Naked Wild Man of Dighton
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 16th, 2012
On Sept. 27, 1887, The Fall River Daily Evening News reported that some people thought “The naked wild man of Dighton” was the ghost of a Viking who had helped mark Dighton Rock.
That’s all the story says, but it is apparent that something, or someone, was sighted in Dighton often enough to be known as “the naked wild man of Dighton.”
Hermit? Bigfoot? Madman? Ghost? Other mentions in the press of that time will be hunted down, if at all possible. “The Naked Wild Man of Dighton,” The Herald News, Fall River, Massachusetts, April 2, 2012..
The “Bridgewater Triangle” is one of those phrases I coined; for more see Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation’s Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures.
Dighton is part of the Bridgewater Triangle.
Here is a noncryptid, but Fortean map of the area.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I’m not going to say that I think everything paranormal is loopy or anything.
But one reads about some of the “ghostly occurrences” in the Triangle, and one wonders whether one’s receptivity to imagery like that couldn’t be heightened by just hearing about it and then going there.
I guess as with all things paranormal one can do no more than say, not proven, nor provable, yet.
I once drove down the Ghost Road of east Texas (Google it) between midnight and two a.m. Moon up. Couldn’t have been a spoooooooooookier night to be there. Even got out at a power line crossing to do some bigfoot howls. (Hoarse for weeks.)
Nuttin’.
Maybe I’m just not one of those folk that see ghosts.
Ah, DWA, yes, but…
The triangle was there before the ghost hunter-type maps were created.
The data did not come about because of maps like this.
The accounts were there before I coined the name.
I am not happy about the “paranormal content” or nature of this map, either, but I wanted to show, through a clear graph, the extend of the triangle this morning.
Shout out to artists at Cryptomundo reading this: Please draw me a clear, geographically correct map with all the cryptids in the Bridgewater Triangle being represented!
Loren: no question. I mean, remember what I’ve said here, over and over:
Scientists should NEVER scoff.
Which means that no one should.
Nothing unproven is properly described as loopy or woo-woo. We just may not have the scientific tools yet.
“Unproven” works for me.
I have a friend who enjoys hiking nude in the desert. He prefers sunny, hot days to do this.
When I asked him why, his answer was that the snakes will not come out in the desert sun. True, but be careful about resting in the shade!
Desertdweller:
Um, er, there are, let’s see, places that I
1) would never apply sunscreen and
2) could not imagine the severity of the consequences if I didn’t.
Loren:
Thanks for the interesting article. The link of the Dighton wildman to viking visitors is an interesting one. There are a number of sites in eastern/southeastern Massachusetts tied to other settlers such as the Monk Caves of Franklin County which some stories tie to settlement by Irish monks and the Westford Knight, and carving of a 14th century knight that some connect to visits by the Knights Templar. Do you know of any Fortean sightings linked to these?
Here is a neat link I found for a “Strange New England Website“.
If people think there is cognitive dissonance associated with cryptids, it’s nothing compared the “professional opinions” about ancient sights in New England. EVERYTHING is dismissed by academics as a “root cellar” or Native American in origin. The first argument never addresses why or how”Goodman Proctor” would have used several ton blocks just to protect his rutabagas. The latter ignores that local Native American peoples did not build in large stones.
In terms of the Bridgewater Triangle, many of the area’s Bigfoot sightings have occurred in or near Hockomock, though none of them are very good. There is also Dighton rock itself, a fascinating anomaly.