Decemystery 5: The NASA Gargoyle

Brood with him, lads!

I was tempted to not include this mystery due to its similarity to Point Pleasant's legendary Mothman. But, I wanted the entries in this miniseries to be as diverse as possible, and the NASA Gargoyle was bizarre enough that leaving it out felt criminal.

Sometime in 1986, at Houston's Johnson Space Center, a NASA archivist by the name of Frank Shaw was headed towards his car after work. It was on this fateful trip that he encountered something that traumatized him; a creature thought only to be a legend.

A gargoyle.

It was a ghastly figure; black in color. It was perched atop one of the buildings and sported a cape of sorts that was draped on its shoulders. Two large wings protruded from its back—or the cape.

Shaw stared at the creature, terrified and seemingly paralyzed, until the creature unfolded its wings. At that moment, Shaw found it within himself to make a mad dash towards his car. After fumbling his keys, he got in and sped off, never once daring to star back and see what the gargoyle was doing.

Shaw would later tell his superiors about what he'd seen—in spite of his fears that he'd be admonished for saying something so crazy. To his shock though, he was told he wasn't the first one to see the creature. Two other employees claimed to have seen it and the creature was blamed for the deaths of the stations two German Shepherds—which were mutilated, drained of blood, and had been killed near where Shaw had seen the creature. He was then told that there was a top secret file on the creature—something that I feel should warrant an immediate firing.

Sometime later, Shaw was visited by NASA spooks that had been flown in from somewhere. They demanded that Shaw pinky promise to never ever tell his story to nobody. For those interested: the story's now known because 18 years after Shaw originally saw it, his daughter—Desiree—spilled the beans.

Much like the Owlman of Cornwall and—to a lesser extent—the Mothman, the NASA Gargoyle was something that hasn't been seen since it was first sighted. The fantastical nature of Shaw's experience is a pill that one can either swallow or will spit out in disgust. However, Shaw's family rallied behind him and took his word as the truth. His experience matches up nearly perfectly with both the Mothman and Owlman. Whether or not this is a coincidence is something that'll vary from person to person

The NASA Gargoyle is likely nothing more than a large owl—or perhaps a load of hogwash. Or a Chupacabra with some wings. Though, to some, it may be a CGI creation tested on the public to fool the sheeple for the inevitable unleashing of Project Blue Beam. Whether or not you believe in the latter is something that depends on your intake of NASA CGI™. Still, the nature of the gargoyle shares a striking similarity to the Mothman and the Owlman. That, to some, is enough to make some question if they're all one in the same. Perhaps they are. Or perhaps they're all just holograms to divert attention away from NASA's cover-up of a flat Earth. Who knows.