It is a rather peculiar thing that, because there are no straight forward answers or no one has bothered carrying out research, you will find many wildlife mysteries in literature from the fringes -in this case from a UFO magazine of all things!
Unlike the magazine itself I went straight to the original source not that this helped much but I hope one day to at least have a very educated guess at what Ricochon's "monster" was
This is taken from Strange and Mysterious Beasts
__________________________________________________________________
Perhaps one of
the oddest cases I have on file was never fully investigated, that I am aware
of. The July / August, 1970 edition of the Flying Saucer Review (1) carried an
article by Jean-Claude Baillon, Secretary of Cercle d’Information des Phenomenes
Insolites (CIESPI) of France,
titled “Eerie Night At The Chateau des
Martins”. M. Baillon had been visiting his brother-in-law and sister during
August, 1969 at the chateau when he was told about an event that had taken
place there around the 16th February of that year.
Above: La
Comtesse Dash in later life (c)2025 Hooper Archives
It had been a
pitch-black, Moonless night and the caretaker, a M. Meingault, was in his
kitchen when he had heard the three mares and two colts in the park galloping
about. M. Maingault realized that
something was obviously disturbing the horses and so went to check on them: he
had only taken a few paces at the top of the chateau steps when the horses
bolted past at full speed. Something had
definitely scared the horses and, on looking around, M. Meingault saw, near a
clump of bushes near the paddock fence, a pair of intensely bright, shining
eyes. The caretaker then went back indoors.
M. Meingault
decided that he needed to investigate and so armed himself with a gun before
going outside and making a very difficult inspection around the chateau in
darkness. He then saw the horses bolt
through a thicket that they would normally avoid because of the risk of injury
and then, for just a “few fleeting moments”, M. Meingault had the impression
that “there was a shadow” pursuing the horses.
What he did next seems very odd.
M. Meingault
fired the gun a few times to see if it might scare of the “attacker” but, on
seeing that the horses would not calm down…he went back indoors and to bed!
Above: a
shelter in the Mouliere
Forest. One can almost
imagine Ricochon strolling home through the forest not suspecting anything
untoward was going to occur. (c)2025 Hooper archives
It seems almost
unbelievable that a caretaker believing that the horses were being chased by
someone / some thing and seeing the glowing eyes, had gone indoors, armed
himself. He had then inspected the area
around the chateau in the dark, thought he saw something and fired shots at
it. On seeing that the horses would not
calm down he decided to go to bed. No
alarm was raised. Horses were / are
valuable animals and could have been injured or killed by something, some
animal, but M. Meingault just went to bed.
M. Baillon’s
sister confirmed that the horses were still disturbed next morning and that
considerable damage had been done to the paddock fence –which was very solid in
structure with thick posts and yet, it had been smashed in ten places. M.
Baillon, like any good investigator –who should never be “off duty”- pressed M.
Meingault to try to remember more. The
eyes were about 3 feet (90 ms) above the ground and were like those of a tiger
but very bright –as the caretaker had no torch, this was not reflected
light. But darkness had prevented the
man from seeing anything else. A dog was
ruled out, which makes sense since a dog chasing tends to get excited and
barks.
Could it have
been a large, exotic felid? Say a
panther or a puma?
Well, if there is
one thing I have learnt over the last forty years it is that a puma will have
no problem taking down a colt. If a
panther or a puma were attacking the horses they would have signs of such an
attack and I am guessing that there were no unusual tracks found.
As for it being
someone trying to steal a colt or horse –this seems very unlikely. What type of
person can chase and keep up with horses in full bolt?
Then M. Baillon,
quite by chance, came across an article in the local newspaper (2) dealing with
a local legend –“The Monster of the Forest
of Mouliere”. Chateau des Martins lies just inside the
south-western tip of the forest. The
source of the story was La Comtesse Dash’s (1804-1873) Memoires Des Autres (3),
and I shall quote the account in full:
“In former times
in the countryside of Poitiers
many people held that at night, and particularly at certain times of the year,
one could chiefly hear, and sometimes also could see, fantastic animals
flitting about above the clouds. They
called it La chasse-galerie!
“Around the year
1830, a gamekeeper of the forest Mouliere had been celebrating joyously and
copiously one night with some friends after a particularly successful
wolf-hunt.
“At about
midnight, following upon this agreeable and ‘well irrigated’ evening session,
the gamekeeper was returning in a gay mood to his home in the forest. The sky was sprinkled with stars and the cold
was particularly sharp on that February night.
“Ricochon (for
such was the name of our hero) had his loaded gun on his shoulder and as he
strode along he was keeping an eye open for any noxious creature that might
come within range of him. His temporary
state of euphoria had not caused him to lose his inborn hunter’s sense.
“When he had
reached a point not far from his little house in the forest, he suddenly heard
a rushing sound of wings that seemed like the passage of a flight of bats. ‘Ha!
Ha!’ quoth he to himself: ‘Its la chasse-galerie!’
“Emboldened by
the good wine ingested in more than substantial quantity, he told himself that
‘Lucifer’s deer’ would make a good target and one that he would, when all was
said and done, be happy to be able to contemplate at close quarters.
“Suddenly a dense
black cloud blotted out the starlight and at the same moment a strange and
deafening noise was heard. He raised his
gun to his shoulder and fired at the dark mass.
A fearful piercing cry rang out, and a shapeless and inert mass fell at
his feet. Terrified, Ricochon dashed off
home, slammed the door and shot the heavy bolt behind him.
“Never in his
life had he known such fear. Completely
sobered up by now, he had no illusions about the situation in which he found
himself: he had just shot one of the Devil’s own creatures, and revenge would
be terrible…Alone in the forest, without help, how could he escape from the
danger? ‘Ah, mon dieu’, said he, ‘if I come through this night alright, I’ll go
into town straight away tomorrow to get some holy water, a crucifix, and some
statues of the Holy Virgin and of good Saint Radegonde…’
“The formulation
of this firm intention restored some of his courage. He said some prayers, though still trembling
at the least sound and expecting to see that Horrible monster, the Devil,
appear before him.
“And thus, in
anguish of soul, he awaited the dawn, not daring to venture forth before it,
and hoping that when the moment arrived he would in fact be unable to find the
creature he had shot.
“But when he had
gone but a few steps from his house a shudder ran through him. For he now beheld the object of his terror,
lying in a pool of blood.
“Recovering his
composure finally, he told himself that the creature was after all well and
truly dead. All the same he approached
it gingerly and apprehensively, trembling in every limb. For surely indeed this must be the Beast of
the Apocalypse!
“and now what was
he to do with the Monster? It was indeed
a big problem. Should he just bury it
and tell nobody? But then, what a pity! His
exploit deserved to be told…
“After musing at
length upon the problem, he harnessed his horse to his biggest cart and tried
to lift his unusual ’game’, to get it on the cart. The operation was a difficult one, but
finally, with a little help from his imagination, he rigged up a sort of winch
and completed the task.
“Then, this
arduous job completed, he covered the carcass with straw and set out for Poitiers.
“At first, the
horse’s legs trembled so much that it could scarcely move, but after a few good
strokes of the whip it began to gallop at full pelt as if trying to flee from
some danger behind it
“At long last,
Ricochon reached his goal, the police station.
The Prefect de Police viewed the Monster, and forbade the gamekeeper to
say a word about it to anybody. In a
moment of half-confidence the gamekeeper subsequently declared however to
someone that ‘his beast’ had a horrible human head, surmounted by enormous
horns”.
Considering that
“at certain times of the year” La chasse-galerie could be seen above the clouds
it seems what is being described are periodic meteor showers. Remember that “rocks falling from the skies”
was still a new idea. We should not look
at this as being anything more “other worldly”.
When we come to
the beast we are left puzzled. The
“horrible human head” with horns may have been a later addition. We know that it made “a strange and deafening
noise” but this is all we really know about it other than that it was big. A healthy gamekeeper should have had no trouble
throwing a dead bird onto a cart but what type of bird we do not know –if it was a bird. We know that a dark
mass blotted out the stars and Ricochon shot it, however, was this something
flying or something leaping from a tree?
The largest living
bird, the Eurasian black vulture (Aegypius
monachus) can reach a maximum length of 3.9 inches (1.2 m) with a wingspan
of 10 feet (3 m) and weighing in at 31 lbs (14 kg). The Western limits of its range are thought
to be Spain and Portugal as well as Greece
and Turkey, but not France –though a population has now been
introduced in southern France. But not in 1830 that we know of and, even if
Ricochon shot a “stray” then he would know that it was a vulture.
Was this a mammal
–a quadruped – that the gamekeeper shot? Reading the account, it seems that the
horse may not have found the load it was meant to tow too heavy but, possibly,
terrifying. Was it perhaps a
predator? Horses do react to living or
dead predators they come across. Would a
big bird scare it? Once whipped, the
horse towed cart, Ricochon and the “Monster” at full pelt to Poitiers so it was not heavy enough to
warrant horse legs shaking from strain.
It is interesting
that the “Monster” obviously never was kept secret since there was a saying in Poitiers –“as ugly as
Ricochon’s beast!”
At this period,
and a long time before, the French were know for their scientific curiosity and
cataloguing so what did the Prefect de Police do with the Monster? Presumably
his superiors would send someone to look at the creature and that person would
more likely be a naturalist or biologist.
In that case, as is still the case today (though cameras have become
tool), a sketch or drawing would have been made and that might –might- be the only way of finding out what was shot.
A local museum
archives?
In a local library or,
perhaps, even the French
Natural History
Museum?
If anyone in France
wants a challenge then this is the case for you.
(1) Eerie Night At The Chateau des Martins, Baillon,
Jean-Claude, Flying Saucer
Review, Vol.
16, no. 4, July / August, 1970, pp. 24-26
(2) Centre-Presse
22nd August, 1969
(3) Memoires
Des Autres Par La Comtesse Dash -Souvenirs Anecdotiques sur Le
Premier Empire Et Les
Cent Jours, Saint-Mars, Gabrielle Anne Cisterne de
Courtiras,
Vicomtesse de, A La Librairie Illustree (Paris), 1896: pp. 267-271
A4
324pp
B&W
£20.00
http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/mysterious-strange-beasts/paperback/product-23771024.html
Below cover for smaller format version
This book covers a number of French mystery beasts including The Beast of Gevaudan which has been called the most "extensive examination of the incidents in English or French" (24pp in total.
I was told that it was probably a good idea not to reveal all of the contents of the new book. Fair enough. It is 324 pages with lots of photographs. If you have read one of my previous books then I will point out that this new look at the chupacabra is expanded on. I have managed to draw some conclusions on certain previously unidentified beasts.
I am guessing that the conclusions in the chapter on the Shunka Warak'in and the famous stuffed and mounted specimen are going to really upset some cryptozoologists.
In High Strangeness and UFO Contact? I looked at the faults in Ufology and how the subject needed drastic overhauling and I do the same here regarding mystery animal research which seems to be full of charlatans and liars out to make money rather than look for the truth. I try to give anyone approaching the subject matter some advice and guidelines but 'cryptozoology' and 'cryptozoologist' are two words they ought not to use.
Strange & Mysterious Beasts is the smaller format book while Mysterious & Strange Beasts is the standard larger A4 format.
IGNORE the "only ships from North America" as that is just a site message error
I need to point out that, much though I really do want to avoid this, US taxes are not leaving me much in the way of profit from sales. I really do not want to increase book prices since I think that at the moment they are fair (considering what a purchaser gets and the amount of my work that gets plagiarized). I am told that it has to be an option, however, I have until 1st February, 2018 to decide.
Anyway, enough publisher waffle, here are some of the contents:
The Monster of the Forest of Mouliere
The Beast of Lyonnais
The Beast of Cevennes, Gard and Vivarais
The Beast of Sarlat
The Beast of Gevaudan
British Man Beasts
Bigfoot and Werewolves in the West Midlands
The Strange Creature in Repton Woods
Bigfoot Returns – To Kent!
Werewolf!
The Curious and Frightening Case of the Hull Werewolf
The Gnome of Girona
The Caponi Close Encounters and Photographs
Return of the Shark Killing Thing –a Possible Identification
The Dingellchough Mystery Creature
The Unidentified Corfu Sea Creature
Strange Sea Creature Found In Persian Gulf
The Devil of Gatagon
The Supernatural Invasion: Slender-man and Black Eyed Kids
The Sheep Killer of Niali
Mystery Creature of the Bay of Flamanville
Things Caught on Camera –Fact and Fiction
The Bat Creatures
The Owl-man
The British Pig-man and Snake-man
The Pictish Beast
Shunka Warak'in –A Hyena Too Far?
