My wife and I were married in April of 1972 and at the same time I was

re-assigned to duty at Sembach Air Base, Sembach, Germany. By the winter of

1973 we had rented a beautiful old house from a wonderful couple named Karl

and Alfreda Jakob. The house was located at #12 Muhlstrasse, Munchweiler,

Germany. This was just a few miles from Sembach Air Base, and was generally

located in the south of Germany, near Kaiserslautern. At the time we lived

there the house was 160 years old. I am sorry that we lost touch with Karl

and Alfreda. They were some of the nicest people I have ever known. As far

as that goes, we were the only Americans living in this village and the people

there were top notch and we lived a quiet existence.



Our first child, a boy, was born while we lived there. His coming seemed to

manifest a presence that my wife and I were really not aware of. There had

been a few noises and such but we really didn't think much about it.

Sometimes it would feel as though we were being watched. As our son grew

through the first months of life there were many occurrences and this is only

one of them. As time goes by I will relate stories that happened in the

house but the one I tell now concerns something without.



The baby was about six or seven months old. As babies of that age sometimes

do, he was crying and seemed to want to. My wife was letting him cry it out

for a little while. He was in our bedroom in the crib. Our bedroom was on

the back side of the house. There was a small walkway beside the house and

a concrete wall. The back yard was on the side of a hill and the ground was

at a level at the top of that wall, just about even with the bedroom window.

The walkway was less than two feet wide. The house had upstairs bedrooms but

we hardly ever used them.



From the backyard one had to go down some steps beside our bedroom and then

open an arched door in an eight foot high brick wall to reach the front

yard. We were blessed to have grass and this was the outside pssage front to

back. The arched door was wrought iron covered with plexiglass and had a

iron dead bolt that latched it. Once in the front yard, there was a wrought

iron fence at the street and the yard itself was about two anda half feet

higher than the street and the fence was about four feet high. Our neighbors

to the right were the last house before the trail up to the woods and the

back side of both our houses was open to the fields.



My landlady had instructed us that it was very important that we close and

lock the wooden shutters over all the windows and lock the deadbolt in the

outside gate every night.



It was after dark, around nine o'clock this evening when the baby was crying

when we heard something in the backyard, outside our bedroom window.

Whatever it was, it was making an eerie sound, mimicking the baby crying.

Whatever it was, it was big. We could hear it drawing breath into its lungs

and wailing with a sound that would chill you right up the spine. Standing

in the back yard by the window put it just about two feet away from the

shutters.



I had no gun, being a foreigner in Germany. The thing both frightened and

angered me. We listened to it for about ten or fifteen minutes. I finally

decided that I would take out my bowie knife, throw open the shutters, and

attack it. My yelling at it through the open window and through the wooden

shutters had no effect on it. We then decided that giving it access to the

house in this fashion was not a good idea.



I then thought that I would go out the front (since we had no back door)

and go around the house and take on the brute. My wife didn't want me to go

but I found out later that she just didn't want to be in the house alone.

Like I said, the thing was big -- by its sound. Its wail was a high sound,

almost a scream. And in between screams and wails we could hear low guttural

growls similar to that of a lion or big cat.



I finally exclaimed, "I'm going out. We need some relief. I grabbed my

knife and headed for the front door. I also took a hiking staff with a

metallic pointed end. It took two full turns of the giant skeleton key to

get the door open. By this time I had redirected my fear to an attack

attitude and was prepared to jolt the damn thing like it was doing to us.



Just as I opened the front door I could see the thing coming out from beside

our house. It looked like a wolf. It was jet black and had long, coarse

looking fur. It was just over three feet high at the shoulder. It glanced

at me and ran across the front yard (about forty or fifty feet) and leapt

over the wrought iron fence. As it landed on the sidewalk it ook off at a

run and disappeared past my neighbors house and up the track to the woods.



I walked around the house and into the back yard. The wrought iron door

stood agape. To this day I have yet to figure out how the thing opened that

iron dead bolt latch!



G. Hopkins