Time and again, something sank its fangs into the screaming girl's flesh, even as a policeman held her. But no one knew what it was. And no one knows to this day.
The night of May 10, 1951, in Manila was warm and quiet until the police brought the hysterical girl to their headquarters.
The medical examiner pulled his hat on and gasped, " Nonsense! Nonsense! You're dragging me out of bed in the middle of the night to see a girl having an epileptic seizure."
The mayor of Manila said nothing. He looked in surprise, alternating between the irritated doctor and the screaming girl. He saw welts and teeth marks on her arm. Had she really injured herself in such a paroxysm of an epileptic seizure, or had they been cruelly inflicted on her body by something... or someone, who had attacked her in a locked cell, as she claimed?
Mayor Arsenie Lacson didn't know what to make of it, but the situation was so bizarre that the police chief was summoned, who in turn summoned the medical examiner. Together they went to the jail to investigate the agitation of eighteen-year-old Clarita Villaneuva—one of countless homeless young girls left stranded by the war. Police found her at the center of a small gathering on a street corner, screaming that she was being attacked and bitten. The onlookers, mostly scum from the neighborhood taverns, encouraged her and winked at each other, suggesting she was deranged.
Maybe drugs? Or absinthe? Whatever it was, the police left it to someone else to figure out. They grabbed the struggling girl and took her to a cell.Sobbing, Clarita collapsed to the floor as the door slammed shut behind her. The police ignored her pleas to examine the eight tooth marks where she claimed the Thing had bitten her. Something? But what? Clarita could only say that the Thing resembled a man with bulging eyes, a black cape, and the ability to float when he wanted to.
After a while she started screaming again that Something was coming through the bars.
An irritated officer opened the cell door and ushered the screaming girl into the room. He saw new teeth marks on her arms and shoulders... livid marks surrounded by what looked like saliva. The officer ran for the captain... and the captain summoned the warden.
After the doctor had gone home, the mayor and the police chief personally examined the marks on the girl's body. Had she done them herself? Ridiculous, they both said: no one could bite themselves on the neck or the back of their shoulders. There was something truly strange about it!
Clarita Villaneuva spent the rest of the night on a bench in the front room of the Manila Police Station, where she finally sobbed herself to sleep.
The next morning, as the police were preparing to take her to court to charge her with vagrancy, the girl began screaming again. The Thing had returned and was biting her. Two strong officers grabbed her tightly—one arm each—and before their astonished eyes, as well as those of journalists and the medical examiner, deep teeth marks appeared on her arms, hands, and neck. The attack lasted at least five minutes, until the girl fainted and collapsed to the floor. Medical examiner Mariana Lara reexamined her and revised her ruling. This girl was not having an epileptic seizure at all. The bites were real, but she hadn't bitten herself. The doctor requested that the mayor and the archbishop be summoned immediately About half an hour passed before the mayor arrived. By then, Clarita had regained consciousness. The bites on her arms had swollen, and the palm of one hand had thickened and squealed where the teeth marks were very deep. As the mayor and the medical examiner accompanied her to the prison hospital, Clarita began screaming again that the Thing was chasing her again: this time, she had a helper—a long creature with wormlike eyes.
Mayor Lacson later testified that he saw bite marks appear on her neck and index finger, and that deep teeth marks also appeared on her hand, even while he was holding her.
The fifteen-minute journey to the prison hospital was a nightmare for the mayor of Manila, the medical examiner, the girl, and the driver of the car. Once there, the seizures stopped and Clarita's condition began to improve. She never experienced anything like that again. " It's something that can't be explained, " said Mayor Lacson, while medical examiner Dr. Mariana Lara stated, " I was just scared to death ."
The above case is by no means isolated. Medical chronicles record similar cases where various marks or wounds appear on the body. One of the more famous is the story of a woman named Chris Sizemore, who, as a young girl, suffered a severe shock when her clothes caught fire. This horrific experience left such a profound psychological scar that, at the age of fifty, she suffered an attack during which burn marks appeared on her body and an old scar turned bloody red. Her once-burned arm became so hot that a wet towel applied to it practically steamed.Another case involves a British Army officer and was described in the medical journal The Lancet in 1946 by London psychiatrist Dr. Robert Moody. His patient was at the time in a hospital in India, where he was being treated for a minor infection, and because he was a sleepwalker, nurses tied him up while he slept.
Due to sleepwalking and aggressive behavior, after several years, treatment was continued at Woodside Hospital in London. One night, he was observed thrashing about, trying to break the nonexistent bonds. When Dr. Moody turned on the light, both of his forearms showed distinct welts from the ropes, and shortly thereafter, blood began oozing from them.
In both of the latter cases, the marks on the body appeared as a result of authentic experiences. However, the reality of the experience is not a necessary condition for the occurrence of marks or wounds. It is also possible for marks to appear as a result of imaginary experiences, as happened to Ciarita, a girl whose body was sunk by someone who was merely a product of her imagination.
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