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.

There is little mention of the Sharkaphant in the records of history. A few ancient cave paintings that have been disputed as illustrations of one such creature (they are very smudged and are often interpreted as a wooly mammoth. However, the human depicted as hanging lifelessly from its jaws has led some scholars to believe that it is in fact a pictorial record of an encounter with a Sharkaphant) have been alternately accepted and rejected by archaeologists. Other than these we have only fossils of brutalized dinosaur bodies, all displaying a jaw configuration much more like a shark than other reptilian predators of the day. Most often these injuries are seen on the carcasses of Brontosauri or other large herbivoric species.

The first written mention of the Sharkaphant is found in early Bible manuscripts. Genesis chapter six verse four reads “ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore [children] to them. Those were the mighty men who [were] of old, men of renown.” (New American Standard Version, copyright The Lockman Foundation) Recent discoveries in ancient Aramaic have brought to light that the word “Nephilim” literally translated means “A large land dwelling creature with the head of a shark and the enormous leathery body of an elephant.” (Most biblical scholars up until recently had misunderstood this, instead believing that the word referred to a race of giants.)

Between this biblical notation and the dated photograph you see above there is almost no mention of the creature throughout mankind’s records. (Most Sharkaphant enthusiasts attribute this to the fact that if an individual were to intrude on their territory and see one in the flesh they would almost certainly have been eaten immediately.) Known to be highly carnivorous from studies conducted on the single Sharkaphant skeleton that was uncovered (and summarily lost or stolen during its transport to the Museum of Natural History) during a dig in central Africa, The Sharkaphant was nature’s perfect hunter. Their gills enabled them to stay underwater for long periods of time, while their remarkably mammalian lungs would reassert themselves while the creature was on land. It is believed they were warm blooded and gave birth to live young. Anecdotes from central African tribes place them as traveling in small packs, with a bull Sharkaphant leading several females and their young. An annual migration to the coastline was almost universally avoided by ancient peoples, (those who set out to observe the animals were never heard from again) so we have no record of what actually took place between the beasts, but it is said that it took place some time in late September or early October.

This singular photograph we have of a living Sharkaphant was taken during World War II at secret Nazi installation located in Africa. Hitler had succeeded in somehow capturing a breeding pair of Sharkaphants and at the time the photo was taken was seeking to domesticate them into service of the Nazi regime. Bits of documents recovered indicate that soon after the photo was taken the Sharkaphants summarily devoured and destroyed the entire experimental facility, leaving the photographer, (Henrich von Gimmelschnitzcher, who had left earlier that day,) as the only living human to see them. Hitler, enraged by the death of his nephew at the hands (or jaws, rather. Hitler’s nephew was a research scientist) of the beast, ordered their summary destruction under the guise of invading Africa. It would seem his initiative was successful despite the eventual defeat of the Nazis in Africa by Allied forces, for no Sharkaphant sightings have been reported since. (Which could also mean they still exist but have again devoured anyone who might have seen them.)

Please join with all of us here at Strangities in remembering this noble but deadly beast. (Preferably by devouring a German or perhaps a co-worker who invades your personal space.)