The Rake

It is unknown whether The Rake is a cryptid, alien or outright hoax but many witnesses and video/photo evidence depict it as a six-foot tall white, naked, hairless man, which seems to bear a striking resemblance to the wendigo.

It is believed to watch people as they sleep and has been known to attack them on occasion. Stories vary on it being a benign entity that needs to be helped, to a malicious force that will attack on sight.

Documented reports of “The Rake” date back from as early as the 12th Century and one documented reported from 1691in a mariner’s log stated:

He came to me in my sleep. From the foot of my bed… He took everything. We must return to England. We shall not return here again at the request of the Rake.

Mariner’s Log 1691

It’s of course worth noting that the mariner gave him the name of The Rake, which does sound suspiciously like the entire document was a hoax and never actually existed at all. There is also evidence that the entity itself was entirely fiction created on the 4Chan website by a group of people in 2005 who wanted to make a “really scary monster” and began to create stories and “eyewitness” accounts to sensationalise this creature. Many of the images and videos which appear online are quite clearly excellent fakes, however these sightings do keep occurring and some of the evidences leaves me hard pushed to debunk.

The Rake is said to have long claws on the end of its hands, hence it’s eerie moniker, but has stumpy teeth and cannot move very fast. These are not exactly typical traits of a murderous carnivore. Perhaps we have stumbled upon a humanoid species as yet undiscovered?

During the summer of 2003, in North Eastern USA, sightings and witness testimonies began to pour in from unfortunate people who claimed to have had an encounter with The Rake. One family had allegedly awoken in the night to find it crouched at the bottom of their bed staring intently at them. It then darted off in the direction of the children’s’ room, to which the couple chased after it, only to find their daughter covered in blood in the hallway and completely traumatised. The man attempted to rush his daughter to hospital in the car, but crashed it into the lake, killing both himself and the little girl.

As quickly as they appeared, all the eyewitness testimonies and all of the videos and photos featuring the creature disappeared, being taken down from websites and removed from the newspapers and other media. No one knows why or by whom.

It is also worth noting that The Rake bears a striking resemblance to the creature later known as the “Dover Demon” who was sighted in 1977 in Dover, Massachusetts by Bill Bartlett. Are these entities one and the same? Or is there a whole species that we are unaware of, living, deep in the forests of our world?