by Graeme Davis
The emblem of a Leopard Society preserved in the Brooklyn Museum. (Brooklyn Museum)
The archives of the 34th Specialist Regiment include translations of Japanese military reports dated from 1942–44 which describe contact with resistance groups from the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army, including stealthy night attacks by “tigers of unusual intelligence” that specifically targeted officers.
There are no records of weretigers being active outside their home range; the governments of both China and India officially deny that they ever existed. However, during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and the standoff of 2001–02, the Pakistani Army brought in trackers and tiger experts from the Karachi Zoo after a spate of tiger attacks on officers in the field.
Hengeyokai (Japan)
Unlike Western lycanthropes, Japanese hengeyokai are animals, or animal spirits, which have the power to shift into human form. Japanese folktales tell of many varieties, but the following hengeyokai have been positively identified by the Yokai Jingcha (lit. “spirit police”), Japan’s major paranormal investigation and enforcement agency.
A kitsume in the form of a nine-tailed fox.
Kitsune
Kitsune are fox spirits. Those who interact with humans are usually female. Younger kitsune are indistinguishable from foxes, but they grow additional tails as they age: the oldest and most powerful kitsune have nine tails.
The ability to shift into human form is gained between 50 and 100 years of age, and with practice a kitsune may become skilled enough to impersonate a specific person. Otherwise, the favorite form is that of an attractive young woman. While in human form, a kitsune may forget to hide its tail or neglect to change the form of its shadow, especially if drunk or distracted. Dogs provide the most reliable means of detection because they have an instinctive dislike of the creatures.
The Yokai Jingcha classifies kitsune as a minor threat since they are not usually violent. However, they delight in seducing and playing tricks on susceptible men, especially those they deem too self-important or bad-tempered. The Yokai Jingcha routinely investigates any sex scandals or humiliating accidents involving Japanese politicians or high-ranking executives.
Tanuki
The tanuki is a Japanese creature whose name is usually translated into English as “raccoon-dog.” It is a small canid with raccoon-like eye markings. In former times, tanuki liked to impersonate Buddhist monks and tempt them into breaking their vows: food, drink, and female company were their favorite inducements. They also played tricks on travelers and humiliated those they regarded as strait-laced or overly pious.
These days, tanuki can be found in many Japanese cities operating successful restaurants and other small businesses related to food, drink, and entertainment. Like kitsune, they are regarded as a low-threat creature, although in 2009 the Yokai Jingcha did investigate a number of incidents in Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward, including a restaurant inspector who was found lashed to a flagpole in his underwear and a yakuza collector whose loaded gun had to be surgically removed by a proctologist.
Tengu
Tengu are hawks, or sometimes crows, that inhabit remote wooded places. In human form, they often have long or hooked noses, which make them easy to distinguish from Japanese humans.
The tengu are easily provoked by a lack of respect for nature. Even petty offenses like littering can drive them into a rage. In former times they tolerated the presence of the ascetic yamabushi warrior-monks and even earned a reputation as expert swordsmen, but they normally have little tolerance for trespassers.
The Yokai Jingcha rates tengu as a serious but localized threat, and works with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries to keep tourists away from known tengu territory. For the most part, this policy has been successful; however, in 2007 Yokai Jingcha response teams accompanied riot police and forest rangers onto the slopes of Mount Aino, west of Tokyo, after a party of Dutch mountaineers disappeared. Officially no remains were ever found, and the group is believed to have suffered a fatal mishap after wandering off the trail.
Kumiho (Korea)
Like the Japanese kitsune, the kumiho (“nine-tailed fox”) of Korea is said to arise when a fox lives an exceptionally long life: in this case, a thousand years. However, recent studies funded by the Tyana Institute and carried out at the Kyung Hee University in Seoul have reached the conclusion that they are a local kind of sorcerous lycanthrope resulting from an ancient cannibal-cult. Documents from the Gojoseon period speak of yeou manyeo or “fox witches” stealing and eating children, which is the key element of most kumiho legends.
In August 2005, US intelligence sources reported a supposed “joint exercise” by North Korean troops and police in the mountains around Jonchon. A few days after the exercise, a woman was executed in Jonchon for the murder of a young boy and “unspeakable crimes” – thought to be a euphemistic reference to cannibalism. The same day, a government proclamation condemned as counter-revolutionary “the holding of superstitious beliefs, telling tales of witches and monsters, and speaking or behaving in a folkloric [sic] manner.” While acknowledging the difficulty of obtaining reliable information from North Korea, the Tyana Institute has classified the Jonchon incident as a possible kumiho attack.
Werewolf hunters have existed throughout human history. Many groups are dedicated to protecting humanity from all kinds of supernatural threats, including werewolves. Some are made up of hunters and warriors who seek to measure their own prowess against this most dangerous of foes. Some seek to study werewolves and understand the condition of lycanthropy, either in the hope of developing a cure or to harness the power of the werewolf for human political and military ends.
Government and other documents studied up to the time of writing have identified the following organizations as being involved in werewolf hunting, lycanthropy research, or both. There are certain to be more such groups, still in the shadows.
The Nightmen
Best known in recent years for its role in the Zombie Wars, the US Army’s 34th Specialist Regiment has been involved in anti-werewolf actions in World War II and before. Its history goes back to the early days of the American Revolution, in which its predecessors faced a wide range of supernatural foes. Some were of native origin, and others were summoned and controlled by the sorcery of British and Loyalist Freemasons.
According to documents supplied by the 34th Specialist Regiment for a planned unit history, the Nightmen trace their ancestry to a Revolutionary War militia group called the Tyana Rangers. Whatever its ancestry, the present-day unit was formally organized in 1943 as part of the OSS.
Its initial brief was to provide troops trained in unconventional warfare for support roles in clandestine operations by the OSS and similar groups. As the war progressed and the Allied high command came to realize the extent of Nazi occult research, the 34th found itself increasingly called upon as an occult warfare unit. With very few exceptions, it has remained in this role to the present day.
The 34th is based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Outside the Zombie Wars, elements of the 34th have seen action in Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, and the Philippines. Company-strength detachments were sent to various parts of each conflict zone in response to reports of lycanthropes and other supernatural threats on the enemy side.
It is known that some retired personnel from the 34th are currently active in Bosnia-Herzegovina as private military contractors. Their official mission is to help local forces track down escaped war criminals, but there are persistent rumors that they and their hosts are training each other, sharing techniques of supernatural warfare. Similar exercises are said to have begun in Romania when that country became a full member of the European Union in 1997.
As a unit of the US Army, the 34th Specialist Regiment recruits exclusively from within the US military. The bulk of its personnel come from Army backgrounds, frequently with special forces experience, and have been transferred to the 34th after displaying both skill and courage in an encounter with a s
upernatural foe. A minority of the 34th’s personnel is recruited from private military contractors with supernatural experience.
The structure and basic equipment of the 34th is typical of a US Army infantry unit. It also uses special equipment corresponding to the mission, such as nets, blessed or silver-dipped ammunition, and high-intensity, vehicle-mounted UV floodlights.
The Tyana Institute
The Tyana Institute has already been mentioned in connection with the 34th Specialist Regiment, but its involvement in paranormal warfare seems always to have been incidental to its main purpose. It was founded in 1753 at the College of Philadelphia with the aim of “advancing knowledge of natural philosophy,” and one of its earliest patrons was Benjamin Franklin.
It is said that it was Franklin who gave the society its name, and perhaps its earliest impetus into the study of the paranormal. Apollonius of Tyana was a Greek philosopher with whose work Franklin was undoubtedly familiar: among his exploits, according to his biographer Philostratus of Athens, was the defeat of a vampiress who had been preying on one of his students.
Nominally based in Geneva, the Tyana Institute is descended from Franklin’s society and devotes itself to the scientific study of vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures. Its North American headquarters are in an anonymous building on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. The Institute’s membership is dispersed around the world, and includes some of the most distinguished zoologists, botanists, and taxonomists in contemporary academia.
The Institute has sponsored expeditions to Brazil, Vietnam and elsewhere in order to locate and record previously unknown plant and animal species. It has funded research projects at the more scientific fringes of cryptozoology, and there have always been rumors that some of its members take an interest in subjects like Bigfoot, lake monsters – and werewolves – rather too seriously for mainstream academic tastes.
Apollonius of Tyana for whom the Tyana Institute was named.
Founded shortly after the Russian Revolution, the Zaroff Society is the only group known to hunt werewolves and other supernatural creatures for sport rather than study or defense. Its founder General Mikhail Zaroff hunted werewolves in the forests of Livonia and the Transylvanian Alps, and his diaries describe them as “savage, cunning, and intelligent... certainly the worthiest adversaries I have yet hunted, and possibly the most dangerous game in the world.”
Since Zaroff’s disappearance in 1924, the Society has continued to respond to werewolf sightings around the globe. In recent decades, they have occasionally come into conflict with other groups who are hunting the same creatures for different reasons. Lt. Robert Whitney of the 34th Specialist Regiment describes them as “dangerous amateurs,” while Col. Paul Montford of the Talbot Group was once challenged to a duel by, in his words, “a titled foreign idiot” whom he ordered away from a secured exercise location.
While scattered and loose-knit, the membership of the Tyana Institute can be mobilized at surprisingly short notice. Funds are seldom a problem thanks to the Institute’s patents on a number of plant-derived medications discovered by its members, and there is scarcely a reputable university anywhere in the world that does not contain a handful of Institute members or their correspondents.
Unlike most of the other groups listed in this chapter, the purpose of the Tyana Institute is study rather than defense. Its members will only kill a werewolf as a last resort, to protect themselves or others: capture is always the primary goal. An expedition organized by the Tyana Institute will look exactly like any other zoological expedition, traveling in locally acquired four-wheel-drive vehicles and carrying a great deal of scientific equipment. A few rifles and pistols, often personal property, are carried for self-defense, along with nets and high-powered dart rifles capable of delivering powerful doses of tranquilizers.
The Talbot Group
Nazi Germany was not the only power which tried to develop super-soldiers during World War II. In 1941, the assassination of a key scientist put a halt to a secret US Army project which aimed to develop super-soldiers using a strength-boosting serum.
That same year, a young Welshman attracted the interest of the London Controlling Section, a secret department within the British government. While the Section’s official remit was to plan and execute strategic deceptions, it was also involved in supernatural warfare. Its members included Wing Commander Dennis Wheatley, who later became famous as an occultist and horror writer, and it has long been rumored that the magician Aleister “the Great Beast” Crowley was among Wheatley’s agents. Following reports of lycanthropy near the village of Llanwelly, the London Controlling Section dispatched a commando team with orders to investigate and recover any werewolves they found.
The operation was not an unqualified success. In capturing the beast, three commandos were killed and two more were wounded. To complicate matters further, local landowner Sir John Talbot, on whose land the hunt took place, insisted on taking charge of the captured werewolf himself. Colonel John Bevan, the head of the London Controlling Section, was overruled when he tried to dismiss the landowner’s demands. Talbot was a cousin of the earls of Shrewsbury, and during World War I he had served in the Imperial Camel Corps in Somaliland alongside Lord Ismay, now Military Deputy Secretary to the British Cabinet and a personal friend of Winston Churchill.
To Bevan’s dismay, the matter of the Llanwelly werewolf was taken completely out of his hands: the suspected werewolf and the wounded commandos were never heard of again. In a letter preserved in the Imperial War Museum, Bevan speculates angrily that the werewolf was a close friend or relative of Talbot’s, and he went over Bevan’s head to protect the family name.
The truth of the matter seems to lie in the interagency rivalries that plagued Allied clandestine operations at this time. Having heard reports of Germany’s embryonic Werewolf program, Churchill had decided to develop his own lycanthropic troops. The Talbot Group, as the operation was called, was housed on the family’s estate outside Llanwelly, and although its existence is still officially denied its werewolf troops saw action in Norway, the Ardennes, and Bavaria.
The position of the Talbot Group within the command structure of the British Army remains unclear. Its members are rumored to have acted in support of SAS operations in various parts of the world, and some Argentinian reports from the Falklands Conflict of 1982 suggest that British werewolves were seen on East Falkland in the days leading up to the British landings. The group’s name also appears on UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force) flight manifests from the Bosnian conflict, and in confidential briefings from Iraq and Afghanistan. However, no details on the group’s activities in those conflicts can be found.
It seems, though, that the Talbot Group has had some success in turning werewolves into soldiers. It is even rumored that some volunteers from the SAS, the Parachute Regiment, the Royal Marines, and other elite British units have volunteered to join the Talbot Group and become werewolves.
When in the field, the werewolves of the Talbot Group generally masquerade as British troops, often wearing the insignia of forward reconnaissance units, or as private military contractors. Their equipment is consistent with their cover: L85 rifles and L86A1 Light Support Weapons are the standard weapons and Land Rovers are the most common vehicles. The group’s operations extend into almost every aspect of irregular and paranormal warfare, and they are known to have deployed “capture teams” into areas of suspected werewolf activity.
The Yokai Jingcha
The Japanese Yokai Jingcha (“supernatural constabulary”) trace their origins back to 1603, when Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu appointed Ogata Hideto to the newly created office of yokai-bugyo (roughly, “commissioner for supernatural creatures”) as part of his overhaul of Japanese government. Ogata developed a network of contacts throughout Japan, mainly Shinto priests who served as needed. Local legends and incident reports were sent to Edo, where they were analyzed and compiled into the Yokai Motocho, a central regi
ster of Japan’s supernatural population.
Over the following three centuries the office developed into a government department. In 1874 it was expanded and reorganized under its current name. Today, it has field offices in every prefecture of Japan, supported by research and logistics departments in Tokyo.
Because Japanese hengeyokai are rarely violent, the Yokai Jingcha consists primarily of seasoned investigators, making it different from the SWAT-style units of many other nations. The average age of new recruits is 37, much older than in Japan’s other specialist police branches. Candidates are selected for a combination of exemplary police service and detailed local knowledge, and given additional training in the field of supernatural investigation. The Tokyo office is home to the Yokai Kidotai (“supernatural riot unit”), which can be airlifted to any location in Japan within two hours.
Investigators normally dress in business suits like detectives from other police services. They are not routinely armed, although tasers are becoming popular. The Yokai Kidotai carries standard riot police equipment, including 15 pounds of body armor, riot shields, and batons. Capture squads use forked “man catcher” poles in conjunction with shields, crowding a target into a confined space for darting or netting. Kill missions are authorized only in extreme circumstances.