The Changeling Child of New Jersey

Mike was only thirteen years old when his cousin was stolen from him. It was July of 1993, and he was spending part of the Summer with his grandparents at their house in rural New Jersey. The properties in the neighbourhood were mostly open, but were all bordered by thick brush and woodland. His grandfather's sister was living next door, and several of his cousins were just down the road. It was the perfect setting for a holiday with all the extended family. On the particular night in question, it was humid and hot. Mike's cousins suggested that they all go outside and play a game of hide-and-seek in the darkness - and although he obliged, he wasn't really too keen on the idea. He was a city boy by nature, and he wasn't much of a fan of the woods. His plan was to stay as close to his fellow seekers as he could. One of the participants in this fateful game would seemingly never make it out of the forest.

## Erlkönig

Mike and his cousin Chris ran for the bordering forest at the edge of the property, hiding there among the dense trees illuminated by the light streaming out from the nearby houses. They could see just fine despite the nighttime blackness, but the state of the visibility in the area wouldn't be their biggest problem soon. The tense silence of the childhood game was shattered by the unmistakable cries of a young girl in pain. One of the other cousins had managed to run directly into one of the parked cars while looking behind her to see if she was being chased. She started crying in pain, and the family all gradually emerged from their various hiding spots to see what had happened.

Mike and Chris were making their way back through the forest, walking parallel to a large, thorny rose-bush as the ruckus unfolded around them. Mike was lagging approximately eight feet behind Chris, and was doing his damnedest to catch up. What happened next, he will '*never forget*'. What he would later describe as a swirling '*portal*' suddenly opened up on the edge of the bush, and the top portion of a creature's torso became visible to Mike. The entity emerged from the whirling blackness of the portal - Mike described the thing as massive and semi-transparent, and also said he could make out ears, or at least what he assumed to be such, near the top of the creature's head - and moved with an inhuman speed towards Chris. Chris didn't have time to struggle or run before the '*shadow*' clasped one of its giant hands around the boy's mouth and wrapped the other arm around his waist, pulling him backwards into the rose-bush portal. He had been snatched so quickly that his feet never touched the ground, nor did he make a sound, before disappearing from sight. The portal immediately closed, vanishing entirely - and leaving no indication behind of the entity's (or Chris's) former presence.

The whole incident had lasted about three seconds. Terrified, Mike leapt back before the situation fully dawned on him. He frantically called his cousin's name, getting as close to the thorny bush as he dared. Chris was nowhere to be seen. His grandmother was now calling for him to come back inside, and having not heard his panicked cries for his cousin, she refused to listen to Mike's attempts to explain to her what had happened. Chris was roughly eighteen years of age, and so Mike's grandmother wasn't particularly worried about him. He kept trying to tell her what had happened, but she only ever came to the conclusion that he wanted more time to play outside. She continued to demand that Mike come on inside, and his grandfather even showed up to give him '*a look to drop it*'. Mike then asked if he could go next door to tell his cousin's family what had happened, but his grandmother denied this request as well. Defeated, he sheepishly returned to his room - tossing and turning that night, waiting to hear the shrieks of police sirens or the wailing of an ambulance but hearing nothing. He eventually fell asleep.

Come daybreak, Mike ran outside, forgoing breakfast and making a beeline straight for the bush into which Chris had seemingly vanished. He covered the whole area, but was unable to find any evidence for the last night's events. '*No clothing, no blood, nothing*'. Next, he went to his aunt's house and asked her if anyone had seen Chris. I can imagine he breathed a sigh of relief (at least, before the spiralling sensation of bafflement dawned on him) when she replied that her son was simply in the back. Just a few moments later, Chris and his younger brother came out of the back room. Mike directly asked Chris about the previous night - what had pulled him into the bush, why he hadn't fought - but his cousin only stared blankly back at him as if he thought he was '*crazy*'. Chris wasn't only saying nothing, but seemingly acting '*very flippant*' about what Mike was saying.

Perhaps Mike started to feel a little sick to his stomach at this point. If Chris had been pulled into the rose-bush, he would've surely been covered with telltale scratches and scars. He was entirely devoid of any such signs. Both children turned and headed towards the front door, with Mike following along behind them. After his younger brother had left the house, Chris turned back to face Mike and gave him a '*massive, knowing grin*'. Understandably, this '*scared the life out of*' Mike.

Apparently from that point onwards, a very strange medical condition befell Chris - in which he would have random bouts of being entirely unable to walk, and needing to rely on a wheelchair to retain mobility. He would battle through these bizarre episodes, which sometimes lasted for up to a year, only for the problem to spontaneously resolve itself before repeating sometime later. His doctors had never been able to properly diagnose him, and as of when Mike spoke about this experience on *iNTO THE FRAY* podcast in 2018, he believes it still to be a bona-fide medical mystery. Last he heard, Chris's condition was continuing to deteriorate - but since that day, he never maintained contact with him. Mike still fears Chris - believing that '*the person who came back was not* (his) *cousin*'. He believes that Earth is something of a 'zoo planet', and that beings like that which kidnapped his cousin can enter and leave our reality at will.

## Analysis

It is interesting to me that this tale, from the early 90s, lines up so perfectly with the British changeling lore of the ancient past. A child is kidnapped, usually a male, before being replaced with an otherworldly duplicate. These duplicates are usually either children of the fairies requiring human milk from their new foster parents, or elderly fairy men needing a loving home in their final days. The kidnapped children are used for varying purposes depending on who tells the story - though one of the darkest variants of the narrative states that the children are used as breeding stock to strengthen the ailing fairy lineage. This same belief is perhaps linked to the modern-day folklore surrounding a supposed extraterrestrial hybridisation programme.

Mike seems to have lived something of a haunted life, with his interview on Shannon LeGro's *iNTO THE FRAY* podcast containing accounts of encounters with fairy-like entities as well as canine humanoids and other such anomalous beings. I will likely update this article with Mike's full story once I have had the chance to listen to the two hour interview in full.

## Source

*Beyond the Fray: Paramalgamation* by Shannon LeGro and G. Michael Hopf