For Fear of the Deerbat

The Jersey Devil clearly gets around. There are reports from all over North America, and even other countries, depicting creatures described as bipedal ungulates with bat-like wings. They are known as gargoyles, demons or any number of other names but their appearance seems to remain the same. Today I am going to present to you two cases in which the entities in question were simply described as 'Deer Dragons' or 'Deerbats'.

## The Oregon Oddity

It was June of 1996, and a motorist by the name of Lynn Johnson was driving through the Cottage Grove area when something bizarre darted out onto the road in front of her. It was moving with a bounding motion and was seemingly achieving speeds of about 70mph. Suddenly, '*at a sharp angle*', it unfurled wings that seemed to be too small to possibly support its body before immediately taking off into the black night sky and vanishing. Johnson thought that the creature she had seen must have been supernatural in nature, due to its wings being far too small to accomodate for its weight.

## The Illinois Incident

Dalton and his friend Nick were cruising around the lanes of northern Illinois near Rockford in the aforementioned man's *1997 Firebird*. As the day went on, they decided to head out to some secluded country roads to do some drifting and joyriding. They did this quite often. Dalton said that it was really just '*typical behavior from a 16 year old with a sports car*'.

Two hours later it was roughly 11pm, and the pair were still riding around in their fancy ride - of which Dalton was presumably quite proud. They were on a little gravel road surrounded by farmland, and it was certainly quite secluded but '*there were houses every so often*'. Nick and Dalton were talking amongst themselves while Dalton is repeatedly slowing down and pressing down on the gas pedal hard so that he could get his '*vehicle sideways on this straight patch of road*'.

The gravel road was flanked by thick cornfields on either side, with the stalks reaching to about '*head height*' because they were approaching the latter end of their growing season. As Dalton began to slow his car for what he estimates might've been the fifth time, he suddenly became aware of the corn shaking. He and Nick both fell silent and started to watch the odd movement of the crops - expecting to see a herd of deer burst out from it and run across the road. Thusly, Dalton slowed his car to allow the assumedly-oncoming herd to pass without incident. The corn was now '*shaking fiercely*' and the source of the movement was visibly approaching the road at great speed. He and his friend were transfixed to the corn with trepidation at this point.

About 8ft in front of Dalton's car, the corn suddenly parted and something propelled itself forwards out of it. Dalton is '*not sure how to describe*' it but knows that it frightened him to his core. The entity looked to be a jet-black deer at first glance, and was roughly the size '*of a big buck*'. Dalton's headlights were focused on the exact point at which the creature had emerged, and so he clarifies that the scene was well illuminated. As it leapt out of the thickly-sown field, it suddenly opened a pair of enormous wings and remained airborne - never coming down from its arc-shaped leap. It flew right out in front of the car, quickly executing an insect-like '*zig-zag*' motion at breakneck speed before shooting off into the sky above as if it had been '*placed in a canon and blasted in the sky*'.

Both teenagers evidently saw the same horrific creature, seeing as they immediately turned their heads skyward to look through the T-top of the car with the hope of catching sight of the monster, thus being able to know where it had gone. However, Dalton's headlights were pointing straight ahead and the sky was inky black, and so nothing was visible. In blind panic, Dalton '*floored*' the car while Nick begged him to '*GO GO GO*'. Speeding down the gravel road as fast as he could possibly move while still maintaining control, the boys fled the scene - driving for '*a good 15 minutes*' until they felt that they had reached safety. All the while, they were looking out for the creature in utter terror - because, although the period of time between when they had first seen the corn move and when the creature took off into the sky had only lasted roughly 30 seconds, they were inexplicably convinced that the entity was chasing them.

They finally stopped on a road where there were more people. Farmers were visible riding their tractors in the fields around them, and the presence of other people made the boys feel safer. Dalton decided to pull over to the side of the road - and the boys were immediately asking the obvious question of '*what the fuck was that!?*' - but they were unable to give each-other any satisfactory answers. They named it the '*Deerbat*' because it was apparently the size of a deer but had flown like a bat. Although it was roughly the size of a deer, it was apparently humanoid in shape, and was so perfectly black that it looked like it '*was covered in tar*'. Dalton noted that, while he was sure that what he had seen had four limbs as well as a pair of wings, he could not tell if these were all legs or if there was a pair of arms as well.

After they calmed down slightly, they noticed a '*harvest in progress*' sign in a field a couple yards away and so - being '*dumb teenagers*' by Dalton's own admission - they decided to steal it. Dalton ran into the field and grabbed it before quickly stuffing it into the back of the car and covering it with hoodies. Of course, it was a large metal sign complete with a highly noticeable pole sticking out of it, and so it was hardly inconspicuous in the back of their car. However, they managed to escape the area with their pilfered goods, and decided to pull into a gas station in the nearby town of New Milford because they were '*both thirsty and wanted a snack*'.

Dalton backed his car into a parking space facing the main road off the gas station, and not a minute after he had turned the engine off an '*old beat up rusted Chevy*' pulled in front of them - effectively blocking them. The windows of this mysterious vehicle were tinted as to ensure that the boys couldn't make out who was driving it or '*what was going on*'. Obviously intimidated, the boys decided to stay in the car and wait for the few minutes for which the Chevy sat in front of them. They felt that they had already been through enough that evening, and so didn't want to start any conflict. The car in front of them seemingly did nothing for several minutes before driving off and vanishing into the night.

The boys apparently felt that this was might've been someone who had seen them steal the sign and was noting down their number-plate, but this didn't make sense seeing as the Chevy had entered on the boys' left and exited on the right - meaning that it was never behind them to read their plate, seeing as Dalton didn't have a number-plate on the front of the car. After the mystery man left, the friends entered the gas station and bought themselves some chips and drinks before driving back to Dalton's house to sleep.

Dalton of course has no idea if the mysterious truck was related to the other anomalous happening that evening, but he concludes that it was '*creepy*' nonetheless. The best way he can describe the creature is by comparing it to the Creeper from the movie 'Jeepers Creepers' - and it was only later that he was watching a documentary in which Mothman was mentioned, and he came to the realisation that - minus the glowing red eyes - the Deerbat fit the description of the Mothman perfectly. Obviously the source for this story made the link between this report and the recent 'Chicago Mothman' flap.

## Stamp Collecting

Yes, I am 100% aware that the latter report doesn't actually fall into the Jersey Devil category. The details provided outside of the actual content of the article itself seemed to suggest that this was a 'Deerbat' encounter and so I filed it as such, resulting in the mix-up in which this case was published alongside a genuine Jersey Devil encounter. However, I still think that the description of cervine movement in the flying humanoid in question means that it is not entirely irrelevant to the article at hand.

## Sources

Monster! - The A-Z of Zooform Phenomena by Neil Arnold

https://www.singularfortean.com/news/2017/8/18/deerbat-seen-outside-of-rockford-similar-to-chicago-flying-humanoid