Decemystery (2022.3) 29: The Vampire Caterpillar of Scotland

 

A needless bit of detail: I’m listening to “I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing” by Aerosmith while I write this. A lovely piece of music for a story like this; it’s my specialty to have inappropriate background noise while writing about absolute silliness.

As I have said countless times, I pick some stories solely for the name. It’s just how I operate; I know that plenty of folks gravitate toward eye-catching titles. Trust me; I have friends I talk to—they’re just Internet friends. Nonetheless, if I ask them which story piques their interest more, ones like The Space Penguins of Tuscumbia will be chosen over The Kecksburg UFO Incident nine times out of ten.

Names carry a lot of weight, and that’s one reason I chose today’s story. With a name like The Vampire Caterpillar of Scotland, how could you not want to learn about it? Vampires are awesome, and caterpillars are interesting. Put them together, and you have an unbeatable duo! Right? Well, the only way to find out is to dive into this enigmatic tale of vampirism in the form of a giant creepy crawly! Also, I choked on a piece of a chocolate chip cookie shortly before writing this part. Still listening to Aerosmith, by the way.

Decemystery (2022.3) 6: Richard Curle’s Nighttime Visitor

 

Before I even get into the introduction, the image source is from Anomalous Illustrations, which is a part of Thack! Pow! Productions. Really great art; I wish I had any level of artistic skill. Unfortunately, I have the drawing capabilities of a kindergartener.

Hello, dear reader; welcome back to my humble little blog. Here, we (or rather I) talk about anything and everything Fortean; if you want the strangest stuff imaginable, just visit here. Yeah, I’m not the best at advertising, but it’s a work in progress. The point is, it’s time for another bout of Decemystery goodness!

Today’s story, in my eyes, exemplifies that evolution as it’s classifiable as quintessential weirdness in its purest form. People claiming to have seen something strange is by no means remarkable on its own, but I believe that changes when it’s from someone of higher status. Richard Curle was a Scottish traveler, author, and critic; when he was but a young lad, he saw something truly bizarre; it was a creature most unexplainable. So come along, dear reader; it’s time to dive into the story of Richard Curle’s Nighttime Visitor.

Mystery: The Flannan Isles Lighthouse

 

This story is dedicated to my friend Jif. Thank you for being so supportive.

Lighthouses: they can tell you a thousand stories from the outside. Within their interiors, the number increases a thousandfold. They’re simplistic demeanor and lonesome, desolate atmosphere is a brilliant masquerade put on by the even more simplistic architectural structure. In simpler terms: lighthouses are unique. For something that ends up being a home for a man to help bring seafaring men and women back to shore, they end up telling you more stories than a war veteran can. Whether that be due to the isolatory nature (which is a case of depression waiting to happen) of them or because of sick sailors arriving back at shore to seek treatment.

Lighthouses also typically become secondary homes for their keepers; this in turn leads to them becoming haunted beyond belief. Big Bay Lighthouse and St. Augustine’s Lighthouse are two that come to mind when one thinks of a haunted cigarette-building (at least here in the United States). Though the haunted variety of these buildings will have to wait until December. For now, I want to shift the focus onto something a lot more unique.

As stated earlier: lighthouses are a case of depression waiting to happen and this is by no means hyperbole. They are, through and through, something that can drive a man insane. You needn’t look further than watching 2019’s The Lighthouse to feel like you’re going mad—especially if you thought that Robert “Battinson” Pattinson couldn’t act. Though really, can you blame anyone? Isolation from human contact—or being stuck in a building with other people you loathe—is bound to drive someone to lose their mind. So what do you do? Well, some may say you’d kill the people you don’t like, throw them to the waves, and then pretend that they “fell into the ocean”. Others may suggest you quit. Then some may say you jump into the ocean and become an ocean man.

Unlike most other times on this blog, that question is not something I will discard because it serves as a segway into another topic entirely. Rather, that question is part of today’s story through and through. The Flannan Isles Lighthouse is notorious for a great many reasons. Known as the location where three lighthouse keepers vanished, this guiding light for many a sailor was the inspiration for the aforementioned film The Lighthouse and conjures numerous images of lonesomeness and silence. So let us take a trip to over a century ago and seek out the truth to one of the world’s most maddening unsolved disappearance cases.