Nick Redfern

Of the many and varied monsters that have plagued and terrified people for countless centuries, there are very few which are more frightening than bedroom-invading things known as Incubus and Succubus.

They are male and female monsters that, in numerous quarters, are perceived as having outright demonic origins. And they are hideous things that have a long history of diabolical interaction with the human race. As evidence of this, reports of these evil entities date back not just decades or centuries, but millennia too. One of those reports comes from Michelle of Corpus Christi, Texas, who had just such an encounter in 1993.

Imagine the scene: it’s around 3:00 a.m. and you’re fast asleep when, suddenly, you find yourself in a semi-awake state. Confusion and terror quickly overwhelm you, as you realize you are unable to move. Even worse, you sense that something dangerous and malevolent is walking, or crawling, towards the bedroom.

You struggle to move, but it’s all to no avail. The thing then enters the room and you see its hideous form. It looms over you, like a monstrous sword of Damocles. Your heart pounds and your breathing becomes shallow as the nightmarish beast jumps onto the bed, straddles you, and forcibly pins you down. The creatures screams at the top of its voice, in a wailing, banshee-like style, and proceeds to have violent sex with you – against your will. You try and fight it off, but your arms and legs are like lead-weights.

And, then, as suddenly as the horrifying encounter began, it’s all over. The oppressive atmosphere is gone, the evil entity has vanished too, and you find yourself shaking, and in a cold sweat, as you wonder if what just happened was the result of a bad dream or something worse: violation at the claws of a supernatural monster. That is precisely what happened to Michelle.

Encounters of the kind I just described extend back to the earliest years of human civilization. Indeed, the term, Incubus, is taken from an ancient, Latin word, “incubare,” which means “to lie upon,” which is a most apt description. As for their appearances, Incubus and Succubus can take on multiple forms. They are forms which range from beautiful women to hideous monsters.

One of the very earliest examples of such a creature is Lilith. Her name is highly appropriate, too: in English it means “night hag.” Not exactly the kind of thing any of us should aspire to cross paths with. Lilith’s dark origins can be found in the ancient mythology and folklore of Mesopotamia, and particularly so within the culture of the Babylonians. Despite the fact that she was described as being a beautiful woman, with long and flowing hair, there was nothing positive about Lilith. She would regularly manifest in the homes of sleeping men, slip into their beds, and have sex with them. The purpose of which, ancient lore maintains, was to allow Lilith to steal sperm from her victims and use it to create hideous, demonic babies.

Almost certainly connected to Lilith were Lilitu and Lilu, who played major roles in the lore of the Sumerian people, thounds of years ago. This paranormal pair, too, was focused on terrifying people in the middle of the night, violating them, and then vanishing back into the darkness from which they came. Joseph McCabe, a noted expert on these two demon-like entities, and the author of The Story of Religious Controversy, described them as “ferocious beings” that were part-animal and part-human.

Martin Baker’s encounter with just such a creature – in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in 2007 – led him to conclude that, rather than being a demonic entity, his encounter with an entity that looked like Lilith was actually an alien-human hybrid engaged in gene-splicing experiments.

The people of Newfoundland, Canada have their own tradition of a particular shapeshifter. It is known to the locals as the Old Hag. For most people who have the misfortune to meet the monster, they describe it as a witch-like entity with long black hair and piercing, evil eyes, and dressed in a flowing black gown. She straddles her victims and either forces them into sex, or just sits on them, screaming wildly into their hysterical, wide-eyed faces.

Equally disturbing is the evil imp that squats atop a sleeping, beautiful woman in Henry Fuseli’s 1781 painting, The Nightmare. Combining horror with erotica, the artwork graphically captures the nature of these evil encounters. In Thailand, these creatures of the night are known as Phi Am. For the people of China, it’s the Pinyin that they fear. Mongolia has the Kharin Buu. While, in Tibet, the Dip-non should be avoided at all costs. And Pakistan has centuries-old stories of the Shaitan. All of these things perform the same, stress-filled and sex-based acts; yet, they take on physical appearances that suit the era and the area.

As Halloween comes around, beware of these terrible things.

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One of the most prolific Fortean writers on the planet, Nick Redfern is the author of many books, including Men in Black, Chupacabra Road Trip, and The Bigfoot Book.  His latest book is Nessie. He can be contacted at his blog, “World of Whatever,” at nickredfernfortean.blogspot.com