www.sundaysport.com10 December 14, 2012 WEEKENDWEEKEND

A FEARLESS real-life MONSTER HUNTER has lifted the lid on his terrifying tangles with the planet’s most feared beasts.

When TV’s David Attenborough ventures into the jungle he ends up either cuddling a gorilla or poking an ant.

But National GeographicChannel star Richard Terry, based in Dartmoor National Park, Devon, has a much larger pair of gonads.

He’s sent to investigate reported sightings of horrifying mythical creatures – like sea serpents,Bigfoot, flying demons and even shape-shifting WEREWOLVES!

AdventuresAnd while the 47-year-old can

often explain the hauntings are in fact well-known creatures, it doesn’t stop him shitting his khaki kecks while searching for them!

Brit Richard is also a real-lifeIndiana Jones who has lived all over the world while embarking on mysterious adventures.

Like the Raiders Of The Lost Ark movie hero, Richard has had his fair share of near-misses too –almost lopping his own finger off in a machete mishap and being MAULED by a blood-thirsty grizzly bear!

Here the brave nutter and starof new Nat Geo show Man V Monster lifts the lid on his travels…

killed by the beast creature and as we chatted there was a drop in temperature and a wind started to blow through her hut.

Then the curtain blew off and I felt a chill down my spine as she recalled the story of how she lost her husband.

DEMON TIGERSANOTHER scary experience was when I visited the Sundarbans area of West Bengal, India.

The local villagers had reportednumerous cases of tigers attacking humans close to their settlements and we decided to take a look and see if there was anything we could do.

It’s out of character for big cats to venture further than their territory, which was in the surrounding forests, which struck us as odd.

Was there something else turning these creatures into man-eaters?

Basically, whenever the fishermen would go out onto the lake, these big, powerful cats were literally pulling them from the boats and eating them.

The villagers had to fish to survive, so there was no way of getting around it. The only protection they had was from the local priest, who would call upon the gods of the forest to watch over them.

I went out with the fishermen onto the lake with a camera to see if we could spot anything. The water was calm that day but it was still terrifying because I’d heard so many stories of

random attacks. It was so bad thatthe villagers wouldn’t go near the lake.

Tigers are incredible swimmers so they could pop up at any moment – one fisherman told me that you didn’trealise someone had gone from the boat until you heard the splash in

A FEARLESS real-life MONSTER

jessica@sundaysport.co.uk

THE BRAZILIAN BIGFOOT

THIS creature lives in the Amazonrainforest and is known locally as the Mapinguari.

There are some really terrifying first hand witness accounts inlcuding one girl we spoke to who had been looking for some fruit.

She heard a noise in the bushes, and she knew instantly that something wasn’t right. She was on her own and she caught sight of this thing that was large – around 7ft tall and with long black hair, that ran all the way down to its feet.

The girl was completely petrified and the creature stood upright like a man. Even my guide, Samuel, was convinced the creature exists as his grandfather had seen it.

Samuel said his relative had come face-to-face with the Mapinguari, which had entered his remote cabin at night.

It was so large that when it stood upright, roaring at him, it lifted the wooden ceiling.

Apparently the creature knocked the man to the ground with one powerful lunge of its arm, breaking his jaw.

He believes he was only able to save himself by firing a round from his gun straight into the shaggy-haired monster which fled, leaving a trail of blood.

I was excited to investigate but it’s

still a genuine mystery. It fits thedescription of a “ground sloth”, but those animals are thought to have been extinct for thousands of years.

WEREWOLVES IN TANZANIAONE episode in Tanzania really had me spooked.

There was something out there attacking and killing the villagers. The locals figured out that theattacks were taking place every full moon and that soon became their warning sign.

They’d come to believe they were being hunted by some sort ofshape-shifting werewolf.

Some of the villagers had been dragged out of their huts – or“dungoos” as they called them – in the middle of the night, never to be seen again.

We thought it would be a great idea to spend the night camping out, in case the suspected attacker appeared. Of course, no onevolunteered to do it with me. So it was just me and a night visioncamera – lying there, waiting, to see if anything happened.

It was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. Spending the night somewhere you know that has seen multiple fatal attacks.

It was a rough night. I was a state. No, it wasn’t a werewolf. But it was an eerie place.

I almost started to believe there was something weird out there, and the people I encountered made me think there was more to it.

At one point I was taken to a woman whose husband had been