From The Mobile Register, dated 8th April 1971
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Is 'Wolf Woman' Skulking Around The City?
Various Area Persons Claim Seeing Creature
Does a "wolf woman" exist in Mobile?
Listening to as many as 50 phone calls the Press Register has received day and night, in approximately a week, you wonder if perhaps there isn't something out there.
According to dozens of frightened residents along Davis Avenue and in Plateau, a strange creature,a half woman and half wolf, has been making nightly rounds of the Port City. Reportedly, that apparition first appeared near Davis Avenue about one week ago.
"It was like a woman and wolf, pretty and hairy," said one worried witness.
"My daddy saw it down in a marsh, and it chased him home," reported a teen-ager, who added, "Now, my mommy keeps all the doors and windows locked."
"The top half was a woman and the bottom was a wolf," explained another viewer, "It didn't seem natural," he added.
Apparently the fears are real, regardless of the status of the phantom or whatever. One usually unflappable teen-ager said with a straight face that he does not go out on the streets at night now. One woman said she understood the creature had escaped from a circus sideshow. Mobile police refused official comment on the reports. However, it was unofficially indicated that an investigation has been launched into ascertaining exactly what the situation is.
Paris had its Hunchback of Notre Dame. Maybe Mobile has its Wolf Woman of Davis Avenue.
On the other hand, many years ago Mobile had its Monster of Fisher's Alley. To terrified residents of the area it was reported in, it assumed proportions of up to the size of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and never smaller than a full-grown puma.
The Monster turned out to be an otter, harmless to everything but fish. It rather blows the mind to consider what the Wolf Woman may turn out to be.
From The Mobile Press, dated 10th April 1971
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'Wolf Woman' Is No Cause For Panic
A few days ago the Mobile Press Register news staff began to receive telephone calls about a mysterious "wolf woman" or "dog woman" reported in certain sections of the city.
At first no one paid much attention. Newspapers get a lot strange inquiries. The calls, however, increased. It was evident that some of the people were genuinely frightened.
Finally it was decided that the thing had grown to such proportions as to be newsworthy. We came to the conclusion that a tongue-in-cheek approach was best. A lot of frightening things tend to be washed away with a little laughter. The "haunted" house becomes just another old building if a couple of people can laugh at each other's jumpiness while exploring it.
So it was done, complete with a fanciful drawing.
The phone calls rose to a crescendo. Some folks took it seriously and a few accused us of frightening their children.
Maybe this is a bad time to make fun in a scary way. Certainly we didn't and don't want to frighten any little ones. Perhaps we thought the movies and TV had them all pretty calloused. Anyway, any parents so concerned might want to read the following to their kiddies or ask them to read it, if they can :
We don't know how the wolf woman stories got started. Maybe somebody got scared by some little thing and told a friend. The friend told two more and pretty soon a lot of people were looking over their shoulders. You know how it is when someone starts telling ghost stories.
Anyway, all the "Wolf Women" or other such odd creatures we ever heard of were in the story books or the movies or on TV. They can't get out of there.
Some unfortunate people are born looking different from the rest of us. Others let their clothing, nails and hair go until they look "different." Most of these poor folks need help more than anything else.
Now we don't want to kid you. There are real "monsters - sort of" in this world. The thing about them is that they look pretty much like you and me - no claws, no long fur.
They don't eat people, but some of the things they do are rob people of their possessions, sometimes killing or hurting people in the process. Or they drive their cars very fast through the streets where children are playing. Or they try and show off and drive cars so that they wreck and kill their friends riding with them.
Still others, almost as bad, spoil other people's good times, like ball games, parades and parties by fights and being rowdy.
Your parents and the law men try to protect you from these and other unmarked monsters. Generally they do a good job.
But you have to remember that the furry or scaly monsters people make stories or films about vanish in the daylight and at night any little boy or girl can make them evaporate with the click of a light switch, the turn of a page or flipping off the TV switch.
For they really weren't there at all.
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From The Pensacola News Journal, dated Saturday, April 17, 1971
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Phones Buzzing
Wolf-Woman Rumors Heard In Two States
The "Wolf-Woman" bounded from bad joke to hairy, vandalizing rumor Friday, showing herself furtively in at least two states at once.
She apparently started in Mobile, Ala., about mid-week and by Friday, she was the cause of cluttered telephone lines throughout South Alabama and Northwest Florida.
No one in the Pensacola area had reported seeing the old gal, but sheriff's dispatchers talked to a pair who said they saw her on the way back from Mobile.
Dispatchers at both the Sheriff's Department and Pensacola Police Department reported scores of telphone calls Friday, all asking for more information about the Wolf-Woman.
Reports from Mobile indicated the Wolf-Woman escaped from a carnival,was half-woman, half-wolf, powerful and elusive.
While the joke was late for April Fool Day it arrived in plenty time to pester the Pensacola News Journal telephone operator.
Most of the calls asked for information about the rumor, but there were some solutions too.
"I know where the Wolf-Woman came from," one caller asserted. "She wafted from an empty bourbon bottle."
A late caller assured reporters there is no more cause for alarm.
"Don shweat de Wolf Woman," he said, "My ole lady went to de beauty parlor thish mornin' and got losht on de way back. When she finally got back I locked her in de lair 'n came out for a drink......."
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From The Mobile Press, Dated Thursday, April 22nd, 1971
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Kiwanians Told Of Robbery Wave By Davis
Dan T. Davis, chief of the Pritchard Police Department, addressed members of the Prichard Kiwanis Club, and discussed the rash of armed robberies prevalent in the area and also presented his thoughts on the latest apparition about town, the "wolf woman."
Davis said hardly a day or night goes by in Mobile County without an armed robbery. To dtae this year, he pointed out, that 25 persons alone have been arrested by Prichard police for such crimes.
"However, problems in prosecuting these violators arises when victims of the robberies decline to testify in court and the accused is then allowed to go free," the chief said.
Davis also said Pricard police had received many telephone calls from area residents claiming to have seen the "wolf woman."
One slightly intoxicated man swore he had the curious critter, cornered up, he added, but when police officers arrived, all they could find was one very frightened collie dog.
The chief also discussed briefly the department's auxiliary police force, which he said now numbers 30 men, strictly volunteers who receive no pay for their work. They are required to work two shifts per month or 16 hours.
Roland Sanders, president, conducted the meeting at the Chatterbox Restaurant on Wildon Avenue.
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So there you have it...what do you make of all that? Was it just a bit of mass panic? Was there something that people were seeing out and about, other than a random collie dog? I guess we'll never know, as that is where the reports dry up...well, other than this ad for a drive-in below....
I have to give special thanks to both Newspapers.com and to the YouTube channel Dime Store Adventures whose videos alerted me to the Wolf Woman in the first place! Especially go and check out the channel, as they basically do what I do with Spook Sightings but in video form and with far more research!
Right...I'll be back tomorrow with another post! In the meantime go check out the other bloggers who are taking part in the Countdown by clicking the badge below, or you could just head straight over to see My Two Yen Worth who has a cool Sadako figure to show you!
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