Strangities Beastiary: The Harce
Pictured here is one of the only known visual records of the creature known as “The Harce.” Its believed these creatures were named by one Clinton Wilkus of Seward County, Nebraska when after surviving a run in with one or several of the creatures he told the responding officers, “I tell ya bays, it looked like some kinda harce!”
Descriptions of the creatures vary somewhat, with some witnesses swearing they have wings while others insist they occasionally walked on all four limbs similar to simians. One odd trait that is agreed on is the Harce’s penchant for wearing human clothes, as you can see pictured here. It unknown how they obtain these clothing items, although some speculate they are removed from previous victims as a sort of trophy. Other Harce experts suggest some form of shape-shifting ability that allows them to walk among us for short periods of time, enabling them to trade in material goods. Current scholarly consideration is divided on the subject.
In similar fashion, schools of thought are likewise contentious over the Harce’s history. Professor J.A. Allanji of Miskatonic University believes the Harce originated some time in 4700 BC as a result of ritual inter-species breeding and a particularly powerful Harce was the real-life basis for the Egyptian god Anubis. He has used this photo in conjunction with hieroglyphics and statues of Anubis to present his findings to the scientific communities. One of his most outspoken rivals, Dr. Winnefred Luster-Digsby scoffs at this and insists that the Harce are actually a spacefaring race from the stars. In her paper “Friends and Enemies of the Cosmos” she postulated that The Harce have visited planet Earth several times since the late 1920s to trade for information and raw materials. A peaceful and slightly stupid race, she suggests, the Harce were responsible for trading with the United States government and supplied the atomic technology that allowed the country to complete their nuclear weapons before the Russians and end the Second World War. Her paper goes on to explain that in exchange for this technology the United States gave the Harce future colonization rights to the former planet Pluto. Its recent planetary demotion is further proof of this, she expostulates.
The peak of Harce mania took hold in 1957 with the publishing of this photo in the Los Angeles Times. Several celebrities came out in support of both fields of thought. Marilyn Monroe was quoted as saying, “Oh I’m very excited about the Harce. I find their tentacles positively erotic.”
Despite the rise in consumer imaging technology no images of a Harce more modern than this one have surfaced. Some, adhering to the Luster-Digsby theory, believe they have stopped visiting the planet because of shrinking gap between our respective technologies, or because they are preoccupied with the colonization of Pluto. Those holding to the Allanji theory think that urban sprawl could have destroyed the natural habitat of the Harce, unknowingly causing their extinction. Perhaps one day we’ll learn the truth behind these elusive creatures.
