A Polish man is with friends harvesting strawberries when his foot is grabbed by a 'horse-head humanoid. His son later finds references to similar hybrid creatures in Poland.
The following account
was forwarded to me by my friends Cam & Kyle at Expanded
Perspectives:
"About two years ago or so, I sent you a story of my grandmother being trapped in a circular field in the forest in Poland. This story was read on the show.
That time, I told you that I like to collect paranormal stories from my family. Today, I'd like to share another one. Again, excuse my English as I'm a Pole, and I'm still learning English.
What I'm about to describe happened to my father. The reason why I haven't sent it before and I chose for my grandmother's story, is that I thought this one was too wild, so no one would believe it. It's probably a pretty big one, too.
It happened in southeastern Poland in 1975 or 1976 when my father was 10 or 11 years old. It was during the summer holidays, and my father and his friends had lots of free time to spare. They decided to go to a particular spot where they knew wild strawberries were growing in abundance.
It was outside the village on a small hill. There, on the top of that hill, there's a big ditch. I don't know the geological name of that structure, but I guess it's formed by collapsing ground. It's a long ditch about 50 meters long, with very steep walls about 10 meters deep. Even at the bottom, there is no water in it.
So, my father and two of his friends drove there and started to pick up the strawberries which resulted quickly to be pretty boring for those kids so they decided to spice things up by making a competition of which one of them can get more strawberries.
This way, they quickly carved out his own way around the ditch, trying to win.
After some time, my father spotted a place with a lot of strawberries. It was for him, like hitting a jackpot. He could easily win with all the fruits he saw there.
And so he started collecting them fast. He was totally consumed by that and unaware of the surroundings when he suddenly felt someone grab his foot and pulling it sharply.
Naturally, his first thought was that it must be one of his friends who also saw that spot rich in strawberries. In a typical young boy's way, he wanted to pull him away. My father turned to face him, laughing, but what he saw instantly paralyzed him.
It wasn't his friend, but there was a creature sticking his chest up from a hole in the ground. It was holding my father's foot by the shoe.
My father described it as human-like, naked with pale, dirty skin. But the weirdest was its head. While the torso looked human, the head didn't. My father called it "a horseman" because of its head. It had human-like eyes, but the face was very long, like a horse. It had a horse-like mouth full of horse-like teeth.
The creature held one of my father's feet with both hands with anger in its human-like eyes and exposing its big horse-like teeth like an angry dog ready to bite. It tried to pull him into the hole it stuck up from.
My father was completely paralyzed by fear, and he couldn't speak or scream. After that thing pulled him closer and closer to its hole, my father began to kick its head with the other free foot.
The creature pulled him both-handed, but at his kicks, it had to release one of the hands to try to grab the other foot that was kicking. This way, my father somehow managed to free his foot from his shoe, and he was free from the creatures' grasp. According to him, the fight felt like an eternity, but most likely it was only a few seconds long. He then quickly ran away as far as he could from that place. His friends later told him that they didn't see any struggle, but they only noticed that something was happening, and then he ran out.
My father was still shocked, just running.
Running as fast as he could and as far away from that place as he possibly could. He ran past his own house and entered the main road, still running like mad. He was then spotted by a woman, a friend of his parents rushing back home from a store. She saw him rushing in the middle of the road which made her angry at how dangerous and irresponsible he was
She shouted at him but quickly noticed that there was something wrong with the kid, so she quickly crossed his way and grabbed him.
With mad eyes in fear, he didn't recognize her and tried to free himself to run. She then spotted the bloody footprints he left on the tarmac as he cut his foot when running barefoot without his shoes. She then understood that there was something really wrong and dragged him to his house, where he calmed down after a few hours. He never told his parents what happened. Later his older brother returned to that place to recover his shoe and basket for strawberries. Both were found ripped into small pieces.
But that's not the end of the story yet. But before I proceed, I want to add that my father is dead serious about what he saw that day. It was definitely a creature sticking out of a hole in the ground. It had a human like body with pale skin and a horse like head but very human eyes that he still remembers as full of rage. It is also not a creature he has ever seen, and it is not something we are familiar with in our folklore.
Well, now on to my part.
Years later, he told me the story, and I browsed some internet forums about something unrelated. I read about WWII German experiments and secret weapons. A very common topic here in this part of the world and full of conspiracy theories. One of them talks about 'Ubersoldat.' This was supposed to be a werewolf-like creature.
Because of that, each time I hear you guys or any Americans talking about the sightings of Dogman, I can't help but smile. We had those stories here after the Second World War. Several people claimed to have seen a "werewolf" in the forest. It's an interesting topic on its own full of stories, sightings, creature descriptions, etc... even of soldiers fighting one of them. However, I was very skeptical about it when reading it, so I decided to look at other users' comments to see what they think about it, and one of them caught my attention.
One of the people commenting described something that happened to his uncle when he was young related to "WWII German hybrid experiments." When he was a child, his uncle was playing alone under a bridge when something grabbed his foot. It was sticking up from a hole in the ground a man with a horse-like face.
I was shocked. It was very similar to my father's story. I tried to send a private message to that user but apparently he wasn't active anymore and never replied. But here I found another person from the opposite side of the country with a similar story. Before that I thought my father's story was unique and neither me nor him had ever heard of anyone describing something like that yet here it was.
Fast forward a couple years later, in 2023 one YouTuber made a video in the form of an iceberg of Polish cryptids. And there it was, WWII German human-animal hybrid experiments.
There were reports that those beings were seen in forests near former German bases after the war. It was either werewolves or dogmen, or, hogmen or... horsemen! Humans with horse heads.
Finding this out and that what my father saw might be something more and that there were other people seeing something similar chilled my bones and that is why I have decided to forward you that story even if it sounds unreal and too crazy. I believe in my father and what he saw now more than ever.
Cheers and keep up the good work. Greetings from Poland. Gabriel"
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