BLASTS FROM THE PAST
THEO PAIJMANS revisits the black-clad “sinister, slinking prowler” who terrorised a Cape Cod community
The Black Flash of Provincetown
Of all the weird panics and ghost scares that haunted America during World War
II, none has achieved a more mythical status than the Black Flash of Provincetown – and there were quite a few strange contenders.
In August 1940, for instance, Mexican beet workers in Clark County, Ohio, began to complain about a ghost they had seen near Buck Creek Lane. The ghost, they reported, was “a woman, eight feet [2.4m] tall, in a white dress with no hands or
1 feet.” In January 1941 in the city of Logansport, Indiana, a ‘black phantom’ began lurking at night behind billboards, chasing unsuspecting passersby with a club. It was garbed in a black silk cape, black hat and mask. Local police hoped it was a prankster who would soon grow tired of his antics.21 In June 1942 the city of Pascagoula, Mississippi, was in the grip of a phantom barber scare that lasted well into August. The phantom barber crept into bedrooms of sleeping women and girls to cut off their hair. His attacks even disrupted the war effort, as workers abandoned their night shifts at the shipyard, afraid to leave their families. A man was caught and sentenced to 10 years in prison, although it is doubtful he really was the
3 culprit.
In July 1944, fear descended on the little town of Woodcrest, Missouri. As soon as evening arrived its residents locked their doors and closed their windows. Something the local press called “The Woodcrest phantom” was on the prowl, peeping into windows at night. One eyewitness described the phantom as “a big, grey-headed fellow”. “He was looking in a window. I yelled at him and he started chasing me. I didn’t wait to find out who it was,” reported one witness. Another who saw the phantom described a short, fat man and someone swore that the two were working together. Others maintained that the phantom wore a mask or looked
4 like a Japanese person. On the last day of August that same year, a ‘mad gasser’ began to invade the homes of the residents of Mattoon, Illinois, using a strange gas to rendering its residents unconscious or immovable. Mrs Bert Kearney, one of the first victims of the mad gasser, described the ordeal: “I noticed a sickening, sweet odor in the bedroom… the odor grew stronger and I began to feel paralysis of my legs and lower body.” Her husband saw the gasser. “The prowler was tall, dressed in dark clothing and wore a tight-fitting cap”,
5 he said. The scare lasted till mid-September, during which time some 21 gas attacks were reported. Clueless authorities blamed wartime hysteria. Today, some point the finger to an all
6 too human assailant.
The Black Flash is the most puzzling of this bizarre succession of World War II phantom scares. For a long time, the story of this blackclad creature that haunted Provincetown, Massachusetts, a small community at the tip
“He popped out of the sand dunes one October evening, an elusive superhuman leaping lizard, dressed in black: black hood, black cap, black face...”
of Cape Cod, was only found in one place – an obscure book by American writer Robert Ellis
7 Cahill published in the 1980s. He told the story decades after the alleged occurrences, but he hadn’t made it up. That established itself when I unearthed a previously unknown and contemporary account in a 1939 edition of the Provincetown Advocate some
8 years ago. More recently, I found other previously unknown, contemporary accounts that shed further light on the mystery of the Black Flash, this time in a 1930s newspaper, the Boston Globe.
Exactly when the Black Flash came into being is a mystery. “He popped up out of the sand dunes one October evening, an elusive superman, a superhuman leaping lizard, dressed in black – all in black: black hood, black cape, black face, but his fierce eyes and his long pointed ears were a glowing silver,” writes Cahill, placing the emergence of the phantom
9 in 1938.
Maria Costa was one of the first victims of the Black Flash. It lunged at her one November night that year. She described the phantom as “black, all black, with eyes like balls of flame, and he was big, real big… maybe eight feet [2.4m] tall. He made a sound, a loud buzzing sound, like a junebug on a hot day, only louder. Then he disappeared like a flash…” The following autumn the Black Flash reappeared, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, seemingly with a new ability: “…now, so reported five fearful and shaken witnesses, he was blowing fire
10 from his mouth.” During other encounters, writes Cahill, the Black Flash easily jumped over 8-10ft fences, was invulnerable to gun shots, spat blue flames in a teenagers’ face, and was sometimes seen in two places at once, or in different places in town over a very short period of time. The Black Flash scared the residents of Provincetown well into 1945, Cahill writes. Its reign of terror ended abruptly and unceremoniously one night, when the Black Flash was chasing some children who barricaded themselves in a house and a threw a bucket of cold water over the phantom from the roof.
Cahill’s version is the most sensational and exciting, perhaps because the story got better with each retelling and he is a fine raconteur. According to the Provincetown Advocate, though, the saga began in 1939. The account offers little detail but acknowledges that a weird phantom did stalk Provincetown in the 1930s. We learn that the police chief was bothered by it and that the phantom was scaring children and grabbing women. It was also capable of “jumping over 10ft [3m] hedges with no trouble at all, ‘chair springs on his
11 feet’, is the explanation.” It corroborates Cahill’s claim; this and the fire belching prompted fortean researcher Mike Dash to add the Black Flash to a list of Spring-heeled Jack-like
12 entities.
Surprisingly, the Boston Globe places the Black Flash scare even further back in time and adds a new layer of detail, including an alternative name for the pest: “This resort town… has a new What-Is-It in the form of a hooded figure which prowls the streets at night. Never at a loss for a name, the natives have christened their newest weird visitor, the ‘Black Flash’, although a few still hold out for the shorter title, the ‘Blot’. Nobody has seen the thing’s face: but a couple of boys, who claim they met the apparition head-on, say it has a mouth and speaks in a guttural tongue.
“Police remain adamant about tackling the Flash, philosophically declaring they ‘officially’ don’t recognize its existence, and won’t – at least until they can pin something definitive on it. In fact, there is a belief among some of the members of the department that the Flash has some premature connection with Halloween. Meanwhile the mystery remains as mysterious as ever. Two terrified youths raced 15 blocks into the lighted center of the town in the small hours of this morning after they claim the Flash rushed out of an alley at them yelling ‘Boo! Boo!’ They said their attacker wore a black hood and a long black cape. A somewhat similar description was given by an elderly lady who lives on Bangs St. She reported seeing the Flash on one of the windowsills of her home. Her cries, she said, drove it away. Stories of
the Flash have circulated here almost every Fall for the past eight years. About four years ago it was blamed for setting a string of fires which resulted in more than $250,000 worth of damage to property. The natives say the Flash will go away by
13 itself after Oct. 31.”
In response, some Provincetown youths formed a neighbourhood watch: “A slinking, sinister night prowler – ‘the Black Flash’– tonight was being sought by 40 boys of the town, deployed at spots where the behooded window-peeper and fire-setter was likely to frequent. Hidden behind trees and camped in doorways, the youthful vigilantes watched through the night for the appearance of the man who
has been frightening women with his ghostly appearance at windows and, worse, has been setting fires in dwelling houses. The boys, ranging from 14 to 19, will remain on watch each night until Police Chief Anthony P Travers and Fire Chief T Julian Lewis are certain that the menace is over. Women who have seen the hooded specter said he wore a long, dark cape that came to his ankles. He has bobbed up in various sections of the town, scaring women nearly out of their wits as his weird attire loomed out of the darkness. Small children have run screaming to their mothers after ‘the Black Flash’ leaped out at them from behind a tree, uttering throaty groans and gesturing crazily. The
authorities are satisfied that this ghostly creature of the night is the one responsible for the three incendiary fires in
14 Provincetown.”
Contrary to Cahill’s claim, the activities of the Black Flash seemed to have stopped around November 1939. That month the Provincetown Advocate briefly mentioned that the police chief denied the Black Flash was in custody: “As far as I am concerned the ‘Black
15 Flash’ is dead and gone…” A month later, the Boston Globe observed that “the ‘black flash’, the fleet-footed hooded man who for a time terrorized women of the town by peering in windows” had failed to make an appearance: “Police have not had a complaint about the ‘flash’s’ activities for
16 some time.” I found no new accounts after that date either.
Who or what was the Black Flash? Perhaps Cahill found the answer. He interviewed residents of Provincetown, some of whom claimed to have had an encounter with the phantom. He points out that several of the town’s citizens thought the Black Flash was one of their own. Due to Cahill’s connections in law enforcement, a former Provincetown police chief offered a clue to solving the mystery. He confided to him that the creature was an elaborate prank enacted by four bored Provincetown men. But who they were, the chief
17 wouldn’t say...