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Big Hairy Men (BHM) are another feature in the UK's cryptozoological cache. This story came from Yorkshire, from a witness driving towards home in the early hours of the morning:

As I started the approach down a hill, which is grass banked on both sides, with a wooded area behind, I began to feel overwhelmingly terrified. The nearer I got to the dip in the valley, the more the panic was rising. There was no explanation for this at all. I tried to get a grip of myself, to no avail. There were no cars around at all; in fact, when I thought back, I hadn't seen another car on the road, either direction, for at least three quarters of an hour.

With the sheer terror beginning to escalate, I was almost at the bridge when I "saw" it. Stood at the side of the road and looking directly at me, was a very tall, shaggy, brown or black, fur covered shape. At my estimation, it must have stood over 2m tall, around 1.2m wide, with no visible limbs or eyes, but I sensed that the eyes were there somewhere, as I could feel them boring into the car...

The witness accelerated past the creature, and watched in the rear view mirror as it stepped off the curb into the road behind the car. Other BHM sightings are scattered across northern UK. Late in the twentieth century, a holiday maker spotted a three metre tall figure with glowing red eyes and covered in grey hair near Dundonald, Ayrshire. Woodland near Beckermet, Cumbria, is reputedly home to a two metre tall man-beast covered in ginger hair. Ben MacDhui, the second highest mountain in the UK has the Fear Liath Mor, an entity which may either be the British Bigfoot or a Brocken bow (an optical illusion caused by observer, mist and sun).

Merfolk are also quite at home in British waters. One of the most documented cases is the Wild Man of Orford (who also shares similarities with our BHMs). Around 1169, a hairy man was caught in the sea and brought to Orford Castle. He was unable to speak (even when hung upside down and tortured), and ate raw fish. He remained in the castle for six months before escaping back into the sea.

Not all merfolk are as forgiving as the Orford cryptid. Padstow Harbour was silted up by a mermaid who took exception to a fisherman who shot at her. Suffolk's River Gipping was home to a mermaid who dragged children into the water if they stood too close. When Aqualate Mere (Shropshire) was cleaned, a mermaid popped out from the water and threatened to destroy Newport and Meretown if her pool was ever emptied, while former occupiers of Knockdolian Castle had their bloodline cursed when the mistress of the building destroyed a rock upon which a local mermaid enjoyed sitting and singing.

Finally we return to those creatures that should be just too damn strange to believe (but it doesn't actually stop us). Blue Bell Hill, near Rochester, maybe most famous for its phantom hitchhiker, but one motorist spotted an ostrich there. He stopped to investigate, but the bird transformed into a large black cat before running away. Lake Windermere's Tizzie-Wizzie is a hedgehog/squirrel/bumblebee chimera, rarely seen due to shyness. A slug the size of a whale crossed the road from Glossop in the Longdendale Valley in front of a cyclist who paused to let it pass, while the Malvern Hills may be home to a humanoid eagle who attached four people while out walking. Sanctuary's cryptids may be weird, but my gut tells me no weirder than those already reported.

The Paranormal Diary:

11 March

The Banks of Loch Assynt (Highland)
The site where a debt ridden schoolmaster murdered a peddler for his gold is marked once a year by the sounds of the crime being reenacted - the crack of something hard being brought down on the salesman's head, followed by footsteps, a body being dragged, and the splash as the corpse is thrown into the water.

14 March

Hopton Castle (Shropshire)
The ghosts of twenty eight Parliamentarians return on this date. The soldiers held out in the castle against a force of five hundred Royalists for two weeks, the siege only ending when the defenders were tricked into surrendering in exchange for their lives - they were slaughtered as they left the building.

Darren Mann
www.paranormaldatabase.com