Centaurs In North America?

This is yet another thing I had never heard of from Phantoms and Monsters which is becoming one of my favorite news letters...
"When you think of a 'Centaur' the vision is usually of a mythological creature from Greek origin. It's head, arms, and chest are those of a human and the rest of its body, including four legs, hindquarters, and a tail is like that of a horse.
I received the following email from M.B. who is Native American:

Hey Lon...this is a second hand account that I heard from my father's trusted friend. I'm sorry I can't provide any more details than what I was told from the witness.

When my father's friend was younger he was a Deputy for the Apache Reservation Police. I believe it happened in the early 1980s, but not sure. One night he was on patrol in his squad car alone on the reservation. He was driving along the deserted highway that passed through town. When he reached the church he saw something moving back and forth along the church, peering into the windows. He stopped the car on the highway, and observed for a while. It was too dark to make out much at first. Then, the dark shape took notice of him and began moving out of the shadows and into the front of the church.
I forget exactly whether he then moved the police car into the parking lot to intercept the man, or if he stopped the car shortly after making a move but either way the headlights helped illuminate what he saw.

Under the orange light of the street lights was a 8 foot tall Demon-Centaur!!! The bottom half was indeed a dark haired horse, while where the neck and head should have been was the upper torso of a man. The man was staring right at him as it strolled by, all 4 hooves clanking on the pavement. His skin was a dark red and it had horns on either side of his head. He said they were like ram horns, curled around on either side of his skull. He was terrified and while the thought of shooting the beast crossed his mind, he reasoned against it. He didn't want to provoke it and have it attack him. It completed crossing the road, and down a steep slope into a farmland field below. Once it reached this open ground, he watched as it started to run away as fast as possible until it disappeared into the darkness and trees beyond.
He was deeply troubled after the encounter and couldn't reason why a demonic creature would be looking into a building as holy as a church. The way he told the story, you couldn't help but believe it to be true and I'm sure that it actually happened.

I've had weird encounters myself, and lots and lots of 2nd hand stories from friends/family on the Navajo and Apache Reservations. I shouldn't talk about many of those though. Being Native American, talking about these weird things can have negative repercussions to those involved. M.B.

I contacted my friend JC Johnson who confirmed that there have been similar sightings in the Four Corners / Navajo Reservation area for some time....

A few years ago, there were Centaur-like sightings in the Cree Nation of Alberta, Canada:

"There is definitely a growing phenomena up here in Alberta, Canada. Specifically, the location is better known as Hobbema, a place comprised of 4 distinct Cree Indian reservations. These sightings I speak of occur on the Samson Cree reserve, in and around the high school area.

When I first heard about it, I was skeptical and proceeded to tease my friends, thinking they were trying to pull to wool over my eyes. They were neither insulted nor deterred from sharing with me that in conjunction with their own personal experiences, there is an actual video tape of this "centaur" creating violent havoc inside the school in a hallway near a main exit. Other stories they shared have to do with sightings at night, where the centaur actually chases them or appears suddenly out of nowhere.

It is far to easy to pass this off as "something in the water," for the Hobbema Cree peoples of this area have experienced generations of trauma. The brief history of this location has everything to do with the discovery of rich deposits of oil in the middle of the 1900's. Once harvested, the residents of this area became incredibly rich. However, due to the lack of a holistic education, and decades of dysfunction throughout the community wrought by the Canadian government and the Churches, the locals were unable to fathom and properly adjust to their fortune to the fullest extent.

This resulted in various forms of chaos throughout the later part of the century, for the oil royalities were distributed to every reserve member, and their children as well when they turned 18. The mortality rate increased over time in this area, most due to suicide and murder. Today, we see an entire generation of youth, that have completely bought into the ghettoization of their communities and are largely atheist.

In regards to the phenomena of the centaur sightings, it is known throughout the remaining Spiritual community of this area that these "beings" are making themselves known because in the eyes of the youth, there is nothing to believe in anymore. Sightings as such are creating panic and fear, and the phenomena has therefore become demonized by word of mouth."