Serpentfolk vs Spelunker

Lon Strickler, the owner of the extremely useful ‘Phantoms and Monsters’ website, received a typed letter in the mail from a man who shall be identified using the pseudonym ‘Jerry’ about a terrifying encounter he had with a reptilian humanoid while exploring a cave in Missouri. Jerry now lived on the West Coast of North America, and although Lon claims that other personal information was given in the letter, he says that he removed it to preserve Jerry’s anonymity.

## The Incident

At the time of the encounter, Jerry owned a small business which he had started after finishing a 12-year stint in the military. He was living near Eldridge, Missouri, and had been raised in that general area and so knew the terrain quite well. He had spent time at the US Army Engineer School in Fort Leonard Wool, Missouri - and some of the training he had been given included spelunking. When he left the Army, he continued exploring caves as a hobby.

In 1993, he helped form a local group of experienced cavers, who would get together on weekends to explore some of the cavern systems in Missouri and Arkansas. However, he was on his own on what would turn out to be a fateful day in the Summer of 1995…

He had decided to investigate a cave in Camden County, Missouri, which was apparently part of a ‘*fairly large system in the area*’. From what he could tell, ‘*this particular cave had not been explored for a long period of time*’. The entrance to the cave was very narrow and well-hidden, and after squeezing through the opening, Jerry descended for around another 50ft before the cave began to open up into a series of chambers. He wandered through several of the chambers, taking his time ‘*to examine the area for possible artifacts and formations*’. Eventually he reached what he thought was the end of the cave, and it was then that he started to hear a rustling sound echoing out from a small opening near the top of the chamber. He chalked the sounds up to bats, and so didn’t pay much attention to them. However, he eventually began to hear ‘*motorized sounds and talking*’, and so stood there and listened for several minutes in curiosity. The opening was about 10ft above him, and so he maneuvered himself up to the opening, which was flat and narrow but big enough for him to get ‘*a decent look into it*’.

As he positioned himself to the front of the opening, he could see light at the other end. Although the hole was only a few feet long, it was too narrow for Jerry to move through. As he was looking through the opening, a very warm draft of air with ‘*a very acrid vinegar-like odour*’ hit his face. On the other side of the opening, there was a very large and well-lit room with limestone walls, and Jerry quickly noticed a small vehicle resembling a golf cart, but which was very low to the ground and lacked wheels. He continued to observe the contents of the chamber until he started to hear voices, which were getting louder and nearer. Something was clearly making its way towards the vehicle - and he was dumbstruck, rubbing his eyes in disbelief, when he saw what was making the noises.

*‘This ‘creature’, because it was not a man, stood about 7 foot and had brown scaly skin. The face and head were shaped like a human with a flat nose but there were no ears or hair. The top of the head had a slight scaly ray or ridge that extending down the back of the neck. From what I could see it had lips and regular sized eyes. The arms were very long and muscular with human-like hands. It also had a massive 4-5 foot tail that tampered to a point. It was dressed in a gold metallic outfit with long pants and shoes. It also carried an oval pack attached to its back.*’

## Continued Investigation

Any grammatical errors in that description were on behalf of the witness, and have not been corrected or altered in any way. Anyhoo - Jerry watched as the entity was looking at something on the vehicle, and he suddenly remembered that he had a high-speed camera which he usually used to document his cave explorations. He was able to obtain ‘*a few distorted images of the being*’. While he was taking photos, however, the creature stopped and turned to look in his direction. ‘*I’m not sure if it heard me but it definitely knew of my presence*’. It made a terrible hissing noise as it stared at him, and it was at that moment that Jerry decided to hastily retreat from the cave. When he reached the entrance, he was ‘*shaking and hyperventilating*’. He finally reached his vehicle and drove home.

Jerry continues to explore caves in the area, and has heard other stories of people encountering strange underground beings (several of which I have also read and will likely cover at some point in the future), but he has never disclosed his experience except to Lon Strickler. A few years after his experience, he was able to go back to the cave but found that he was unable to get near to it due to it now being government property. He assumes that he saw something that he wasn’t meant to see, and it pains him ‘to think what secrets are being kept from us’.

He does have the distorted photographic images that he mentioned earlier, but did not wish to disclose them to Lon. Instead, he forwarded a computer-generated image that he felt most closely resembled the being he encountered. This image is included above.

## Source

https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2011/10/missouri-caver-encounters-underground.html