Location. Edray, Monongahela National Forest, Pocahontas County, West Virginia
Date: October 1960 Time: evening
W. C. “Doc” Priestley was driving through the Monongahela National Forest about 3 miles north of Marlington. A group of his friends were riding ahead of him in a bus. Suddenly his car, which had been ‘purring like a kitten’ sputtered and the engine quit. As he coasted to an unexpected stop, he saw a huge beast standing beside the road, staring at him with two big eyes “like two balls of fire”. It was eight feet tall, he estimated, and was covered with shaggy hair that stood straight up, bristling like a porcupine. Priestley and the beast stared at each other for a long time. Priestley couldn’t judge just how long. The men in the bus ahead noticed he was no longer behind them, so they turned around and went back. “I don’t know how long I sat there,’ he said, ‘until the boys missed me and came back to where I was’. It seemed this monster was very much afraid of the bus and dropped his hair, and to Priestley’s surprise as soon as he did this his car started to run again. He didn’t tell his friends what he had seen. The thing took off when the bus stopped. As he was following the bus, his car began to falter again. Sparks flew from under the hood, he claimed, as if it had a bad short. Again, he glided to an unexpected stop. And again he saw the strange beast standing by the road staring at him with huge, luminous eyes. The bus backed up once more and the thing disappeared into the forest. “The points were completely burned out of my car,” Priestley complained afterwards
HC addition # 1481
Source: Loren Coleman, Mysterious America & John Keel “The eighth Tower”