A menacing cryptid has been spreading panic throughout America in the past. It is depicted as a hybrid beast, a half-human, half-goat creature with gnarled horns present on its head, a human-like body till the waist, and goat-like features from there on.
Reports about this mythical creature have surfaced from people who actually claim to have encountered the beast, but also from photos of creatures matching the description above. Could the so called Goatman be an actual apparition? Or is it just fiction sprung from someone’s head?
In a previous comparison of the term “legendary” or “mythological” to the word fiction, we revealed how fiction is a pure work of one’s imagination. However, the mythological term implies the existence of a grain of truth, so even if the real picture has been altered by the passing of time, some truth still remains.
The legend of the Goatman involves sightings of it all around the US and apparently the clues lead to a place in Prince George’s County, Maryland from where it is believed to have originated. The story even identifies the spot where its lair is supposedly located, and that is a cave near an old, rusty bridge known as Governor’s Bridge.
It appears that in 1957, a group of locals reported seeing a mysterious being in the areas of Forestville and Upper Marlboro in Prince George’s County. It was partially covered with fur and had human features, but the pair of twisted horns up his head led the witnesses into believing that they were dealing with a devilish creature.
In the summer of 1962, the Goatman made it to the front page with it being accused of the murder of no less than fourteen people who were hiking presumably too close to its lair. In total, twelve children were killed along with two adults who were supervising them. There were a few people who survived the gruesome attack who claimed that the Goatman savagely hacked it’s victims to pieces with the help of an axe, while emitting high-pitched squeals only the “devil himself” would make.
According to the reports, when local authorities made it to the scene, all that was left of the bloodbath were half-eaten limbs and a bloody trail leading to a desolated cave. Another thing to note is that no written record involving this tragic event exists in the local authorities archives. Is this because people wanted to quickly forget about the event? Or maybe something was found which had to be furtherly kept as a secret?
So where does this Goatman come from? Is he an escaped lunatic or a member of a sect involved in satanic affairs? Apparently, the most credible story tells of a failed experiment performed by one Doctor Stephen Flether at his U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory in Beltsville. The doctor admitted to creating the Goatman by mixing the DNA of a goat and of his assistant William Lottsford, but the experiment didn’t end up as intended, thus giving birth to a horrifying creature that will further become the Goatman.
