The Monster of Scheggia

CHRONOLOGY

End of April, 1997 – A shepherd is attacked by a creature with “glowing eyes” that came out of the woods just outside Scheggia, a small town in the middle of the National Park of Mount Cucco, Italy. He survives only because his Maremma Sheepdog leaps on against the creature to protect his owner, getting killed in the process.

April/May 1997 – A local hunter was in the woods with his dogs when he sees a bipedal creature far away in the distance, walking like an ape. His dogs run away in terror and hide inside the hunter’s Jeep.

April/May 1997 – Forty sheep are found dead with their skull crushed.

May 7/8 approx, 1997 – Mr. Oddo Brunamonti was collecting lumber in the woods when he notices a herd of horses running away in fright. From the distance a weird scream is heard. Mr. Brunamonti thinks about a wolf roaming around, and thinks about warning the farming houses nearby.

May 11, 1997 – Oddo Brunamonti is collecting lumber again, when he sees a strange creature watching him from the woods. Shortly after he will be attacked by it. The creature will leap out of the trees and stand few yards away from his car. Back home, Mr. Brunamonti calls the police and the Park Rangers. Both corps take immediate action.

May 12, 1997 – Some “experts” from Perugia and Florence arrive to track down the creature. A footprint is found, a cast is made out of it. A tuft of hair is collected from the bark of a tree. When the sound of breaking bushes hints that something big may be approaching, the “experts” take a quick leave, jump on their cars and run away, leaving their equipment on the spot. Later on, they will come back to retrieve it.

May 13 (approx.), 1997 – A man visits Mr. Brunamonti’s house, advising him to tell that what he saw in the woods was just a bear. Mr. Brunamonti refuses to lie.

May 14/15, 1997 – From this moment on and for a month, a police helicopter flies over the woods constantly.

[About the same period] May, 1997 – The man who had “suggested” Mr. Brunamonti to lie is seen in town paying drinks to everyone. He is heard to say that “it’s not my money.”

May 15/20 (approx.), 1997 – Six little bears appear in the woods. The word spread that what Mr. Brunamonti had seen was just a bear.

May 1997 – A man carrying a bag with food is chased by one of the bears. Panicking, the man throws the bag away before realizing that the animal was just looking for food.

[About the same time and the following days] May, 1997 – Scholars, researchers and other people come to Scheggia and question the local people, especially the shepherds, asking about their work routines.

May/June, 1997 – A shepherd gets suspicious about so many questions he is asked, and pretends to leave the area. In fact he hides in the woods and waits. Some activity in a ruined stone house catches his attention. He watches two men dressed like doctors, presumably vets. Suddenly a helicopter arrives and stops above the roofless house. A metal cage is sent down, then is pulled up again, and the helicopter leaves. Some witnesses, other that the shepherd, claim to have seen the helicopter carrying something under the cockpit.

May/June, 1997 – Two days later the facts about the bears are disproved. No such animals will be ever seen again in the area.

[From that moment on, nothing unusual will ever be reported in Scheggia]

THE FACTS

It’s a Sunday evening on May, 1997. Oddo Brunamonti, 60, goes to the woods nearby Scheggia (Gubbio, Italy) to fetch the lumber than a friend of his had previously stack on the side of the road. Oddo parks his car in reverse so to drive back easy after finishing the job, and steps out of the vehicle. He looks around: in front the white, graveled road goes slightly uphill and then disappears into the woods. On top of the hill Oddo notices a dark figure crouched behind the trees. At first he thought it was a young horse that had escaped from one of the several farmhouses of the area, so he doesn’t pay much attention to it, except taking mental note to tell the owners of the land about that runaway animal.

From 10 to about noon Oddo gets busy to collect the lumber, making sure that the road is free from any piece of wood, so that vehicles can use it safely. In those moments he looks around again to checks his job, and when his eyes meet the exact spot on the hill of few hours before, he notices that the dark figure is still there. This time, though, when realizing that Oddo is looking back at it, it swiftly hides behind a bush. This behavior seems pretty weird to Oddo, a man who grew up in those woods and knows perfectly well all the animals living in there.

Curious to know more, Oddo steps into his car and in reverse gear approaches the top of the hill. Right before he starts driving up something leaps out of the woods and lands behind his car, in the middle of the road. It is an incredible vision: according to Oddo’s description, the creature is a bipedal hominid about 170 cm tall [5.5’] whose body is entirely covered with a long, reddish fur. The arms of the creatures, long and beefy, are raised up in the air. Its mouth is wide opened and the latter is what horrifies Oddo the most. It is a large mouth with two rows of flat teeth similar to men’s teeth. The inside of it has a red color.

The creature seems pretty upset about Oddo’s presence, so much so that the man feels in grave danger. Oddo puts the car in first gear and presses on the pedal, but he forgets to push the clutch, so the car’s engine dies out. The creature is approaching the car as Oddo attempts frantically to restart the engine. The clicking sound of the key turning repeatedly on and off surprises the beast, that stops its charge and remains still for an instant. Then, with a mighty leap, it goes back into the woods and disappears. Oddo has a clear memory of the trees swaying greatly as the creature made its way into the depth of the forest.

Back home, Oddo’s daughter immediately realizes that something is wrong with his father. Oddo is pale and extremely nervous. He asks her to bring him some books of animals they had in the house. He starts flipping through the pages looking for the animal that almost attacked him. None of the pictures showed what he had seen. Oddo will tell us many times, during our interview, that his eyes stared at the Gorilla pictures over and over, but the creature he encountered was in no way similar to it. After Oddo told them about the experience, his family urged him to call the authorities.

Both the Carabinieri and the Park Rangers seemed to take the report quite seriously, and set up a search team in no time. Oddo guided the officers back to the spot and in the surrounding area. Nothing will be seen, but the sounds of a large animal that seem to follow them from the distance was constantly heard by the group of men during their stay in the woods.

The following day a group of “experts” arrive in Scheggia from the cities of Perugia and Florence. Their task is to make some analysis, search for tracks and collect samples. Oddo is again the one who takes them to the area. The experts set up cameras, take photographs and even the cast of a footprint found in the muddy soil. The track has three fore fingers and a rear “spear” coming out from the talon. From the depth of the foot print the estimate weight of the creature is made: about 170-180 Kg [374-396 Pounds]. Its height, after hearing Oddo’s story, is set at about 170cm (5.5’).

While the team is at work one of them, who was standing by the Jeep, catches some movements among the trees. He immediately gives the alarm and everyone jumps into the cars and drives back to Scheggia, leaving all their gear on the ground. Later on they will come back to retrieve the equipment, throwing cherry bombs around them in the hope to scare the creature away.
At about 130cm [4.3’] from the ground tufts of reddish hair are found, stuck in the bark of some trees. They are collected as samples and sent to an unspecified laboratory in Florence. Nothing will ever be heard of the analyses results.

Two days after that “close encounter” with the creature, Oddo is visited by a stranger. The man identifies himself as a military authority from Perugia. He asks Oddo to tell the journalists and the local people that, on that day, he just saw a bear. Oddo, a simple and straightforward man, replies that he would not lie about seeing an animal that he never saw. The stranger insists, stretching his reasons as far as saying that it is a “sensitive and classified matter”. Oddo would not change his mind. He says that, rather than lying, he will not talk about that experience anymore. The attention that rose from his story is indeed growing to an unbearable level for him.

In that same time period a police helicopter flies over the area between Gubbio and Scheggia on a daily basis. For a month it will be seen by several witnesses.
The stranger who went visiting Oddo is at the local bar one night. He seems kind with everyone, entertains the young people and offers drinks to everyone. He stays there until late [about 1am] and keeps offering drinks. At the end of the night about 1 million lira [about 516,46 Euro or $585.36] passed from his pockets to the barman’s. Many joined the toast with him and Oddo, who was present, heard him say “This money is not my money”, making him even more suspicious about the real identity of that stranger.

After a week Scheggia is divided between the skeptical and the alarmed (several witnesses had heard high-pitched screams coming from the woods at night). At this point little bears begin to appear. They are at least six, scattered in the surrounding forest within about 30 Km radius [18 miles approx.]. The animals are seen by hunters, passersby, car drivers. They are park bears wearing collars around their necks. This is enough to spread the panic among the residents, as the episode of a man carrying a lunch pack who is chased by one of the bears demonstrates. The man throws the pack away and runs in terror, only to realize that the bear was not going to maul him, being only curious about the lunch pack’s content.

The presence of the bears causes a different (and, perhaps, well-planned) effect: the local residents mock Oddo, saying that the “terrible and unknown creature” he had seen in the woods was nothing but one of those bears. Oddo is subject to countless jokes, mocking and bullying, making his frustration and disappointment grow.
The fact that the helicopter continues to fly over the area, however, seems to contradict with the “peaceful bears” version. Adding to that is the presence of some people present in a wide area who talk with the shepherds for a long time, asking many questions.

The shepherds will not say a thing, though, either because of their natural diffident character or because the questions those men ask sound very weird to them.
One of the shepherds, after talking with one of these strangers who asked him at what time he would take the sheep away from the area, get suspicious and pretends to leave. In fact he hides in the woods and, from a hill, awaits.

He then witnesses something really weird: there is much activity coming from a farmhouse in ruin a little above his watching point. Some military men and a couple of white-scrubbed doctors or vets keep going in and out of the house. A helicopter arrives, not the police helicopter but a dark one with no visible marks on it, and hovers above the roofless house. A sort of metallic cage is dropped down into the house, then pulled up again, and the helicopter leaves.

But later the presence of the helicopter and the military will be completely denied, and everything goes back to normal. There are still many doubts and unanswered questions that linger around the whole story. Perhaps someone in Scheggia changed his mind about what Oddo Brunamonti had really seen in the woods that day, but a veil of silence fell over it.