Mothman, Puppet Wolves and the Nunahee (UFO Digest 1/09)

 This article first appeared on UFO Digest, January 2009.

 Mothman, Puppet Wolves and the Nunahee

In Andrew Colvin’s The Mothman's Photographer III, he mentions entities that visited him when he was a child:

All I had ever been able to remember was some scurrying activity in the room while I was asleep, perhaps by some small, furry creatures akin to the Cherokee “Nunahee” or Hawaiians “Menehune” (note similarity in names.) But it all seemed so dream-like I never thought it was real.

Colvin goes on to say he had done a regression and recovered a memory of interacting with the beings:

“I could remember telling the entities -- whether they were real or from the dream state -- to leave me alone.” (Mothman’s Photographer III, page 96)

When I read this I felt that familiar jolt of synchronous memory, a tugging at things within. It was Colvin’s comment about “scurrying activity “ in his bedroom and “small, furry creatures” that got me. I have memories of being visited by small, furry creatures. I call them the “puppet wolves” because they reminded me of hand puppets, gray, and looking something like wolves. They would gather all around my bed, and were very active. They’d come right up to me and talk to me. They both scared me and delighted me. They weren’t vicious or harmful, but they I had the feeling they weren’t all sweetness and light either. I knew I had to be careful around them. As it turns out, my husband had these same kinds of memories from his childhood. We both have had a lifetime of UFO and paranormal experiences; separately and together. I wrote about this in my Trickster’s Realm column I write for Tim Binnall’s Binnall of America site:

Another event that happened frequently was the “puppet wolves,” visitations, as I called them. These events were connected somehow with the above, but also different. They weren’t the same creatures, for example. It wasn’t quite as pleasant either. And I remember some events happening during the day; still in bed, but daytime.

The fuzzy puppet wolves were very small, not more than about twenty-four inches tall. They were fuzzy/furry, gray, and reminded me of puppets. They weren’t exactly malevolent, but they were quick to be extremely mischievous, pushy, and just not as “nice” as the others. I could see these guys, and remember to this day what they looked like. The other guys, I don’t remember at all, except that they were small. The puppet wolves would gather around my bed, several of them, and they were insistent. They didn’t take no for an answer, and I’d have to go with them. I don’t remember anything other than that.

Not long ago, my husband “Joe” and I were talking about our childhood “weird” experiences; memories of the paranormal, or whatever word you want to use. Before I said anything, he began to tell me of something that happened to him sometimes when he was a kid. While he was in bed, furry gray “things” would gather around the edges of the bed, and tug at him, taking him away. (Neither of us remember where we went.) I asked him if they reminded him in a way, of wolves; he said yes. Small nasty little wolf puppet, or stuffed animal-toy beings. He had never heard my story before.
The Synchronicity of Fuzzy Puppet Wolves Binnall of America, July 2007)

An online search revealed a little something about the Nunahee. I found this on an MSN message board: Native American Stories Library, where a poster describes the Nunahee:

the nunahee were the protectors of the cherokee people
and one day the chief of the nunahee came to the people and said
you have to come with us
there is great danger coming
and you will all die

In this example, the Nunahee are protectors, as well as messengers of something bad to come. Like Mothman, as many believe, who is a protector in a way, a messenger, something -- or someone -- who sees and arrives to warn.

The Cherokee connection is interesting too; it’s almost cliché to say that many UFO and paranormal experiencers are of Native descent. My grandfather was part Native; Cherokee and Lenape. (By the way, I don’t mean to say my small, furry animal creatures were Nunahee, Menehune, or Mothman, just noting Colvin’s comparing of word origins.)

I’m not sure what the “puppet wolves” my husband and I experienced in our childhoods purpose was: to protect us, warn us or maybe both? Were they guides to a liminal experience?
The point is, as we go deeper into the esoteric realm, as say, with Mothman, (or Bigfoot, or UFOs, or any number of high strangeness, anomalous experiences ) we realize there is much more to just any one specific aspect; and it’s all connected. It may seem that these “gray basket” events, as researcher Stanton Friedman calls them, has nothing to do with UFOs. And maybe they don’t, at some level. Not directly. Yet it’s possible they do on another level. I realize these seemingly contradictory, yes/no/maybe connections -- often fuzzy connections-- frustrate some researchers, particularly some UFO researchers. It’s helpful, and encouraging, to remember what UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek said:

"The part we ignore…may contain the clue to the whole subject."

Notes:
• Andrew Colvin, Mothman’s Photographer III, Metadisc, 2009
• Native American Library
• J. Allen Hynek, The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry 1972
• Regan Lee, Trickster’s Realm: Fuzzy Puppet Wolves, Binnall of America, 2007