Paranormal Investigations - Flying Humanoids

I love UFOs.
If you notice, I have done a few Hubs about them, and I have been fascinated with UFO sightings for years.
As you know, UFO means Unidentified Flying Object and when you hear that, you usually think about black triangles, saucers the size of football fields, unexplained lights etc.
But there is another class of UFOs.
Humanoids.
Yes, you don’t have to believe in aliens from other worlds here.
These are "people" that have been sighted flying around the world.
It's easy to chalk all these tales up to hoaxes or hallucinogens, but to me, it's more fun to wonder "what if?".

Of course stories about flying humanoids have been around with us for literally ages.
Angels anyone?

But people flying in the air have not always had religious connotations.
Some are just weird things, at times seen by many people.

In paranormal investigator John Keel's book The Mothman Prophecies, he relates the story of how in 1877, a man in black haunted Brooklyn New York.
How did he haunt it?
Well he appeared in plain view of sunbathers, except he was at an estimated 1000 feet in altitude and had giant bat wings.
In a letter to the New York Sun dated September 18th, 1877, a WH Smith reported that he had seen the creature, and it was "a winged humanoid form".
From 1877 to 1880, allegedly many reputable people saw him, his stark black outline clear against the blue sky over Coney Island.

Also on May 15, 1877, in Aldershot, Hampshire, UK, a flying humanoid dressed in tight-fitting clothes and wearing a shining helmet allegedly flew over the heads of two sentries, who fired without result.
Supposedly the figure stunned them with something described as "blue fire."

Interestingly, in 1880 (the same year the Coney Island sightings stopped), a man flying with some winged contraption was supposedly sighted in Kentucky.
This was reported by the Louisville Kentucky Courier-Journal.

On April 14, 1897 over Mount Vernon, Illinois one hundred people (including the Mayor of Mount Vernon B. C. Wells) saw what "resembled the body of a huge man swimming through the air with an electric light on his back."

For several days in June, 1905 in Voltana, Spain, as many as 240 witnesses reported seeing a woman dressed all in white flying through the air.
And she didn’t have any wings.
Some said they heard singing as she passed overhead.

In July 11, 1908, Russian writer V.K. Arsenyev claimed to have seen a large flying humanoid in Sikhote Mountains near Vladivostok.
When he asked the locals about it later, they told him a story about “a man who could fly in the air. Hunters often saw his tracks, tracks that appeared suddenly and vanished suddenly in a way that could only result if the 'man' alighted on the ground, then took off again into the air."

In the winter of 1936 in the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan, USSR, a 15 year old girl reported that she saw a man dressed completely in black fly overhead.
He was dressed in black overalls, wore a helmet and there was a rumbling sound as he passed overhead.

In January 1948, a woman in Chehalis Washington, Mrs Bernard Zaikowski reported seeing a man with silver wings flying overhead about 200 feet over her barn.
He hovered, and when he did, Mrs Zaikowski said that he appeared to have some type of controls mounted on his chest.

Then in May 1948, two laundry workers in Longview Washington sighted a trio of "Birdmen" circling the city at around 250 feet.

In the early 1950s a Brazilian couple, the Reals, related a story about how they were observed by two gigantic "birds" in the trees near their home at Pelotas in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.
As the couple approached the "birds" they dropped down from the trees and the couple saw that they were actually six feet tall and looked human.
The husband wanted to investigate, but the wife advised going home.
Quickly.

Then in 1953 in Houston, Texas three people said that they saw a huge winged creature land in a nearby tree.
As they went closer to take a look, they saw it was a man with wings like a bat, dressed in gray/black tight-fitting clothes.
(Okay, yeah, that does sound like Batman)
The man stood there on the branch an old pecan tree, encased in a yellow halo of light (though some reports indicate a dim, grey light).
The light faded and so did he, but right after they heard a loud swoosh sound over the roof tops across the street.

In 1952 at Camp Okubo, Kyoto, Japan, a private on guard duty said he heard a flapping noise and looked up.
What he saw was a "bird" that slowly approached him. The private chambered a round and the creature stopped.
Now it was closer to him, and the private said he could see that it was a huge man over seven feet tall, with huge wings.
He emptied his carbine into it, but when he checked, it was gone.
Now you'd expect some problems when a private on guard duty empties his weapon into nothing, but when the sergeant of the guard heard the story, believed him.
Because the year before, another guard had reported the same thing.

In Falls City, Nebraska, in 1956, witnesses saw a man flying about 15 feet off the ground.
The man had silver wings with lights and he looked old and wrinkled with huge blue eyes.
The witnesses said he looked scary, almost demonic looking.
As he flew over, the witnesses said they were paralyzed and couldn’t move until he was gone.

From November 12, 1966, to December 1967, we have one of the most infamous flying humanoid cases, the Mothman.
This man-sized creature with large red eyes and large moth wings was sighted in the Point Pleasant area of West Virginia.
According to some reports, the "being" was seen lifting objects as heavy as a car.
Of course Mothman inspired the book The Mothman Prophecies by John Keel, and later the movie of the same name.

In Vietnam, near Da Nang in August of 1969, a soldier with the First Marine Division named Earl Morrison and two other guards were talking when they saw something approaching them.
Approaching them from the sky that is.
It was a naked woman, totally black with huge bat wings.
Although she was black, the soldiers said that the skin glowed with a greenish cast.
They said she hovered over them, without even flapping her wings, then flew away.

On April 17, 1976, in the village of Mawnan, Cornwall, United Kingdom, a 12 year old, June Melling, and Vicky, her nine-year-old sister, said they saw a large winged creature hovering over the church tower of Mawnan church...in broad daylight nonetheless.
When the Melling girls told their father, instead of going to the papers, he went to a local paranormal investigator Anthony "Doc" Shiels, who had to say the least a shady reputation.
Though Shiels himself was a hoaxer and the story would be easy to dismiss, on July 3rd two girl's camping near the church claimed to have seen a figure that looked like an owl and was as big as a man, with pointed ears, black pincer-like claws and red eyes.
There were more sightings the next day and on into 1978 all near the church.

From 2000 on, Mexico seemed to literally explode with flying humanoid sightings.

February, 2000, UFOlogist, Amado Marquez, taped a flying humanoid near his home.

In March of 2000, another UFOlogist Salvador Guerrero filmed a flying humanoid over Colonia Agricola Oriental, Distrito Federal, Mexico.
Then in December of 2000, Salvador filmed another flying humanoid in the same place.

In July 2000, Gerardo Valenzuela from Cuernavaca, Morelos, filmed a dark humanoid descending slowly over a valley until it disappeared behind a hill.

(Quick note here: Amado Marquez, Salvador Guerrero and Gerardo Valenzuela all know each other. I mean that is natural since they travel in the same UFO circles...I'm just saying)

La Prensa newspaper reported on October 1, 2000 that a commercial airline pilot sighted a "little flying man" that was seen by both himself and the co-pilot.
The "little flying man" was wearing a backpack.

On June 17, 2005 in Unidad Habitacional Lomas de Platero, Horacio Roquet claimed to have seen (and videotaped) a dark tall humanoid creature floating above a building and looking at him in a threateningly.
Harkening back to the old mechanical sightings, Horacio said that this one had a belt-like device emitting light a red glow.

One of the most famous flying humanoid sightings in Mexico came on May 17, 2006, when the research group Ovni Club Nuevo Leon witnessed (and filmed) a strange figure crossing the skies in the northern area of Cerro de las Mitras.
I love the video, and I love the possible explanations the Club gave as to what the creature was....

1. It could be some kind of man-made experimental device undergoing tests
2. It could be an abnormal entity that made itself visible due to a "reduction in its vibratory frequency"
3. An extraterrestrial entity flying a means of conveyance.
4. A witch

Yes...number four....a witch!
Holy Monty Python Batman!

Okay, I saved the best for last....

This to me is the coolest of all the flying humanoid stories yet.
So let me just show you the report that appeared in El Norte on Saturday, January 17, 2004...

"A municipal police officer testifies that he saw what looked like a 'woman in a black gown' descend from the trees as he was patrolling his beat in a squad car in 'la zona.' The descent was slow he said. As if it was floating."
"She was wearing a black gown (or robes) and had large, completely black eyes with no pupils."
"When this 'witch' started to make a move at me, I immediately contacted my fellow patrolmen by radio and I summoned assistance."
"The situation was intolerable and caused the officer to lose consciousness."
"I saw it walking toward me and I put the patrol car into reverse gear. I saw it start to tumble and fly. It impacted on the windshield of the car. As I continued to look at it, I raised my hands and fainted.
"Police department coordinator, Jesus Garcia Krestsh stated that officer Samaniego will undergo a complete psychological examination along with testing for drugs in order to eliminate hallucinations as a cause for the incident."

On a further note, after the story broke Mr. Jorge Contreras, another police officer from Santa Catarina said he saw a similar flying being just three days before the Samaniego incident.
The mayor of Guadalupe, Mr. Juan Francisco Rivera, also spoke out the day after the "attack" saying that Samaniego was a fine police officer and that there was no reason to think that he would have invented such a story.
But, he added that stress could have made him believe what he saw.

One account I left out from this is the 2007 "Superman" sighting in the village of Gemeni, Romania....
"Police are investigating after villagers in Romania claimed to see a Superman-like figure flying through the sky. Almost 20 villagers, from Gemeni, Mehedinti county, claim the UFO was wearing a shiny blue suit, just like Superman's. Police officers took written statements from all of the witnesses and say they described the figure in the same way."

You can verify this here.

On February 28th, 2008, Daniel Sanchez Rosales filmed a flying humanoid in the Moctezuma district, which is near Mexico City International Airport.
Of course being near an airport casts a bit of doubt on the report from the get go.
Anyway, you can see part of the video Daniel shot and some of the interview (in Spanish) here

SACurrent reported that a San Antonio family witnessed a flying humanoid...
"According to their account, it was during April of 2009 when the incident occurred. At the time, the lady of the household was standing in her driveway having a conversation on her cell phone, when she happened to glance up and spotted what appeared to be a huge, dark winged man gliding through the air!"
You can read the full story here

The description of this creature sounds remarkably like the 1953 Houston, Texas sighting.

Another report from 2009 concerns a flying man seen by several witness, one of whom said the figure was wearing a jet pack.
The original article at Birmingham Mail has been taken down, but you can read the account at Nick Redfern's Mysterious Universe here
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/09/fantastic-flying-folk/

This is being touted as "incredible footage" on the web.
But actually...it's the least impressive of all of the video I've seen.
Allegedly it's a Humanoid like flying object that was captured on film on January 1, 2012.
Li Xiu Ying who filmed it says "It literally looked like a large man floating through the sky"
I think it looks like some kid's SpongeBob SquarePants balloon escaped a birthday party.
At the end you can see freeze frame pictures (which was the only way I could actually make out anything).

The TV series Monster Quest did a whole episode devoted to flying Humanoids.
"A look back at a series of mid-20th Century reports of bizarre flying humanoids that caused waves of panic in small towns across the Northern United States and recent encounters in Mexico and California. The investigation also analyzes a strange corpse and video evidence to identify what people are seeing."
Here is part one.