Bridgewater Triangle 2005
Posted by: Loren Coleman on October 30th, 2005
Another benefit of Halloween newspaper articles is that the rare update appears via a well-researched and well-written piece. Today finds one of the best examples of this in "Tales from the swamp: From ape-like creatures to glowing lights, Hockomock has kept its secrets for centuries" by Ross A. Muscato, in the October 30, 2005 issue of the Boston Sunday Globe.
Muscato, in this long and detailed essay tells of how:
Over generations, many have believed the Hockomock is home to spirits, strange animals, and more. Stories abound: There are the vicious, giant dogs with red eyes seen ravenously sinking their fangs into the throats of ponies; a flying creature that resembled a pterodactyl, the dinosaur that could fly; Native-American ghosts paddling canoes; and glowing somethings hovering above the trees. There’s also talk of a shaggy half-man, half-ape seen shuffling through the woods.
The article recounts two sightings of this creature:
Joe DeAndrade thinks the swamp may be the habitat of a creature yet to be identified. In 1978, DeAndrade, then 24, was standing on the shore of Clay Banks, a pond in Bridgewater near the swamp. His back was to the water. ”I was standing there, and for some reason I had to turn around," DeAndrade says. ”It was a chill or something inside me.
”And I turned around, and there, off to the right, maybe 200 yards away, there was this — well, I don’t know what it was. It was a creature that was all brown and hairy, like a big apish-and-man thing. It was making its way for the woods, but I didn’t stick around to watch where it was going. I ran for the street."
Muscato goes on…
John Baker, a veteran fur trapper, was about a mile from his West Bridgewater home, on a canoe in a river in the swamp, laying muskrat lines on a winter night. Paddling along in the quiet, Baker heard a loud crash and rumble of an animal in the nearby woods. Frozen with fear, he saw a large hairy beast slog into the river and pass within a few yards.
”I knew it wasn’t a human because when it passed by me I could smell it," Baker said in an interview in 1998. ”It smelled like a skunk: musty and dirty."
It is a good article, an absorbing read.
For those readers in the Boston area, look for a new update, also, on your local television, to the Dover Demon story on this Monday night, October 31st, on Fox News 25 in Boston.
As Halloween fate would have it, I coined both words, "The Bridgewater Triangle" and the "Dover Demon," in my past writings, and I’m amazed they live on.
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.
As a former resident of Bridgewater, I grew up just behind the “Nip”, and had many unusual experiences in and around the swamp. It wasn’t until a PM Magazine Halloween episode (featuring Mr. Coleman, circa 1986) that I realized I was not alone in my experiences. Every now and then, I see an article about The Triangle around this time of year, and those articles always make me smile… and inevitably take me back to my childhood. At least once a year, I break out a VHS copy of that PM Magazine episode, as well as a more recent Chronicle episode which aired on 10/00, and it makes me wish I had more time to revisit some of the swamp’s hotspots. My compliments to Mr. Coleman for this website, and for his efforts in reminding us that the world is still an exciting, mysterious place.
I grew up in Pembroke Massachusetts which is only a few miles from Bridgewater. In the summer of 1999 I moved to Bridgewater and lived there for about a year. I never knew that area was called “The Bridgewater Triangle” until I heard an interview on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. During the interview (I think I may have been Loren) I remembered an odd sighting I had during that time. I don’t know where else to post this so I’ll jut put it here (I can never get through to Coast to Coast when a cryptozoologist is on! Gah!).
In the summer of 1999 I was hiking through the woods in Bridgewater, MA with a couple friends of mine. We stopped off the side of the trail and sat underneath a large tree. The area of woods was within earshot of a residential area, so when i heard what sounded like a small chainsaw in the distance, I didn’t think anything of it. Suddenly, friend “A” who was standing in front of us, looks up above our heads, let’s out a “Oh s**t!” and then stars running back down the trail. Of course, friend “B” and I leap to our feet and turned around to see what it was. What I thought was a small chainsaw going off in the distance, was in fact a very LARGE insect that closely resembled a bee. It had the body size of a large grapefruit and massive wings (proportioned to it’s body..if it were a giant bee) moving so fast it sounded like a small motor..and it was very loud. The thing was just hovering around the trunk of the tree about 4 feet above our heads about 9 feet in the air. I’ve never seen anything like it. naturally, friend “B” and I scurried off down the path after friend “A”.
At the time we thought it was just a large insect or maybe some sort of insect-like bird. We dismissed it and I haven’t thought of it again until I heard that show with George Noory. I tried searching the internet for any species of insect or bird in New England that resembled the creature I saw and came up with nothing. I’m not sure if anyone else has seen anything like it before, but it was there. The largest insect I’d ever seen. It pretty much scared the crap out of me. I run from regular bees, never mind one the size of a grapefruit!