Nagual on the Prowl

An anonymous witness was stationed at 29 Palms in the 1970s. The language used makes me think that the witness was probably in the military, and thus that the '29 Palms' in question was the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in San Bernardino County. One night, he and a friend decided to drive out into the surrounding desert towards the Joshua Tree National Monument. They were cruising down the road, having a loud and animated conversation while enjoying the cool nighttime air. However, their peace would be disturbed when they ran into a monster seemingly straight out of a Hollywood movie.

## Desert Dogman

The first sign that something was wrong would come when the witness suddenly heard a loud, repetitive knock on his driver's side door. At first he thought that he must've hit an animal and that it must've hit up against the window - and so he pulled over to check. There was nothing on the door, and there was no dead animal on the road either. Perplexed but willing to brush it off, he got back in the car and the pair continued driving. They had only made it another few miles down the road when the same noise made its presence known once again - but this time on the passenger side door. His friend 'began to get nervous' but the witness recounting the story says that he still thought that it was probably something car-related. He thought that maybe he'd had a blowout and had been driving on a flat tire.

Presumably frustrated at this point, the witness stopped again and got out once more. He methodically checked all the tires and all the doors, but still found nothing that could've caused the odd noises. Starting driving again for a second time - they didn't get far before the car suddenly stopped functioning. The lights went off and it started to slow down, and so the witness jammed on the breaks '*out of fear*' - stopping it in the middle of the road. He and his friend just sat there in frightened silence before the car came back to life just as suddenly as it had stopped. Due to the make of the car, the lights came on automatically and illuminated the road ahead of them.

To their horror, there was a figure crouched on the side of the road close to the passenger side of the car. '*It looked like a Hollywood movie creature*' and was described as resembling a large dog with an oversized head comparable to that of the werewolf from the movie *The Howling*. Both men panicked and loudly screamed in terror. The witness slammed on the gas - and as they sped away they could see that the monster stood up on its hind legs and ran across the road.

## Aftermath and Analysis

Almost 20 years after the incident, the witness heard a biology professor mention cryptozoology. He told him the story about the creature in the desert - and the professor, who happened to be a collector of folktales, informed him that what he had seen might've been a Nagual - a shapeshifting witch from Mesoamerican folklore known to have the ability to change itself into numerous animal-like forms. When the witness told his story on a now-defunct internet forum, he insisted that he did not want his name to be published for fear of ridicule - and it is for this reason that I think he is probably a credible witness. He would have no reason to lie.

## Source

https://web.archive.org/web/20160812091847/http://ufofreeparanormal.com/stories/viewstory.php?sid=1500