Nature and the Unknown

Nature and the Unknown

Since the beginning of human history people have been intrigued and drawn to the idea of superstition and the existence of some other…….. other then what is known to be. What is this constant draw to the speculative Unknown? Even in today's day and age the year 2020 we are still on the hunt for answers, Answers to that age-old question “Are we the lone intelligent being in this plane of existence?” One thing most of these stories, tale or sightings all have in common is nature. The overwhelming accounts of contact with the unexplained happen in the wilderness. Is it the dark? The flickering of the firelight that can play tricks with the human mind or is it the isolation away for the masses of society? One thing is for sure there is something otherworldly when one is among the starlight and fresh air.

The native American people believed in many beings not of the mortal plane one which I’m sure many of you are familiar with as the Wendigo. A supernatural man-eating creature or evil spirit from the folklore of the First Nations Algonquian tribes based in the northern forests of Nova Scotia, the East Coast of Canada, and Great Lakes Region of Canada and the United States. The tale wendigo is told as a monster with some characteristics of a human or as a spirit with the body of a man with long arms and the top skull of a deer with antlers for a face. Basil H. Johnston, an Ojibwe teacher and scholar from Ontario, gives a description of a wendigo: “The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash-gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody ... Unclean and suffering from suppuration of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption.” They say when one has possessed a human being it made them become monstrous. Its influence is said to invoke acts of murder, cannibalism. There are tales of people becoming such creature when in dire situations they are driven to cannibalism or when ones mind drives them to gluttony, greed, and excess: the wendigo never satisfied after killing and consuming one person, they are constantly searching for new victim

Another interesting creature is Sasquatch or bigfoot still avidly looked for to this day as portrayed on TV show such as “Finding Bigfoot”. Bigfoot is noted to be a tall ape like creature sometimes thought to be the missing link between the ape family and human. Tales of the being come from all around north America. It is known to leave giant foot prints, pound on trees and howl in the dead of the night. Nothing is said of it being a malevolent or benevolent creature but much mystery surrounds it. Sighting continue to be documented till this day but the most popular would be that of Patterson–Gimlin film. The footage was shot in 1967 in Northern California, and has since been subjected to many attempts to authenticate or debunk it. There is no consensus on whether the footage is real or not, many people to this day swear and believe to have seen this being roaming the wood in the late hours of the night.

Last in my very short list but not least UFO sightings. When is the last time you have heard of a UFO sighting from a party at the top of a New York high rise? That’s right I haven’t heard of any, When I hear UFO my mind goes to rural country sightings. Secluded Roswell New Mexico or the great north woods. 1948 US Air Force sent a fighter pilot to investigate a UFO sighting over Fort Knox, Kentucky; his aircraft crashed and the pilot was killed while pursuing the UFO. Again in 1948 The Green fire balls objects were reported over several United States military bases; an official investigation followed. The last account reminds me of a day I spent with my father when I was about ten years old must have been between 1999 and 2001 in mid Michigan. We were driving home from town when we pulled up to a rural country intersection. We both peered up and out of the windshield and before our eyes raced a large Green and red/orange fireball with a fiery tail racing through the sky. This object was s big it had to already have been inside the atmosphere and it was moving so fast that it was only in our view for a matter or 30 seconds or less. We raced up the road to try to follow the object but it moved too fast and we never saw it again I mean 10 times as fast or more as any man made machine I have ever seen in the sky. The days following there were no news reports, no mentioned sightings, nothing to be said anywhere else about the event other then me and my father right in that ford f-150. Now had this been a meteor that made impact somewhere the whole world would have known so that cant be an answer. Was it the late summer afternoon playing tricks on ours eyes or some strange prismatic effect cause by our atmosphere or was it something else we will never know.

There are too many unexplained or not understood phenomena but that’s where the excitement, the mystery, and the magic in this world still hides. So next time your gathered around the fire with friends, out on a hike in the beautiful back country, or simply staring up at the stars on a warm summer night keep your eyes peeled, keep your ears open, and look for the answer to that not so easily answered question. What is that eerie connection between Nature and the Unknown?