The Tunnel Monsters
A tunnel is the perfect setting for a scary story, let alone the anxiety experienced by those who suffer from claustrophobia.
Can you imagine sitting in a dark, enclosed space dug into the earth, and then hearing something move in the darkness close to you? And then you see the gleam of eyes staring at you from the inkiness.
In August, 1978 a search for a missing kitten resulted in a horrifying encounter. Ernest, 51, walked around his Cabbagetown neighborhood in Toronto hoping to make his wife happy, since the little cat was one of a litter she was raising. He came across a hidden entrance to a tunnel. The city was known to have a network of caves running underneath it.
With flashlight in hand, he walked in about 10 feet. He stood there quietly, hoping he would hear a mewing that would indicate the kitten was close by. He heard a sudden movement and he trained his flashlight into the darkness. What he saw was not a lost cat, but something that he later described as a long, thin monkey. It was about 3 feet tall, covered in gray fur and had large teeth. Its slanted eyes glimmered in the dimness with an orange light.
To make the nightmare complete, the creature spoke to him. It hissed, “Go away, go away.” With shaking legs he ran out of the tunnel.
Ernest kept his weird encounter to himself, but a newspaper found him after hearing about his encounter from someone who was a relative of Ernest's.
He agreed to tell the story, only if his surname was kept confidential. His wife of 19 years confirmed his description, saying he was terrified when he came back to their apartment.
Six months after the encounter, a reporter accompanied him to the spot where he had seen the creature. It was at the bottom of a narrow passage between the building where he lived and the one next door.
The only way to reach the entrance was to climb down 15 feet on the wrong side of a fire escape which had once been an exit to the street, but now just led to a narrow chamber with walls on four sides. They found the corpse of a cat half buried in the tunnel.
The sewer department agreed to inspect the tunnel since it could be a safety hazard for children.
A worker said it was possible but not probable the tunnel led to the sewers, but in truth he wasn't certain where it led.
The creature was nicknamed the “Cabbagetown Tunnel Monster”, and strangely the region where it was sighted had a history of stories related to a creature known as the Memegwesi. According to native lore, they are described as being, child-sized and hairy with a large head and a strange voice that sounds like the whine of a dragonfly.
In May, 1963 the police received reports of a half-man and half-something.
It was first seen by children at a housing project on Ninth Street in downtown St. Louis. They said it disappeared into an old subway on 12th St.
The kids said it was a creature that was "half-man and half-woman with a half-bald head and a half-head of hair".
Two weeks later the police at Centreville, Illinois received a call that a monster had been seen across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.
Police received over 50 calls and they sent patrolmen to the scene, but found nothing. A witness said the monster was in front of his house, but he described it as half-man and half-horse.
Police theorized it was man dressed up like a monster. The sightings stopped by the end of the month.
In March, 1981 a group of teenagers reported seeing a 4-foot-tall reptilian emerging from a sewer tunnel in Kensington, Pennsylvania. They described it as a “dinosauroid humanoid”.
A “greenish creature” was seen by a woman walking her dog near her home in Anaheim, California. The creature was staring at her from a sewer drain, and when it started to emerge she jumped into the bed of a truck. Luckily she had her cellular phone and called her boyfriend who was at their apartment. Who knows what he thought she was talking about, but he came to her rescue armed with a golf club. He found that several more creatures had surrounded the truck. They scurried back into the sewer. He described them as “very large, reptilian with big, sharp teeth.”
The next night the couple heard strange grunts and screams. They waited until morning to investigate and found the carcass of a mutilated animal. This prompted the couple to move away.
Strangely in the 1930s, it was reported by The Los Angeles Times that G. Warren Shufelt, a geological engineer had discovered a series of tunnels underneath Los Angeles. If this wasn’t strange enough he believed they were occupied by a race of reptilian beings, and there was a 5,000 year old lost city left behind by these "lizard people".
Carthage, Missouri is known to have miles of tunnels and caves. The US Navy and Army Corps of Engineers built "installations in them during the 1970s and 1980s” as bunkers in case of a nuclear war that could house 50,000 people.
Known as the Carthage Underground, in 1993, an urbex expedition came across tunnels that appeared to be "machine dug", but the walls were well polished. The group which were on ATVs had gone in about 8 miles, when they came across a sign that read “Naval Authoritative Zone”. Deeper inside the tunnels they found strange symbols of what appeared to be a foreign alphabet. More disturbing was an awful smell that wafted around them. Then they saw movement in the dimness of the cave, and a weird light source.
Before their disbelieving eyes they found the source of the stench. It was two reptilian creatures — one was pale and the other was red. They were muscular, bi-pedal and stood about 7 feet in height. This is when they decided the best recourse was to leave. The red reptile pursued them until they came to the portion of tunnels inscribed with the symbols. It appeared the red reptile could proceed no further.
Once outside the cave, the group called the Carthage Police. Instead of police, what responded were Men in Black who told them they were trespassing on government property and they had to leave immediately.
The cave is part of a system of marble quarries owned mostly by Americold. The quarries stretch for miles, some say as far away as Joplin, Missouri which is 30 miles away.
After 1993, the cave was sealed with concrete and steel. However others have reported "reptilian beings" in the wood nearby.
On May 10, 1967 three boys who ventured into caves near their home in Hannibal, Missouri mysteriously disappeared, and were never found again.
Reptilians (also called reptoids, archons, reptiloids, saurians, draconians, or lizard people) are supposed reptilian humanoids which have been reported from around the world and from different cultures.
In 2012, the site Phantoms and Monsters received the following story:
I live in Gmunden, Austria. Recently I came across your story about the man who had an encounter with an alien type creature in a cave in the United States. The story is similar to my encounter in an obscure cave here in Upper Austria. This area is known for salt mining and Salzkammergut, the salt mines of the former Habsburg empire. I am a trained and certified geologist - I studied at the University of Salzburg and in the United States at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I have explored and documented cave systems throughout Austria, Czech Republic and Poland since 1988.
In May 2011 I was in a narrow cave that a colleague had recently found. This was approximately 2 KM north of Obertraun on the opposite side of the descending mountain range in the foothills near the east bank of Halsatter See (lake). As I moved through the difficult passageway I started to hear voices emanating from the darkness ahead of me. I stopped to collect a few sample from the cave wall - chipping it with my pick. I moved deeper - maybe 50 meters - until I noticed the voices again. I am familiar with echos and Doppler effect sounds in caves but this was totally different. I stood quietly for several minutes until the voices stopped.
Again I moved through the cave - almost crawling at this point. After another 40 meters I ascended into a chamber that was big enough to accommodate several people. There were two wide openings on the opposite side of the chamber - each looked like it has been excavated by machine. There was also an obvious rotting odor. As I examined the chamber I noticed an odd red iridescence as I passed the light over the rock floor. When I knelt down to collect a sample I again heard voices coming from one of the passageways. At this point I was terrified and started to hurry back through the narrow cave. After I squeezed back several meters I was able to turn my head just enough to look back into the dark chamber.
A yellow light slowly made its way into the chamber from the left opening in the chamber - then there were several yellow lights following the first. As the lights moved through the opening into the chamber then back through the opening on the right I was able to see the beings. The sight sent fear throughout my body - I was actually paralyzed.The creatures were humanoid in stature - but these were not human. Each varied in height but all looked the same - muscular lizards that walked upright like humans. There is not a better term I can use to identify these beings. These creatures wore dark colored full-body uniforms that extended and covered the feet. I couldn't tell the exact color of the skin but each had a pronounced muzzle. The long tails were very prominent and swiftly swayed back and forth as they moved forward. The arms and legs were massive - I could detect the musculature through the uniforms. There were voices also - as if they were talking to each other. The voices actually sounded human though I could not detect the language. There were possibly 20 or more of these creatures as they walked single file through the chamber and into the other opening.
When I conceived it was safe to move I quickly withdrew from the cave. I think I may have been in shock because I barely remember anything that happened from that point until I reached my office. I decided to keep a private journal regarding my encounter - but I have not discussed it with anyone else. My colleague who originally found the cave told me that he has explored the cave since my encounter but never mentions anything about the chamber, other passageways or bizarre beings.
At this point in time, I am starting to doubt that I witnessed these creatures. Is it possible that I hallucinated this encounter - or possibly experienced something from the past or the future? I am a trained professional who deals with reality - but my beliefs have been seriously shaken. I appreciate your introspect and thoughts - as well as observation by your readers. Thank you - Gregor
As described in Brad Steiger's (1936-2018) book, Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters and Beasts from the Darkside, his friend Dave Oester (d.2015) told of an experience they had in the Old Cascade Tunnel. Not everything inside derelict tunnels are necessarily reptilian.
He described his experience this way:
Wellington (now Tye) was the site o f a tragic train accident that occurred 100 years before on March 1, 1910 when an avalanche buried a passenger train and destroyed the railroad town. For unknown reasons the train foolishly moved out of the protective snow shelter and was buried under tons of heavy snow. A total of 96 people had their lives snuffed out from this killer avalanche.
A week before our scheduled ghost conference at Skykomish, Washington we decided to check out the old Cascale Tunnel that is located just below Stevens Pass in the rugged Cascade Mountains. This is a high wilderness area and far removed from communities. We drove up to Stevens Pass and descended down the dirt road to the entrance of the old Cascade Tunnel. This 2.6-mile-long tunnel was abandoned in 1929 when a new tunnel was dug through the Cascade Mountains.
I wanted to take some flash photos inside the tunnel so I walked until the light from the entrance was dim.
I had only gone about forty feet inside the tunnel when I noticed two glowing yellow eyes in the far end of the tunnel. I thought this must be an animal and continued snapping pictures when suddenly I noticed the glowing yellow eyes move back and forth, as if the animal or creature was slowly moving toward me.
I realized that the eyes were glowing yellow and no natural animal eyes glowed like that. I then realized that the level of the glowing yellow eyes were over two-thirds the distance to the top of the tunnel. This creature stood about nine feet tall relative to the height of the tunnel.
I immediately felt a strong desire to retreat to the safety of our car. I raced back to the entrance and up the hill to the car...
As I sat in the car collecting my thoughts, I heard a loud heavy sound that sounded like something heavy hitting the ground at the front entrance to the tunnel.
... we quickly retraced our route back to the main dirt road.
The next day we departed for home, stopped at Mt. Index and chatted with a lady who reported someone had seen a Bigfoot a few week ago. I asked where, and her response was that it was near the Lost City of Wellington.
A week later we held our Ghost Conference... When they heard about the strange yellow eyes, six of the men wanted to see the place immediately. We drove up to the old Cascade Tunnel... the six men climbed down the bank... and entered the mouth of the tunnel.
We all walked into the tunnel about 40 feet and stopped. I looked through the night vision scope and again saw two yellow eyes staring back at me. Each of the men saw the same thing, yellow eyes that were moving slowly toward them.
We all ran back out of the tunnel and quickly climbed the bank and drove madly for the open highway.
