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Revenants

Spectral creatures and night demons

Not every revenant was once human. England's Black Shuck, the hellhound that burst into the church at Bungay in 1577, Victorian Spring-heeled Jack, Mexico's La Llorona or Japan's slit-mouthed woman are creatures people believed in strongly enough to keep children indoors while police organised manhunts. This is the borderland of folklore, mass hysteria and real crime.

cases
24
years
1550–2026

Disputed: 10 Legend: 8 Explained: 6

  1. 16th century

    1. c. 1550 Spectral creatures and night demons · Legend La Llorona – the Weeping Woman of Mexico Plaza Mayor (Zócalo), Mexico City, Mexico A woman in white who wails by the water at night, “Oh, my children!” – Latin America's most famous phantom has roots in records from the Conquest.
    2. 1577 Spectral creatures and night demons · Disputed Black Shuck – the Black Dog of Bungay and Blythburgh St Mary's Church, Bungay, Suffolk, United Kingdom During a storm on Sunday 4 August 1577 a black dog is said to have burst into two Suffolk churches, killed worshippers and left scorch marks on a door.
    3. c. 1587 Spectral creatures and night demons · Legend The Basilisk of Krzywe Koło Krzywe Koło Street, Old Town, Warsaw, Poland A monster that killed with its gaze was said to lurk in an Old Town cellar – until a convict covered in mirrors defeated it.

  2. 17th century

    1. c. 1650 Spectral creatures and night demons · Disputed The banshee at Lady Honor O’Brien’s window Lady Honor O’Brien’s house in County Clare (possibly Bunratty), Ireland The English noblewoman Ann Fanshawe described a woman in white who cried out three times at her window – and by dawn someone in the house was dead.
    2. c. 1654 Spectral creatures and night demons · Legend Poulaphouca, the “púca’s hole” on the Liffey Poulaphouca waterfall on the River Liffey, County Wicklow, Ireland A Liffey waterfall was named the “púca’s hole” after a mischievous spirit said to spit on the blackberries after Samhain and carry off night travellers.

  3. 18th century

    1. c. 1800–present Spectral creatures and night demons · Legend The Hyenas of Harar and the Ashura Porridge Walls of the old town of Harar (Jugol), Ethiopia In Harar, Ethiopia, hyenas come into town every night, and once a year they are fed porridge – because, people say, they also devour jinn and evil spirits.

  4. 19th century

    1. 1837–1904 Spectral creatures and night demons · Disputed Spring-heeled Jack Old Ford (Bow), East London, United Kingdom Victorian England was terrorised by a cloaked attacker who leapt over walls, with claws and eyes like balls of fire, and who reportedly breathed blue flame.
    2. 1879 Spectral creatures and night demons · Explained Swift Runner and the Wendigo – the Fort Saskatchewan Case Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada A Cree man who killed and ate his family in the winter of 1878–79 said a wendigo had possessed him. He was hanged at Fort Saskatchewan in December 1879.
    3. c. 1890–present Spectral creatures and night demons · Legend El Familiar – the Devil Dog of Tucumán's Sugar Mills Former Santa Ana sugar mill, Tucumán Province, Argentina Workers at sugar mills in northern Argentina believed the owners kept a demonic dog in the cellar that devoured one of them every year in exchange for wealth.
    4. 1898 Spectral creatures and night demons · Explained The Man-Eaters of Tsavo – “Devils in Lions' Shape” Railway bridge over the Tsavo River, Kenya For nine months two lions dragged railway workers from their tents at night in Kenya. The men were sure they were not animals at all but vengeful spirits.

  5. 1900–1909

    1. c. 1900–present Spectral creatures and night demons · Legend Kushtaka – the Land-Otter People of Thomas Bay Thomas Bay near Petersburg, Alaska, United States The Tlingit tell of half-human, half-otter beings that lure the shipwrecked with the voices of loved ones. Prospectors at Thomas Bay claimed to have met “devils.”
    2. 1907 Spectral creatures and night demons · Disputed The foxes that keep vigil for the dying Lords Gormanston Gormanston Castle (now Franciscan College), County Meath, Ireland When the head of the Preston family lay dying, the foxes of Meath were said to gather at the castle and cry beneath the windows. In 1907 witnesses’ statements were taken.
    3. 1909 Spectral creatures and night demons · Disputed The Jersey Devil – a Week of Panic in 1909 Pine Barrens and Delaware Valley (Leeds Point – birthplace of the legend), New Jersey, United States In January 1909 hundreds of people reported a winged creature with a horse's head and hooves – schools closed and police fired at the “devil.”

  6. 1910–1919

    1. c. 1913 Spectral creatures and night demons · Legend The “Devil Baby” of Hull-House Hull-House, 800 South Halsted Street, Chicago, Illinois, United States For six weeks crowds of immigrants besieged Jane Addams’s famous Chicago settlement house to see a baby with horns and a tail that was supposedly hidden there.

  7. 1960–1969

    1. 1962–1980 Spectral creatures and night demons · Disputed Clairvius Narcisse – the Man Who Came Back as a Zombie L'Estère, Artibonite department, Haiti Buried in 1962, a Haitian man stood before his sister eighteen years later and said he had been turned into a zombie. Psychiatrists and an ethnobotanist took up his case.
    2. 1966–1967 Spectral creatures and night demons · Disputed The Mothman of Point Pleasant The “TNT area” – former munitions works near Point Pleasant, West Virginia, United States Two couples told police a red-eyed winged creature chased their car – for a year residents kept seeing the “Mothman.”

  8. 1970–1979

    1. 1971–present Spectral creatures and night demons · Explained The Old Hag – Newfoundland's Night Terror St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada You wake up paralysed, something is sitting on your chest and you cannot scream. Newfoundlanders said the Old Hag had come; a folklorist set out to learn why.
    2. 1976 Spectral creatures and night demons · Disputed Owlman – the Owl-Man of Mawnan Church of St Mawnan and St Stephen, Mawnan, Cornwall, United Kingdom Two girls on holiday in Cornwall reportedly saw a winged “bird-man” hovering over a church tower – and the legend of Owlman was born.
    3. 1979 Spectral creatures and night demons · Explained Kuchisake-onna – the Slit-Mouthed Woman Panic Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan In 1979 a rumour of a masked woman who asks “Am I pretty?” and slits mouths with scissors paralysed schools across Japan.

  9. 1980–1989

    1. c. 1988–present Spectral creatures and night demons · Legend The Pope Lick Monster – the Goat-Man of the Trestle Railroad trestle over Pope Lick Creek, Louisville, Kentucky, United States A half-man, half-goat is said to lure people onto a high railroad trestle outside Louisville. The legend is made up – but the train deaths are real.

  10. 1990–1999

    1. 1995 Spectral creatures and night demons · Explained The Chupacabra of Puerto Rico Canóvanas, Puerto Rico In 1995 Puerto Rican sheep and goats were found dead with puncture wounds, and a woman in Canóvanas described a spiny creature. The chupacabra was born.
    2. 1995 Spectral creatures and night demons · Disputed Popobawa – the Night Demon of Zanzibar Zanzibar Town, Unguja Island, Tanzania In 1995 panic swept Zanzibar: families spent the night around fires, afraid of the “bat wing” – a demon that attacks people in their sleep.

  11. 2000–2009

    1. 2001 Spectral creatures and night demons · Explained The Monkey-man of Delhi East Delhi (Laxmi Nagar and surrounding areas), India In spring 2001 Delhi residents sleeping on rooftops in the heat reported over 350 attacks by a “monkey-man” – at least two people died in the panic.
    2. 2009 Spectral creatures and night demons · Disputed The “Pishtacos” of Huánuco – the Fat-Stealing Gang Huánuco Region, Peru In 2009 Peru's police said a gang had killed people for their fat and called them pishtacos, after the Andean bogeymen. It soon became clear something was wrong.