
Resident Monsters

A recent survey of the "bizarro" press turned up a couple of
encounters with some very strange, very destructive creatures 
who have made their presence known to the local inhabitants.

In Indianapolis, Rev. Tinsley Rector and his wife returned from a
trip to Florida only to find that they'd had a rather unfriendly
guest.  "It had tried to eat my metal shed," he later told a 
reporter.  "Tore pieces of the sheeting back.  Dragged lumber 
out of my lumber pile and left great big teeth marks in it.  
Some kind of animal, for certain.  A big one."  Whatever it was 
chewed through parts of the shed's wooden floor, took garden 
tools from outside the shed, and ate some fertilizer.

Rector, who lives in a wooded, semirural area, was awakened one
night not long after the creature's initial visit.  He didn't 
actually see the monster then, but traps he laid out were all 
mysteriously tripped the following morning.  "It's smart, 
whatever it is," he said.

In February, the creature returned.  This time, it destroyed
the shed completely, tearing the door off, bending tall sheets
of metal, and even pulling out screws.  Again no one saw the
beast, although it did leave tracks that were later described
as "catlike."

For a time, suspicions rested on the neighbor's Great Dane puppy,
but according to Rector, the dog couldn't "do that kind of 
damage."  Conservation officers investigating the scene also 
ruled out the possibility that Rector's visitor was a bear.
Reporter Dan Luzadder, who broke the original story in the
INDIANAPOLIS STAR, is as mystified as Rector and his neighbors,
but he suspects it might be "some Loch-Nessian monster come 
from the depths of Grassy Creek ... or someone with a very 
strange sense of humor."

From land-locked monsters to deep-sea ones:

Bermudian fisherman John "Sean" Ingham, involved in an 
extensive, expensive shrimp and crab fishing enterprise,
frequently lowers specially-designed traps to between 6000 and
12,000 feet.  On several occasions, his traps have come up 
mysteriously damaged, and Ingham has actually lost 2 of the 
traps -- worth thousands of dollars -- to some unknown but 
very powerful sea animal.  These large traps have contained as
much as 5000 pounds of crabs when they were snatched away.  In
one case his rope was pulled away at nearly 30 mph.

Although no one has actually seen the creature, some biologists
suggest that the most likely candidate is a giant octopus.
Others express doubt that such an animal exists.  The National
Geographic Society was hoping to take underwater pictures of 
Ingham's traps being attacked, but Ingham, fearing financial
disaster, moved his fishing operation to Belize, where he hopes
there are no giant octopi -- or whatever.


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