Lancaster Chimera

 

This was a little known monster that appeared in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania during the summer of 1973, where it terrorized the Amish community. The creature has no official name, but has been referred to as the Amish Country Goat Man, The Mystery Beast and humorously The Goose Grabber. This monster defies categorization and has been lumped in with bit foot, dog man, goat man and the Sheepsquatch, yet it doesn’t neatly fit with any of them. It is a unique being. One thing is for sure, the Amish don’t give up their paranormal stories to outsiders easily. So the fact that they contacted outsiders over these events showed how frightened they were.

The first encounter happened to two brothers in the evening, as they were bringing in the hay at the end of the day. While they were working their horses started to startle like a predator was near by. The two brothers went looking for the cause, suspecting a coyote or bear was near. Instead they saw a grey, indistinct bipedal figure running towards them from across the field. They assumed this was their neighbour coming to help them unload the hay. But as this figure approached closer the brothers realized they were wrong and it was some kind of monster. The horse broke free from their reigns and ran off. The two brother hid in the barn and watched the monster from a safe vantage. The monster captured a chicken, and viscerally ate it. Then just as fast as before it ran back into the forest and out of sight.

Once the monster was out of sight the two brothers ran back to their house and gathered their family for help. They all returned out to the barn. While the brother gathered up the horses the elders looked for evidence of the monster. They found a bloody patch where the chicken had been killed, but no tracks leading away, as there had been a drought and the ground was hard. The family was concerned enough about these events that they contacted the police. The police didn’t believe the family and only gave the area a quick pass by from their cruiser before deciding everything was clear.

The brothers described the monster has being overall human shaped. It was covered in grey fur and had goat like horns. It also had tiger like fangs and bear like claws. They said the monster was large, about the same as a good sized cow. The next encounter would add more details to this beast.

The next evening the creature was seen at another farm about 5 miles up the road. There the land owner was cutting the grass with a hand scythe. He was stopped from his chores when he heard a load roar coming from the near by woods. Immediately after the monster ran out and confronted him. The man swung his hand scythe at the beast to defend himself. The monster dodged out of the way with surprising agility for its size. It then slapped the scythe out of the man’s hand. He watched in astonishment as the beast picked up the scythe and gnawed on the wooden handle. The man then ran off while the monster was distracted with this task. In about an hour he came back with a group of concerned community members. All they found was the scythe without its handle. Again, there were no footprints or other traces of the monster. This man described the monster in a similar way to the two brothers, but this time adding that it had three horns and a long tail.

The third and final sighting happened on a farm half way between the two previous locations. An Amish woman was out feeding her chickens and geese when the birds started panicking. She looked around for what was causing the birds to startle. She found the monster lurking behind her chicken coop. There it grabbed two of her largest geese. In a surprising display of bravery the woman ran at the beast, yelling to put the geese down. The beast threw one goose at the woman, squarely hitting her and knocking her to the ground. The monster then ran off into the forest with the other goose. It was from this incident that it got the name “goose grabber”.

One is left to wonder what exactly this creature was. Some of the Lancaster Amish thought it was a deformed natural animal, although neither they or the various cryptid hunters who interviewed them had any idea what species it could be. Another possibility is that this creature was demonic, and some fortean authors have connected it to a local folklore story about a child who was born out of wedlock in the Lancaster Amish community and had the appearance of a human goat hybrid because of this. The family tried to cover up the existence of the child, but the mother insisted on taking the child to church and raising it in the community. As soon as she stepped foot in the church the child leapt from her arms and ran out into the forest. Everyone saw the demon baby and the woman was cast out of the community after. It’s important to note here that the Amish witnesses themselves didn’t think this was the origin of the beast, or that it was demonic in nature. Most authors try to align the monster with a better known cryptids, such as big foot or goat man.

There is one other possibility. At the same time these sightings were happening over on the west side of Pennsylvania the invasion of Chestnut Ridge was taking place. This was a highly active flap of paranormal events, comparable in scale to the mothman sightings of Point Pleasant. During these events an army’s worth of three toed, red glowing eyed big foot like creatures were seen in conjunction with UFOs. These somewhat big foot like creatures were often seen doing rather inexplicable things, such as carrying around glowing orbs and exploding into light. Other cryptids were seen in conjunction with these events, such as thunderbirds and phantom panthers. Due to the timing of events, its possible that this creature was also associated with these events, even though it’s not a big foot itself.

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQrELGStGBo&list=PLK2GSIQQ7LjC4kuBbuzNdoOgmtK9e8kZ9&index=121

https://newworldexplorerssociety.blogspot.com/2021/08/wood-eating-amish-country-goose-grabber.html