2016, August 19: Werewolf in Halsham, England

On August 29, 2016, news services in the United Kingdom were abuzz with a report from a 24 year old animal rescue worker named Jemma Waller, who claimed to have seen a werewolf near the town of Halsham, East Riding, England.

Jemma Waller, on the lane she had her sighting at [Larger version here]

        The details reported were straightforward enough, if fantastic. Waller was driving down a country lane near Halsham with two friends to go get pizza when her friend in the back seat said he saw a fox. Waller looked over to see a beast on four legs just as it stood up on two and walked toward her car. She described the creature as looking like a big dog with cream or gray fur, "probably bigger than my car," and with a human face (most news sites also reported the creature was 8 feet tall, but none quoted Waller on this). Just as Waller was starting to register how strange the creature was, it turned around and ran off. "Everyone in the car was really shaken. We'd never seen anything like that before."

        The group drove until they reached a nearby gas station, where they felt safe enough to try to calm down. In explaining to the staff at the station what they had seen, the staff mentioned that there had recently been reports in the area of a strange werewolf-like animal that had been dubbed "The Beast of Barmston Drain" (which is where early sightings had occurred). In reading about these reports later that night, Waller found they corresponded very closely to the creature she saw. "It just made us more scared to be honest and I didn't get any sleep that night. It was just like a horror movie."

More Details, Please

        The above is essentially the report as all news services, worldwide, carried it... which is missing a lot of details. As it is, with no actual date and time of occurrence and with no names or statements from the other witnesses, I would have to mark the whole matter as 'Unreliable'.

         Luckily, however, I tracked down some of the missing details, so I have a fuller statement of what happened that night, including details the news services probably knew but chose not to pass on: but first things first. 'The Beast of Barmston Drain' is a reference to a number of reports that were coming out of the area of Hull, England, around May, 2016, which is a town about thirteen miles away from where the above sighting occurred. A large, dog-like creature had been reported to be seen standing on its hind legs like a human, and to jump over tall fences while carrying a dead German shepherd in its mouth... these are reports that I will deal with separately, which may not be related to the event above (that can be judged later). The reported detail of the creature above being 8 feet tall was not something that Waller stated... it was a detail taken from reports on the Barmston Beast by the news services, in an attempt to connect the earlier reports to Waller's sighting.

        Most news reports of Waller's sighting stressed the fact that Waller described herself as an Equine Welfare Assistant who formerly worked at Blue Pony Farm; and her social media made it very clear she really loves horses... but that detail was being used to cover the fact that, at the time of the sighting, Waller was occupied as a "Paranormal Investigator." This title came with Waller's job with Most Haunted Experience, a group associated with the popular UK TV show "Most Haunted" that takes paying customers to spooky locations for overnight investigations and adventures. In fact, she and her two passengers -- Debbie Asling, and a gentleman named Reece, also employees of Most Haunted Experience -- were making a pizza run for an event that was running that night, August 20, at a house in Halsham.

        It was already dark out when they left to get the pizza, but apparently not so dark that Reece couldn't see a fox on the side of the road. When he mentioned it, Waller looked out the driver's side window (on the right side of the car in the UK) and saw a 'beast' on four legs just as it stood up onto two and approached her car. She looked straight into the creature's face, which she described as 'human-like,' then it dropped back down to all four legs and ran off sideways across the field next to the road. Waller locked her doors and just kept driving -- she hadn't stopped at any point. According to Asling, she herself saw a 'bulky fur figure' in Waller's headlights before the car came alongside it, which is when Waller got a good look. Waller said they thought that perhaps this creature was trying to catch the fox when they drove by and got in the way.

        The group picked up the pizzas, then drove back along the same road hoping to film the creature, but their "sat nav wouldn't have it"... which I'm guessing means the satellite navigator failed to help them re-locate the precise area they had seen the creature earlier. When they returned to the event and told everyone what they had seen, the locals at the event told them about the recent news stories regarding the Beast of Barmston Drain in the area of Hull. When Waller got home, she looked up these stories; then posted a brief account of her strange encounter on her Facebook page -- stating that she expected many would think she had invented the story -- and attached a link to an article on the Beast story from the Daily Mail website, which also mentions the Beast is 8 feet tall (which is likely the reason this detail was attached to Waller's own report later [Link Here]). The ensuing flurry of comments and replies included Debbie Asling backing up the story and adding her point of view on the matter. And no, Waller didn't sleep that night.

        A few more details to note. Waller appears to live about thirty-four miles from Hull, so she wouldn't necessarily know about any local legends in that town. The news service that broke the story of the encounter was the Hull Daily Mail, so they are the people to blame for creative editing of the initial account... including saying that Waller and her friends found out about the Beast of Barmston Drain from a gas station attendant, not from a group attending a paranormal event, as well as not mentioning Waller's involvement in such matters. So the news service stories were basically sculpted to hide Waller's involvement with the paranormal tour group.

        So there's the fuller version of the story; now it's up to each of you to decide what to think of the matter.