Shape Shifting Creature Scares South African Town

Officer Nelani said that the community had dubbed the monster “Bawokozi”, meaning ‘brother-in-law’.

Steytlerville, a small Karoo town, is being haunted by a terrifying shape-shifting monster. [Click to view map.] Eastern Cape police have said that their office in being “plagued by rumors” of a shape-shifting monster. Multiple witnesses have reported seeing the creature, leaving the police at a loss on a course of action.

By the second week of April, local residents met with police to discuss the strange phenomenon, asking for the police to do something. During the meeting one resident said he saw the beast appear as a man wearing a suit, and then it changed into a pig and then into a bat.

The creature has not yet been accused of hurting people or livestock. But it has become something of a disquieting presence in the town. Sightings of the monster began over a month ago when it was seen by mourners attending two separate funerals, one police officer said.

“The community says that the monster changes shape while you are looking at it,” Warrant Officer Zandisile Nelani said last week.

The creature had been sighted on a number of occasions near a church and only appeared at night, Officer Nelani said. In one instance, people thought they saw the creature peering through the windows of the church. Some members of the congregation went outside looking for it, but said that it had vanished.

The townspeople had taken to calling the troublesome monster “Bawokozi”, meaning ‘brother-in-law’.

Over Easter Weekend people again saw the creature. Two separate sightings of the shape-shifting creature were reported to police on Sunday evening. “Two men were walking near a tavern when they saw another man wearing a black jacket. One of the men, identified only as Nozipho, went up to the stranger and asked him, “What is your problem?” said Nelani.

When the stranger did not respond, Nozipho went closer and saw that the man had no head. The man then turned into a dog that was “very angry” and “as big as a cow”, Nelani said.

As Nozipho and his friend ran away, the monster turned on another group of people on the same road. “They said it turned into a big monkey, and then it was gone,” Officer Nelani said.

Since word of this more recent encounter, people are afraid to go to the tavern at night.

Nelani said that a photograph had since been taken of the monster resting under a tree. He said that when the photo was taken the monster had been in human form but when the photo was developed an unknown animal was visible in the picture.

“It is a very strange thing happening in Steytlerville, but no one has been hurt by it,” Nelani said.