"It is said that, according to Captain Oliver, he had found, upon the beach of Suarro Island, the carcass of a two-headed monster. That is just a little too interesting." Charles Fort, Lo!

FT102: My husband is a surveyor and in the course of his duty had to inspect an empty farmhouse near Llanfachreth in Snnowdonia’s National Park, about six miles northwest of Dolgellau, Gwynedd. I often go along on these trips as navigator and gate-opener and was engaged in the latter activity when we suddenly saw two unmistakable wallabies about 20 yards away. They cleared a 6ft wall with ease and were off and away.

Local reaction was amused and sceptical: what we had seen must have been deer (much mutated I should think). As Llanfachreth is on the edge of miles of thinly inhabited forest and moorland, it is quite possible that a few hundred exotic animals could live there undetected for years. Joyce Ablitt, Aberdyfi, Gwynedd.

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FT109: I was interested to read Joyce Ablitt’s letter about wallabies in Wales [FT102:52]. I have a great uncle who lives in a small village, Bryn Crug, only a matter of miles from Aberdyfi, Joyce’s town, and some 12-15 miles from Dolgellau, the location of the supposed wallabies. As a child I visited my uncle regularly, who, among the many Welsh folk tales he entertained me with, related several stories about "kangaroos" being seen in the area. Until now, I put it down to the mild eccentricity of the man, brought on by one too many parachute jumps during the Second World War.

The common explanation for these stories were that the kangaroos/wallabies had escaped from a local farmer, who had not reported the loss due to worries about being prosecuted for cruelty. The stories date back at least 20 years – perhaps Mr and Mrs Ablitt saw the offspring of the original animals reported by my uncle. Jonathan Howard (by email).

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FT109: The idea of wallabies in Dolgellau is not so incredible. In 1994 whilst studying countryside management at an agricultural college, I was lucky enough to have a lecturer who was into fortean phenomena and we spent many lectures discussing the introduction of ‘alien’ species to Britain. To demonstrate we visited a group of rocks known as the Roaches just outside Stoke-on-Trent. We were quite literally on a wallaby hunt with our lecturer who had witnessed the marsupials frolicking in the bracken.

There were approximately 15-16 of us and we split into groups of around four. We got to see about five wallabies at about 40ft away on a low ridge. If wallabies are abroad in Staffordshire, who’s to say there aren’t stranger creatures roaming the British countryside? J. Heeley, Walsall, West Midlands.

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FT111:  In late December some years back my uncle and I went fishing at Bear Creek, in Kelsey, California. After a few hours of disappointment, we were heading back towards the car when we heard a man yelling downstream. We went to investigate. A Chinese man was yelling "Lobster! Lobster!" but what we saw was no lobster. It was about 4ft (1.2m) long, dark brown with small reddish spots, with a series of white tipped spines running down its back. It lay on the bank breathing heavily, with gills opening and closing. It had large round white eyes with no visible pupil. We asked the man what it was but he spoke little or no English. We tried to convince him to bring the creature to our local Fish and Game, but he lost his temper, grabbed the creature and left in his car. To this day my uncle and I still have no idea what the creature was. Seth Pereira, Georgetown, California.

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FT113: I read Sian Hall’s article on African manimals with interest. In 1993, while working at an isolated oil facility in Gabon, I was in my car around noon driving "home" for lunch, when a strange creature ran across the road in front of me. It ran upright on two legs like a man, was under five feet (1.5m) tall and had what I thought were particularly long arms. It was covered in reddish fur, almost the same colour as the laterite rock which abounded in the area and was used for road construction.

The animal ran off the road, holding its arms above its head as it ran through the long grass, and disappeared into the forest. I mentioned it afterwards to one of the locals, who called it "sipandjee" (accent on the second syllable, not to be confused with "chimpanzee" or its French equivalent) and warned me that they were aggressive. This was my only sighting of such a creature in the five years I was in Gabon, and I have never seen a photograph of any ape that resembles it. Steve Holmes (by email).

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 FT126: With regard to the inquiry about readers seeing cats with wings [FT114:16], I have seen such a creature. Back in 1975 my neighbourhood was on the edge of what was once one of Arizona’s last true wilderness areas; now it’s tract houses and luxury retirement golf communities. One of the original residents was an elderly widow with about 100 cats, all descended from a single pair. Of course by that time, the generations were inbred as all hell, and bore little resemblance to average cats. The woman died suddenly and the folks who dealt with her estate handled the cats in a quick manner – they opened all the doors and windows and shoo’d them away. We were soon overrun with cats. Coyotes, foxes and golden eagles soon took care of the majority, and neighbours armed with .22 rifles took care of the rest.

One cat was left. I first noticed this strange beast at a distance, a small bluish feline with what looked like a pair of large wings hanging off the top of its rear pelvis. It had a face that looked like it had been hit by a brick, flat and grossly distorted. One eye was clearly larger than the other, and one side of the jaw had no lip covering. It looked quite ghastly, really. This cat seemed to take delight in killing all manner of native small wildlife and not eating them, and raiding local gardens with the sole purpose of smashing and trashing anything that grew. It got into my small garden twice in early summer, completely destroying it.

Once I watched this animal from a few feet away before it noticed me. It was thin, starving, deformed in face and body, and was covered with ticks, lice and all manner of clinging insects. The "wings" caught my attention. The two hanging off the pelvis were about 6in long, 2in wide at the base, perhaps an inch wide at the end, and were covered with dirty fur. The cat saw me, drew back as if to attack, and the wings began to flail around in random directions. Then I noticed two deformed claws sticking out of the end of each tip. The cat let out a fearful scream and fled faster than I thought possible. When it turned, I noticed a second set of wings, much smaller than the first, stationary, on top of the creature’s shoulders.

A few days later, I discovered that it had raided my garden for a third time, wiping out two months of work. The law at that time said a feral domestic animal that ruined garden crops could be legally hunted inside city limits. So I stalked the creature, ambushed it and killed it with a single rifle shot. As its body was covered with vermin, I made no effort to collect it or get close enough to take photos. I had, by that time, figured that the cat didn’t have real wings but secondary limbs, distorted and useless.

A friend of mine told me that such terrible deformities are common in cats (or other small domesticated animals) that have inbred over a number of generations. She also remarked that such deformities show up in populations that are either naturally isolated or confined in a house, as in this case. She’d seen a number of "winged cats" before (I prefer to call mine a "six-legged cat"). One had wings on pelvis and shoulders, the other just on the pelvis. I seem to recall that vestigial limbs are quite common on inbred animals, but they usually indicate severe enough damage to make the animal’s life short and unpleasant. Usually they don’t move too quickly and become a meal for something faster or larger. Russ Williams, Prescott, Arizona.

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 FT128: On the night of Saturday, 14 August 1999, I couldn’t sleep and decided to take my Chow dog T-Rex to the Sacramento River levy (California) for a small walk. As I was walking along the levy at 1:15am, near the intersection of Riverside Boulevard and Clipper, I heard what sounded like huge rocks dropping into the river. The noise repeated about every two minutes. I took a closer look and saw a snakelike creature 20-30ft (6-9m) in length. It looked like it was doing something out of water with its body, causing the loud splashing noise. When I threw rocks at it, it instantly made the sound of submerging. At one point, when we were at the edge of the river and my dog was lapping the water, it edged close to us. I took my dog and backed away. Paul Dale Roberts, Sacramento, California.

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 FT138: In 1996 my 19-year-old daughter worked for a holiday site in Hemby, Norfolk. Her late shift ended at 10:45pm, and my wife and I used to meet her after work so that we could all walk back to our caravan in nearby Newport. One night, we delayed our return by a visit to a café and some arcades. By the time we started back along the unlit lane to the caravan, it was approaching midnight. We heard a strange noise and movements coming from the bushes to our left, followed by a snarl unlike anything we had ever heard. As we approached a house, we could just make out, behind a fence in the light shining down the garden, a dark shape the size of a large dog.

As we approached, we saw that it was a large dog. It stood there snarling, but unlike any dog we had ever heard – and we have always had dogs. To say we were nervous would be an understatement. To cap it all, it had glowing red eyes. There was no way it could have been a trick of the light as the house lights were behind it. It stood there as we walked fearfully past. After a few yards, I looked back, as the snarling had stopped. The creature was nowhere to be seen, though we had heard no sound of it moving.

Back at the caravan, my wife picked up a magazine and came upon an article about a phantom dog that had been seen around Norfolk. The description of its red eyes and the sound it made tallied with our experience. The article said it was an omen of bad luck; since that night we have had nothing but bad luck. We still go along that lane, but we have never seen or heard anything of the animal again. Has anyone encountered such a creature? Mr G E Thompson, Leicester.

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 FT138: For a family holiday last year, I booked an 18^th Century converted barn in Suffolk within the grounds of the owner’s home, just 50 yards (46m) away. On the first night I was awakened by the loudest, most intense noise which I can only describe as crackling, pulsating electricity. Struggling to open my eyes, I stared into the face of a huge black dog. It lay on the bed between my husband and myself and as I looked down the king-size bed I realised its hind was almost reaching the end. The quilt was very heavy as if the weight of the enormous dog was pulling it down and I couldn’t move or make a sound.

Although it was staring directly at me, I felt no fear. What did bother me was the noise which was incredibly loud and seemed not only to be coming from all around but also from within me. I worried that if any of our three young children (asleep across the corridor) were crying I wouldn’t hear them.

I slept well again after this, but I leapt out of bed first thing to check the door was locked and the windows were all secure. Nothing could have got in. I told my husband about my "dream" and he laughed it off. The next day, we saw the owners walking their two dogs. One of them was a black Labrador of normal size and didn’t acknowledge us (obviously being used to visitors) and I am relieved to say I had no further visits. Stella Maria Goddard, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.

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FT138: At about 12:30 on the night of 25 May I was walking past the small cemetery off Magdalen Road in the St Leonards area of Exeter when I saw something flying above the gravestones that I took to be an owl. However, as it circled closer I saw that it was a huge bat, with a wingspan of around 3ft to 4ft (91 to 122cm). I could only assume it was a fruit bat or flying fox, an exotic pet that had escaped; it was far too large to be a native species. The animal flew within 20ft (6m) of me and I watched it for around a minute. At home I consulted a reference book, but I couldn’t identify the animal. It was the size of a tropical fruit bat, but its face was flat and lacked the fruit bat’s dog-like features.

The following afternoon, I left a recorded message with Devon Bat Group and wrote to two local papers, both of whom failed to respond. I hope you understand why I wish to remain anonymous: people would brand me a grade A nut if I were to tell them. Has anyone seen this animal, or anything similar? Simon, Exeter, Devon.