Investigator Claims to Have Captured Video of 'Cornwall Owlman'

The circled silhouette is said by Mark Davies and Chris Power to be Cornwall’s Owlman. (Mark Davies)

UK paranormal investigator Mark Davies claims to have captured Cornwall’s elusive Owlman on video during an August 22nd investigation of the graveyard adjacent to St. Mawnan and St. Stephen's Church in Mawnan, Cornwall, England.

The Cornwall Owlman is said to bear a strong resemblance to West Virginia and Lake Michigan's Mothman, with stories of the cryptid first surfacing in the 1970s following a sighting by two teenage girls. It is described very similarly to its American cousin, complete with large wings and glowing eyes.

According to the video’s introduction:

Historic documents speak of a static noise around the church which I pick up on and small hand prints and fingerprints all over the back of the church doors that keep appearing and vanishing without a trace.
Is this spirits trying to gain entry from what lurks?
What we find is these very prints and also letters and numbers like you would see in witchcraft.

Davies and friend Chris Power can be seen in the video entering the graveyard through a gate inscribed with the Cornish phrase "Da thymi nesse the Dhu," which translates to "It is good to draw nigh to the Lord.”

At 17:14 into the video, Davies is filming while holding a K2 meter in front of himself.

He asks “Is there a creature that lives in these…is there a creature that lives here? A spirit? Is there a creature that lives here, like an owl?”

The K2 meter lights up briefly following Davies’ questions.

“There is,” he says.

The camera pans from left to right during Davies’ inquiries, and in the right hand corner of the frame a silhouetted figure can be seen in the distance.

The figure appears to “have horns on its head and is hunched and very tall,” according to a caption added to the video.

“Seeing as Chris was right behind me, I cannot explain this and for one he does not have horns on his head,” reads the next caption.

The investigators claimed to experience a number of other strange phenomena during their time in the graveyard, including mysterious injuries suffered by Power.

There’s ley lines which are under the ground near the church, and they give off paranormal activity. There was a hissing in the trees and you could hear flapping, I heard it go right over my head and I was shocked. That’s when I saw the figure, and it had horns on its head, it was mad.
On the meter I had, which picks up electric magnetic energy that we use to detect ghosts, I was getting conscious replies to my questions through it. That’s telling me there’s a demonic energy and it wasn’t safe.
[Power] got attacked, he had scratches on his arm. His camera broke too. He didn’t see anything, he just felt this surge of energy. He didn’t realize til about half an hour later when he felt some burning. It’s not a place I would advise anyone to go there alone, let’s put it that way.

The leading skeptical explanation for the shadowy figure is a misidentified gravestone, since the camera does not pan back to the area where the ‘creature’ was spotted. Video of the same location with better lighting would be necessary to show that there is nothing present that could have created the eerie silhouette. Others say a hoax can’t be ruled out, since the audience cannot visually confirm Power’s whereabouts at the time of the sighting.

“It looks like the silhouette of a perfectly normal person in a long jacket to me,” investigator Tobias Wayland said. “Maybe John Constantine was also out looking for the Owlman, although I don’t see a lit cigarette.”

“Kidding aside, assuming it’s not a hoax, maybe they caught somebody else lurking about the graveyard, or maybe it’s some other type of anomaly; but I just don’t see the Owlman in this video,” he explained. “The ‘horns’ look like a pareidolic effect from something behind the figure, maybe foliage or something, but they’re not as dark or clearly defined as the rest of it, which makes me suspect that they’re not actually a part of whatever is forming the silhouette.”

“I’d like to see the same area in better lighting,” he added.

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