Lore - Episode 119: Evolution

Episode Date: July 22, 2019

Some stories have been around for a very long time, and others are fairly new. One thing is certain, though: the tales we tell have a way of changing over time. But that doesn’t make them any less powerful—or any less frightening. ——————— The Lore book series: www.theworldoflore.com/books The Lore TV show: www.Amazon.com/Lore Latest Lore news: www.theworldoflore.com/now Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The story is practically legendary. It's the sort of tale that draws you in with its own special blend of intense narrative and complete horror, and once they've read it from start to finish, most people have a difficult time forgetting it. It's said that a group of scientists in Russia ran an experiment in the late 1940s on a handful of political prisoners. The goal was to test the limits of the human body when faced with a lack of sleep, and to help them in that quest, these scientists used an experimental drug.

The five prisoners were locked in an airtight chamber, and then a prototype gas was added to the ventilation system. And it seemed to work. Five days into the experiment, all of the prisoners were still awake and alert. But something was different. Their minds were beginning to crack. Without exploring the horrific and gory details, everything came to an end over two weeks later when the prisoners were discovered to have lost all touch with reality.

Their madness even drove them to engage in cannibalism on themselves, and when the researchers intervened, they found that their subjects wanted nothing more than to remain awake forever, attempting to chemically induce sleep, only succeeded in killing them. Like I said before, this story is one of those perfect blends of history and horror. But there's a problem. None of it is true. It turns out the tale is nothing more than an urban legend, born not inside a Russian research facility in the 1940s, but as a story published in 2010 on the website known

as Creepypasta, which is equal parts disappointing, and a relief. The stories we tell have a way of sticking around, regardless of whether they're true or not. They pass from one listener to the next, sort of like a virus, until an entire community seems to be infected. And no matter where you grew up, or what sort of culture you feel at home within, there's a good chance you've heard a few of those tales yourself. Most of the time, we're safe to ignore them, or at least enjoy them for the entertainment

they provide. They're story, and nothing more, and that's okay. We need story. As a community, we depend on it to teach us and bind us together. Story is good. But to dismiss every single local legend as a fabrication would be like assuming every single lottery ticket is only going to earn you disappointment, because there is always a chance, however slim, that you'll strike it rich.

Sometimes those stories we tell around the campfire just might be true. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. Every story begins somewhere. Call it the birthplace of a legend, or simply the setting to which many of the details are tied. A location has a way of grounding a tale and making it feel more alive, more present. And there are few places that fit that bill more than the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center outside of Washington, D.C.

There are two ways we can view the 6,600 acres of land that make up the research center's property. On one level, it's nothing more than a Department of Agriculture facility that was created to help advance the science of farming and livestock management. It's been doing that for over a century, too, having been set up in 1910. The land contains pastures, forests, fields, and home for farm animals, and is dotted with 800 individual structures, but there's more to it than that. The property that's owned and operated by BARC, the acronym by which most people know

the research facility today, is off limits to the general public. Those who have been there claim that many of the hundreds of buildings scattered around the mass of Woodland are ancient, dilapidated farmhouses, giving the entire place a bit of a creepy vibe. But anytime the public is locked out of a space, it tends to invite rumors, much the same way Area 51 has over the years. For BARC, those rumors date back to the early days, when the original name for the facility was the experiment farm of the dairy and animal husbandry divisions, in other words, the breeding

of livestock. But if the stories are true, the researchers there explored more than farm animals, and it all started with a local doctor named Stephen Fletcher. The early stories suggest that Fletcher was a researcher at BARC in the early 1950s. He'd actually been raised in the area, and married his childhood sweetheart, Jenny. But it was a marriage that wasn't faded to last too long. In 1952, Fletcher's wife suddenly became ill, and before anyone could discover what was plaguing her, she fell into a coma.

The local hospital was unable to find a solution, and neither were Dr. Fletcher's contacts at his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University. Desperate for a cure, it's said that he turned to his own work at BARC to find an answer. And to do that, he enlisted the help of an assistant named William Lotsford. Now this is where the story takes a left turn, so I want to warn you that odd things are about to happen. Because for some reason, Fletcher's research involved combining the DNA of a goat with that of a human.

I realize that's not the most normal thing you're going to hear today, and for the life of me, I can't figure out how that was supposed to help his comatose wife. But if we're going to follow along with the legend, this is the road we need to take. Of course, just like any good horror film or science fiction novel, the product of that research eventually managed to escape. Some versions of the story say that Lotsford became something less than human, and fled the facility out of some sort of animal urge. Researchers claim it was a brand new creation that slipped out of the grasp of both researchers.

Either way, it vanished into the larger BARC property. And that's when the sightings began to be reported. All gathered together, most of them center around Prince George's County. Like a lot of local legends, the stories seem to find roots in specific roads, too, such as Fletchertown Road, Tucker Road, Lotsford Road, and many others. But to be honest, the locations are a lot less interesting than the things that have been sighted near them. What exactly have people seen over the years?

Well, it's been described as a human-like creature that stands on two legs and walks like a man. Reports of the creature's height vary wildly, sometimes as short as 4.5 feet, while other times close to 8 feet tall. It's said to be covered in hair, but distinguished by something that seems ripped from the pages of a fantasy novel. It's part man. Part goat.

Specifically, this creature is said to have the lower body of a goat and the upper body of a man. A few witnesses have claimed that its hair is white, but most agree that it walks on hooves and has curved horns that grow from its human-like head. I can't help but conjure up images of the ancient Greek idea of the Seder, that goat-like being that was the foundation for so many popular myths. Let's not forget the proto-Indo-European pastoral deity known as Pan. Both beings were similar in appearance, essentially a hybrid of a man and a goat, right down to

the horns and the hooves. Now, I'm not sure what to make of the connection, but I want to point out that in both cases, Pan and the Seder, that they were often symbols of fertility and procreation, which feels very coincidental when I tell you that one of the most frequent places that the creature has been seen over the years is around a road that most communities would refer to as Lovers Lane. In fact, those two distinct worlds, the risky teenage lovers and the ancient horn god of procreation, come together for a moment in that classic George Lucas film, American Graffiti.

And while the creature's name had been whispered for decades in Prince George's county, the film might just be the first place most people encountered it. For better or for worse, most people have heard of… the Goat Man. Now, I know what you're thinking. A creature that represents a cross between a human and a goat sounds like a chapter ripped from the pages of The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells. But if we set aside the absurdity of the creature's legendary origin story, and probably its name as well, what we're left with is a decades-long collection of eyewitness accounts of something

otherworldly and disturbing. Put it another way, while some of us might laugh at the packaging of this legend, the countless sightings over the years have left us reason to be afraid. One of the earliest stories about the Goat Man actually dates back to 1914, just four years after Barks settled in to begin studies and experiments on animals there. It's more of a fairytale story, involving a talking goat, a musical pipe, and dancing animals. But it has all the core elements we're looking for.

A man who takes on the features of a goat. It wasn't until almost four decades later that the legend blossomed into something bigger. In 1957, one of the first articles about the creature was printed in the local paper, The Prince George's Sentinel. Over a one-week span, over 200 locals called in with accounts of their own sightings of a creature that was described as guerrilla-like, which I can only take to mean hairy and upright but eerily human.

Later that year, the creature was sighted again by a young couple driving down Zugg Road, near Bowie. They too described a human-like animal, but when they pulled over to get a better look, it bolted off into the woods. This sighting, as well as the other ones from the previous year, encouraged a number of locals to organize hunts. As far as I can tell, they never found a thing. But one of the most memorable stories connected to the Goat Man took place back in 1962.

Now, my research team and I have not been able to track down the typical primary sources for a story like this, you know, newspaper articles or police reports, so we have to take this with a grain of salt. But the story has survived as both the representation of the fear people have felt toward the creature and the evolution that has taken place over the years regarding the legend itself. And for those reasons alone, this tale is worth sharing. It's said that the Goat Man has a home of sorts in the woods of Prince George's County. Some legends insist that it's an old farmhouse where goats were once raised, but honestly,

that might be a bit too contrived. Others just say he lives in the area as a sort of warning to adventurous teens to be careful out there. And that's a common way folklore has been used for thousands of years. The stories say that in 1962, a series of murders took place that left the police completely stumped. Over the course of months, at least 14 people vanished after heading into the woods for a hike.

Of course, the rumor mill got to work almost immediately, claiming that these hikers must have gone a bit too close to the Goat Man's home. But that was just a guess. But then there was a survivor, someone who managed to slip away and live to talk about it. According to their anonymous report, the Goat Man was incredibly violent, using an axe to dismember the victims that it brought back to its home. How this lone survivor was able to escape, we don't know, but they did tell the police

exactly where to find the other victims. When they arrived, the police found the dilapidated house filled with evidence of a violent encounter. Body parts and pools of blood were scattered about the rooms. But worst of all, according to the stories, was that a trail led out of the house and into the woods. A trail of wet, red blood, as if something had been dragged out into the night. When the police followed it, the trail ended at the opening of what they described as an ominous cave.

I'll admit that this is one of those stories that's difficult to believe. A murderous spree that took the lives of over a dozen individuals isn't something that leaves no paper trail or primary sources. But that doesn't take away from the fact that people believed deeply in what they've been told. While it's not universal, stories are often the ripples in the water caused by something real, and some have seen it with their own eyes. The summer after the reported murders, a couple was driving along a nearby road outside of

Huntington, Maryland when movement at the edge of the tree line caught their eyes. Although the husband only managed to glance sideways for a moment, his wife was able to get a better look. Her description fit the stories to a T. Five years later in 1968, another woman encountered the creature on a drive of her own. She was traveling through Beltsville, near another facility known as the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, when she spotted something in the road ahead. Oddly, whatever animal it was refused to move out of the way, so this witness was forced

to bring her car to a stop. And that's when she realized what it was. It was a tall, human-like creature, but covered in hair or fur. After a moment of silence, it turned and walked toward her car, and then pounded its fists on her hood before dashing away from the yellow glow of her headlights. The creature might have vanished into the woods, but it had never been more present in the minds of the locals there, and it was only going to get worse. The legend of the goat man, it seems, was far from over.

The roads around Prince George's County weren't the only places where the goat man could be found. Over the years, this creature became the default explanation for anything even remotely mysterious or creepy, and a number of stories from the 70s and 80s illustrate that trend perfectly. In April of 1971, a local farmer reported that he had gone out to feed his pigs one morning, only to find one of them in the hands of a hulking, man-like creature. It had been ripping the flesh off the pig's body with its mouth, but when the farmer arrived, it ran away.

Over that year in December of 1971, another article about the legend was published, and almost immediately new calls were received, because that's one of the powers of folklore. When it's front and center in your mind, it becomes the very first tool we reach for when we have a problem to solve, or a fear to explain away. In the fall of 1972, a local woman was out walking her dog in Greenbelt Park, just south of the bark property, when her dog caught scent of something powerful. She pulled her off the trail and into the underbrush, where she noticed something glimmer in the shadows.

Bending low, she made a horrifying discovery. The object was a watch, and it was still on the wrist of its dead owner. In March of 1980, another body was discovered, this time on the bank of a small creek near Bowie, just a little east of Greenbelt Park. This time, it was a troop of Boy Scouts who found it, which was unfortunate because this victim had been viciously dismembered. A later report from the coroner placed the blame on a large wild animal of some kind, but many locals just nodded knowingly.

This attack, like all the others, could only be the work of the goat man. The story was the same three years later, when a local went outside to check on their German shepherd. It had been known to be a noisy dog, but had suddenly stopped barking, and so the owner went outside to have a look around. What they found was deeply disturbing. The dog's body lay lifeless in the grass, its neck a bloody stump, and nearby, as if someone or something highly intelligent had placed it there, the dog's head was sitting

neatly on the lawn facing toward the house. In a region where stories of an axe-wielding monster were as common as sunlight and traffic, it didn't take long for the goat man to become suspect number one. And at the risk of making another pun, I think it's important to point out that for decades, this monstrous creature has served as the perfect scapegoat for all sorts of unexplainable reports. And most of the time, that's as far as it goes. Someone finds a body or a murdered animal, and they blame the creature.

But there's never any proof. All of them. Except for one. The fall of 1971 was tense for a lot of people who lived in the area around Bark. At least four dogs had been killed in their yard that year, and all of them seemed to have been killed by something large and vicious, but also something that was killing for pleasure rather than hunting for food. On November 2 of that year, a group of friends had all gathered at the home of local teen

April Edwards to watch some television. At some point, whoever was closest to the window turned and peered out into the darkness, squinting to see through the shadows. And then they gasped. There's something out there, they shouted, and everyone else immediately gathered around to see what it could be. What they found was almost too difficult to believe. Sitting on top of the pickup truck in their driveway was a large, ominous shape.

Every one of them could see it, like a black silhouette against the night sky. And then it climbed down and began to walk away. The descriptions of the creature were all the same. It was roughly the size of an adult, but covered in thick fur or hair. And while the legs it walked on seemed more like those of an animal, it used them like a human being. The following day, April Edwards stepped outside to look for her dog, a puppy named Ginger, but she was nowhere to be found.

After exploring the property, she and others widened their search and eventually made a grisly discovery at a set of nearby railroad tracks. It was Ginger, but only her head. The rest of the dog's body was gone. Years later in the early 90s, an investigator reached out to the teens who had witnessed the creature, including April Edwards. They had endured 20 years of ridicule for their story, with many people chalking it all up to the overactive imagination of rural superstitious teens, but they refused to back

down. All those years later, they still believed in what they saw. The creature, the shape, the details, all of it. And they also made a bold claim. That night in November of 1971, wasn't the last time they'd seen the creature. Decades after the first whispers of its existence, a goat man of Maryland still seemed to be alive and active. Then I'll leave it up to you to decide what that means.

Whether we take it literally, or approach it more as a legend that refuses to die, there's no denying the depth of belief in the minds of the people of Prince George's County. If you ever find yourself in the area around bark, it might be wise to follow the rules. Keep an eye on your pets, and never walk in the woods alone. Folklore is a tricky thing. It's not a living organism, like a human being or bacteria, but it certainly has a way of living and growing like one. Each story we tell takes on a life of its own and spreads outward, passing from one eager

mind to the next. And while it's not universal, there's an evolution that a lot of these tales from folklore go through. The oldest ones we still pass along seem to have lost their edge. Maybe it's our intimate familiarity with them, after generations of telling and retelling them to each other. Or perhaps the context they were crafted in no longer feels relevant to us today. Either way, the oldest tales seem to pose the least amount of risk.

But the newer ones, the urban legends, the whispers of mysterious killers and monstrous creatures, those are the ones that make us feel a bit more nervous. Our settings look a lot like the places where we live today. Their victims seem a lot more like us. And because of that, their villains feel a lot more real. The Goat Man is a powerful example of that evolution in action. Sure, folks have been talking about the creature for decades. But in the scope of human history, it's new and fresh.

It's a legend filled with highly relatable moments. Watching television, driving down the road, taking your dog for a walk, and all of that conspires to make the stories seem more possible. But at the risk of contradicting myself, it turns out that the stories about the Goat Man are a bit older than we might assume. And to understand how, we need to step backwards in time to the arrival of Europeans in the Maryland area in the early 1600s, because Maryland was one of the stopping points for English explorer Captain John Smith.

Now, Smith is most famously known for helping to establish the Jamestown colony farther south on the coast of Virginia. But in 1608, he sailed north and explored the Chesapeake Bay area. In fact, he made a map of the region that year, which includes a portion of Prince George's County. And he also met with the Piscataway people who lived there. Among the many stories they told him, the Piscataway spoke of a creature that lived in the woods.

It was described as a sort of shapeshifter, with a blend of human and animal features. Decades later in 1666, a visiting Jesuit missionary wrote down more information about the creature, and he included a drawing. It was an illustration of a human-shaped beast, a covered head to toe in hair. In Piscataway folklore, it even has a name, Oki. Like I said, old stories tend to evolve over time, so perhaps the legend of the Goatman from the 20th century is nothing more than a newer version of the stories about Oki that have been passed along for centuries.

And in the summer of 1990, the Goatman legend continued to evolve. According to the tale, a young boy was playing catch with his father at a local park when the ball zipped over his head and bounced into the woods. He eagerly dropped his glove and headed after it. A moment later, his parents heard a scream. When they arrived, the boy was standing still as a statue between the trees, tears running down his cheeks. When they asked him what was wrong, the boy told his parents that he had seen a monster,

but it had run away. And it wasn't his first encounter with it, either. According to the boy, he knew exactly where he'd seen it before. It's a dark thing with red eyes, he told them, and I see it every night, standing in the corner of my room. The legend of the Goatman of Maryland has a sort of flavor to it that makes it easy to assume it's unique, but that would be incorrect. In fact, other parts of America have eerily similar stories, and I'd like to share one

more of them with you before we're done. Click around after this short sponsor break to hear all about it. People have always been fans of a good mashup, and outside of music, folklore is a powerful place to find examples. Sometimes that look like animals, animals that behave and move like humans. There's something fascinating about the intersection of those two worlds. The werewolf is probably the most prominent to come to mind, but there are stories of similar creatures in the folklore of China, Turkey, Scotland, and various Native American

cultures in North America. There's even a cave in southwestern France that's famous for its prehistoric cave paintings, which historians believe date back about 15,000 years. And one of the images on the wall is that of a bison man. So yeah, people have been obsessed with this idea for a while now. And that's why I don't think anyone should be surprised that stories of the Goatman have spread beyond the region of southern Maryland. Partly because that's how stories work.

They spread from culture to culture. But also because, hypothetically speaking at least, if the oaky of Piscataway folklore was real, it would be silly to assume it only lived there near the Chesapeake Bay. Which is why one particular story from Wisconsin feels so connected to the legend. But rather than taking place in our modern world of automobiles and televisions, this one is a century older, when life was a little more simple. And if that sounds idyllic and romantic, that's okay, because our final story centers around a couple of newlyweds, and they were probably feeling romantic as well.

Even today, Hogsback Road is little more than a rough path carved through the trees atop a wide expanse of hill. It's paved today, but back in 1870, it was probably just a muddy stretch of wheel ruts and the occasional stone. And this was the route that our nameless newlyweds were traveling, eager to return home before sunset left them lost in the darkness. At some point on their way along that road, the couple's wagon struck a rather large stone and one of the wheels splintered.

The husband urged the horses to stop and then climbed out to inspect the damage. He was handy with most general repairs, so he hoped it would be a quick fix. But even in the fading light of the early evening, he could tell this was way beyond his skills. He stood back up and shook his head at his new bride. They were stranded, and that wasn't good. But he was willing to walk the rest of the way back to town and bring help back to fix the wagon, despite the darkness that was nearly there.

His wife protested. These parts were known for wolves and cougar, after all, even the occasional bear. That made it dangerous, and she wasn't about to let him risk his life like that. But he puffed up his chest and smiled and reminded her that he managed to survive the civil war. What's a simple walk back to town compared to that? It fell, and the husband set off. The young wife spent hours sitting wide awake in the back of the wagon, huddled in a blanket

against the chill. But eventually, the familiar sound of footsteps could be heard, approaching from a few yards down the road. He had returned, and she smiled in celebration. But then she began to hear other sounds. The sort of sounds an animal might make if it were rooting around, sniffing the air in an attempt to track something down. And as she sat in silence, listening in fear, she could also smell it.

The animal was coming closer. Finally, unable to keep her curiosity at bay any longer, she peered over the side of the wagon and came face to face with her visitor. It was as tall as a man, but had the head of a goat, complete with curved horns and a long face. It walked upright on its hind legs, but in almost every other way was more animal than man. Naturally, she screamed, and as she dropped back into the wagon, the creature bleated like

a goat and then dashed off into the darkness. And just like that, her encounter was over. Like a lot of similar stories, the young bride somehow eventually fell asleep. When she awoke, it was morning. The sun was above the horizon and the birds had begun to sing. Consciously, she glanced over the side of the wagon, but there was no sign of the mysterious creature she had seen the night before. But there was something.

She could still see footprints just outside the wagon, but they weren't human in size or shape. No, these prints looked more like they came from the hooves of a large animal. And there was more. As she followed the tracks with her eyes toward the side of the road, she noticed patches of red on the dirt and grass. Curious, she climbed out of the wagon and began to slowly follow the trail. She passed between dozens of trees and lost sight of the wagon until finally she stood

before an awful sight. It was the body of her husband. He had been ravaged by something horribly vicious, and what remained of his body now hung from one of the low branches of a tree. And just like that, the legend of the goat man embedded itself into the common folklore of the day. Whether it was nothing more than fanciful stories designed to entertain children around a campfire or the bloody remnants of something that actually happened, it's impossible

to say for sure. But either way, it highlights a powerful point. We're bound to find new stories hanging around no matter where we look. But are we ready for what we'll find? This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Taylor Hagridorn and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of a television

show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, theworldoflore.com slash now.

And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. And I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.