Texas is the 2nd largest US state and also has the 2nd highest population out of the other US states and is located in the South-Central United States. Texas is bordered with the nation of Mexico and the US states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, Texas also has a coast along the Gulf of Mexico. Its capital city is Austin and other well-known cities are Dallas, San Antonio and Houston.
Texas is large and so it has a very varied landscape from forested land and hills to steppe and prairies, sand hills and desert valleys, plateus, grasslands and mountainous areas. The state is cooler in the north and warmer in the south, although the whole state is generally warm, winters are colder in the north and milder in the south, especially along the Gulf coast. Tornado valley covers the northern part of the state and Texas see’s on average the most tornadoes per year out of the other US states. Texas, along its coast and further inland can also be prone to Hurricanes as well coming in from the Gulf of Mexico.
The Texas economy originally focused on cattle, cotton, timber and oil, with cotton and lumber remaining lucrative through the later 19th Century. The discovery of petroleum deposits is what really propelled Texas’s economy to become one of the top in the US. Other major industries that play a role in the Texas economy are the high tech, tourism, agriculture, petrochemicals, energy, computers, electronics, aerospace and biomedical sciences industries.
But anyway, enough of the introduction. Let’s see what strange stuff the state has to offer up into the weird, unexplained and bizarre. Its cryptids and its paranormal beings and strange events it may have played host to. I went over an interesting account on the Black-Eyed Children that occurred in this state you can read here, with that particular sighting being credited with bringing these beings to a wider light in the paranormal and unexplained community.
But as always, I prefer to focus on things that are more localized, as a number of people have claimed to witness strange black-eyed beings across the world.
First off, we shall start with a lake cryptid, of which most states seem to have one and obviously Texas is no exception, I would have been quite surprised if Texas didn’t have its own version since it is such a large state with so much crammed into it. But yeah, as expected it does have one and it is called the Lake Worth Monster.
Lake Worth is located right next to the city of Fort Worth, it is a man-made reservoir made for recreational activities. This lake is said to be the home of the Lake Worth Monster, a strange creature that is described as looking like a half-man/half-goat creature with fur and scales. According to the reports the creature was not entirely confined to the lake but also would exit and harass people on the land around near the lake as well, in one incident the monster allegedly jumped out of a tree on to a man’s car, and in another it was alleged to have thrown a vehicle tire at some people near the lake.
Mostly the police didn’t take the reports in a serious manner, until people actually begun becoming scared of the incidents taking place and also after the tire-throwing incident, which attracted trackers armed with guns to the area who were aiming to dispatch of whatever the creature was, that was terrifying the local residents of the area – of course here the police took it seriously, as scared residents with guns isn’t obviously a good mix and someone could have ended up getting killed by accident.
Eventually an alleged photo of the creature was published in the newspapers (it look nothing like the actual description but of a strange white misty form) which enabled the purported creature to explode further into popularity. Footprints that were too large for human feet had also been reported by some people as well in the area.
The incidents and origin of the creature were confined to the summer of 1969 and so it is strongly suspected by many skeptics that it was merely pranks being played by school students in the area, some have also suggested other connected incidents, such as reports of dead sheep in the area, were the work of a bobcat. Despite even some anonymous people coming forward claiming to be the students who did the prank and also the fact that the incidents stopped once school resumed, some have doubted it was a prank.
One such person is the writer of a book on the monster, Sallie Ann Clarke claimed to see the monster on three occasions after writing her book on it after interviewing numerous witnesses and it was even claimed by her husband that due to this, she regretted writing the book. So, all I can now say on this myself is… thoughtform? Could the creature actually have been manifested from the collective-thoughts of the locals due to the original prank? Or was it even a prank at all?
Next up we are going to head back to the year of 1975 where an apparent giant bird, called Big Bird (of which I am not going to make a joke about Sesame Street as many publications have already done that) but yeah, an actual big bird… maybe? Some have also described it as a flying humanoid. Anyway, something big was apparently flying about Texas in 1975/76 and it got quite a few people spooked and terrified.
Numerous people claimed to have sighted a big flying creature from the areas of San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley, some people also claimed they were directly harassed and even physically attacked by it as well. The whole foray apparently begun when two police officers made the first sighting of a large flying creature that swooped over their patrol cars, described as having a wingspan near 10-feet in length, the sighting took place near or around Harlingen and was later brushed of as probably a large Pelican.
But that would not be the end of it, as going into 1976 the large bird was spotted again, this time by Tracy Lawson and Jackie Davies, two teenage girls who claimed that a 5ft tall bird was observing them as they played in their yard, on the following day the parents of these teens discovered some unusual very large bird tracks that were also reported on the local news, leading to the spectacle going mainstream.
A flurry of further sightings came in after this including a man called Alverco Guajardo in Brownsville who said that something large slammed into his trailer and that when he went out to confront it, he witnessed a large bird-like creature but of which he said was of another world. One week on in Raymondville a man called Armando Grimaldo claimed to be physically attacked by this big bird, taking place when he was sitting outside having a smoke when he heard the sound of flapping wings above him and was suddenly attacked, with him being scratched at and clothes being ripped, it was so terrifying for the man that he had to be taken into hospital in a state of shock.
There were a number of other sightings in the area until the big bird suddenly just vanished and has not been seen again since. Just what was going on? Was it merely a case of mass hysteria or was it someone playing a prank that got out of hand? Or was it perhaps actually a big troubled bird?
But let’s head further down the path of the bizarre… could there be possibly living dinosaurs in Texas still? Some believe there could be… let me introduce you to the Mountain Boomer, named after actual lizards that do exist, these dinosaurs are described as bipedal and anywhere from 3-7 feet in height, being small in terms of typical dinosaur size and being a greenish-brown colour with small forelimbs. Some sources have said the name Mountain Boomer also comes from the sound of their roar echoing through the mountain’s like a boom of thunder.
These dinosaurs are said to roam and live in the very isolated areas of south-western Texas and keep as far away from human civilization as is possible, which is why they are so elusive – if they actually exist that is. The creatures are said to look similar to a Thescelosaurus and are able to run at fast speeds, much faster than a human is able to run, so good luck getting away from one out in the isolated wilderness if a group have decided you’re going to be lunch.
Sightings and encounters with these alledged creatures are rare, but there are some reports of these things apparently ramming vehicles off the road and also being spotted eating road kill before being startled and running off back into the wilderness.
Could it really be possible that a small grouping of these creatures really manages to exist out there in the farthest most isolated regions of south-west Texas? Or is it simply mistaken identity or tricks of the mind? Probably answers we’ll never truly know.
I would say it is now about the time we round this off with a haunting. Texas has so much more to offer in the cryptid and paranormal realms but there is just far too much to fit into a single blogpost, so perhaps we shall come back around to it someday.
For this we will check out the Yorktown Memorial Hospital, there’s always something creepy about an abandoned haunted hospital, for whatever reason and I am not 100% sure why, although perhaps it is just due to how many people have likely died as patients there. The hospital was built in the 1950s and was managed by the Felician Sisters, a religious institution of the Roman Catholic Church. The hospital was shut down in 1986 due to a new facility opening elsewhere and Yorktown Memorial Hospital became a drug rehab center until 1992 where it was closed down and since left as a relic of the past.
Of course, many thrill seekers and urban explorers go there now and have come back with tales of the haunted variety, and not just any usual haunting though but quite terrifying ones. There are rumours of malpractice and neglect which are said to be why restless spirits of former patients are there and even a spirit of an apparent surgeon who is said to have done terrible things to his patients.
But there are also said to be much darker and evil things there to, such as a dark entity with red eyes which has an immense dislike of bible verses, allegedly growling when they are read out. There are also said to be ghosts of nuns who will physically attack people, via scratching or pushing, particularly men who harbour tattoos on their body, which they perhaps see as some kind of defilement and sin.
It’s certainly a place I would not consider going to myself, not that I would not ever visit a haunted place, but I’d rather a more softcore version that actually administers ghost tours (although apparently some tours do happen there), rather than trespassing on a place and also being around such possible dark entities.
There is just so much more that Texas has to offer in the paranormal realm and I will certainly be coming back to it. In fact my next project after the unexplained US states series may involve a series that compiles information on haunted places, because there are just so many out there. Next up will be Minnesota.
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