Fire and Brimstone in Bracken County

It was late at night on February 13th of 1866 when the owners of a local plantation in Bracken County, Kentucky were disturbed from their previously-peaceful slumber by a great pandemonium from the slave quarters. Springing from their bed to see what the source of the chaos was, Nathaniel G. Squires and his wife were dismayed to discover a towering monstrosity, the likes of which one would expect only to find in a Hieronymus Bosch painting, lurking about their plantation.

## A Satanic Simian Spectre

Being shaken from their sleep by the sounds of the hysterical screams of their slaves, the Kentuckian couple discovered that their room illuminated '*as brightly as by a flood of sunlight*' with an unnatural bluish light. Their first thought was that the slaves' quarters must be in the process of being consumed by flames, but this assumption was quickly put to bed when they looked out of their windows at the quarters in question, which were '*immediately to the rear of the house*'. Stood to the right of the upper cabin, near the fence which separated the slaves' garden from the house yard, was an enormous creature that '*curdled the blood in their veins with horror and filled their hearts with utmost terror*'.

They described it as being nearly as tall as the cabin itself, and as having a head comparable to that of an ape with two small white horns situated above each of its eyes. Its long arms were covered in greyish hair and ended in feline paws armed with '*huge and hooked claws*'. Everywhere except the arms, the body was of a dingy brown colouration. The monstrosity's chest was comparable to that of a decently-sized ox in width, and its vaguely-equine legs terminated in cloven hooves. Continually flicking about in the nighttime air, its long tail ended with a '*dart shaped horn*' - and its eyes burned like flaming coals while '*sheets of blue colored flame*' were expelled from its mouth and nostrils with an awful hissing sound compared to that emitted by a serpent, only '*a thousand fold louder*'. The acrid smell of sulfur hung in the air all around it.

The daughters of the horrified husband and wife hurtled into the room upon hearing the commotion, and immediately beheld the same eldritch monstrosity stood nightmarishly close to their otherwise-peaceful abode. Obviously, however, the slaves were much worse off in this situation - seeing as they were *'evidently laboring under the extremest terror*' and two of their number were apparently driven to insanity by the horrific sight. These were an old woman and a young boy who had not regained their reason at the time of the source's publication.

A '*spiral column of flame*' suddenly enveloped the infernal intruder, reaching nearly to the top of the adjacent locust trees and hiding its monstrous form entirely from the view of the onlookers. Almost as quickly as the anomalous flames had sprung up - they vanished, taking the ostensibly-demonic apparition with them. According to the source, 'the same or similar creature' made its presence known at various other plantations on several other occasions. I need to track down those reports...

## Source

'Unnatural Phenomena: A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America' by Jerome Clark