a woman, and sometimes as a man in woman's clothing. The Cloak Woman also displayed similar traits.

The method in which he/she gained entry to the Scheck's is, to me, extremely reminiscent of Spring-Heel Jack's appearance at the door of Jane Alsop under a pretence of having caught Spring-Heel Jack. "For God's sake, bring a light!"

And from the Scranton Tribune (May 13, 1897):

AN EIGHTEEN-FOOT SNAKE.
Westmoreland County Man Beholds a Strange Creature.

Greensburg, May 12. - Last evening as Thomas McQuaide, a young farmer residing near Delmont, was riding along by the Burnt Cabin district, his horse took fright at something in the bushes. He turned to see what the object was, and was almost paralyzed to behold a monster snake, which was at least 18 feet in length, and thicker than a man's leg at the ankle. Mr. McQuaide had hard work to control the horse, which nearly threw him off. He rode hastily away for assistance to kill the reptile, but when the snake shunters reached the spot the snake was gone. They searched and beat the bushes but could find nothing.

Daniel G. McQuaide, father of the young man, thinks the monster is the same one he saw several years ago in about the same place. A number of persons of Delmont have formed themselves into a committee to hunt for the snake, which, if discovered, will be captured alive and placed on exhibition.

Do we have here a westward-ranging representative of the same species as the Broad Top Snake to the west in Huntingdon and Bedford Counties?

Annville pythons doing better

From the Lebanon Daily News, October 18, an update on two pythons found in Annville this summer, as posted on Cryptomundo on August 4 of this year.

Of nightmares, ghosts, UFOs, and pythons

Over on the CFZ blog, Neil Arnold has an interesting post on some sort of ophidian nightmare. The story's pretty neat, and not altogether unlike the experiences that take place in a hypnagogic or hypnapompic state with the crushing sensations. Sure, there are differences (for instance, Neil reports the ability to move) and I find it very interesting that while Neil's girlfriend didn't see the apparition, she experienced the same phenomenon.

In the past, I've done a lot of thinking on these hallucinatory states and how they may account for a lot of the stranger creature sightings out there. For those who aren't familiar with the terms, they refer to a type of hallucination that is sometimes experienced either when falling asleep (hypnagogic) or immediately upon waking (hypnapompic). These nearly always occur in conjunction with sleep paralysis, where a person's mind and body don't "sync up" in their states of wakefulness which results in an inability of the muscles to move although the surroundings can be perceived normally. This state of neither sleep nor wakefulness results in imagery from dreams being seen in normal surroundings. Through means not necessarily explained, the hallucinations can occur in conjunction with sensory phenomena, such as a feeling of being pricked by needles. Obviously, some researchers have connected this phenomena with many of the ghost sightings and UFO abduction stories out there.

I myself have had experiences at least twice with similar states. Once, in about 1995, I awoke quite late at night to find myself unable to move, with a black silhouette of a man, his arms held rigidly at his sides, standing in a corner of my bedroom. After a few moments, he vanished. On another occasion, as I lay waking up, I distinctly felt someone sit on my bed and place their arms on my shoulders.

This phenomena, I can vouch, is indeed very disturbing and frightening.

These states aren't fully understood. Personally, I would not at all doubt there could be variants of the phenomena where the individual is fully mobile. Likewise, given the physical sensations sometimes associated with the hallucinations, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that through some psychosomatic mechanism the marks associated could manifest on the body.

Perhaps these hallucinatory states don't even necessarily occur with sleep, perhaps it's possible to have them during waking hours, as well. To bring this to a more Fortean context, perhaps through some unknown mechanism the hallucinations can manifest physically and lead others to have experiences with an image ripped from someone else's dream.

Who knows?