Talk:Owlman

Merge?

Perhaps this entry should be merged with or at least bidirectionally linked with Mothman, since both crypid names seem to describe the same sort of creature. Thorne 07:45, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

No I don't think they should be merged because there's no evidence that they're the same thing. They look different, are known by different names, and were seen in different decades on opposite sides of the world. JW 13:50, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The only similarities reported were the eyes and the wings, there is nothing to indicate the two are connected in any way other than being topics under the main Cryptozoology article. Drago 19:05, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

It deserves a single entry. Mixing it with Mothman(!) would suggest a link that there's no actual evidence of. There are plenty of more obscure American crypids with their own page - and no-one's suggesting deleting or merging. Please have some respect for British Folklore...regardless of it's age.

NPOV tag

Added because this article is insufficiently neutral as to whether or not creature actually exists. -- Beland 08:25, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Howso? It specifically and immediately says that it is a cryptozoological creature; So immediately we know the existence of the creature is disputed. And at the bottom of the article it also mentions that the most straightforward theory concerning it is that it was a type of owl that the witnesses misidentified. Granted, the bit about the prehistoric sites and earth energy along ley lines is a bit over the top but I see nothing to warrant an NPOV tag. Drago 19:05, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

I think Beland's point was that the way the entire article is written, it takes the girls' claims as truthful - "The Owlman then flew up into the air, revealing black pincer-like claws.", for instance, phrases the matter in such a way that the reader would theoretically be led to think that whatever they claim to have seen did fly. It also certainly needs to be reorganized... I might get to it myself. Zeppocity 23:50, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

O RLY...Hah Ha :|

Feral Child

Why remove the piece about the owlman being a feral child ? There are lots of known cases of animals raising human children.

As it says at the bottom : "Content must .... be based on verifiable sources." If it's true there shouldn't be a problem with providing a weblink to it but after a google I can find no reference to either a Professor Neil Clay and I know for a fact that there is no such University as Cheam so I'll remain sceptical about it until a reference has been supplied. Valenciano 15:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

So if I create a web page about it then that makes it true, interesting. If only you had remained sceptical about some of the other 'facts' in this story. A 6ft owl indeed, very funny but unfortunately untrue.

As I added the bit about it probably being an escaped aviary owl I quite clearly am to say the least sceptical. If you consider your edit to be funny by the way then I wouldn't give up your day job. For now it comes under the heading of vandalism and I'd knock that on the head if I were you if you want to continue editing wikipedia - just a friendly word of advice. Valenciano 18:20, 17 July 2006

Seriously, escaped owls are not 6ft tall with glowing red eyes. What does making comments about my edit being funny or otherwise have to do with anything ? I'm afraid your unprofessional behaviour may have to be reported. BTW I have a number of log ons on wikepedia.

Truly Paranormal?

Owlman has been sighted at least three times, one of them he ended up DEAD! So, as one like myself would guess, Owlman is not a paranormal sighting, but in truth, a new species of animal. How this apparent "species" could have come about, I have no clue. But still, if one's dead and there are more sightings, one could say that these Owlmen were an entirly new race, opinions? ~VNinja~ 00:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The dead one was 50 years before the others and might not be connected (it could have simply been a vagrant bird of prey). As for a living species, it still seems confined to the Mawnan church area. I think a man-sized real flying creature with glowing eyes would be seen there every week. Personally I think this is some kind of paranormal entity (even though I wrote all that stuff about eagle owls). This case may never have a definite conclusion. Totnesmartin 10:49, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, you might be right, yet still you can't doubt that with one "owlman" ending up dead, no one being able to identify it, and more appearences, some people might say this is an entirly new race. 206.176.109.44 22:58, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

P.S. This is a cool discussion, even though only two people have posted in it.

It certainly is. Meanwhile, in the absence of that body, or a photograph of it, there can be no certainties. Either of us could be right - or both wrong. Totnesmartin 23:13, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes without any details of the other find it could be anything (some large bird o prey escaping from a private zoo?). Owlman has paranormal aspects to it or at least the stories related do. Quite a few undiscovered animals can accumulate such lore through misunderstandings, tall stories, etc. or it could be a supernatural beastie or it could be a hoax (Doc Shiels has always done thigs firmyl tongue in cheek and it is never clear when he is seriou or not - if he knows, when you get in deep the dividing line gets very blurred). There are certainly solid parallels with Mothman, of course it could be, as Nickells suggests a misunderstood sighting of a known species too. So lots of possibilities some parannormal, some a new species and some known species (and the differnt sightings may have different explanations - getting lumped together over time). The truth may be out there but it can't really be resolved at this distace in time. Resolving a modern case may not reflect too strongly on the older ones (unless you can find unequivocal links). (Emperor 23:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC))

Okay then, if it is a large bird of prey escaping from a private zoo, wouldn't the zoo report a missing bird of prey? If they did, then it should be in the article. And yes, it could be a mix-up of species, or maybe a prankster scaring people after the first "owlman" ended up dead. Of course, as stated above by Totnesmartin, we all could be wrong, or one of us could be right, you never know. ~VNinja~ 00:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the dead bird report was from 1926. for any follow-up on that story, you'd have to wade through back numbers of Cornish newspapers. The source in this article isn't even the original newspaper, but a book mentioning the newspaper. And of course, the bird might not have escaped from anywhere - it could have been a wild vagrant, such as the Short-toed Eagle which turned up in the area a few years ago... We'll all just have to accept that we'll never know. Totnesmartin 14:38, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Notability

At present there appear to be no references to this creature in independent mainstream sources. All of the sources in the article are apparently specifically cryptozoological publications, which makes them bad for establishing notability. Nor can I find any third party reliable sources via a google search. Does anyone know of any to establish notability? Locke9k (talk) 23:03, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Although most of the current sources are crypto sites, the Owlman was extensively reported in regular newspapers, BBC etc. at the time that the events are meant to have occurred. Someone more dedicated than me could probably microfiche that sort of thing? There is currently a 'retrospective' article in BBC country file mag: http://www.bbccountryfilemagazine.com/feature/discover/spectred-isle-owlman-mawnan-wood —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.145.252.66 (talk) 14:56, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I find this reasoning used to call notability into question rather alarming. Simple thought experiment: please provide at least one source for differentiable manifold that is not a specifically mathematical publication! See the problem? The reference list includes at least four books. So because they are written by cryptozoologists they are not acceptable? Seriously, Wikipedia is becoming more depressing every day :( Nude Amazon (talk) 09:29, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Please do NOT delete the Owlman entry. It's British folklore and deserves a notation on Wikipedia. Does age and depth of tradition matter? If people look for Owlman and don't find anything on Wikipedia, well, that's dumb... deletion is a silly idea; especially when you consider some of the more obscure topics on this site! So, what's the harm in leaving it be, when it serves an obvious use? Owlman IS a recognised topic within British Cryptozoological circles. Surely the purpose of Wikipedia is to represent topics, no matter how "obscure" they strike some people as being. It's called "depth".

Interesting

This article (http://www.cfz.org.uk/beta/resources/features/owlman.htm), claims that the girls involved in the second sighting were already aware of the story of the owlman. This would certainly make them more likely to believe that they too had seen the cryptid. I feel this could really throw a spanner in the works of the whole theory that an owlman exists. Angrybeerman (talk) 10:56, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Tone

Now, I'm not much of a believer in such creatures, but as this place does purport to be an encyclopedia, it probably should not be allowed to pass that a section of the article is placed under a sarcastic ("um, an owl?") heading. Not very encyclopedic, though not surprising, either.--172.191.102.219 (talk) 03:59, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Expansion

A lot of the details in this article goes into the that it might be a hoax or misidentification. This is completely unbalanced as regards to other theories on Owlman on whether or not he is real (flesh in blood or supernatural entity), something that several other cryptids have as well. There should be more complete coverage discussing BOTH sides of the argument as well as the events that transpired (if any folklore existed on Owlman before the encounter) and the strange behavior of animals in the area during the time of the sightings. Hopefully this issue is taken care of so that it meets Wikipiedia's guidelines and standards of a well developed and properly balanced article.--Paleface Jack (talk) 20:31, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

First of all, what sources would you propose using to expand the article? Bear in mind, in matters of supernatural/paranormal/Forteana, Wikipedia is not neutral with regard to fringe ideas. It's actually biased toward sources that are independent of the fringe claims. We don't present both fringe and non-fringe as equally valid. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:26, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

That is kind of sad considering that Wikipiedia is suppose to be encyclopedic reporting of information, which by definition is neutral. (sighs) Oh well.--Paleface Jack (talk) 17:29, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Gareth Medway Misquote

I'd just like to point out that somebody appears to have deliberately misquoted Gareth Medway, perhaps in an attempt to make this very minor hoax seem worthy of a wikipedia entry. The somewhat mangled source material is an article he wrote for Magonia magazine issue 76 in November 2001, entitled "Monstrous Tales". The full quote, which refers not to Owlman at all but to Doc Shiel's previous, more successful cryptid hoax, is as follows:

"Altogether there were about twenty two known sightings of Morgawr. It would be tedious to list them all here, but it is worth noting there was a definite pattern to them: the witnesses were either Doc Shiels, or friends of Doc Shiels, or relatives of Doc Shiels, or reported their sightings to Doc Shiels (and to no one else), or else wrote letters describing what they had seen to newspapers and were never interviewed by anyone. Since a letter to a paper might have been written by someone other than the ostensible sender (say, by Doc Shiels), all of this proves either the existence of an acausal connecting principle, or the centrality of Doc Shiels to the saga."

Later in the same article he discusses Owlman, saying:

"This entity was even more selective in his appearances than Morgawr: he showed himself only to adolescent girls on holiday, who afterwards would chance to meet Doc Shiels, tell him their stories, and never be seen again."

If this is enough to qualify Owlman as notable, what about the Brentford Griffin, which is equally likely to actually exist, and funnier? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.163.194 (talk) 20:58, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Not sure what the issue is since the Medway quote specifically mentions Owlman and is definitely not taken out of context, however I have copy edited the text for clarity. Also the article cites a number of other sources which supports the topic’s notability, it’s not just dependent on Medway. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:19, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

The way it was originally phrased, the Medway quote about Morgawr seemed to refer to Owlman, falsely implying that quite a large number of people claimed to have seen it, thus making it seem fairly notable, even if all the witnesses appeared to be suspiciously closely connected with Doc Shiels. In fact, in the original article Medway mentioned only five Owlman witnesses, including three untraceable schoolgirls who could have been and probably were invented by Doc Shiels, and an equally untraceable American who never gave evidence in person, only by letter, and whose address and employment details turned out to be false.

That leaves a grand total of one man who came forward after the story appeared in the local paper and said he too had seen it decades ago when he was a child. It seems that he did exist and he wasn't Doc Shiels, but by himself he hardly amounted to a flood of confirmatory evidence. Debunkers (and Lionel Fanthorpe, who isn't a particularly reliable source of information about anything) seem to think numerous people claimed, apparently in good faith, to have seen Owlman, therefore some sort of explanation is needed, such as a misidentified eagle owl, the presence of which in Cornwall would be remarkable even if it didn't give rise to legends of a British version of Mothman. But were there really enough alleged witnesses, even during the brief and very localised flurry of media interest, to require an explanation any more elaborate than "Doc Shiels made it all up"?

Whether Owlman actually exists or not is beside the point. If a considerable number of people have claimed over the years to have seen it, then it's notable. If hardly anybody has ever claimed to have seen it, especially if most of those who supposedly did cannot be proven to exist outside the imagination of a man whose hobby is hoaxing monster legends, then it isn't. Is there an accurate figure, or even a fairly good estimate, for the number of witnesses, however tongue-in-cheek, who were definitely real people not called Doc Shiels? Because if it's supposed to be of any use, this article needs to make it clear how notable even the locals, let alone anybody else, ever considered Owlman to be. But what I'm getting from the article as it is now is a vague implication that enough people have seen it over the years for it to qualify as an unsolved mystery, but no actual numbers.

Which makes me suspect that if those numbers could be quoted from a reliable source, they'd be so small that poor old Owlman would fail the notability test and be deleted. Then again, if the figures are unexpectedly large, then it's a significant and very interesting example of modern folklore that deserves a proper article.

By the way, the links to some of the sources appear to be dead. 81.152.163.194 (talk) 09:39, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Whether Owlman actually exists or not is beside the point. If a considerable number of people have claimed over the years to have seen it, then it's notable. If hardly anybody has ever claimed to have seen it, especially if most of those who supposedly did cannot be proven to exist outside the imagination of a man whose hobby is hoaxing monster legends, then it isn't. Wikipedia has its own editorial policies to help define what is notable enough for inclusion in the encyclopedia (here: WP:N) and the number of people who claim to have seen something is not part of that definition. On Wikipedia, notability is determined by the amount and quality of published reliable and independent third party sources that have discussed the topic. If you aren't familiar with Wikipedia policies, it's an easy mistake to make, so no harm. Cheers, - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:48, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Recent sighting

My mate saw the owlman near Grogley Halt a few months ago. Tewdar (talk) 00:04, 15 December 2021 (UTC)