The Monster Book. Nick Redfern

on the ends of long vine-like stems which stretched across like the necks of innumerable geese and, now that the old man had stopped his screaming, the air was full of hissing sounds. The leaves did not move straight at their target, but with a graceful, side-to-side sway, like a cobra about to strike. From the far side, the distant leaves were peeping and swaying on their journey around the trunk and even the tree top was bending down to join in the attack. The bending of the trunk was spasmodic and accompanied by sharp cracks.

      “The effect of this advancing and swaying mass of green objects was hypnotic, like the charm movements of a snake. Bryant could not move, though the nearest leaf was within an inch of his face. He could see that it was armed with sharp spines on which a liquid was forming. He saw the heavy leaf curve like a green-mittened hand, and as it brushed his eyebrows in passing he got the smell of it—the same animal smell that hung in the surrounding air. Another instant and the thing would have had his eyes in its sticky, prickly grasp, but either his weakness or the brown man’s strength threw them both on their backs. The charm was broken. They crawled out of the circle of death and lay panting in the grass while the malignant plant, cracking and hissing, yearned and stretched and thrashed to get at them.”

      Despite the incredible nature of the story, it’s important to note that it was written for the American Weekly by a very credible source: a botanist and naturalist named Willard Nelson Clute, who was the author of numerous books, including The Useful Plants of the World and A Dictionary of American Plant Names. Who knows? Perhaps the deadly, people-eating plant of the Philippines still exists, still luring the unwary into its deadly embrace.

      Finally, there is the 1881 account of Philip Robinson, who, in Under the Punkah, wrote of his uncle’s near-death experience with a plant hungry for human flesh somewhere along the Nile River:

      Botanist Willard Nelson Clute, a professor and founder of the American Fern Society, wrote about the dangerous plant in the Philippines.

      “This awful plant, that rears its splendid death-shade in the central solitude of a Nubian fern forest, sickens by its unwholesome humors all vegetation from its immediate vicinity, and feeds upon the wild beasts that, in the terror of the chase, or the heat of noon, seek the thick shelter of … the birds that, flitting across the open space, come within the charmed circle of its power, or innocently refresh themselves from the cups of its great waxen flowers; upon even man himself when, an infrequent prey, the savage seeks its asylum in the storm, or turns from the harsh foot-wounding sword-grass of the glade, to pluck the wondrous fruit that hang plumb down among the wondrous foliage. And such fruit!

      “Glorious golden ovals, great honey drops, swelling by their own weight into pear-shaped translucencies. The foliage glistens with a strange dew, that all day long drips on to the ground below, nurturing a rank growth of grasses, which shoot up in places so high that their spikes of fierce blood-fed green show far up among the deep-tinted foliage of the terrible tree, and, like a jealous body-guard, keep concealed the fearful secret of the charnel-house within, and draw round the black roots of the murderous plant a decent screen of living green.”

      MONTAUK MONSTER

      Joe Nickell is a senior research fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) and “Investigative Files” Columnist for Skeptical Inquirer. A former stage magician, private investigator, and teacher, he is the author of numerous books, including Inquest on the Shroud of Turin (1998), Pen, Ink and Evidence (2003), Unsolved History (2005), and Adventures in Paranormal Investigation (2007).

      He writes: “In July 2008, the carcass of a creature soon dubbed the ‘Montauk Monster’ allegedly washed ashore near Montauk, Long Island, New York. It sparked much speculation and controversy, with some suggesting it was a shell-less sea turtle, a dog or other canid, a sheep, or a rodent—or even a latex fake or possible mutation experiment from the nearby Plum Island Animal Disease Center.”

      The strange saga of the admittedly very weird beast was one that caught the attention of not just national, but international, media. This was hardly surprising, since the animal appeared to have a beak-like face, large claws, and a dog-like body. While the controversy rolled on for a long time—and provoked deep rumors about what “the government” was doing, an answer to the riddle finally came, as Dr. Darren Naish noted:

      Prominent paranormal researcher and critic Joe Nickell wrote about the Montauk Monster.

      “Is the carcass that of a dog? Dogs have an inflated frontal region that gives them a pronounced bony brow or forehead, and in contrast the Montauk monster’s head seems smoothly convex. As many people have now noticed, there is a much better match: Raccoon Procyon lotor. It was the digits of the hands that gave this away for me: the Montauk carcass has very strange, elongated, almost human-like fingers with short claws. Given that we’re clearly dealing with a North American carnivoran, raccoon is the obvious choice: raccoons are well known for having particularly dextrous fingers that lack the sort of interdigital webbing normally present in carnivorans. The match for a raccoon is perfect once we compare the dentition and proportions. The Montauk animal has lost its upper canines and incisors (you can even see the empty sockets), and if you’re surprised by the length of the Montauk animal’s limbs, note that—like a lot of mammals we ordinarily assume to be relatively short-legged—raccoons are actually surprisingly leggy (claims that the limb proportions of the Montauk carcass are unlike those of raccoons are not correct).”

      REPTILIANS, AMPHIBIANS, DINOSAURS, AND WORMS

      ALLIGATORS IN THE SEWERS

      Perhaps the most terrifying of all monsters are those that we know exist. And, when they are right under our feet—as in literally—they become even more fear-inducing. Take, for example, the alligators of New York. We’re talking about those immense, bone-crunching beasts that lurk deep within the winding sewers and subways beneath the Big Apple. Most people assume that the stories of New York’s people-eating alligators are nothing more than the stuff of myth and urban legend. The reality is they could not be further from the truth.

      Proof that alligators have been on the loose in the city for decades was provided way back in February 1935 by none other than the New York Times. The story was spelled out in an article titled “Alligator Found in Uptown Sewer: Youths Shoveling Snow See the Animal Churning in Icy Water.” As the newspaper noted, the gang of boys, led by Salvatore Condoluci, actually managed to capture the approximately seven-foot-long animal and beat and stabbed it to death, after it was seen lurking in the sewers on 123rd Street, close to the Harlem River.

      For more than three decades, Teddy May was the Commissioner of Sewers in New York. He has gone on record as stating that he heard tales of alligators roaming the sewers of the city as far back as the 1930s—the same timeframe in which the New York Times reported on the violent encounter at 123rd Street. May conceded that he took little interest in the reports, since he felt it was all a case of folklore and legend, and certainly not reality.

      Are there man-eating crocodilians in New York City’s sewer system? The rumors persist.…

      As the reports grew in number, however,