It was late october 1934, Franz Wimmer who was head of a team of workers doing road construction in the Ritzmannshofer Wald area. It had been raining heavily for several week and the construction work had been difficult and the progress had been much slower than planned. In order to complete the work before the frost and snow the team had to work double shifts the last two weeks and they now camped next to the construction site instead of in the sleeping in the small farm 4 km away where they had been living since late august. This morning, late october 1934, Franz Wimmer were up earlier than usual, the rain had been pouring down the last 48 hours and the work had come to a complete standstill due to the mud. The team had been told to move back to the farm and if the rain didn't stop the work should be stopped and not continued until next spring. This would be a disaster for the workers who wouldn't be paid and wouldn't find any other job until christmas and it would be yet another miserable winter.
Franz where inspecting the site and was to decide what should be brought back to the farm and what they could leave behind until decided it the work was to continue. The work usually started at 5-6 but since it was earlier than usual it must have been 2-3 in the night. It's hard to imagine how Franz could see anything at all inspecting a flooded construction site in the middle of the night, in pouring rain with only a lamp as light. The visibility must have been close to zero.
The story goes that Franz paused for while in a small shed and wanted to escape the rain for a short while. The door to the shed was impossible to shut one opened due to the amount of mud.
So Franz sat there in the shed, with his lamp and outside the door there where a wall of rain.
What happend now is something that for many years was keept in the family. Out of this wall of rain entered a devilish creature, it only just entered and then turned around and escaped.
Franz froze and didn't move for a long time. He tried to describe the creature that he saw and it was about the height of 8-9 year old child. It was black and covered in fur, the face was impossible to make out but it was not human. When the creature turned away Franz said he saw something that looked like wings or a cape.
franz keept this story for himself for many years, not certain it had really happend or if he had fallen asleep and had a nightmare. Either way he didn't want to tell anything that would be laughed about or risk being mocked as crazy.
Now since Franz is deceased and his children and grandchildren all know about this story and the story even was published in a stort story contest in the nineties the story of this creature can be told without the upsetting Franz.
I think this story is a wonderful example of the kind of stories from this area about an unknown, black creature. I my opinion it's most likely an Alp or another still unknown creature but from the description of the fur, the length and the wings it fits the description of so many other eye witnesses.
