They say war proves mankind doesn't need to invent monsters, as the monsters were inside
us all along.
Yet sometimes soldiers report sightings of what can only be described as actual monsters,
or in other cases, otherworldly beings.
Are these battlefield stresses, or are men whose lives literally depend on remaining
alert and aware, seeing things that the rest of us might miss?
Do mythological beasts stalk our battlefields?
Do curious aliens observe from a distance, making notes on our primal, savage nature?
That’s what we’ll try and figure out today, in this special episode of The Infographics
Show's Greatest Mysteries- Famous Wartime Paranormal Sightings.
The first paranormal event on our list comes from World War I, and has become a staple
of sea monster stories.
At the outbreak of the war, the British steamer Iberian was cruising just off the coast of
Ireland when it was attacked and sunk by the German submarine U-28.
As the U-28's captain, Baron Von Forstner, and seven other crew members watched the ship
sink from the sub's conning tower, there was a sudden large underwater explosion- likely
from the ship's boiler detonating.
The blast flung debris and men clear out of the water, but as the Captain and his men
watched incredulously, an animal, about 65 feet (20m) long, was flung into the air as
well by the force of the explosion.
Described as “crocodile-like in shape, with pairs of strong front and hind legs adapted
for swimming, and a long head that tapered towards the nose,” the monster was visible
for about 10-15 seconds as it was blown out of the water before sinking back into the
depths.
Skeptics suggest that the story was fabricated by Baron Von Forstner, and sadly six of the
alleged eyewitnesses were all killed during the war.
Only the ship's cook survived the war, though he would refuse to comment on the story.
The 61 survivors of the Iberian also made no mention of the creature, though with their
ship sinking and then exploding in the waves beneath them, they were probably a little
busy with the matter of survival at the time of the brief sighting.
Outright fabrication by a Baron and naval officer?
Or confirmed sighting of a surviving ancient seafaring sauropod?
We might never know, but the resemblance to other sea monsters around the world is uncanny.
Our next paranormal sighting comes from the jungles of Africa.
Colonel Remy Van Lierde was a decorated Belgian pilot who became an ace during World War II
after escaping from a German prison camp.
In 1959, flying a mission on behalf of the UN during the crisis in the Congo, Lierde
spotted a monstrous snake slithering through a clearing in the jungle.
Amazed at the size of the snake below him, Lierde brought his chopper low and began a
series of passes so he could get a picture of the beast.
Successfully snapping one photo, Lierde went on to claim that the snake reared up as the
chopper flew low, raising a head the size of a donkey's over 10 feet into the air.
Lierde's photograph is unfortunately slightly blurry, though it does show what seems to
be an incredibly large snake.
Given Lierde's background, it seems unlikely he would go through the trouble of making
up a story and then fabricating a fake photo to go along with it;
and if that's not enough, in 2016 workers building a dam in Brazil discovered a whopping
33 foot (10 meter), 882 lbs (400 kg) anaconda lurking in caves near the construction site.
The discovery of snakes that regularly exceed 26 feet (8 meters) in length lends further
credence to Lierde's story and photograph.
Form wartorn jungle to wartorn jungle, we now move to the skies above Vietnam, where
in 1968, C-130 loadmaster Robert L. Pollock and his flight crew experienced a truly perplexing
and troubling event.
Flying just off the coast of Vietnam, and exhausted after a 20 hour day of back and
forth flights ferrying troops and cargo, Pollock was seated in the empty cargo compartment
when he noticed movement at the rear of the aircraft.
Looking up from the paperwork he was completing, Pollock was stunned to see a whirling grey
cloudy mass forming at the rear right troop door, spinning clockwise and filling the rear
of the aircraft within seconds.
Fearing a high-pressure fluid leak that was atomizing the fluid and filling the compartment,
Pollock used the interphone system to ask the pilot if there were any indications of
trouble of any kind, to which the pilot responded “no”.
As the misty fog filled the cargo compartment, Pollock was joined by the engineer, navigator,
co-pilot, and pilot, as the mist continued to creep forwards towards them.
In an interview, Pollock recalls that when the navigator said “this is spooky”, he
felt anger, as up to that point, he was sure that what they were witnessing was some sort
of aircraft malfunction and not anything paranormal.
Double checking their instruments, the crew still found no problems with the aircraft.
Finally, placing his hand in the mass, Pollock recalls that the strange fog was so thick
and opaque that his hand disappeared from sight.
Holding onto each other, Pollock and the engineer walked into the mass, still thinking that
there was some kind of mechanical failure of the aircraft, and that if they did not
find the source soon, it would fill the cockpit and put them in serious jeopardy.
Plunging into the mass, the lights in the aircraft disappeared and the two were forced
to feel their way around the cargo bay by touch, keeping in contact with the rest of
the flight crew who called out constantly, inquiring about their well being.
According to Pollock, the strange mist did not burn or sting his eyes, nor make breathing
difficult.
He also felt no threat from the mass, though as he made his way out of it, he was still
fearful of it filling the cockpit and blinding the crew as they tried to land their plane.
As if on cue, the fog/mist slowly began to recede, moving straight back to the same door
it had apparently entered through, whirling counter-clockwise this time before disappearing
into nothingness.
Upon landing, Pollock and the rest of his crew never mentioned the incident between
each other ever again, Pollock owing the silence on the matter to the fact that they were a
veteran combat crew and in the midst of war, surviving anything that did not kill them
outright was enough to not worry about it.
Our next wartime paranormal entry comes from post-Revolution Russia in 1925, and was reported
by one of the most credible eyewitnesses one could ask for.
General Mikhail Stepanovich Topilski was on a mission hunting anti-Soviet guerillas hiding
out in the western segment of the Pamir mountains when his troop came upon a small village that
regaled them with stories of ape-like creatures that lived in the mountains.
Dismissing the stories as local superstition, the General ordered his men into the mountains
where they soon discovered several sets of distinctly human-like tracks in the fresh
snow.
Making notes of the tracks in his personal journal, General Topilski and his men pressed
on in their mission to find the guerillas, finally tracking them to a large cave high
in the mountains.
After the resulting firefight, the General's men took prisoners, and amongst them, a man
who told Topilski of weird ape-man-like creatures that had attacked them with clubs.
According to the prisoner, his band had managed to kill one of them, which plummeted down
an ice fall.
The General ordered his men to dig for the creature's corpse, finding it in short order.
Per the General's notes: “The body belonged to a male creature about 5’5” (165-170
cm) tall, elderly or old judging by the grayish color of the hair in several places”.
Though the General did not skin the corpse as he had originally planned to, and instead
ordered his men to give it a proper burial, he made detailed notes of the body, noting
that the creature was covered in hair, not fur, with large, hairless feet covered in
hard, brown skin.
One may be forgiven for thinking a bunch of bored soldiers on patrol may make up an exciting
story to impress their peers- but would a General in the young Soviet army risk his
reputation to fabricate a tall tale?
Unfortunately with no physical evidence, it's up to you to decide.
Monsters haunt our dreams, and seemingly too our battlefields.
But are soldiers around the world really encountering monsters, or simply unknown biological specimens
and strange but perfectly natural phenomenon?
Without hard proof, we may never know.
So, have you ever seen a monster or otherworldly being?
Let us know in the comments.
Also, be sure to watch our other video called This man spent 43 years in isolation!
Thanks for watching, and as always, don't forget to like, share and subscribe, see you
next time!