The majority of things covered on the blog have thus far been fairly modern reports. What is rare, is finding a ghost story from the 1890's. What is even rarer, is one that includes vicious beasts, murder, and the Devil himself.
In 1890's Arizona, small farms and settlers found themselves at the center of an attack from a Hell Beast.
Late one evening, a wife was out gathering laundry from the line, her husband off hunting, and her sister in law waited in the small farm house. As a storm roiled in the distance, a sound could be heard just above the thunder, hooves. A scream was the next sound to cut through the storm.
The Sister in law ran to the window in time to see the source of the scream. She reported to the husband who returned home shortly after, what she had seen.
"It was huge, all black, and red. It made a horrible stamping noise, and...it was ridden by the Devil himself!"
The husband moved outside where he then found the corpse of his dear wife. As reported in the local paper. "It was as if she had been trampled by an entire cavalry."
Now, with nothing more than vengeance on his mind, the husband set out to hunt down this creature. he enlisted a family friend, and they rode off in the suspected direction of the creature.
Coming across the next homestead, they were shocked to receive their next report of the soon to be known,
"Red Ghost"
The settler, an older gentlemen stated. "Yes, I saw it, it was huge, two horses tall at least."
The man's details also matched as far as color, and the fact that the creature was indeed ridden by a demon or devil, a skeletal body. The story gets even stranger with his next response.
"I chased it as far as I could, but it made it to ridge and...it jumped. I saw it fly off of that ridge!"
So to clarify, these two gentlemen were now on the trail of a 15-20 ft tall, red and black creature, ridden by a demon. Also, it could now fly. they had their work cut out for them I would say. Not disturbed by the reports, the men continued. Days of ground tracking as well as meeting multiple people claiming to have seen the beast, finally came to an end.
The closer the men seemed to get, the more elusive the beast became. As they contemplated turning and heading home, the husband noticed movement ahead. Ahead of them, through the brush on a creek bed, he exclaimed. "There's our Ghost!"
The men opened fire with rifles and shotguns. The beast still hidden in the underbrush let out a blood curdling noise, completely unfamiliar to the men. However, they could tell that the guns were indeed working on the hell spawn. The men ran after the now fleeing creature, and continued firing. Eventually the creature reeled back, letting out another deep growl, and collapsed.
The men rushed over, ready to finish off the monster, but it had relented to the wounds. the men were beyond shocked at what lay before them. The large creature donned in red and black cloth was a far cry from the reports. On the ground in front of the men lay... a camel.
That is correct, The beast the men had chased across the country side was in fact a feral camel. Only growing stranger, the story takes a turn. Strapped to the camel was a body, now mainly bones and ragged cloth. The remains were strapped so tightly to the camel that even in deep stage decomposition it remained strapped to the poor creature. The ranchers inspected the creature, seeing that the straps used for the body had cut into the skin of the Camel. this led the men to believe, that a mix of hunger, stress, and pain had led the beast into some type of feral frenzy.
Apparently. during the 1800's camels were shipped into different places throughout the Southwest. Seen as better suited for the desert style climate, they were viewed as a necessity, as a pack animal. However, with the advent of the rail roads, and their expansion West, the camels were no longer needed. So for quite a while there were actual herds of wild camels roaming the wild west.
Sadly, it seems one of them was the victim of some sad event. This still does not explain some of the reports though. So maybe this was the red ghost, or maybe the real Red Ghost is still out there somewhere. We may never know.