Legend of the Goatman still lives on in Bowie and around the world By JANE MCHUGH Staff Writer
Don't call him the Maryland Goatman. Around these parts he's known as the "Prince George's Goatman" or, more formally, the "Goatman of Prince George's County."
With Halloween around the corner, it's time to revisit the legend of this half-man, half-goat hybrid who's long been rumored to creep around the woods of Old Bowie.
But first, it should be noted that in recent years Bowie's very own Goatman has gained worldwide fame. He's been featured in a British documentary on strange creatures, "Animal X," that's been televised on Animal Planet (in which the King's English-speaking narrator refers to him as "Goatmun").
In the '90s, the "X Files" devoted an entire hourlong episode to him with Scully and Mulder journeying to Prince George's County to track him down. He's got a My Space page, Wilkipedia entry and other Internet links. Not to mention his own theme site in Riverdale, GoatMan Hollow; people reportedly come from as far away as Boston and Richmond to tour the haunted house that bills itself as "the greater Washington, D.C.-Baltimore area's scariest Halloween attraction." (GoatMan Hollow will be featured in a new Halloween special on the Travel Channel beginning Friday at 8 p.m.)
And now comes a new book about the Goatman that strips away the myth, the stereotypes and the false branding to reveal the real goat. Or man. Whatever.
The book is not entirely Goatman-oriented, however. "The Real Story Behind the Exorcist" mainly concerns the 13-year-old Prince George's County boy who was the true-life inspiration for the devilishly possessed child in William Peter Blatty's bestselling novel and Hollywood blockbuster, "The Exorcist."
But Chapter 5 of the book, "Horror on Fletchertown Road," is a must-read for local baby boomers who used to cruise the woods of north Bowie, flashlights piercing the darkness, empty beer bottles clanking on car floors, trying to shine a light on you-know-who.
The book's author, Mark Opsasnick, a Montgomery County government worker from Greenbelt, was one of those teenagers. "I went to Eleanor
Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt and the story of the Goatman was popular at the time. When I got into high school in 1976, it was a very big story we heard from the older teens. It was a regional phenomenon, very popular with kids from Bowie High, Parkdale High and DuVal High," Opsasnick told the Blade-News.
There are three ideas about the Goatman's origins, as Opsasnick's book points out. One is that he was a researcher at Beltsville Agricultural Research Center who did a scientific experiment with goats circa 1970 and accidentally ended up resembling a goat from the waist up while retaining a human, man-like form from the waist down. A second is that he was an old hermit communing with nature who wanted to, as Opsasnick writes, "exist in a world of shadows free from human intervention," he selected Bowie to fulfill that calling. A third is that he was a run-of-the-mill Bigfoot-type, a hairy monster that walks upright on two legs like a man. Whichever version you believe, in each the Goatman is almost always associated with frightened teenagers.
Opsasnick, who has written seven self-published books, is obsessed with documenting anything offbeat, especially unexplained phenomena and rock 'n' roll. He spends tedious hours at libraries and historical societies, combing through old newspapers and city and county directories. He tracks down old-timers in bars and tape records the interviews. He visits scenes where history occurred. One of his books, "The Maryland Bigfoot Digest: A Survey of Creature Sightings in the Free State," outlines hundreds of Bigfoot-type sightings in the state from 1666 to the present.
Opsasnick feels that legends like the Goatman have a basis in actual events. He wanted to know what exactly had happened in the past that gave rise to the Goatman.
Other parts of Prince George's County besides Bowie take credit for the Goatman. Upper Marlboro, Beltsville and Mitchellville have all staked claims as his stomping grounds. But Opsasnick's research has shown the Goatman's roots lay in the Fletchertown Road area of Old Bowie. For his book, he interviewed John Hayden, who runs a towing service in Old Bowie. (Hayden hung up on this reporter last week, saying he was too busy towing cars to discuss the Goatman.)
But, as Opsasnick reports in his book, Hayden told him that he and a relative saw a strange creature near Zug Road in 1971. "It was an animal. It was about 6 foot, something like that, and hairy, like an animal. As far as I know, it was an animal on two feet. I remember it made a high-pitched sound like a squeal," Opsasnick quoted Hayden.
Hayden said very early the next day, he and his relative ventured out to investigate further with baseball bats. They came upon the head of a dog that had been decapitated.
Opsasnick tracked down the dog's owner in Fredericksburg, Va. April Edwards, a school bus driver, was a little girl in 1971 and lived on Zug Road. "I think Goatman tore the head off and ate the body," she told Opsasnick. "I had seen it on the night in question. It just looked like a hairy man to me. It was on two legs and stood upright, though it did crouch over when it ran, like a hunchback. It had long hair and I don't think it was part-this or part-that, I think it was human."
Edwards said she saw the creature "one more time after that out by Mr. Hayden's junkyard and all of this was in a matter of two weeks. The second time it was looking for food or something. This thing was for real ... this was not folklore. I don't know what it was. Whatever it was, I believe it killed my dog and was living in the woods around there for some time."
In conducting research on the Goatman legend, Opsasnick learned that the elusive creature had been creeping around Old Bowie and the vicinity for many years before 1971.
Of relevance to understanding the Goatman legend is that Bowie and Prince George's County used to be very rural. There were no housing developments and no population density like today. Creaky tobacco barns were prevalent in places that are now strip malls, or single-family or townhouse developments. The part of Fletchertown Road haunted by the Goatman, for example, is now the upscale Northridge community. Prior to around 1970, Washington and its environs were small-scale, not yet comparable in size and sophistication to the rival Baltimore metropolitan area.
Looking for the Goatman, Opsasnick interviewed members of two old, prominent African-American families, the Fletchers and the Browns, who were living on Fletchertown Road. According to them, "in the early days," self-reliance was the rule among the proud farm families in the county. Landowners grew their own food and raised their own livestock. "It was from these humble beginnings, I was assured, that a bogeyman motif had been set in motion by the adult family members many years prior as a means of keeping the younger, more rambunctious children in check and out of trouble," Opsasnick wrote. "The Goatman would get them if they didn't do as they were told."
Goatman gained strength through the years. "Over time, the Goatman legend passed from relative to relative and circulated throughout the county. By the late '60s it was a common topic among the Fletchers and Browns of Fletchertown Road and was beginning to surface in hallway gatherings and lunch table conversations at nearby Bowie High School," he wrote.
Opsasnick discovered newspaper articles about a "strange animal" or "gorilla" in Prince George's County in now-defunct Washington newspapers of 1957. "That's the earliest documentation I could find. It was reported as the 'Abominable Phantom.' The descriptions in the newspaper accounts and the description given by Hayden were identical: a hairy creature, upright, half-man and half-animal, on two legs," he said.
Interestingly and perhaps significantly, the dates Opsasnick pins to the two separate waves of creature sightings, 1957 and 1971, coincide with landmark desegregation and busing efforts both nationally and statewide.
Sheri Parks, a professor of American studies at the University of Maryland whose specialty is mythology, said legends like the Goatman arise from deep-rooted human needs. "Mythology fills in the gaps and smooths over the contradictions in our lives," she said. "For example, we are animals but don't perceive ourselves as such. We separate ourselves from animals. That leaves a gap and maybe this semi-human thing is a bridging factor."
Parks' book, "Fierce Angels: The Strong Black Woman in American Mythology," will be published next year by Random House. Darkness, she said, also factors into the Goatman scenario, because he is usually encountered at night. "In Western culture, we're conflicted about darkness. Native Americans have a much more complex approach to darkness. They give equal weight to darkness and light."
Opsasnick's research on the Goatman shows that the first whites who came to Maryland encountered Indians who believed in a spirit called "Okee," which can take the shape of animal forms.
Do you have a Goatman memory? Have you ever seen (or tried to see) the G-Man? If so, contact jmchugh@bladenews.com no later than Monday.
