Black Flash

The **Black Flash** is a the name given to the mysterious nocturnal specter that terrorized the town of Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1939. And although the first accounts came from children and were dismissed as part of an elaborate prank, it was not until the second week of October of that year that the prank ushered in a season of terror.

## Description

On a night shortly before Halloween; Mary Costa was walking back home when, passing by a road a few streets from the town hall, she came across something she had never seen before. Blocking his path was a tall, thin man covered in a black cloak that billowed in the wind.

According to the young woman, the being observed her in silence with eyes that shone as if they were made of metal, and then burst out laughing. Mary she ran away, not without realizing that the being disappeared jumping over a fence and still laughing. The young woman managed to find an open cafeteria, where she reported what had happened and called the police. Several men who were eating at the premises went out to look for the creature but without any success.

The police did not take the report seriously, filing it away in the pile of reports from concerned children and parents. Shortly after Costa saw the vaporous being, the police were inundated with a series of mysterious reports; where everyone agreed on three things: That the being dressed in black and wore a great cape like Dracula's, had pointed ears and that his eyes shone with a metallic or reddish glow.

The stories also added other details, such as that the being was accompanied by a buzzing sound similar to that of a cycad, that its laughter sounded like something metallic, and that it had the power to jump higher than a man could. Shockingly, many of these reports were taking place at the same time but in different parts of town; which presented three possibilities, each one more terrifying than the last: That he was super fast, that he could teleport, or that they were dealing with a group of those beings.

Most reports insisted that the apparition seemed content to strike fear into those who saw it. Although there were a handful of cases in which the aggressions reached the physical: a man who unloaded his hunting rifle at the stranger without any success, another who ended up with a broken wrist trying to defend himself, and finally one more who was pushed several meters in the air. From this, it was concluded that the being only scared children and women; but that he enjoyed physically attacking grown men and 'teasing' them.

By the last week of September, the press had dubbed the strange entity various names: The Provincetown Ghost, the Black Ghost, the Phantom Fiend, the Provincetown Fiend, and the Black Flash; the latter being the one that became ingrained in popular culture.

Speculation about his being, identity, and behavior grew rampant; and although the Provincetown police explained that it was a prankster, the imagination of the townspeople turned into a mass hysteria, a panic that mentioned demons, ghosts, vampires and even that it was Satan himself.
Stories of encounters with the Black Flash continued until 1945, when in November, a group of children playing in a schoolyard reported seeing the monster in broad daylight. An hour later, a squad of police officers went to the scene and indeed, they saw the Black Flash jumping over a three-meter-high fence and disappearing among a series of trees. That same night, an old man called the local police headquarters to say that he had not only seen the Flash in his backyard, but had struck him with a bucket of boiling water.

When the story hit the Boston and New York news networks, more than a few recognized the look and modus operandi of the gruesome apparition in a 19th-century legend.

During the mid-19th century, the urban areas of London were sporadically besieged by a mysterious being nicknamed Jack Spring Legs, who, just like the Black Flash; he wore extravagant clothes of black color, had eyes that glowed, and possessed superhuman agility and speed. Some outlets at the time suggested that this connection was not coincidental, and that Jack was the same creature as the Flash; a kind of demon that appeared from time to time (an idea that was revisited more than seventy years later in the Jeepers Creepers film saga) to feed or cause panic.

Some researchers suggest that perhaps it was a series of collective hysteria, similar to what happened later in cases such as the Chupacabras or the myth of the Black-eyed Children, still encouraged by the recent memory of the narration of "The War of the Worlds" by Orson Welles the previous year. For their part, Provincetown and Massachusetts authorities agree that the Black Flash was real, but it was not a supernatural entity, but rather a group of pranksters who took advantage of the Halloween season. Years later, a man claimed to have been part of these pranksters, explaining that it was all accomplished thanks to a well-coordinated group of local boys operating in various parts of town to give the illusion that the Flash could be in various places. at once.

The story of the Black Flash ended as suddenly and mysteriously as it began. Since it is impossible to determine how much truth there is in it, if the testimony of the alleged culprit was true or if it even happened. It has been detailed in books, television shows, and articles on supernatural sites and magazines; but without reaching a satisfactory explanation.