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The Ghostly Scarecrow of Chiang Rai was an alien [1] [2] sighted in 2005, when villagers living in a rural Thailand farming community claimed to have had a close encounter of the 3rd kind with a small, red-eyed, yellowish entity, which they claim was frolicking in the air above a rice field [3].

Located about 488 miles north of Bangkok — and situated on the Kok River basin — the Chiang Rai province is situated within the renowned Golden Triangle area where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand converge. Nestled within this province is the small, provincial farming village of Huay Nam Rak.

Description[]

The alien has yellow skin, and is described as being very short. It has no arms, and pointed feet. It is reported to be able to hover above the air, and attempts at some points to communicate with humans (nodding it's head to "ask for help"). It is said to have huge, red eyes and a tiny mouth. Witnesses say it has a large head and large ears.

Sightings[]

On the morning of August 31st, 2005, no less than ten residents of Huay Nam Rak claimed to have seen a bizarre, yellowish, humanoid figure hovering above a ridge that ran through a rice and lemongrass field owned by 69 year-old Ti Kitkangbon. The first eyewitness of this strange event to come forward was a 51 year-old man named Sawaeng Bunratchasak, who claimed that he spied the being while bicycling past the field sometime between 8 and 8:30 am., on the morning in question. Bunratchasak — who was adamant about the fact that he was completely sober when he spied the creature — said he first thought the entity was a scarecrow that has somehow been automated, but upon closer evaluation decided that it was a living creature.

According to Bunratchasak the moment that chilled him to the bone was when this hovering “scarecrow” nodded its head and stared directly at him with its blood-red eyes in a fashion that struck the frightened witness as an imploring gaze — as if it were “asking for help.” Bunratchasak hastily left the scene and informed the rest of the villagers about this strange being, which he described as an armless humanoid creature with two small legs — which tapered to pointed feet – and yellow-colored skin. He further stated that it was about 30-inches in height and that it had a large head, with equally large ears, attached to a relatively small body. Most disturbingly he informed them that gravity had no apparent effect on this ostensibly alien beast.

Socko

As soon as he heard this odd tale from his friends, 35-year old Sawaeng Boonyalak — along with several other villagers — dashed to Kitkagbon’s field to see it for themselves. While Bunratchasak was the first to report the incident, Buapan Lawichai would later claim that she actually was the first to have seen the being floating listlessly above the field at around 6:30 in the morning. This apparent mastery over the force of gravity is is a trait that this entity shares with numerous other supposed visitors from out of this world, including Finland’s Kinnula Humanoid, Kentucky’s infamous Hopkinsville Goblins and the eerie Japanese apparition known as the Alien Cosmonaut. Sawaeng claimed that he and the other villagers observed as this weird being — which he described as having a large round head that looked like a “light bulb,” red eyes and yellowish skin — as it wandered about the field for nearly an hour, seemingly unconcerned about the humans who were staring at it.

This apparent obliviousness to observers is also a common characteristic described by witnesses at numerous alleged alien encounters such as in the cases of Japan’s Kofu Fanged Humanoids, Russia’s Voronezh Aliens and Zimbabwe’s Ariel School Aliens. Some of the eyewitness — like Buakaew Intaweng — believed that the creature was some sort of animated doll, indicating, perhaps, that it employed jerky, robot-like movements. Others insisted that it was more of a spectral apparition, which they compared to “Casper the friendly ghost.” Villager Kamma Pinsaimoon stated that he watched what looked like a “child floating” until about 10:30 am., when the entity “stretched,” turned jet black, then disappeared into the sky like a soaring rocket. Others insisted that the being disappeared into bright, glowing orb that hovered above it in the sky.

Explanations[]

Investigator Kittikasem Ratanakosa, visited the scene soon after to interview all of the eyewitnesses and examining rocks or soil in the area. He claimed that many of the people he had talked to told him of a “floating fire” that had been seen falling from the sky near the rice field just one night before the villagers claimed to see the alien. Is it possible that this mysterious “scarecrow” was a survivor of a UFO crash who was just waiting for a ride from some sort of intergalactic taxi service? If there was a crash, no mention of any debris has been made, suggesting, perhaps, that this glowing orb might not have been a taxi so much as a tow truck.

Hoax[]

For a moment it seemed as if the identity of this mystery monster might finally be put to rest when Tongmuan Pochailoet — a resident of the nearby village if Doi Kam, which is located about 6-miles from Huay Nam Rak — claimed that the episode might have something to do with the discarded helium-filled rubber doll he found trapped in the branches of a tree in August of 2005. Pochailoet tethered the greenish-orange doll outside his home convinced that it would make a good scarecrow for his vegetable garden, which was constantly being raided by stray ducks and chickens, He described the doll as being about 3-feet in height with a large head — upon which were distinct a nose, eyes and mouth — and tiny arms and legs. Notably he mentioned that it did not have ears.

On August 29th, a huge storm swept through Pochailoet’s village taking his trusty scarecrow with it. It would be two days later that the flap of alien sightings would begin in Kitkangbon’s rice field in Huay Nam Rak. Pochailoet later claimed — in a September 11th interview with the “Ruam Duay Chuay Kan” community radio station — that, while he assumed that his floating doll might be the cause of the alien sightings, he did not come forward for fear that the villagers would accuse him of lying, which is why he waited so long to come forward with his story.

While it is tempting to dismiss this entire incident as an obvious case of mistaken identity, one is hard pressed to ignore the fact that an animate, large-eared, armless, tiny mouthed, red-eyed, yellow-orange creature does not quite fit the bill of an inanimate, ear-less, armed, wide mouthed, non-red-eyed, greenish-orange inflatable doll.To further confirm this supposition, when a reporter showed a — frustratingly difficult to find — photograph he had taken of Pochailoet’s doll to the Huay Nam Rak witnesses, they unequivocally claimed that the features of the rubber doll did not match the allegedly extra-terrestrial being they had seen.

Sketch

The villagers further stated that they saw the alien nodding and that the manner in which it floated was intelligently controlled, completely unlike a balloon’s random floating.

Trivia[]

  • Curiosity seekers — approximately 100 per day — flocked to this small village from miles around in the hopes of catching a glimpse of this enigmatic entity. Villagers piled onto several pickup trucks, and even raided the Mae Jan District Office trying to confirm the false rumor that the celestial visitor had been caught. This, of course, prompted the local police force to take action. Police Colonel, Kittisin Kongtaweepan — the superintendent of Mae Jan District Police Station — sent in a cadre of extra officers to deal with the ever increasing crowds. Kongtaweepan even tried to dissuade the visitors from coming by claiming that there was no evidence that this creature was an alien or that it even existed at all, save for the eyewitnesses’ sketches. He tried to support this claim by stating that his officers had found no traces of damage to the rice field, conveniently ignoring the fact, it would seem, that all of the eyewitnesses claimed that the creature was floating above — as opposed to walking on — the rice field.
  • The media interest in this case became so overwhelming that Banjong Yang-yuen, Jan Jawa Subdistrict Municipality Mayor asked the village chief to set up a camera in the rice field in case the entity returned. He also was forced to dispatch a crew of workmen to repair the road running past the field, which had been churned into a mud pile by the massive influx of traffic.
     

Sources[]

  1. "They believed it was an extra-terrestrial being" https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2014/01/the-rice-field-scarecrow-encounter.html
  2. "they witnessed an "alien" or extra-terrestrial being" https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2014/01/the-rice-field-scarecrow-encounter.html
  3. "Mae Jan District residents were excited over the sight of the unidentified entity floating into the sky above the rice farm" https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2014/01/the-rice-field-scarecrow-encounter.html
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