The following article written by Lorrie Goldstein, which appeared in the March 25, 1979 issue of the “Toronto Sun” is the sole source for the claim that a sinister monster lurks in the sewers underneath the “Cabbagetown” neighborhood of Toronto, Canada--but the story is remarkable enough to be worthy of note.  Make of it what you will.

There’s an eerie city lying beneath the streets of Metro, a city none of us knows much about.

Ernest has been a visitor to that silent world of sewers, drainage pipes and the ruins under old houses, and the memory of what he saw there will haunt him for the rest of his life.

“I wish you’d never come here,” he says as he sits in his small, neat Cabbagetown apartment with Barbara, his wife of 19 years. “If I tell you what I saw, people will think I was drunk or crazy, they’ll never believe me.”

On a summer day last August, Ernest, 51, firmly believes he saw some kind of “creature” while crawling into a small cave near his Parliament Street apartment looking for a kitten from a litter he’d been caring for. But about 10 feet inside he says he saw a living nightmare he’ll never forget. 

“It was pitch black in there… I saw it with my flashlight. The eyes were orange and red, slanted… it was long and thin, almost like a monkey…three feet long, large teeth, weighing maybe 30 pounds with slate-grey fur.”

Ernest speaks reluctantly of what happened next…

He is convinced the thing spoke to him.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “It said “Go away, go away,” in a hissing voice. Then it took off down a  long tunnel off to the side…I got out of there as fast as I could. I was shaking with fear.”

 

Ernest didn’t come to the Sun with this story. The Sun found him after hearing about his experience from a reliable contact who works with a relative of Ernest’s, one of the handful of people to whom he has confided the experience.

He would agree to talk about it only if his last name was not revealed.

“I’m in the phone book,” he said. “I couldn’t stand being called by a bunch of cranks.” 

“I believe Ernie saw exactly what he says he did,” said Barbara. “He was terrified when he came back to the apartment and he doesn’t scare easily. Look, he’s been known to have a drink in the past--like most people, and to occasionally tie one on, but he’s not a drunk and he wasn’t drinking at all that day.”

Checks with friends, relatives and acquaintances in the neighborhood supported Barbara’s evaluation of her husband.

I accompanied Ernie to the spot where he said he had seen the creature. 

It is at the bottom of a narrow passage between the building where he lives and the one next door. The only way to reach the tunnel entrance is to clamber 15 feet down the wrong side of a fire escape, which had once served as an exit to the street but today simply leads to a narrow chamber with walls on four sides.

The tunnel entrance runs under a slab of concrete at the foot of the chamber. Inside, there is a narrow passageway, branching off to the left about 10 feet back.

The corpse of a cat lies half-buried in the tunnel, reminding Ernest of the “strange noises, like animals in pain,” he heard coming from the chamber last summer.

The concrete slab has collapsed on one side during  the winter, making it impossible for even a small adult to get inside.

“I saw it where the tunnel turns.” Ernest said.  “The last I saw, it was heading off into the dark. The passage-way seemed to drop down very quickly and go a long way back.”

Ernest believes the tunnel leads to the sewer system that runs beneath Metro and that the entrance beneath his apartment may have been only an access point used by the creature to the surface.

Metro’s sewer department agreed to inspect the tunnel since it could be a safety hazard. Children might try to enter it.

A long-time sewer worker told the Sun it was possible, although not probable, that the tunnel led into the sewers.

He said the tunnel was probably the result of poor drainage over the years which had caused erosion underground, hollowing out the passage.

“Who knows where it leads, or how far it goes?” he said. “You’d have to get in there and the way it is now, it would take a lot of work.”

Despite the strangeness of Ernest’s story, the workers did not scoff at the tale.

“People who work on the surface just don’t know what it’s like down there,” one said. “It’s a whole different world. Who would have thought a few years ago that people would live in sewers, and yet that’s what they found in New York a few years back. Even in Toronto, we’ve occasionally had to pull mattresses from the chambers beneath the manhole covers where the winos have been sleeping.”

Another worker said he’d heard of animals like beavers and raccoons occasionally getting into the system, but never anything like that described by Ernest.

“I don’t know what he saw down there,” he said. “But I’ll tell you one thing. If we could get in there, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to go down alone.”

Whatever you may think about this story, I think we can all agree with that last statement.

The “Precolitsch” (or “Prikulics”) is among the more unpleasant figures in Eastern European folklore.  This being--sort of a cross between Bigfoot and a werewolf--is said to live in the Wallachian Mountains.  It is of a great size, possesses the capability to assume various forms, and is of a truly terrifying strength.  And it has no fondness for humans.

Although the Precolitsch is regarded as a mythological creature, there is at least one account claiming it made an all-too-real appearance.  This strange tale--which sounds like a horror movie cliche, but is given as literal fact--was related by Philip Macleod in the September 1913 issue of “Occult Review.”  Macleod stated that this story--which he paraphrased--originally appeared in “a German psychological publication" about sixty years earlier.  The account was written by a Hungarian doctor who heard the tale directly from the army officer directly involved with the incident.  Although this original publication apparently used the officer’s real name, Macleod, for whatever reason, gave him the pseudonym of “Muller.”

At the time our story opens, Muller was an Ensign in the Austro-Hungarian army.  He was stationed at the Pass of Temesn in Transylvania, where he commanded some forty men.  The pass was a long ravine, about fifty yards wide, surrounded on both sides by rocky precipices.  A gated wall had been built across it.  Inside the wall were the buildings occupied by the commanding officer, his men, and other officials.  Two sentries were always posted outside the wall, one by the gate, and the other a bit farther out.

One morning shortly before Christmas, one of the soldiers, a Hungarian gypsy, came before Muller and asked to be granted an unusual favor.  He was scheduled to stand guard that night from 10 p.m. to midnight, at the outermost post from the wall.  He pleaded with Muller that some other soldier be assigned to take his place.  He said that he would most willingly do an extra turn as a guard, if he could just be spared having to do it that night.

Muller naturally asked the soldier his reason for such a strange request.  The man replied that he had been born on “New Sunday,” [the second Sunday after Easter] which gave him the blessing (or curse, depending on your viewpoint) of “second-sight.”  As a result, he knew that if he went out on guard duty that night, something dreadful would happen to him.  After midnight, his danger would be over.  He again begged most earnestly to have his turn as guard reassigned.

Muller was so impressed by the soldier’s obvious sincerity and desperation that his first instinct was to grant his request, particularly as the man had an otherwise faultless service record.  However, he concluded that acceding to such an eccentric supplication would set a bad precedent, one that might ultimately be detrimental to army discipline.  He delivered a brief lecture on the folly of trusting in superstition, and ordered the soldier to mount the outer guard that night.  Muller reassuringly reminded him that the other guard would have him constantly in his sight, so he, as well as the rest of the company, could instantly come to the rescue if required.

That evening, Muller went to the Quarantine Superintendent’s quarters for a game of chess.  At about 9:30, their game was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a man’s face outside the window.  The man had a strange, wild look on his face, and stared at them with an expression of what seemed like “mockery or derision.”  He seemed to be wrapped in a white cloak which was common wear for the local peasantry.  After a moment, the man turned from the window and slowly walked off.

Muller and his friend dashed outside to investigate.  It was a clear, moonlit night, which enabled them to see the man pass along the wall, until he reached a small recess in the structure.  He turned into it.  However, when the two soldiers reached the recess, they found it was empty.  Not knowing what else to do, the pair gave each other quizzical looks, shrugged, and went back to chess.

Shortly after 10 p.m., the game was again disrupted, this time by the sound of two shots, followed by strange noises and shouting.  The two men, as well as the rest of the soldiers, immediately dashed outside.  They found the inner sentry standing in a state of shock, gripping his smoking gun and staring towards the spot where the gypsy was standing guard.

Except…the gypsy was no longer there.

Muller ran to the place where the soldier had been standing.  All he found was the man’s gun lying in the snow, with the barrel bent into a semi-circle.  Also in the snow were tracks of the soldier’s shoes, along with other, shapeless footprints.

They found the soldier thirty paces away, lying below the crest of a slope.  He was unconscious, and moaning in agony.  He was carried to their hospital, where they found that his entire body had been burned black, particularly the face and chest.  He never regained consciousness, and continued his piteous moans and cries until he died the next day.

The other sentry stated that, knowing of his comrade’s apprehension, he had never taken his eyes off him.  The moonlight allowed him to see the gypsy quite clearly.  Then he suddenly saw a black shape standing in the snow a short distance away.  It seemed more animal than human.  The creature began moving toward the outer sentry.  The soldier fired at the figure.  Before the inner sentry could reach him, the Thing grabbed the gypsy, and both instantly disappeared.

And that, as they say, was that.  No one ever learned anything more about the gypsy’s weird and terrible death.  And Muller was left with a lifelong regret that he had not taken the soldier’s “superstition” more seriously.

Via Newspapers.com

Ghosts! Mysterious lights! Missing treasure! Cryptids!

Truly this is a spook story that has just about everything. The "Akron Times-Democrat," August 14, 1902:

There are those who believe in supernatural appearances and those who scoff at such things, but there are awesome happenings in Norton township, one mile south of Johnson's Corners, which silence the most skeptical when they have once seen the thing with their own eyes, for no explanation of the phenomena along natural lines has yet been suggested by those who have viewed this spectre.

Mysterious lights and strange animals animals figure in the hair-raising tales told by those who claim to have seen the things related and there are those residing in the vicinity whom it would take a great deal to entice from their homes alone after dark.

Those who have oftenest seen the unquiet spirit, as many are inclined to call the strange visitor, are Mr. John Breitenstein and his family, though Mr. Peter Shaffer and his family have also seen it and there are men who were formerly employed in Mr. Adam Kiehl's coal mine who could not be induced for love or money to enter the mine again.

To the visitor at the scenes where the ghostly visitation is made nothing could seem more improbable than that such a place would be the chosen spot of ghostly habitation. It is not a deserted community with old houses and neglected-gardens, but on the contrary has fine farm houses with carefully kept lawns and is surrounded by rich, beautiful fields of grain. Yet for a decade past strange events have taken place in this garden spot.

More than ten years ago a man named Shaneman resided in a small house across the road from Mr. Breitenstein. This man and his wife lived alone and though they possessed a fine farm and were supposed to be financially able to enjoy all the comforts and many of the luxuries of life, they were economically inclined and lived very frugally. Beside the farm on which he lived, Mr. Shaneman owned another fine tract of land which a short time before his death he sold to the Carrara Paint company, of Barberton, and is said to have received a large sum for this property.

Ten years ago, soon after the sale of his farm, Shaneman died, and though every nook and cranny in the house was searched, $150 was all the money that could be found and it is said that from that day to this no trace of the fortune Shaneman was supposed to have possessed has been discovered. It was thought by many that the money was buried. Shaneman died very suddenly and there are those who say that the strange spectre about this place is the spirit of the old man trying to show where the money was hidden.

The story of the supernatural appearances as told by Mr. Breitenstein is as follows.

"We never saw any of these strange things before the death of Shaneman, and the first time I saw anything supernatural was the night after Shaneman's death. Peter Shaffer, John Mong and myself were sitting up with the corpse. Mong was smoking, and Shaffer and I had been talking. All of a sudden Shaffer gave me a little nudge and directed my gaze to the ceiling at the corner of the room where the corpse lay, when I saw a sight that fairly made my hair stand on end. What seemed a ball of fire had started from the corner of the room and was traveling slowly around the ceiling of the room.

"Did you see it?" said Shaffer. "Yes," said I. "Let's get out of here," were Shaffer's next words, and we made for home as fast as we could.

"And since that time the strange light has haunted this vicinity with the most unpleasant regularity. I have seen it many times, as has every member of my family and many others. It is more often seen in the winter than at any other time, but I have seen it twice this summer, the last time only a few weeks ago, when the thing looked into my bedroom window making the room as light as day, waking me up with the glare.

"We see this strange light at many times and places. Sometimes it rises out of the fields behind the Shaneman house, other times it rests upon the roof of the house. One night not long after the death of Shaneman, I, with my family, the family of Peter Shaffer, Shaffer, and other neighbors were sitting on the veranda of my home when suddenly a bright light as large as a street lamp rose out of the fields behind the Shaneman house, came up the lane, passed my home where we were sitting and went on up past my barn. Every one on the porch was silent, but as soon as the light disappeared, by common impulse, all were on their feet making for the barn behind which it had disappeared, but nothing could be seen.

"Then my son, Harry, who was married, moved into the house and he and his wife often saw the light. One night Harry came running over in breathless haste crying that our house was on fire. We rushed out to the back where a brilliant light was to be seen for a few moments, and then passed away into nothing.

"At one time we had an old apple tree which had blown down. One evening my son Milton came home late. He put up his horse and then came to the house. As he stepped into the door we saw that he was the color of death and whispered breathlessly, 'Oh, ma, come here!' My wife stepped to the door and there, playing about that old tree, were what seemed to be thousands of lights. They were about the size of candle flames and seemed to be of all colors of the rainbow. After a time they resolved themselves into balls of fire and rolled away down the orchard path.

"Peter Shaffer has told me of seeing the light many times and he isn't a man to lie," went on Mr, Breitenstein; "and this is the tale he told, me: Shaffer, with his wife and two daughters, were passing .through the fields back of our house one night, bound for a neighbor's house. The women were walking ahead, when suddenly Shaffer saw the mysterious light moving along beside him. Then one of the girls looked back and with a scream started to run and soon the entire family was running for dear life over the fields. They came to a fence, but stopped not for a moment and how they ever got over the fence not one was ever able to tell. When they reached the road the light disappeared."

But strange lights are not all that is said to be seen in this locality, The Misses Louise and Minnie Shaffer, when returning home late one night, are said to have seen a strange animal walking along in front of them, creeping between their feet, plainly visible but of no substance, disappearing when they attempted to strike at it, but again walking with them a moment later. The girls took to their heels and arrived home almost dead with fright and now no money could hire them to go out late at night alone.

Mr. Shaffer also claims to have seen the strange animal and the tale of its appearance runs thus: It was just before the abandonment of Adam Kiehl's coal mine, and some coal was still being taken from the mine. It was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, when Shaffer saw someone going up the incline at the shoots, and as he wanted to get some coal he thought that would be a good time to go and order it. As he got near the mine, he saw the object hop up onto the platform on four feet. He thought, however, it was someone "acting the fool,'' as he expressed it, and went on. As he approached he saw the object was not a man, but some kind of a grey animal, which a moment later disappeared into the mine. He did not investigate, but made fast tracks for home.

A few days after this, Jean Cady, of Barberton, and George Conrad, of Sherman, who were working in the mine, claim to have seen the strange animal in the mine, and their description of it coincides with that of Mr. Shaffer. They immediately took after after it with picks. They would strike at it and it would fade into nothingness, but a moment later would be seen in another part of the mine. After a few fruitless attempts to approach it the men became frightened, and Cady, it is said, quit work and could not be induced to enter the mine again.

This coal mine is just at the rear of Mr. Breitenstein's land. Mr. John Winkleman and family now reside in the Shaneman house and deny ever having seen anything supernatural; but Harry Breitenstein's family claim that there is a room in the house in which no one could sleep as the bed would be shaken by unseen forces.

For six years after the death of Mr. Shaneman, Adam Kiehl resided in the Shaneman house. Mr. Kiehl says that he never saw anything unnatural, but his wife claims to have seen the strange light in her room one night.

In telling the story, Mr. Breitenstein said: "Folks may laugh if they will, but it is no laughing matter with us who live here and see it. What it is I do not know, but I tell you what I have seen, and this is gospel truth."