For hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, stories were related around campfires and villages of incredible human encounters with the Alan—a creature that, legends purport, haunts the Southeast Asian skies. It’s said to have a woman’s face and body, a long tongue like an anteater, a densely feathered neck and gigantic wings.

Witnesses through the ages that claimed to have gotten a close look at the Alan swear that it also has wicked, curving nails on its hands and scaly arms and legs. The toes and fingers of the  creature are presumably reversed.

Alans are said to dwell in the more inaccessible parts of the rain forests of Northern Luzon, the Palawan Islands, and the sometimes in the Philippines; the Philippine islands, however, have their own native flying humanoid called the Berbalang.

Although no doubt a harrowing sight to unwary people who happen upon them, the Alan is described as being friendly in nature, but quite mischievous.

The myth further relates how Alans live in splendid golden houses, hang inverted from trees like bats, and seek orphaned children to raise as their own.

Oddly, the depiction of the Alan is eerily similar to the ancient Greek’s Harpy, humanoid birdlike creatures that were indisposed to make friendly overtures towards humans unlike their Southeast Asian counterparts.

Alan-like creatures span the globe

Other similar creatures have been reported in the Southeast Asian and Pacific regions such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Java and Papaua New Guinea.

The “a-hool” of Java is thought by many researchers to be a gigantic bat. While the “Berbalang” of the Philippines—that has been documented to attack and kill livestock—may also be a monster bat or a predator raptor like an eagle. The Berbalangs are the Filipino version of Eastern Europe’s vampires.

The Orang Bati of Indonesia strikes fear into many rural villagers. It seems like another version of the Alan. In this case, however, the creature is claimed to resemble a human-like giant ape that’s able to fly by using its huge bat-like wings.

Predominantly found in Seram of the Maluku Islands of Indonesia, the Orang Batu hunt for prey at night and will feed on human infants and small children.

Villagers do not treat the creatures as an ancient myth, but as real flesh and blood predators that have a surprisingly high degree of intelligence. The Seramans assert the winged humanoids seek shelter during the day within the twisting maze of deep caverns on the slopes of Mount Kairatu, the island’s dormant volcano.

A Mexican Alan?

Recently another version of the Alan is said to have appeared in Mexico. Some witnesses have managed to take videos of their experience. Not constrained to South of the Border, these flying humanoids have been seen as far north as Santa Monica, California.

During 2004 a video was taken of one. Expert analysis and enhancement of the video revealed a human-like figure approximately 7-feet tall and 3 to 4 feet wide, hovering, diving and swooping over the countryside.

A similar video shot of another Alan-like creature was taped in June of 2005. Law enforcement video experts analyzed it and declared the video genuine, but the image was too low a resolution and jumped about in the frame so much that no determination could be made regarding the nature of the object.

Possible answers

While it is clear that the Alan of Southeast Asia is a myth, and the other creatures may well be animals that are as yet uncategorized and as such remain in the realm of myth and crypto-zoological researchers, the Mexican sightings may have several answers.

One notorious flying humanoid video that went viral on the Internet the past few years, dubbed “the flying witch,” has been determined to be a bunch of dark-colored helium balloons bobbing along the air currents of the foothills of a Mexican mountain range.

Several other videos were much harder to explain, until an American military analyst happened to view one of them.

Familiar with a remarkable one-man flying device called the “WASP” (Williams Aerial Space Platform), the military analyst released a demonstration video that the inventor made for the United States Army. If you compare the video (link available at the end of this article), you can see that the “UFO” or “flying human” is actually a WASP undergoing private flight tests along the Mexican border.

Perhaps some of the reports and mythology surrounding the Alan and other flying humanoids will also be shown as cases of misidentification. But there is always the possibility of a strange new creature being discovered. That is what drives human imagination and the dedication of those crypto-zoologists fascinated by the idea of revealing the unknown.

Links

1st Mexican flying humanoid sighting

2nd Mexican flying humanoid sighting

Santa Monica, California sighting

Mystery solved? U.S. Army prototype “WASP”one-man flying device