The Southend Ratman

The following is one of the most unnerving cryptozoological and/or supernatural cases I've ever come across. I must thanks Mark Antony Raines of the Holsworthy Mark Show for the background, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2018/04/ben-emlyn-jones-on-holsworthy-mark-show.html. There is a subway in Southend-on-Sea, Essex which is said to be haunted by a grotesque and malevolent creature called "the Ratman". As its name suggests, it is a cross between a human and a rat. It has been reported by many people, including numerous schoolchildren. Whether this counts as a paranormal phenomenon, classroom banter or an urban legend remains to be seen. There are several explanations for its origins. One tells the story of an elderly tramp who used to take shelter in the underpass when the weather was unpleasant. One cold winter's night, in a scene reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange, he was brutally beaten by a gang of teenage thugs who stole is blanket. Deprived of his only source of warmth, he perished in the cold. When he was found in the morning, rats were nibbling at his corpse. His suffering and death produced the Ratman as a psychic projection, some kind of tulpa. Another story is that the Ratman is a real flesh-and-blood cryptid. It is the mutant bastard offspring of a promiscuous Southend mayor who had the subway constructed specifically to hide the entrance to a secret chamber where the monster is kept. The creature is cannibalistic and so is only allowed out at night to hunt its human prey... I think another HPANWO TV outing is called for. Source: http://cryptidz.wikia.com/wiki/Ratman_of_Southend.

I'm not sure what it is about the rat that arouses such horror and disgust in so many people. They are merely large mice, basically. They are very hardy and will almost certainly outlive humans as a species. If they had furry tails they would look like squirrels and everybody would think they were cute. It might be a subconscious folk memory from the Black Death. During the Middle Ages millions of people all over the world were killed by this epidemic of plague. It was only known much more recently that the plague was spread by fleas from rats biting humans, but obviously areas with the largest rat populations would be worst hit by the epidemic. The sight of rats close to plague-hit communities must have become intuitively iconic with the Black Death, even if we didn't know why on a rational level. Many horror stories feature rats, usually just to create atmosphere, but also sometimes as the central plot, as in James Herbert's The Rats, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rats_(novel). The rat population of British cities is growing and I have seen rats many times above ground in the last few years, whereas I never saw one previously because they rarely left their usual home in the sewers. The cause of this is primarily a degeneration of local authority public hygiene services. Dustmen now only carry out fortnightly collections when they used to come weekly. This had led to excess waste being left lying around outside homes. Councils have become very authoritarian, issuing fines to people who break the Byzantine waste processing rules. This has caused people to resort to fly-tipping household rubbish, including leftover food. Nature is finding its own balance, as always. The increase in rats has attracted birds of prey into the cities when they only used to patrol only rural areas. I regularly see hawks of all kinds cruising above my hometown's rooftops.

See here for more information: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2015/02/monster-rats.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2014/01/ship-of-rats.html.

And: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2016/10/monster-in-sewer.html.