The Beast Of Gevaudan - History's most terrifying and well-documented cryptid

reply to post by jimbo999


One thing about muskets I would like to point out is that even though they have piss poor accuracy, they actually do have pretty good stopping power. I would imagine that if a metal ball of around .60 caliber hit you it'd pretty noticeable

And on top of the 1760s french army being quite poorly trained, I think that an army is a very easy thing for a such a creature to avoid. Just the smell of an army would be like a billboard to such a creature I would think.

I wouldn't doubt that a creature such as this could exist in remote regions of France for a very long time. Even if there was contact and successful hunts of them throughout history up until that point I think they would only receive local or regional attention, and there would be a good chance of it not being written down anywhere. If such a creature could survive until today I am pretty skeptical about, however. We prolly killed them all or restricted their hunting grounds to the point where they went extinct

Originally posted by giugliot
reply to post by fedeykin

 

Your ‚explanation’ sounds like many of the ‚official theories’. Basically a blend of blaming just coincidences, just dumb „suspicions of a local populace“ and just „psychotic persons“ accidentally displaying extremely lunatic behaviour („..walk around with a bear or wolf pelt on your head“ - ...sure....ahemmm...UMPFFFF...). Come on fedeykin, just how dumb are WE?

edit on 19-1-2012 by giugliot because: spelling

To answer you question, uneducated people in rural Europe in the 1700s were quite dumb, not only dumb but also superstitious. The general populace had barely any access to education.

If we took heresay as proof, then we would also have proven long ago that aliens exist and are probing us, as well as Big Foot and so forth.

Give me a Physician's description of one of the victims and I will start to accept claims that it wasn't done by a human. Heresay by local peoples with no medical knowledge does not apply.

Originally posted by Viking9019
It was said to be at the time a werewolf but they did capture a creature,i believe,and they thought they had killed it for good.They were wrong though and the killings kept occuring and to this day no one has an idea as to what the beast was.

One eyewitness,who was found under his table in shock,said that an upright being killed his livestock and then looked through the window before taking off.

Thats a lot of info to be found about this being or beings.

Wow you mean even back then they mistook the chupacabra as a (albeit larger) dog with mange?

Originally posted by jimbo999
The problem with that theory is that there were many attacks that involved multiple witnesses that survived - and they all described the same creature. This thing was described as being as big as a young cow or bull - ie several hundred pounds. It's favorite technique was to instantly decapitate it's victims - just doesn't sound like anything a human being could pull off to me. But you never know...

I think this should be linked to the case of the boy, who was born with hair, and people convinced him he was a werewolf, that made him insane. That story, is far more documented in french history, and is the precursor to our modern society and justice system.

The case you are mentioning, is a case of multiple cases where people, out of fright, gave it a name of some beast. Such cases are common in history, not merely france ... but all over the world.

Case in history, this is neither a beast, nor a single murderer. But multiple cases, that were accredited a "beast", because the local police did not have the intellect, capability or will to solve the case. And the populace, frightened to death, thought about a demon that was to be blamed for all the evils that occurred. In these "religious" times, those "religious" fanatics, found ways to blame it on the devil. After all, these crimes were so vial and hideous, no "man" could do this ... it had to be a beast.

solved.

And we still do this ... "Hitler" is a beast, so is "Saddam". There is a far worse beast, living in our world, but we don't see it or hear it ... we only see and hear, what is beneficial to see or hear.

case closed.

Originally posted by qonone
This one always fascinated me. Thank you very much

You're welcome!

2nd.

Originally posted by Mkoll
reply to post by jimbo999

 

One thing about muskets I would like to point out is that even though they have piss poor accuracy, they actually do have pretty good stopping power. I would imagine that if a metal ball of around .60 caliber hit you it'd pretty noticeable

And on top of the 1760s french army being quite poorly trained, I think that an army is a very easy thing for a such a creature to avoid. Just the smell of an army would be like a billboard to such a creature I would think.

I wouldn't doubt that a creature such as this could exist in remote regions of France for a very long time. Even if there was contact and successful hunts of them throughout history up until that point I think they would only receive local or regional attention, and there would be a good chance of it not being written down anywhere. If such a creature could survive until today I am pretty skeptical about, however. We prolly killed them all or restricted their hunting grounds to the point where they went extinct

Interesting. Thanks for the input! Yes, I imagine a musket ball would seriously hurt a person. Interestingly, as mentioned in the first linked web page of the OP, some scientists actually did some research on the musket and the historical reports of the people who claimed to have shot at the Beast - worth a read.

Cheers.

Originally posted by fedeykin

Originally posted by giugliot
reply to post by fedeykin

 

Your ‚explanation’ sounds like many of the ‚official theories’. Basically a blend of blaming just coincidences, just dumb „suspicions of a local populace“ and just „psychotic persons“ accidentally displaying extremely lunatic behaviour („..walk around with a bear or wolf pelt on your head“ - ...sure....ahemmm...UMPFFFF...). Come on fedeykin, just how dumb are WE?

edit on 19-1-2012 by giugliot because: spelling

To answer you question, uneducated people in rural Europe in the 1700s were quite dumb, not only dumb but also superstitious. The general populace had barely any access to education.


If we took heresay as proof, then we would also have proven long ago that aliens exist and are probing us, as well as Big Foot and so forth.

Give me a Physician's description of one of the victims and I will start to accept claims that it wasn't done by a human. Heresay by local peoples with no medical knowledge does not apply.

Actually there are numerous reports and letters from the period written by church leaders, military personnel, doctors, town elders etc. It's all out there - which is why it's so fascinating: the actual evidence is myriad, and even includes numerous gravestones with the epithet "killed by The Beast" on such & such a date... Like I said in the original post, it's a very well-documented case.

Originally posted by bjarneorn

Originally posted by jimbo999
The problem with that theory is that there were many attacks that involved multiple witnesses that survived - and they all described the same creature. This thing was described as being as big as a young cow or bull - ie several hundred pounds. It's favorite technique was to instantly decapitate it's victims - just doesn't sound like anything a human being could pull off to me. But you never know...

I think this should be linked to the case of the boy, who was born with hair, and people convinced him he was a werewolf, that made him insane. That story, is far more documented in french history, and is the precursor to our modern society and justice system.

The case you are mentioning, is a case of multiple cases where people, out of fright, gave it a name of some beast. Such cases are common in history, not merely france ... but all over the world.

Case in history, this is neither a beast, nor a single murderer. But multiple cases, that were accredited a "beast", because the local police did not have the intellect, capability or will to solve the case. And the populace, frightened to death, thought about a demon that was to be blamed for all the evils that occurred. In these "religious" times, those "religious" fanatics, found ways to blame it on the devil. After all, these crimes were so vial and hideous, no "man" could do this ... it had to be a beast.

solved.

And we still do this ... "Hitler" is a beast, so is "Saddam". There is a far worse beast, living in our world, but we don't see it or hear it ... we only see and hear, what is beneficial to see or hear.

case closed.

Case closed? Hardly. The case has been open for over 200 years lol! When you can fully explain ALL the evidence in this case to most people's satisfaction, then the "case is closed".

Until such a time, it remains an intriguing mystery.

There's a hundred "eye account" witnesses of bigfoot as well. Humans 200 years in the future (presumably when the big foot myth isn't popular) would look at it like we are looking at this case right now. Doesn't mean there is really a bigfoot or ever was.

Originally posted by mnmcandiez
There's a hundred "eye account" witnesses of bigfoot as well. Humans 200 years in the future (presumably when the big foot myth isn't popular) would look at it like we are looking at this case right now. Doesn't mean there is really a bigfoot or ever was.

Actually, there are thousands. The difference is of course is that Bigfoot hasn't left hundreds of corpses in it's wake. Headless bodies don't tend to get there by themselves...nor gravestones, official reports by government sources, military intervention etc etc.

Utterly fascinating!

Thank you OP! S&F!

in the time this took place there was a public tendency to classify pedophiles and serial killers and rapists as werewolves or beasts,having said that I have been sitting on this 8000 year old small sculpture of a warrior ,with I have no idea what, on a leash!!

maybe evidence that some sort of beast was once domesticated for terror purposes ? some think that the beast was a real beast that was trained to kill? the creature depicted in the figurine cretainly somewhat resembles the prehistoric animal in the OP!

figurine is from Romania

reply to post by jimbo999


That looks like a bear wolf.

Which is both awesome and terrifying at the same time.

ive heard of this. they thought it was some kind of werewolf. turned out some guy had a hyena imported from africa. i believe it was even trained

This was always one of my most favorite cryptid cases. I remember first the story on Animal X, I believe.

My favorite explanation (and the one that always seemed most likely to me), was the theory that this was all the work of a serial killer who used a trained animal (based on the witness descriptions, possibly a wolfdog hybrid or a hyena) as his weapon of choice. There was a really awesome special about this on the History Channel, I believe, called "The Real Wolfman".

This story is an important link to history.

First, are there recent news articles from the last 100 years of any deaths attributed to this "creature"? That would be an interesting project. If so, the victims would have telling political links.

Just a little interesting tidbit on some connections you might not be aware of. The Gévaudan area of France is noted to be where the word Baphomet was coined. Bafumarias was a derogatory reference given to the Mosques during the crusades by the Poet Gavaudan of Gévaudan. For quite a few centuries, the area was in political upheaval, ransacked by the secret familiar societies - Catholicism vs Barbarism.

The Satanic symbol of the Baphomet was originally a reference to Muhammad as the Knights Templar were using the Mosques in many areas of Europe as a political highway.

Rather than looking for a "creature", you would be looking for "creatures" of the humanly type - ie occult killings. What many fail to recognize about these accounts of historical genocide, is that they were always politically influenced - much like what you're seeing happening in the Middle East right now.

There are many startling political coincidences to the crusades in the so-called "war on terrorism". The familiar political influences are involved. Beheadings and bodily mutilations was very much a trademark of the Knights Templar.

Your history of the beast of Gévaudan is very characteristic of the Grimm's Tale of Red Riding Hood. The wolf in sheep's clothing is very allusive. He controls both side of the spectrum, the man being human subjects, and the beast the political, governmental entity. The Knights Templar had Judaic, Catholic, and Islamic ties, and were playing all three sides for many centuries, mostly for monitory profit.


Fabian Society

The secret of Gévaudan is that you have always worshiped the same beast, as under political designees the same beast controls all three major influences. Hence the prophecy in Revelations where it states the the Beast devours religion. That prophecy was essentially fulfilled during the crusades. It is only now the clay comes to the realisation and separates from the amalgam (Daniel 2:41 - 43). See the depiction above of the forge and the creation of the creature of Gévaudan.

The power of Myths...

A clever False Flag to unite people behind the government that can save them...pay your taxes.....yup it sounds reasonable.

Myths were common during those times. People were deathly afraid of sailing off the edge of the world, or burning in hell for eternity. They even thought earth was the center of the solar system.

Well there is obviously "something" that terrorized these people, and like bigfoot, the anecdotal accounts and physical evidence are hard to deny. But, due to the fact that this was an isolated incident, or isolated to one region and stretch of time, the chances of this being a "new" creature are extremely low.

I say this because there obviously was not a population of the animals, but a single animal. This leads me to speculate that it could have been some freak genetic mutation, and the animal was probably birthed by a wolf or other wild animal.

I have never encountered this case before, although I have a nagging suspicion that there was a piece on television regarding this beast that I skimmed through some time ago, so I am too familiar with what exactly happened. Therefore, if my hypothesis can be ruled out via evidence that I remain ignorant of, I apologize.

reply to post by jimbo999


Maybe it is a cross between a female wolf and a feral male St. Bernard? It is easy to imagine a lone female wolf sticking close to a St Bernard. And wolves did roam Europe in those day's..

After reading your story, I remember reading about that years ago... when I was 13 or 14. I seem to remember an offhand comment made along the lines of a direwolf possibility, since they were of the age of megafauna, and relatively not so long ago on the evolutionary timeline. There could be a very remote chance that within a litter of normal wolf cubs an abnormal one was born, and because of his superior size and strength, was able to survive. Being such a genetic oddity, it may have been born sterile, thus the dead end that seems to have happened. The indigenous breed of wolf in the areas of lower Europe including France may have very well had a bit of direwolf genetics in the DNA, and every so often, one pops up. Scary as hell, but possible. Look at what selective breeding has done to the canine breed anyway. Who would guess a pug or maltese had wolf ancestors?