That is one hell of a title, and trust me when I say that this will be one hell of an article. On January 22nd, 1909, an article appeared on page two of the Asbury Park Evening Press which described what is likely one of the most bizarre encounters with an avian-type creature ever reported. It had happened one day earlier, and involved an 18ft tall monstrosity described as being 'straight out of the bad place'.
A Winged Wooden Whatsit[]
This depiction of the Snallygaster from the website Pottermore seems to work moderately well for this nebulous critter.
It was Friday, January 21st, and one Mr. Dan Possack of Millville, New Jersey, was busying himself with some humdrum household tasks when he heard footsteps in his backyard, and was also startled to hear someone calling out to him. Out of curiosity, he turned around and was met with something that I can almost guarantee you nobody on the planet would've been expecting to find.
Dan apparently called it a 'monster beast-bird' (and the newspaper agreed that it was indeed 'one of the strangest freaks of nature'). It was about 18ft tall, and towering over the terrified man - it requested to know where the garbage can was, speaking perfect English to do so. Utterly bewildered but also hysterical with fear, Dan ran towards the barn, but the creature quickly caught up with him and wrapped its sinewy, red beak around his body. Fumbling down about his person to snatch the hatchet that he handily had attached to his belt, Possack began fighting for his life against the monster. Repeatedly striking it with his hatchet, Dan was flabbergasted to see that splinters started to fly out of the body of the creature - implying that it was made from a wood-like substance.
The avian aberration leaned forward between Dan's chopping blows and whispered a nebulous something into the terrified man's ear - before Possack ceased the opportunity and slammed the hatchet into the face of the monster. One of the creature's eyeballs fell out of its head, and it let out a harrowing 'scream of pain' before suddenly taking a large inhalation and somehow inflating its body 'like a balloon'. Like a cartoon character, it was able to promptly float away from the scene after doing this - vanishing 'into space'.
Monstrous Mass Hysteria[]
The initial source for this story is a website called Weird New Jersey , which had previously published an article simply called 'Demonic Birds'. This article is (obviously) unavailable nowadays, but the quote that I found from it mentions that it concluded that mass hysteria was sweeping the country at the time - and Albert Rosales' summary of this case also says that winged weirdoes were congregating en masse across the American Northeast. I decided to follow up this claim using the wonderful research of Rosales himself, and found that New Jersey and Pennsylvania had indeed been plagued by all sorts of Jersey Devil-esque phantoms on the night of January 21st. Although this story may appear outlandish, it is somehow corroborated by the many other tales. These tales include such riveting titbits as an authentic fire-breathing dragon in Philadelphia and a unicorn-horned avian monstrosity comprised of Frankensteined parts of different animals confronting a police officer in Salem. You can expect both of these stories and more in the near future! Watch this space!
Source[]
https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/ce3/1909-01-21-usa-millville.htm