LINDSAY SELBY: Bat creature blog

On browsing around the internet I came across some reports of strange creatures being seen sitting on the roofs of houses.

'Phantom Roof Creature

BY MAGI B. By Stephen Wagner:

This happened about 2007 in the summer. I am 54 years old and live in a very small town in southeastern Washington. I worked for our local small town hospital cleaning the doctors' offices and local clinic after hours, usually around midnight to 5 a.m.

This was about 2 or 3 in the morning and the night was clear and warm. I was standing outside in front of one of the offices having a smoke. I was turned toward the parking lot with the building about 30 feet away and to my right. I was looking up at the sky when suddenly movement to my right caught my eye. I quickly turned my head and caught sight of something dark -- very dark, like a shadow -- on the roof. It moved quickly behind the dormer. It moved so fast that all I saw was the back end of it. Its head had already gone behind the high dormer that was on the roof over the entryway. It was about the size of a man, but it seemed to move like a hyena, with rounded haunches, and if it had a tail, it was tucked between its legs. I wasn't scared, really, but I went inside nonetheless. A few weeks later, I was sitting in my truck at the same set of offices taking a break. Across the parking lot straight ahead of me I saw movement. This thing ran like a shadow under the light, moving from one building to the next, moving against the walls of the buildings. I don't know what I saw those two times, but I will tell you this: I saw something and I don't believe it was human. It was some sort of animal, but I got the impression it was intelligent. The older I get, the more I have come to realize just how much we don't know about the world we live in. source:

http://paranormal.about.com/od/othercreatures/a/tales_09_11_08t.htm

Strange Flying Creature

by Mr. Izu

This actually happened to my older brother and my grandma in Puerto Rico when he was about 9 (he's 33 now). My grandparents' house had a lot of land, and it inclines down, so if you look at the house from street level you see only the top part of the driveway and the roof of the house. Also, the house is near some huge mountains which surround Utuado, so in the back are the mountains. One day, my brother was playing on the driveway (from there you could see on top of the roof) and he looked up because he heard a loud thump, when he looked up my grandma came out at the same time. They looked on top of the roof and saw a short, hairy, dark brown apelike thing, with wings. It shook off and flew away into the mountains.' Source:http://paranormal.about.com/library/blstory_march05_15.htm

These were both spotted in the Americas but these stories abound all over the world; from the mothman to the owlman. It is possible that a large form of a bat could be responsible but as most of the bats in the UK tend to be of the small variety, not a likely candidate for this country. The first account does not mention wings but the creature must have either had wings or been good at climbing to get onto the roof. It is intriguing that there are so many of these stories that have some similarities. Everyone perceives things differently so the same creature can look different to different people i.e. some will say ape-like, another will say humanoid. If the stories were exactly the same then it would be suspicious. The fact they are not suggests that these sightings are reported without knowledge of other sightings of a similar nature in other areas of the world. Could there be an unknown bat-like creature out there? I hope so …I would love to catch a glimpse of one!