Flying Humanoids!

(NOTE: the pictures included here are from  Weird Travels)

Every now and then, a Fortean matter comes down the pike that I just find irresistible.  Please don't mistake my fascination as any kind of statement on how truthful I think the phenomenon is or is not.  On the contrary, the zanier the case, the less evidence involved, the more fun I have reading about it.  Often this is due to just how closely the paranormal occurrence mirrors a trope in fiction that I happen to enjoy.

Nothing fits the above description more than "flying humanoids."

This is a vital new phenomenon.  Not really a new one, but one that breaks a lot of new ground in terms of the questions it raises.  Occurrences of flying humanoids have mostly been localized to south of the border, from Mexico on down to Argentina.  The sightings are exactly what they sound like: human-shaped objects (or entities) in the sky, seemingly flying under their own power.  Several have been caught on camera, such as this one:

As the labels indicate, there are two objects in the photo:  one is a "winged entity" (which could just as easily be called "a bird") and what appears to be a human form wearing a cape or cloak.  If you check the YouTube video of the sighting, you'll be able to see the actual waving and fluttering of the cloth.  Makes sense.  Given my love of comic books, I would definitely wear a cape should I ever become a flying humanoid.  Geez, I'm getting story ideas even as I write this.

Other sightings imply technological devices at play, perhaps even transhumanism:

All of this would be fascinating, even if unsubstantiated, on its own but the encounter that Officer Leonardo Samaniego had takes the whole kit and kaboodle up around the bend.

Samaniego was a policeman in Monterrey, Mexico.  In January, 2004, he was on a routine night patrol in his squad car.  He saw a dark shape drop from out of a tree and land in the middle of the street in front of him.  Samaniego at first believed it to be a large owl.  The form then straightened itself up and turned to face the car.  Samaniego turned on his high beams for a better look.

It was then that he really regretted doing that.  In Samaniego's own words (via an account on Jeff Rense's web site), this is what he saw:

"It was a woman...all dressed in black that fell from the tree but she didn't touch the ground, just remained floating several feet from the ground. I saw her very well and then she landed softly on the ground and stood there looking at me. She was trying to cover her face from the lights of the car, I think they were bothering her. I could see two big black eyes on her, completely black without eyelids, and her skin was dark brown. She was all dressed in black with cloak and cape like a witch and she seemed very upset by the lights."
After that, things started to get really weird.  The thing charged the police car.  With blinding speed it jumped onto the hood.  Samaniego grabbed the gear shift, shoved his car into reverse, and gunned the engine.  Within a second, the she-beast had cracked the windshield with her claws.  Samaniego began screaming over the radio for back-up.  As he hit the end of the street, he fainted.
Other units responded as did paramedics.  A TV news crew was not far behind.  A search of the area was conducted, but no flying humanoid was found.  Officer Samaniego was pulled from his car and taken to Monterrey's Hospital Universitario.  At the hospital, he was found to be uninjured and in good health.  Despite other, perhaps easier paths he could have taken, the officer stood by his account of what happened during the interrogations by doctors, commanding officers, and news reporters.  Tests were done to check for the presence of alcohol or drugs of any kind in Samaniego's system.  All tests came back negative.  Psychological inquiries were made and Samaniego was found to be perfectly sane...even if suffering from extreme stress and emotional trauma. 

As is always the question at the end of one of these posts, what are we to make of all of this?  The photographs of flying humanoids (Google it for a more comprehensive look at them) are often times explainable.  Birds, balloons, fakes, misidentified objects, heck, maybe even blow-up dolls filled with helium for all I know.  A few are compelling, such as the aforementioned "flowing cape" being.  But the account of Officer Samaniego really takes the cake.  I am convinced that something truly bizarre did happen to this man.  Google him or check YouTube and you can find the video of his news interview.  Heck, just take a look at his photos on the Rense website.   I'm no psychologist, but I'm a pretty good writer.  I consider myself to have a fairly good grasp on human behavior just through years observation.  And I can tell you one thing from looking at Samaniego: he was scared shitless.  That is raw terror on that man's face and that is a difficult emotion to evoke from someone trained to deal with high stress situations.  What's more, you wouldn't get that kind of a reaction from someone who misidentified an owl or somesuch, especially not from a man carrying at least two forms of firearms in his squad car...which he completely forgot that he had due to his own terror at the sight of something utterly unknown (I'm hoping that Ghost Dogg can weigh in on this as he has been in a combat zone before and might be able to shed a bit of insight on the workings of the mind during such times.)
Could he have made it up?  Doubtful.  What did he gain?  Nothing financially.  In fact, he probably endured days of ridicule from fellow officers as "that guy who was attacked by a witch."


Are the flying humanoid photographs genuine?  They're ginchy fun, but the jury's well out as far as I'm concerned.  
But I'm flippin' positive something happened to Officer Leonardo Samaniego.  And it was with a lifeform unknown to us.
Below is an artist's sketch of the she-creature that attacked Samaniego.  Note the surface similarity to the typical "Grey" alien.

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