1948: Young Reynolds and the Hairy Man

In 1985, Janet Bord published an account of an odd encounter that one Mr. E.J.A. Reynolds told her he had experienced as a ten-year-old lad in 1948. During World War II, Reynolds had been evacuated from London to Horsham in Sussex, to protect him from the Nazi bombings of London. In 1948, he was staying in Horsham during the summer school holidays, and went out one moonlit night to set rabbit traps. He sat to wait, hoping to see the rabbits as they got trapped.

        As he sat still, a man stepped out of a blackberry bush near him... a man covered in hair and only 18 inches tall. His face was bare and leathery looking, with a sharp nose; and his arms seemed longer to his body size than a human's would be. After a moment, the strange little man turned and stepped back into the blackberry bush, showing no signs of knowing that Reynolds was crouched down nearby. When Reynolds told this to the couple he was staying with, they laughed at him.

        Stranger still, a few days later Reynolds was on the topside of a double-decker bus driving through Horsham when he, briefly, saw the strange hairy man one more time as he walked across the lawn in a large garden. If Reynolds had doubted his sighting before, it was hard to this time... it was during broad daylight when he saw the little man.

Please Take Note

        Bord's book is the first known printing of this account, as it came from a personal communication from Mr. Reynolds himself... which means the details were not fully noted until thirty-seven years after the event would have occurred. This long lag time raises the possibility that some details may have changed in Reynolds' memory since the event initially occurred.