THE MUMSNET GOATMAN
Something “definitely not human” stalks Northamptonshire at night
In the classic fortean tradition of “strange things caught in the headlights”, someone going by the name of GallopingHighRoad posted a message on Mumsnet on 20 February asking: “What did we see last night?” They went on to describe driving along an A road in rural Northamptonshire at around 2am the previous night when something crossed the road in front of them, illuminated by their full-beam headlights for about three seconds. They described it as “about the height of a person, maybe six feet or over, but had short powerful legs and hips which seemed to move in a circular fluid fashion. It was not a deer because it stood on two legs.” The witness went on to describe the location as being in an area with rolling fields and woodland, with the nearest buildings being at least a mile away. The next day they returned to the site and were able to give a better description of the location, saying “whatever it was moved into a wide bowl-shaped field dropping down to a stream”, giving the more precise location as a layby next to fields on the A425 near the village of Staverton, close to the resonantly named village of Shuckburgh.
In response to speculation by other Mumsnet posters, GallopingHighRoad said what they had seen was definitely not human, more a mix of goat and deer; other people suggested a feral wallaby or a bear, as well as more unusual entities, which GallopingHighRoad also dismissed, saying optimistically, “Not a goatman, slenderman, sasquatch. These things don’t exist.” They elaborated further, saying: “Colour – dark brown, but always hard to tell in full beam. The ‘thin bear’ is best way to describe it. Droopy shoulders, but wide hips etc at base. But obviously not a bear in UK… the closest we can describe is a large man-goat on hind legs, but really stocky ones. Obviously not that though,” and “gigantic hare is not far off... but not at 6ft [1.8m].” They went on to post a rough sketch of the entity, prompting suggestions that it might be a badger standing on its hind legs, while another poster created a sketch from the descriptions which GallopingHighRoad felt represented the sighting better than their own drawing skills could, resulting in the inevitable Chupacabra (and not entirely serious) Predator suggestion.
Interestingly, one Mumsnet poster linked the creature’s appearance to the recent storms, referencing a June 1986 encounter in Norfolk when, after a period of very stormy weather, “a witness saw a large, longhaired creature with a light grey shaggy coat walking on four legs. On a return journey, the same witness saw the beast rise up on its hind legs like a human, albeit a very hairy human around 8ft [2.4m] tall.” northantslive.news, 23 Feb 2022.
“The closest we can describe is a large man goat on hind legs”