Philippine Folklore Comes to Life!
Creepy story. One night Jessie said she heard a bird in the attic. I heard a thump but wasn’t really paying attention. I thought little more of it but it remained on Jessie’s mind. She mentioned it the next day, I said it was probably a snake. She said snakes don’t chirp like a bird.
The next night I went out side and heard a thumping above my head. When I looked up this freaky looking bird flew off out into the night. It looked like a bat but the body wasn’t right. I asked myself what was that. That didn’t look quite right. Was it a bird or a bat? I wasn’t all sure and was a little freaked out about it over my head like that. Lots of bats here, see them virtually every time I go outside at night. Still there was something odd about this encounter that I didn’t quite understand but dismissed as my being silly.
The next night, Jessie yelled out something in her native tongue of Waray-waray. I asked her what she was yelling about and she said she told it to go away. I asked what and she said she heard chirping again. I said, “Oh a bird?” She said it wasn’t a bird. It was a monster.
Aswang!
I kind of snickered at that. Then I recalled the bird and told her that I had seen a strange bird out last night. She said it was not a bird. I said it looked like a bird but with bat wings. She said “That is what they do” it uses that as a “cover” or disguise. She said it was an aswang! I asked what that was and she said its our form of a vampire.
“Aswangs” are often described as a combination of vampire and witch almost always female. They are sometimes used as a generic term applied to all types of witches, manananggals, shapeshifters, lycanthropes, and monsters. Aswang stories and definitions vary greatly from region to region and person to person, so no one particular set of characteristics are ascribed to the term
I found this picture of such a creature:
Aswang
Others describe the sound they hear as a squeaking sound. I read a story about a boy being attacked by a black dog with red eyes and they claimed to hear a squeaking sound outside their hut just before the attack. The aswang was about to bit the boys neck when he shot the dog with a rifle. The aswang was said to have run into the blackness of a nearby rice field and disappeared into the dark.
I tend to dismiss this kind of thing when I hear it. The evidence is becoming stronger though. Certainly not iron clad. I thought it was just a confused bird. I’ve seen that kind of thing before after all. Still, I know that bat didn’t look like it had the body of a bat. It had what I thought was a long beak but it clearly had bat like wings.
I guess I’m starting to become a believer. Then I recall the crowing hen means an unmarried woman is pregnant and I wonder how they knew it was a hen that crowd. 
It is at the very least, a lesson in Kultura Filipino (Filipino culture). To see that “bird” at the same time as Jessie hears the chirping outside for a couple of nights is just a bit freaky.
I’d love to hear from Filipino and their stories regarding this creature or their experiences would be even more interesting. Let me hear from you, come educate the crazy kano.
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Rusty, is Jesse pregnant. I heard aswangs visit houses..on the roof if someone is pregnant in that house. They can smell the child inside the womb. If then, be careful. My cousin had an encounter and luckily the husband was still awake and chased the aswang. they went to an albulario (quack doctor-remember our discussion on this long time ago) and the quack gave her oil for protection. The aswang never came back…If in case, she is preggy…congratulations….
I think there might be a double suicide if she were. lol No we are both done with babies.
There are many different stories about aswang but pregnant women are said to be in grave danger.
They also are said to steal dead bodies and replace it with the trunk of a banana tree.
It came back last night. I think I’m convinced they are real. Something strange is going on and that was one freaky looking “bat” I saw the other night. I’m going to write about it.
Its not only when someone is pregnant that you’ll get a visit from aswang. But if someone is sick in the house too.
We had a visit when my grandmother was sick and dying. A strange looking bird flew in and my aunt-in-law chased it away.
Is someone about to die in our house?
I’ve been wondering about that before you said that.
Right Jessie. To the aswangs, the smell of the sick and dying are appetizing as though they smell like langka. I suspect the aswang is after Rusty.
So fear not, Jessie.
Very funny Roy……
Though I fear you might be right.
You run into those in Manila?
You’re turning into a believer? That’s hilarious! But I can relate. There was this one evening when I was staying at a little cottage I had built on a property I acquired in the province. I was busy studying at my table when I noticed some movement at the periphery of my vision. Controlling an urge to jump, I raised my eyes to the movement and in the gloom, there appeared something like a tentacle reaching out into the space below in my direction. Still steeling my nerves, I stayed there and observed its progress. It grew, it moved, and I for the life of me couldn’t see clearly enough in the gloom to make out what it was. And then, the thing fell from the rafters onto the floor beyond my sight. I went around the table to where it should have fallen and, with torch in hand, went to inspect.
It was a small python coiled around a rat and slowly devouring it. What a relief! So I went back to my books. They were both gone in the morning.
Sorry for my english i just want to share my exp..
when i was 17 my girl friend got preggy (my wife now) so we decided to live together in mom house,,my mom is agree on that so there is no problem on that,, our room have a attic my wife sleeping on the bed because she is preggy so she needed a space because the bed is only single bed so i have no choice so decided to sleep in the floor with a blanket.. every night i always heard a noise in the roof it made me think because i just heard that noise when my preggy girlfriend(my wife now) started to live with me… i do not believe in ASWANG but gave me a creep every night i heard that noise like someone or something crawaling in the roof.. so one night i heard that noise again & my wife also heard that so i decided to sleep in the bed because she told me she is afraid.. but still many night pass the irritating sound is still always make me not to sleep i was irritated because i still need to go to work(i work as a call center agent) then guarding my wife that night i decided to go out to check it in the terrace( our room have a terrace) with a iron pipe and say P%T*nG In% m^(you know if you always have a lack of sleep & you need to go to work) .. then go inside the room but still that night the sound in the roof is still there,, after that night i decided to put a garlic clove in the attic, window, door, terrace and in the roof and all over around in our room… i am really suprise after i put a garlic that noise never came back so i decided to check everyday if the garlic is still there and i always replace them if i see them dry… i dont know if that is an aswang or what but it really made me think why i only heard that noise when my preggy wife is living with me i never heard that before and 2nd why when i put garlic it stop?
there is only 2 noise i heard
1. sound of a bird i dont know what kind of bird is that or animal is that and i forgot the sound..
2. the roof noise that really make me nervous that like there is someone crawling but i think the things or whatever it is i am sure it is not heavy…
and i still remember the sound have no exact time or exact width of time…
by the way the place where we live that time have alot of tree and tall grass and near by there is a old hospital but only few person working there i cant even call that a hospital and its near a river and it is very very dark there…
if that is aswang he need to kill me first before he can touch my wife and my daugther( because its been 1 yr ago)….
Interesting story. You’re Englgish is just fine Edjg.
I didn’t believe in them either, till I saw one. I don’t believe all that is said about them. But there is a funky animal of some kind out there.
I don’t think they are people that you see walking around during the day. But I know a bat with the head of a humming bird isn’t right. 
Thanks Mr. Rusty
what did you do when you see that creature? if that happen to me i will run quickly as i can go inside the house and the lock all door and window so there is no way that creature can enter, you wont lose anything if you will be careful…
i still have another exp but i think it is only an ordinary bat with an extraordinary size…
When I saw it, I had never heard of Aswang.
My girlfriend had mentioned the night before that she heard a bird chirping in the attic for a night or two before that. She kept bringing it up but didn’t mention why it was bothering her.
When I saw it, i was going out to smoke a cigar. I sat there for about 5 minutes trying to figure out what it was, I pictured it in my mind, seeing it fly away, asking myself was it a bad or a bird. I concluded it did have bat wings so it must have been a bat but i kept thinking about it, trying to figure out what it was.
When my girlfriend brought up the chirping again, I told her I saw a strange bird the night before. She then told me about aswang.
We have banana trees in the log adjacent to our home. Across the street we have many large trees and there is an old, “scary looking” house on top of the hill as my girlfriend calls it. You can barely see the home. Personally, I love the house.
Maybe “it” was checking out on Rusty. lolz ^-^
Also hearing cat fights, and creepy meows, late at night at your roof top is also believed that “they’re” around. Imagine hearing, creepy meows at the roof top, like all the cats in your neighborhood is up there? That’s what I experienced.
My dad had told us many times about his experienced with those creatures of the night when my grandmother was sick, back in their province in the Philippines.
He said neighbors and he, was guarding their house at night and the surrounding area against “it.” He (my dad) was lying and has fallen asleep on a folding bed and he was awakened by something he felt against his back (under the folding bed.) And it was a big black dog. He already had a stick ready on a corner to whip it, but when he got the stick, the lights went off and they all couldn’t find the dog. They even doesn’t know where it got out since they had secured all the area.
“It” (those creatures, I don’t want to mentioned their “A” name) is believed to only come out at night, specially during the full moon or new moon. And that “they” shapeshift from a big, black dog, to their natural form, like a big, kind of bird, like you saw. It is also said that “those” creatures can assume any animal form they want. You can also see them in Tagalog horror movies.
I had read somewhere, and on a Tagalog movie film that “those” creatures usually work in meat related jobs of any kind, maybe in poultries, as a butcher, etc. And it is said that (my dad also said) if you meet one at day time, they couldn’t look at you straight in the eye, and that “they” would avoid your looks and “their” eyes are movey.
Garlic has been known to protect against “those” creatures.” Garlic is to be put on windows, doors, and other areas you think could be a way for “their” entrance to your home. On films, you could also see Filipinos using garlic as necklace and put it around their necks even when they sleep. Holy Water is also use too. And as stated on the other comment, quack doctors can help by reciting an “oracion” for protection, by giving you something for protection, by warning the creature leave you alone, and such.