ranton man monkey

Man-Monkey of Ranton - (Historic) - On the cold and moonlit night of January 21, 1879, a man was riding home with his horse-and-cart from Woodcote in the county of Shropshire to Ranton, Staffordshire. Enveloped in darkness, he pulled his jacket tightly around him to keep out the biting wind. Approximately a mile from the village of Woodseaves and while crossing a bridge over the Birmingham and Liverpool Canal, the man got the shock of his life. Out of the trees leapt a horrific-looking creature. Jet-black in color and with a pair of huge, glowing eyes, it was described by the petrified witness as being half-man and half-monkey. The creature jumped onto the back of the mans horse (which bolted out of sheer fright) and a fierce battle for life and limb began atop the cart. Incredibly, according to the man, when he attempted to hit the beast with his whip, it simply passed straight through its body. Suddenly and without warning the spectral man-beast vanished into thin air, leaving an exhausted horse and its shell-shocked owner in a state of near collapse. As with the events 600 years previously at Orford, the mystery of the Man-Monkey of Ranton (as the creature came to be known) was never resolved.