In either 1971 or 1972 (accounts differ on this point) an 11-year-old boy called Colin Robson discovered two carved stone heads, dug up in a domestic back garden in Hexham, Northumberland, a village very close to Hadrian’s Wall.

Colin took them back to his parents’ house, but shortly afterwards, they were donated to a museum. The reason for the brevity of their stay in the Robson household will soon become apparent.

From the museum they were sent to Doctor Anne Ross, an archaeologist specialising in Celtic history, and a researcher for several museums and publications at the time.

She said that although they were not particularly unpleasant to look at, she immediately took a deep dislike to them, so left them in her study, still in the box in which they had been sent. Her plan was to get them geologically analysed and sent back as soon as possible.

Two nights after the heads first arrived, she suddenly woke up at 2.00 am, feeling very cold, and in a state of great fear. She looked towards the bedroom door, and swore she saw a tall, dark shadowy figure, that was in some way part human and part animal, wolf-like to be more specific, turning away and walking out of the room.
She clearly heard it walk down the stairs, and oddly, claims she felt an irresistible urge to follow it.

As she walked to the top of the stairs, she saw it on the ground floor, walking down the corridor to her kitchen. Now she felt too frightened to follow it further, so returned to the bedroom and woke her husband.
Having told him what she had seen, they did a top to bottom search of the house, but found nothing out of place, and no sign of breaking and entering. They decided it must have been a nightmare, and agreed never to mention it again.

However, two days later, having been in London all day, she was returning with her husband to their house at about 6.00pm. On arrival they found their teenage daughter looking very pale and ill, and clearly in a state of shock. She had come home from school at about 4.00pm, 2 hours previously, and although she said that, “Something horrible had happened”, she was at first unable to speak about it.

Eventually she managed to tell them that as soon as she had come into the house from school she had seen a very large, tall figure standing on the stairs in front of her. It was dark and a mixture of animal and human. Upon seeing her, it rushed down the stairs towards her, but before reaching the bottom, jumped sideways over the banister rail, landing with an audible but soft “thud”, as if his feet were padded like those of an animal. It then ran towards her room, and again she was filled with an odd compulsion to follow it, but as it arrived at her door, it vanished.

Another top to bottom search of the house was embarked upon, but again, nothing was found out of place, and no signs of breaking and entering.

Then came the shocking discovery that when the stone heads were first brought into the Robson household in Hexham, the family had suffered a long list of frightening disturbances. These ranged from the heads moving by themselves to crockery being smashed around them, and every member of the family had seen a dark shadowy “half wolf and half man” figure wandering in the house at different times.

On top of which, the woman living next door to the garden where they had been dug up, was putting her child to bed that night, when a “Horrifying creature”, described as half man and half animal, came into the bedroom. She started screaming uncontrollably, and only stopped when her alarmed neighbours came running into the house to find out what was going on.
The woman told the neighbours what had happened, and claimed the creature had actually touched her, but had no idea where it had gone or where it was now. Once again, no signs of breaking and entering were discovered (other than those of the neighbours of course!)