Decemystery (2020) 18: That Time the Monster From Jeepers Creepers Fell From the Sky

 

So far this year, I’ve refrained heavily from extremely silly, nonsensical stories. Sure, the Venusian Scorpion was a fairly outlandish and goofy concept, but at its heart: it still had something to base itself off of. There were supposed images of the entity in question and it did come from someone who you could call reputable. He had credentials, he had experience, and he was at least respected by other fellow scientists.

Because of this lack of a black sheep story, I figured that today, we could go ahead and dive into the realm of something that’s so absolutely batty, you’d think it was an elaborate troll. Something so absurd… it’s more than likely not real, but who cares? It’s still technically a mystery and gosh darn it, I’m gonna relish in every nanosecond of this story’s goofiness. Let’s talk about that time the monster from Jeepers Creepers fell from the sky.

The Story

I originally found this story on the Paranormal World wiki, which found the story via True Horror Stories of Texas.

A girl by the name of Denise submitted the story to the latter of the two sites at some point in 2017 (the article was posted September 7, 2017). When this story took place, I don’t know, but the original Jeepers Creepers was released August 31, 2001, so this story probably took place some time after that. Though it is possible the woman saw it prior to that film’s release and remembers it as looking like The Creeper. Whatever the case may be, I’m not tagging this story with any specific date[s].

Anyways, in Las Milpas, Texas, Denise was in a car with her mom, aunt, and four of her cousins when her mom shouted:

Qué es eso?!

That’s Spanish for “what is that” and her reaction was probably tame given what she apparently saw. You see, Denise claims that, as her mother slowed down, she and her cousins could see that there was a humanoid figure with large wings attempting to fly. However, it wasn’t able to for reasons unknown (if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it was injured by someone or something). She compared the entity to The Creeper from Victor Salva’s cult classic “Jeepers Creepers”.

It was at this point that Denise screamed—no doubt because she was looking at a human-sized creature with giant wings. However, to her terror, the creature heard her and her relatives all scream. At that point, it decided that it would be best if it just got the heck out of dodge and it, and I quote here:

Fell into the forest.

As a weird side note: the article states that it fell into the “monte” before stating that it means “forest”. As far as I’m aware, “bosque” means forest and not “monte”.

I digress. I have absolutely no idea how it “fell” given I imagined that it was on the ground trying to take off, but I can only guess it was trying to be Batman and glide out of trees now. Unless it fell onto its tummy and decided to crawl like a snake.

After this, Denise and her family presumably got home. She concluded her story by stating that another of her aunt’s claimed that “many years ago”, she saw a similar creature in a “long jacket” at the Pharr-Reynosa Bridge. That creature allegedly leapt in front of her vehicle during the night. She later told U.S. Customs officials about it and they reacted as though they’d already know of the creature.

That’s the end of the story as I can’t find any additional information about the entity, though there was a comment on the original article from someone going by Dolores Thigpin. On March 10, 2020, she stated the following:

I saw one down in a pasture as if in pain,. I was coming back to Iola and it was between San Marco’s and Bastrop, Texas.

When we lived in Houston outskirts they were also in the woodsy parts.

So that’s one other peculiar encounter to add to the pile, but was it really something unknown? Or was it perfectly explainable? Well, let’s head into the theories section and ponder to ourselves for a bit what the truth was.

Theories

1. Fiction had become a reality that day

The first theory is that it really was The Creeper. I guess you could argue for the existence of tulpas, but this is a very flimsy theory given that people claim to have seen it in the past, presumably before the release of the film. As such, this is nonsensical at best.

2. It was a case of mistaken identity

Theory two is that it was an owl or some other large bird.

Let’s face it: owls can get pretty big and while Denise says that there was some sunlight left, it was otherwise getting pretty late. If I had to hazard a guess, it could have been an injured owl, maybe one that was a bit bigger than normal, which had a broken wing from something and the lack of proper sunlight caused her mom to misidentify it. Depending on how close they were, she may have gotten caught up in the hysteria and saw something that wasn’t really there (a human-sized creature with wings for example).

Of course, this is just me explaining the theory in a manner that would make sense to me. It could have something, but an owl is the only avian that would fit the bill. Heck, it could have been an unknown species of giant owl! Though who knows. It’s possible it really was something else. Speaking of which...

3. It was Mothman—or something like Mothman 

If you somehow don’t know what Mothman is: it’s a cryptid from West Virginia that’s described as being about 6 or so feet (1.8 meters)  in height. It resembles a human to some degree, but it has large wings, can fly very fast, and may be carnivorous. Its exact origins are unknown, but some claim that Mothman may be an alien or escaped government experiment. Others say it’s a giant owl or bird.

Mothman’s legend is one of the few that precedes it. The creature is ridiculously famous and has become something of a harbinger of doom thanks to the Silver Bridge collapse (it’s said that Mothman flew over it not long before said collapse). Since then, some claim Mothman has flown near Chernobyl, the World Trade Center, and the Fukushima nuclear plant shortly before the meltdown, 9/11 attacks, and 2011 tsunami.

The idea here is that the creature which Denise and her family saw was either the legendary Mothman itself or a creature similar to it. There are quite a few entities similar to it and I want to go over them all in a future write-up. Whether you want to believe the creature was Mothman in all of its mothy glory or something else entirely is up to you, but I’d like to think that Mothman opted to go south for the winter.

4. It was some sort of unknown creature

Our fourth theory is more or less the same as the last one, but posits it was an unknown species of owl or an entirely new species of animal. Nothing more to it than that, just recycle what was said above for the most part, but remove “Mothman” and basically everything about disasters.

Actually, it’s nothing like everything above. Oh well, whatever!

5. It’s a made up story

The fifth and final theory posits the entire thing is completely fictitious and was made up by a bored person who wanted to try and fool/scare some folks.

This wouldn’t be the first time someone decided to write up a fake encounter with a cryptid. You can find an insurmountable number of them on Reddit and 4Chan. I mean, heck, I could easily do it, it doesn’t take much effort/talent. Just make sure you don’t go overboard with the insane details and you can likely fool someone. Or you can end up like me fishing for some recommendations and get told to go back to Reddit.

Oh well, at least I tried—unlike Reddit.

My Take

I want to first say that the incorrect usage of Spanish bothers me a great deal and makes me think this story isn’t real whatsoever. Though that can be chalked up to maybe a simple error on the part of the writer if the event had just happened or if it still scared them.

If I ignore that, I can’t find any information on any similar sightings that have happened in or around those parts. While there have been plenty of similar sightings of winged humanoids (e.g. the NASA Gargoyle, the Houston Batman, Mothman, and the Owlman), I cannot for the life of me find anything that allegedly wears jackets or resembles The Creeper. Most are hybridizations of humans and owls/bats at best. More often than not though, they resemble large avians.

So while I do believe Mothman to be a real cryptid, I think this particular story is more than likely hogwash. It has a catchy sounding title to it, but a lack of anything leaves me thinking it’s probably the creation of a bored person who wanted to spook some folks. However, if it was a real sighting, I would be inclined to say it was probably a case of mistaken identity. It’s how I think a fair number of Mothman sightings go (even though I think the creature itself is real).

Conclusion

I really don’t have a way to conclude this story other than by saying: this was a weird story. So, uh, see you all tomorrow!