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Barefoot Mysteries
Kick off your shoes, get comfortable and join us, barefoot Pat and Dave, your Barefoot Mystery Junkies, while we explore the Unsolved, the Unexplained, the Paranormal and the Weird World We Live In.
Barefoot Mysteries
Meet The Owlman
Join us in Cornwall England as we we explore the eerie urban legend known as The Cornish Owlman. Is he a true Legend or a Hoax?
Theme Music courtesy of Uppbeat
Artist: Alex Besss
Track Title: Threatened
Theme Music courtesy of Uppbeat
Artist: Alex Besss
Track Title: Threatened
Contact us at: barefootmysteries @gmail.com
Welcome back to Barefoot Mysteries. I'm Pat.
Speaker 2:And I'm Dave.
Speaker 1:Hey Dave.
Speaker 2:Hey Pat.
Speaker 1:Ready, fantastic. You know, today I kind of want to talk about urban legends, actually not kind of want to talk. Yeah, I'm working to talk about urban legends.
Speaker 2:Oh, let's do that.
Speaker 1:Okay, i think we all, whether we want to admit it or not, really enjoy hearing and telling urban legends.
Speaker 2:I know some people really remember those stories well.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I know I do. I'm one of those people. There's Bloody Mary, Candyman, Bigfoot The Hook Sound familiar.
Speaker 2:What's The Hook?
Speaker 1:Oh my god, don't remember the teenage kids that go out to park and there's a legend of the guy with the hook and then when they get home, the hook is hanging from the car handle.
Speaker 2:That wasn't in the front of my memory banks, but you brought it back well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, i'm sure pretty much everyone listening has heard these at one time or another, either from our friends around the campfire. spooky stories around the campfire. Oh, they're the best You know. you've got this beautiful campfire in front of you. It's all pretty and light, but it's awfully dark behind you that something could sneak up Very dark. Yeah, of course family members will tell you these stories, good old uncle and grandpa.
Speaker 2:Some of those guys and gals had it down to a science.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, they love scaring the grandkids and the nieces and nephews, didn't they?
Speaker 2:scare the hair right off of their their uh what's that called? arm, arm Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's called an arm. There's books, emails, social gatherings. We've all you know they, that's the. We transport all these urban legends back and forth this way. But let me ask you seriously seriously.
Speaker 2:Okay, i'm being serious, okay, i'm ready.
Speaker 1:Has anyone ever debunked these legends?
Speaker 2:I think if they had, they would have padded themselves mightily on the back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think we would have heard about it and they wouldn't keep going on through generation and generation if they had been debunked.
Speaker 2:Well, sometimes these stories also change their complexion through the years.
Speaker 1:That's true, but these, like the bloody Mary and the big foot and the candy man and the hook, and oh my God, I'm trying to think of some of the others too They all seem to hang on.
Speaker 2:Same story.
Speaker 1:Same story, maybe it's a different year. Car there in, who knows. Well, that's what we're going to do today. We're going to have a discussion about an urban legend. We'd love to have you all join us. Come join me and Dave on today's adventure. Get comfortable, come come on. Get comfortable, kick off your shoes. We're headed to the coastal town of Cornwall, england, in a remote area of Cornwall Since the 13th century stone church known as the Saint Malman, how man Malman, m A W M A N. It's also known as the Saint Stevens, and I don't know why. I couldn't figure out why it had two names.
Speaker 2:But I like Malman better.
Speaker 1:Malman The church, this beautiful stone church, with the stainless Uh, not stainless, what did they call the stained glass? Stained glass, stainless, stained glass.
Speaker 2:They might not have had stainless back in the 13th century?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's probably it, but you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course it's probably cracked and broken and missing now, but you can just picture it surrounded by woods, overlooking a magnificent view of the sea And, of course, built right next to a centuries old cemetery.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, huh Huh. Remote area Thick woods Cemetery.
Speaker 2:Sounds like you're getting closer to your story.
Speaker 1:It does make for the perfect spooky setting, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It is a good framework. Speaking of framework, the things that were built back then are still standing. If you built them today, they'd be falling down already.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the tornado would have taken them down.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Or hurricane, or the tsunami? Yeah, but they seem to be standing. They were, they were built to last. I'll tell you.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Not like our cars of today, but anyway, okay, i digress. Let's get back to Cornwall England. Cornwall I keep wanting to put a D there Cornwall England. On June 4th 1926, the Cornish Echo It was a local Cornwall newspaper, and echo Echo published a story about two young boys who were playing in and around the church's cemetery. Well, they were having a great time going behind tombstones, jumping over, doing whatever boys do, when they were attracted by a sound. They heard something fluttering near one of the tombstones. Well, boys being boys, they went to see what it was.
Speaker 2:Heck, yeah, we've got to see this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But as they approached it, what they saw terrified them. It was a huge, ferocious bird, like creature, and it just suddenly sprang up, flew up into the air and started chasing them. Terrified, the boys started running away and escaped by hiding under a huge metal grate that they had found there.
Speaker 2:Fortunately they had something to hide under. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I wonder how long they stayed there waiting for that, whatever it was to leave. Can you imagine? Can you just imagine both? Did you see that? Oh, my God, did you see that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the boys is being clawed by the talons and away he goes My friend, yeah, yeah, no, well, they were saved Okay good.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, here I'm thinking that when the people, the people back then in 1926, are reading their morning newspaper, the echo, the echo, the Cornish echo, they're reading this newspaper article in the morning and they're probably I would think I would probably be doing and going Oh my God, listen to this. They probably just shook their heads and thought the boys had overly active imaginations.
Speaker 1:They were laughing over their team Oh my God, those silly boys, oh my gosh. Well, and that might have been the end of it, except that 50 years later, on April 17, 1976, two young girls, june Welling, age 12, and her sister Vicky, nine, were enjoying spending their family Easter vacation in Cornwall. The girls thought it would be fun to play in the secluded woods nearby the town bordering that old stone church. Everyone likes secluded woods Woo.
Speaker 1:And the little kids. You know, if they came from the city they're probably going. This is great. Let's go into the woods and run around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, let's go. They were running through.
Speaker 1:They were laughing and giggling when they both noticed that the birds in the trees had suddenly stopped singing and everything just became deadly quiet, deadly, deadly quiet. So what scared the birds? Why did they stop singing? Some did they just lose?
Speaker 2:Did they lose their hearing?
Speaker 1:The girls? No, i don't think so. Okay, anything's possible They had just everything was just so quiet. There was just silence that had descended upon the entire forest. It was then that one of the girls suddenly let out a large gasp. Her sister, obviously wondering what had happened, turned to look at her, and then she saw that her sister was looking up. so she looked up. hovering over the old church tower was something that looked like some sort of birdman creature.
Speaker 2:Birdman.
Speaker 1:Birdman creature. Yeah, birdman, the birdman of Alcatraz.
Speaker 2:Birdman creature.
Speaker 1:Birdman kind of type creature and it had its wings, huge wings. They had like a five-foot wingspan. They said It had glowing red eyes that were just boring into them And instead of a beak there was a large black mouth that was open. Well, you can imagine they were terrified and they started screaming and running back as fast as they could to town.
Speaker 2:Very good idea.
Speaker 1:Oh, they were crying and trying to catch their breath as they ran. And when they got back to their parents and their parents were holding on to him going, what happened? What happened? Both the girls were shaking so badly and they tried, between sobs, to tell their parents about the monster that they had just seen. In fact, the girls were so distraught and they couldn't get them calmed down that the family the father especially said uh-uh, we're cutting our vacation and we are going home. They left immediately.
Speaker 2:That is a good decision.
Speaker 1:I would think so. Well, just a mere three months later after this sighting, two 14-year-old girlfriends, barbara Perry and Sarah Chapman, decided to go camping in those very same woods.
Speaker 2:Great idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they set up their tent and their camping site and we're getting ready to settle in for the night. It was still early evening, not quite dark yet, when the girls heard something from coming from outside behind their tent. It was this like screeching sound, a hissing sound. Well, they very carefully opened up the tent and stepped outside and looked back to see something that looked like a large gray colored owl.
Speaker 2:Isn't that interesting. When you open up the tent slowly, it's going to change the parameter of reality.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, i guess. But wouldn't you if you're, if you think there's something out there, you're not going to rip open the tent? These two little girls are going to kind of slowly peek and see what they can find.
Speaker 2:I think I'd try to peek one eye out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if that much I'd be going. You go first and tell me I'm right behind you.
Speaker 2:Or do you have a mirror? Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 1:Let's just look back there. Well, what they saw was a man sized creature or thing, and it was standing in the path. It looked like a gray colored owl. It wasn't perched in the trees, it was standing on the path. Well, at first the girls started giggling because they thought Oh my God, this is someone in a costume trying to trick us into thinking it was the infamous owl man fooling with us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but they soon stopped laughing. And they stopped laughing quick when immediately they saw this thing take off, spring up into the air and fly away and disappear.
Speaker 2:We gotta be happy that it flew away.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, i don't think they even waited till it was completely gone. They were so terrorized that they left immediately. They just left everything behind, they just took off and they went into town good choice now, when they were talking to the authorities in town, barbara and Sally were separated and they put them each in a separate room and asked them to draw What they had seen. I would think they probably did that because they want to see. Are they gonna draw the same thing, or?
Speaker 1:you know, If they draw something completely different than it's a hoax. So they're just. They're just trying to trick us.
Speaker 2:They're tricking us for more press time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but When the authorities were looking at the two drawings side by side they were almost identical. They had both drawn a man like creature with a feathered head and body, glowing red eyes, pointed ears and A large black open mouth where a beak should be. He had man like or it I should say it had man like legs and Pinchers for feet sound familiar that does sound familiar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought they didn't ask me to draw a picture. It wouldn't look like a stick man.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Well, i'm sitting here thinking deja vu, we've seen. Where have we seen this before?
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, other sightings have followed since then, but a lot of the witnesses Preferred to remain anonymous, maybe because they thought, oh, they're gonna think we're crazy. Oh Yeah, maybe they thought, oh, they're gonna ridicule us or they're gonna mock us. So They would come forward. But they say, they would say don't you know, we don't want to give you our names, we just want to tell you that this is what we've seen incognito right.
Speaker 1:Well, at the end of summer in 1995, a Written report was Sent in to the Western Morning News. They received a letter. It was from an American tourist. She was a student studying marine biology in Chicago and She said hey, she had spent her last day of summer vacation in England and She had had a frightening Awakening experience. When she came face-to-face on that last day with what she described as a vision from hell, she said you know what? I want to go visit that old church in Cornwall. And so she was walking along a narrow path through all the trees she wanted to yes, she wanted to see that.
Speaker 1:Well, she had never heard of it. You know she's an American tourist marine biologist. It's overlooking the sea and and you want to see all these. You know we don't have 13th century churches right now on each corner here.
Speaker 1:So she went there and I would imagine you've got this magnificent view of the sea, you Overlooking the gorgeous ocean and the, and you've got this wooded Forest or trees and you're walking through. It must have been gorgeous walking through this path when she suddenly stopped because She saw something and what she saw Was the size of a man. She said it had a ghastly face, a wide mouth, glowing eyes and pointed ears. It had huge clawed wings and And was covered in silver gray feathers.
Speaker 2:That sounds very familiar.
Speaker 1:Exactly. They all say the same thing that it has this huge and it has a huge wingspan when it flies. Well, you know what She screamed when she saw this thing that turned and looked at her and Suddenly rose up and started flying towards her. She ran for her life.
Speaker 2:She better get on her horse and get out.
Speaker 1:Gosh, I'm telling you, I bet she never ran so fast in her life. Well, furthermore, in her letter she stated that when she told friends about this, they had told her that there was a phantom owl man in that area, And she said It is no longer a phantom. I have seen it myself, Boy. I wonder if she'll ever go to Europe for a vacation again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, alman sounds like he's in for the for the duration.
Speaker 1:Wow. Well, there is a theory that some researchers have come up with, because they discovered what they called a lay line. It's L E Y line. I had to look it up.
Speaker 2:It's gonna say what do you find out?
Speaker 1:Well, it's an energy line, a line of energy from the earth that's coming from the earth and it's deep down inside the ground. They found that, that that runs under that particular site, where the church and the woods and the cemetery is, and they believe that this energy line could act as a portal to bring non human beings from the nether world, or wherever they are, into our world.
Speaker 2:Sounds like somebody snuck through at least one.
Speaker 1:At least one, that's for sure. I hope he knows how to go back through that same portal. Now, what do you think? Is this urban legend true, or is it a hoax?
Speaker 2:It's been around for a long, long time. A lot of people putting in input.
Speaker 1:No one has been able to prove it or disprove it either way. So until that happens, the when, where, how and why of the existence of the Alman is gonna remain a mystery.
Speaker 2:I think that we should go check it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, i don't think so. You know, i appreciate your generous offer and, and you know, i am so fascinated with all these kinds of legends, with the supernatural, with the unexplained, and I love reading about them and I love hearing about them And I'm drawn to them like crazy. But I think there comes a point where I have to draw a line in the sand and keep myself at arm's length And so I'm just going to say no trips for me to 13th century English churches, not in the near future. Yeah, you know what? Not ever.
Speaker 2:You know I've got a lot of frequent flyer miles. Pat, you could go and you could be a part of this urban legend.
Speaker 1:Have a great time. Send me a postcard. Come on, nope, not having it Little camp out. Yeah, I love camping. You know, I love camping, but I didn't that ain't happening. Not there, bring a mirror.
Speaker 2:Bring a mirror so you can look outside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, thanks, don't need to do it. No, not happening. But you know what I would love to ask our listeners if you do happen to go on a European vacation and you want to go see this gorgeous stone church and the cemetery with the tombstones that are leaning or have completely fallen down and broken, and you happen to come across something you can't quite explain and it's flying overhead, do me a favor and take a picture with that cell phone of yours and email it to me at barefootmysteriesatgmailcom. Barefootmysteriesatgmailcom. We want to see pictures. Oh, pictures. We'll post them, you bet we will. We'll post them on the website and, as always, if you've been there and you've experienced anything like that, send us an email too. We'd love to share with everyone what you've discovered.
Speaker 2:Scare Pat, scare Pat.
