Most legends and lore we discuss here in CryptoVille have a basis in long-held belief systems of ancient peoples. Their stories percolate up through time and still exist to frighten people today. But there’s a new crop of legends that have no historical basis. Instead they pop up like an unwanted pop-up ad and spread across the internet inflaming the imaginations of those gullible enough to believe in them. How did all this get started? Join us as CryptoVille investigates!
Creepy Pasta. What is it? I’ve seen it around the internet but didn’t pay much attention to the term thinking it was probably something stupid. Then I happened upon a video from Hammerson Peters, a Canadian historical researcher whose videos and stories intrigue me. What I like about him is that he covers stories of strange and cryptid themed events occurring in his country. Often times, he interviews the people involved in sightings and reports. So far, he’s proven to be level-headed in his reporting and thorough in his research, so I value his opinion on things cryptozoological.
In this latest video that I watched, he discussed the origins of Creepy Pasta and what it has done for the cryptid world, for better or worse. Then he goes on to describe some very weird accounts that put a strange spin on the whole phenomenon.
Read on and I’ll explain as we go. As per usual with things mysterious, it will be a bit mind-boggling.
Origins of Creepy Pasta
The term “Creepy Pasta” refers to scary stories and images that appear out of nowhere on the internet. Then after some kind of interval, they start growing in popularity and spread all over the web. These stories and images are all created by regular people, creating and developing creatures in their own imaginations and sharing them with the world at large.
So right there and then, you can say, well it’s all fiction, so no truth to any of it. And I’d have to agree 100%. But the internet being what it is, these myths can take a bizarre turn and end up being a sensation.
Let’s review a couple of those instances.
Slenderman
This creature was created on June 10, 2019 by Eric Knudsen, a U.S. expat living in Japan. He created it for a Photoshop contest. According to Peters, Slenderman circulated through various online forums and for whatever reason, went viral.
Slenderman was originally described as tall, thin, with a featureless face, dressed in a skinny suit who preyed on children. As the story went viral, people expanded on this original creature and created their own story lines and additional characteristics for the monster. The end result, as Peters describes, is he became a “full-blown 21st century boogeyman.”
Knudsen was interviewed in 2012 by BBC radio 4 where he said, “Some people believe he might be real.” It seems they did despite the fact he freely admitted he created the creature for the Photoshop contest two years before.
Tragically, in 2014, two young girls in Wisconsin badly stabbed a third girl. She survived but the young perpetrators said that Slenderman had made them do it so they could “earn a home in Slenderman’s mansion in the woods.”
The Rake
According to Peters, the Rake was “born” in 2005 when an anonymous poster decided to create a new monster. He described it as humanoid, about six feet tall, very pale skin, blank face with no nose or mouth. It did have three green eyes, though, one in the forehead, and the other two on either side of the head. It walked on all fours, usually, and when it attacked something, a big gaping mouth appeared, filled with teeth.
Some have suggested that this creature was built upon cryptids seen in the 2005 horror film, ‘The Descent.” In that movie, the monsters are referred to as Crawlers, and they do resemble the description of the Rake, but not entirely.
The Rake’s development can be traced from a post on a Russian social network site called “Live Journal” in December of 2008. It next appeared on the 4Chan site in April of 2009. Two months later it showed up on a site called “Something Awful” and that’s where Eric Knudsen encountered it and that inspired him to create his Slenderman.
By 2010, fan art and creative fiction surrounding the Rake was booming across the internet. But it wasn’t until 2012 that someone posted a photo of what looked like a close rendition of a Rake on the internet. The creature seen in the photo is pale, hairless, humanoid in shape, but only has two eyes in front of its head with a slit for a nose and a gaping mouth. After that, people began reporting encounters with this thing in real life.
So how did we go from a work of fiction on the internet to people seeing it in real life? I suppose that could be the subject of a doctoral thesis as the possibilities and factors playing into it seem extensive. But for the sake of this little article on CryptoVille, we’ll let that just sit for now.
Social Media Weighs In
Quite a few people on various social media sites suggested the Rake was related to creatures from Native American folklore, namely Skinwalkers of Navajo legend, or Wendigo of Cree and Algonquin legend. In a nutshell, Skinwalkers were shapeshifters who could change into animals as they pleased while Wendigo were evil cannibalistic spirits.
Other people on the internet referred to them as Fleshgaits (referring to some Japanese movie featuring them as monsters), Goatman, or Crawlers (referring back to the 2005 movie). But an unsettling undertone was developing here and that was people were reporting sightings of creatures resembling the Rake who had never heard of the movie featuring the Crawlers, and who didn’t read anything about cryptids on the internet.
So what were/are they seeing?
Peters’ opinion is that this leaves us with two possibilities:
- That Knudsen somehow contrived a character that already existed out in the world.
- That the human imagination somehow willed them into existence.
My own opinion lands closer to Peters’ first option. I think the Rake sounds and looks like a demonic creature and because of that, it could have been lurking around the world for millennia but we didn’t have social media to focus a spotlight on it for all of humanity to see until recently. Yet it’s not so special or bizarre looking that any artistic person couldn’t have created it from their own imagination.
Sidestep to the Bigfoot phenomena. Steve Isdahl has hinted that there are other, frightening and strange creatures lurking out in the woods in his native British Columbia, and likely beyond. He hasn’t specified what these could be but it makes me wonder if they are things like this demonic creature. Just a thought.
Don Herbert’s Encounter
Peters interviewed Don Herbert extensively about his experiences with what sounds like a Rake-like creature. I’ll summarize it here for you.
Don Herbert is a miner living in Hay River, Northwest Territories (NWT) of Canada. His work schedule requires him to be at the mines for two weeks at a time, alternating with two weeks at home. His sighting of a crawler occurred in August 2018.
Herbert was on vacation and had a week to go before having to return to work. He was driving along a remote highway (Highway 2) that more or less followed the Hay River. He’d left town and was a few miles along the highway, surrounded by the boreal forest at twilight.
Suddenly, he noticed a pale, crouched figure in a ditch at the side of the road. He described it as grayish-white, hairless, bald, with no visible ears. It did have eyes but he thought it was “cruel looking.” Herbert added that its mouth was beak-like.
Though crouched, his impression was that it had long spindly legs, and that it was highly intelligent. The creature quickly bared its teeth then jumped onto the road near his truck. From there it raced alongside his truck on all fours as he tried to speed away. He went faster and eventually lost it in the darkening forest.
Interestingly, Herbert’s first impression was that it was a demon. Obsession overtook him and he researched the creature trying to find out anything he could about it, but there was little to nothing to learn.
In the aftermath, he claims the experience changed him. His behavior changed, he became more wary and frightened. For example, the next time he had to bring the trash to the curb for pick-up, he went out in the evening, down his long driveway. Across the street was a streetlight, and beyond it a field surrounded by deep, dark woods. Herbert reported that he felt uneasy the whole time he was bringing the trash to the curb. He continually scanned the tree-line, waiting to see something.
Herbert was so unnerved that he didn’t turn his back to the woods. He back-stepped his way up to his front deck, and only then turned around to go inside. That’s when he realized his encounter had had a profound effect on him.
He returned to his work rotation soon after and discussed his sighting with coworkers. They had no information or related experiences to share. He continued to search the internet. He wondered if he had hallucinated the creature, or had he encountered a legitimate cryptid?
He finally decided that he wanted to hunt down the creature and kill it, whatever it was. That was the only way he felt he’d get closure from the trauma he suffered. So, he completed his two-week tour of mining and headed home. His friend and fellow miner, Tim, gave him a ride home from the airport. Herbert told Tim about his plans to hunt and kill the creature.
On September 4, 2018, Herbert threw his luggage into his house and got in his truck. He set off down the highway with the idea he’d look for tracks first on the side of the road where he’d seen the creature. Sure enough, he spotted a “skid mark” where the creature had leapt at him. Still uneasy, he wasn’t about to get out of his truck, but he videotaped the skid mark on his phone.
Tim lived nearby so Herbert drove right over to his home. He showed Tim the track and asked him to come back with him so he could explore further. Tim agreed. This time Herbert got out of his truck and explored the area in the ditch next to the road.
He found more tracks in the soft dirt of the ditch. Tim said he thought they looked like goat tracks, only goats were not known to inhabit their area of the NWTs. Herbert felt relieved at this point, believing they were dealing with a real creature now, not something paranormal.
He took Tim home and returned to his home. During his time off from work, he investigated an abandoned gravel pit about a mile from his sighting. He went there every morning for days looking for signs of matching tracks. Finally, on day 12, he found them. There were two sets and Herbert believed they were from a mother and baby walking together.
Herbert searched the side of the road again and found a few more tracks. One thing he noticed, the creature’s tracks were always found in the vicinity of wolf tracks. For that reason, he believed the creature was a scavenger, eating the remains of whatever the wolves caught.
However, in my mind, it makes me think this cryptid was actually a wolf, perhaps an albino one, perhaps one with the mange. It walked on all fours, followed around a wolf pack without being killed itself – that all points to it being a wolf, in my mind.
What about the tracks resembling a goat? Well, in his report Peters did mention it had rained in the interval between the actual encounter and Herbert’s follow-up visit. So, the weather probably degraded the original tracks.
Peters asked Herbert to draw a picture of what the creature looked like on the night of his encounter. He couldn’t draw well, but he found a similar drawing of what he saw on the internet. And you have to know, it looked like the Rake.
The photos of the tracks Herbert found were shared with a wildlife expert specializing in tracks. He said the first two photos show what look like wolverine tracks, and the third photo shows a wolf track.
A few months later, in November 2019, Herbert thought he caught the creature on trail cam and sent the photos to Peters to examine. There was a day time photo sent too, for comparison, and what is clear to anyone viewing the photos, the “creature” seen in the photo at night was certainly the bunch of tangled brambles seen on camera in the daylight.
Quesnel Redditor
This report came through on Reddit by someone identified only as MZULFT989, or something like that. He had some sightings of a strange, Rake-like creature in his hometown of Quesnel, British Columbia (BC), Canada. Here’s a summary of his experiences:
- Early summer 2018, he spied a humanoid creature running super-fast across the field behind his house. It vaulted over a 5.5-foot fence and disappeared into the woods. He described it as 7 feet tall, pale, emaciated, with a gaping mouth and no eyes. Ran on two legs like a man.
- August 2018: He saw it again running through his property, then it jumped the fence and disappeared into his neighbor’s yard.
- August 2018 Two weeks later: Saw the creature peering at him from the around the side of his house. It frightened him so he ran inside. Later, he examined the side of the house where it had been and found scratch marks on the side of the house.
- October 2018: Redditor was sitting on his front porch overlooking the field. The creature appeared again and ran across the field. Midway, it stopped and stared at the man. Then it continued running, hopped over the fence and into his neighbor’s yard again.
- No date: He noticed the creature staring at him through a window. He dashed upstairs to get his bow and arrow to shoot it, but by the time he returned, it was gone.
- November 2018: Redditor saw the creature staring into his barn. It turned and looked at him. He said he felt like the creature had just realized he could see it. The creature shrieked then ran off, jumping the fence, into his neighbor’s yard, and down into the woods beyond.
Is this all made up? Are there aliens living amongst us? Or is this some other type of demonic creature? There’s no way of telling. It kind of reminds me of the Fresno Crawlers that I’ve written about on CryptoVille before, but this creature is much more agile.
Missy Sterling’s Account
This lady called and reported her encounter to Peters directly. In a nutshell, this is what happened to her.
Missy was driving back from her Mom’s home in Columbus, MO, to her home in Vernon, AL. Despite being in different states, they are basically on either side of the border between the states, so it wasn’t that far.
She was driving at night, down a dark road and saw something on the road ahead in her headlights. She slowed down to the point where she stopped just in front of the creature. She described it as a baby creature that was chalk white with huge black eyes and a slit for a mouth.
Suddenly it screeched and she was terrified. Missy felt like it “scrambled” her. She got around the creature and quickly headed for home, badly shaken.
Afterwards she wondered if she had hallucinated the creature, or was she just going crazy. She turned to the internet to find out what she could. What she found was a video by Richard Grebenik that shows some kind of white, again – Rake-like creature stalking a huge moose. She said what she saw resembled that creature.
I saw the video and my first thought was that the moose looked 100% undisturbed. We all know what animal senses are like, so if it was in any sort of danger, surely it would have reacted to this thing “stalking” it, right?
Well, the point here is whatever Missy saw looked like it could have been a baby version of what’s shown in Grebenik’s video.
Creepy Pasta or Creeping Fear
So, what’s going on here with all these reports of Rake-like creatures honing into view of ordinary citizens not only in Canada, but around the US, too? Are they something paranormal? Alien? Or creatures we’ve yet to discover, much less understand?
I suspect a LOT of these sightings are hoaxes, but the one thing that gives me pause and makes me wonder if there isn’t something else unsavory lurking in our forests is this: the reports coming to Steve Isdahl, and I suspect Dave Paulides, about encounters people are having in the woods with creatures that aren’t Bigfoots. They’re something else.
If you watch Steve’s videos on YouTube (HowToHunt channel) you’ll start to get a good feel for how he operates, how he views things, and the same with Dave Paulides (CanAmMissing).
Hammerson Peters covered another story or two in this video I watched so if you’d like to hear more about these Rake-like creatures, please see the References section below.
One thing I am sure of, though, is that all things Slenderman are 110% hoax, so disregard that. The Rake – I think is a subconscious outgrowth of ancient legends like the Skinwalker and Wendigo, both of whom are demonic manifestations in my humble opinion.
Try not to be spooked, though, and go enjoy your Halloween! Stay safe Villies, and I’ll see you back here next time!
Whatever you do – be careful if you venture into the woods!
References
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VDGY1kfG0k&list=WL&index=74&ab_channel=HammersonPeters