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Mr Hyde In The Snow

 

This is Illuminati322, who has posted on here in the past. The following experience did not occur to me but to my father, during his childhood in Marinette, WI, in the 1960's.

It was in the mid-60's, at night time. He was roughly 7-8 years old, and was awake and alone in the living room of his family's home. He was staring outside the window into the darkness when suddenly a form emerged from around the corner, crossed the street and began walking down his block. It was a short male figure with an obviously crippled leg, dressed in conspicuously outdated clothing (ragged Victorian era duds one would expect from a character in a Charles Dickens story) and unnaturally and abundant, almost animal like thick body hair. My father saw him in profile, and from the side, his face was extended, almost resembling an animal snout. He likened the figure to me to Mr Hyde from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The thing moved forward and eventually out of view, assuaging my father's fears that he would notice him and turn and establish eye contact. He claims the event deeply unnerved him at the time, but has since become a faintly remembered childhood curiosity.

The identity of the entity remains a mystery, as Marinette, then as now, was a relatively small and close knit town, and if a hairy, deformed man lived there at the time he would have been aware of it. In any case, the thing was never seen again, at least not by my father. So, I ask the reader, who or what do you think this thing was and are there any sightings of similar things existing anywhere?

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The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, Illuminati322, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

Clouds123 (1 stories) (8 posts)
 
10 years ago (2014-09-01)
Wow amazing story!
Very well written and I'm glad your family member is indicating that he is still watching over you!
God bless you and thank you so much for posting:)
~Brooke
Argette (guest)
+1
10 years ago (2014-09-01)
Val, I think we see some of those nasty little kids in our lawmakers today, and in some of the people who support them. How awful to be born with hate in one's soul.

The story of the older lady with the wagon is just heart-breaking to me. I did some research on her once, and it seems she lost her husband when he was quite young and never remarried. I'm sad about it, and I never even knew her. But my dad is kind-hearted, and I think he used the story as a lesson for me.
valkricry (49 stories) (3286 posts) mod
+1
10 years ago (2014-09-01)
Argette,agreed it is a sad condition of the human race at large. Instead of practicing compassion, and tolerance we are quick to label, hate, and destroy. What we don't understand we fear, and what we fear we hate. That poor old lady. She probably suffered some form of dementia.
Sadly this type of thing isn't just in small rural towns, nor is it regulated to the past. Everyone wants to say, "kids can be cruel," but they learned that cruelty from someone. I'll bet you dollars to donuts, that the first person to call that old lady a witch, was a so called adult. I often wonder if we will ever see adults actually act like adults.
Argette (guest)
 
10 years ago (2014-09-01)
Val, I think I've heard of that condition. Frankly, given that Marinette was not a wealthy community back in the 60s, it would not surprise me if there was someone around with that condition that was left untreated. Dad told me about a man with lots of face tumors who had them all his life; surely that would scare a 6-7 year old, although it wouldn't make him look like a werewolf.

Sadly, about the same time in a nearby neighborhood, there was an older lady, a widow, who had a huge garden. She was probably in her 80s when he was a kid and she was a bit eccentric. She used to walk in the middle of the street with her wagon, going to the local grocery store. They used to call her a witch. Some kids torched her house and she died in the fire. Dad was no longer living at home then, but he recalls how shocked and saddened he was. Scary and sad.
valkricry (49 stories) (3286 posts) mod
 
10 years ago (2014-08-31)
Well, now... Argette and Fergie offer logical explanations. Couple this with the figure being across the street and it being dark out. BUT, let's say the figure really was as your Dad describes. What I mean, is we're tossing 'imagination' and 'optical illusion' into the closet for a moment and assuming the figure was exactly as described by your dad. There is a some what rare medical condition called Hypertrichosis, (also called Ambras Syndrome, with the layman name of... Ready for this?...werewolf syndrome.) It causes an abnormal amount of hair growth over the body. You can be born with it or acquire it later. The 20th century still saw people suffering from this condition working as freaks in side-shows, or being hidden away from society. The cloak he wore (giving him the Jekyle/Hyde look) may have been an attempt to hide part of his abnormality.
Now, let's allow optical illusion back out of the closet. A personal experience I had back in high school: Time: early evening, in the fall. Twilight has descended and I'm walking home with a friend. We heard a rustling behind some low hedges, and catch site of a very large hairy beast, that began to stand up. We were in suburbia, not two feet from it, but we both thought what we were seeing was a bear. We froze in our tracks, instinctively clutching hands, when the 'bear' spoke! It said "Hello, Girls." Turned out, was a neighbor wearing a fur coat, searching for his dropped keys. Gosh, I felt dumb. My point is, I was definitely a lot older than your dad at 7/8 years old, and yet darkness had managed to fool me. And I KNEW we had no bears in the area, but for a brief moment I would have sworn that is what we saw. As for what your father actually saw, I don't think we'll ever really know.
Argette (guest)
 
10 years ago (2014-08-30)
Illuminati, my dad's theory was pretty similar to Fergie's. He thought a kid could see someone with one misshapen feature and perceive the person as a creature or animal. But seriously, there are some odd characters in Marinette, or there were when Dad was growing up. There were people with medical conditions that would be corrected today. Dad told me about a few other characters that sounded a little scary, at least to a child.
Fergie (40 stories) (1159 posts)
 
10 years ago (2014-08-25)
Hi Illuminati, thank you for sharing your dad's experience, I enjoyed it.

I have a personal experience to share with you, I had forgotten all about it, until I read your submission.
Many, many years ago my dad took the family to a popular sea-side resort on holiday. Just after sunrise one morning, on a very unpleasant, blustery and cloudy day, he took me down to the esplanade. Sheltering in one of the concrete sheltered seats was a whole family that looked like they had stepped out of the stone-age, or earlier. Their clothing was modern, but their bodies were covered in unnaturally long hair, their faces looked 'ape-like'. No-one else was about. We concluded that this unfortunate family had come out with the hopes of few seeing them.

My suggestion is that your dad saw a misshaped transient, moving under the cover of darkness.
Illuminati322 (7 stories) (10 posts)
 
10 years ago (2014-08-25)
Argette,

Thank you, but what would explain the unnatural body hair and deformed, animal like facial features?
Argette (guest)
 
10 years ago (2014-08-24)
Illuminati, I did talk to my dad over the weekend. He's a bit older than your dad, but when he was living on Main Street, not far from Shore Drive, he says he saw a lot of odd characters and did not think someone looking a bit old fashioned was all that farfetched. His comment went along these lines: "People who were odd in the 60s were probably born at the turn of the century, so it could have been an eccentric person."

Don't quote me exactly. He shared some stories with me, but nothing paranormal.
Illuminati322 (7 stories) (10 posts)
 
10 years ago (2014-08-23)
elnoraemily,

As previously stated, Marinette was and still is a very small and close knit town, where news and information spread rather quickly. This, combined with the man's immense body hair and facial disfigurements, would have made him a very well known figure in the area, yet as it stands his identity remains a mystery.
elnoraemily (guest)
 
10 years ago (2014-08-22)
I would guess that it was some unfortunate character from the town.

Perhaps an alcoholic, maybe.

We have many in my town that freeze to death in the winter 😕
Illuminati322 (7 stories) (10 posts)
 
10 years ago (2014-08-22)
Spockie,

It was wintertime. The temperature was cold, and show was on the ground. I doubt it was someone dressed for a costume party as my father noted that the person was grossly underdressed for the season. If he had been en route to or from a costume party he likely would have been wearing winter clothing over it.
Spockie (8 stories) (203 posts)
 
10 years ago (2014-08-22)
I wonder if this was somebody dressed up for a costume party. Do you know what time of year this was?
Illuminati322 (7 stories) (10 posts)
 
10 years ago (2014-08-22)
Argette,

"Marinette has some unique characters. My father also grew up there, and he's always told some great stories about them. It would not surprise me in the least if it was a local character your father saw.

Did this take place in the neighborhood you described in "The Walls Have Eyes"?"

Yes it did, and could you get your father's take on this story?
Swimsinfire (11 stories) (556 posts)
+1
10 years ago (2014-08-21)
You know there are a number of urban legend cases of strange beings at night that turned out to be real deformed people that were paranoid to come out in the daytime, society being what it was. They seriously took walks, went to parks, all at night out of fear.
Argette (guest)
+1
10 years ago (2014-08-21)
Marinette has some unique characters. My father also grew up there, and he's always told some great stories about them. It would not surprise me in the least if it was a local character your father saw.

Did this take place in the neighborhood you described in "The Walls Have Eyes"?
Illuminati322 (7 stories) (10 posts)
 
10 years ago (2014-08-20)
I didn't say it literally was Dr. Hyde, or even that it literally resembled Dr. Hyde, merely that my father likened it to him in physical appearance and clothing.
Arwen1957 (7 stories) (47 posts)
 
10 years ago (2014-08-20)
Perhaps it was an unfortunate soul from a bygone time, that happened to step through a hole in time. Giving your Father a glimpse of him. In the era your Father thinks he came from anyone that was not right physically or mentally was hidden away and kept secret. The figure could have lived a hidden life and it is possible that few knew of his existence. Maybe he was in that time a secret no one spoke of. That would explain the o knowledge of someone looking like that
BadJuuJuu (guest)
+1
10 years ago (2014-08-20)
Yep Sonya, Dr. Hyde is indeed a fictional character.
Illuminati, as young as your father was at the time, and it being dark, it's possible his imagination filled in a few blanks on a shape he couldn't see very well in the dark. Really tough to call a one time sighting, at night, from a distance, by a very young child paranormal. Sorry, but I really think he just saw a neighbor.
Sonya (9 posts)
+1
10 years ago (2014-08-20)
Dr. Hyde an Dr. Jekyll is just a story right? Well I don't know though, sorry I can not help you. 😢

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