Mystery of The Owl Man of Haverfordwest

St Thomas Church is a church that has stood proud above Haverfordwest for over a quarter of millennia and serves the local parish. Today it is surrounded by broken graves and rusted spiked railings with tall dark tree’s towering above. A lane runs along the graveyard and the backs of thing fell and landed on the ground behind the railing. It was the old houses of Goat Street. In the grey light of winter, it is the epitome of a gothic setting. 

One summer a former crew member on a merchant navy ship told GL Davies (a paranormal investigator) that around twenty years previously (mid 1960’s) that he was walking (drunk of course) through the St Thomas Churchyard in Haverfordwest one night on his way to another pub when he was frightened out of his wits by a “giant owl” that flew from a tree above and landed in front of him.

Picture Credit: GL Davies (The Paranormal Chronicles)

He claimed the owl creature was about 6 feet tall had the legs of a man, the wings of a bird and a round face made up of white hair and feathers with a protruding nose, not a beak. 

The fellow said that he sobered up quickly and ran as fast as could and when he found safety in the pub he found nothing but ridicule and jokes at his expense apart from one elderly man who claimed that he had seen the Owl man around 10 years previously which had frightened him early one morning while the town was still slumbering before the start of a new day. 

Mr Davies asked the drunken man for further information but that was all he could recant, he said one minute he was drunk the next he was running for his life. 

Another sighting based on newspaper clipping from 1963, it stated that some pedestrians using the side lane along St Thomas’s had been startled by a man in strange garb that had leapt out at them making strange sounds. 

Picture Credit: GL Davies (The Paranormal Chronicles)

Later on early November 2013, a young couple claimed they saw a large man or creature covered in feathers had jumped down from one of the trees and ran through the churchyard at St Thomas’s. They were frightened and they ran off down Goat Street and to the bottom of the high street. The young man returned with a friend a short time after to see if he could take a picture of the creature but to no avail. 

Did Haverfordwest have its own Mothman type Creature? Or were perhaps local residents creating this creature to harass and scare for their own amusement or some other motive? 

Sources: 

• The Paranormal Chronicles Magazine Issue 2 Spring 2019: "The Owl Man of Haverfordwest" by GL Davies 

• https://theparanormalchronicles.com/2014/12/30/paranormal-activity-captured-in-haverfordwest/