A classified ad that first ran in The Dispatch in March asked for a peculiar kind of help.
It showed a rendering of a pale, human-like creature and requested anyone who had seen something like it to contact Missy Leigh Sterling.
A screenshot of the ad soon made it to a popular Columbus-based Facebook group’s page, seemingly to make fun of Sterling and the enterprise.
Sterling said the “joke” had the opposite effect.
“Because they posted it there, I heard from around 20 people,” Sterling said.
The ad was asking for people to contact her because she was compiling stories for a book she was writing about sightings of a creature commonly referred to as The Rake. The creature seems to trace its origins to an internet story, called a Creepypasta, that first appeared in the early 2010s, according to Dictionary.com.
Her book, “Rakes, Fakes and Double Takes: Just Not In That Order,” pays homage to the internet origins of the mythical creature while looking at its roots in reality through eyewitness reports.
She claims to have witnessed The Rake herself.
Sterling said she had a normal life. She, her husband and son lived in their home in New Hope, where nothing out of the ordinary happened.
One night, while driving home from visiting her mother, Sterling saw what she thought was a deer in the road. As she got closer though, she made a startling discovery.
“As I’m getting closer, I’m realizing this is not a deer,” Sterling said. “Something is very wrong. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. … There was this pale, emaciated humanoid figure right in front of my vehicle. It appeared to be frozen in fear as well.”
After what Sterling said seemed like “an eternity,” the creature stood up on its back legs and took off into the woods.
The creature she saw fits the internet description of The Rake very closely.
She said she had been sensitive to paranormal occurrences when she was a child, but as she grew older, she realized it is not “normal” to talk about those kinds of things. But her encounter had turned her world upside down, and she didn’t know what to do.
“I kind of shut that down,” she said. “Then here I was faced with all of this all over again. … It completely and utterly changed me.”
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t let it go. So she began research that led her down a rabbit hole.
“I think my first Google entry was something like, ‘Skinny, pale humanoid in rural area,’” she said. “That opened up a Pandora’s box of people claiming to have seen something very similar. There was the picture that was captured, all kinds of stuff.”
Entering the term “The Rake cryptid” on Google will return more than 150,000 results including YouTube videos, podcasts, TikToks and more, showing the extensive following the creature has garnered online.
The picture she is referring to is a trail camera picture that is considered debunked. However, one look at the picture, and she knew there was more to it.
“When it came up on the screen, I almost got sick,” she said. “That was it. That was exactly what I had seen. I didn’t understand how there could be a picture that so accurately depicted what I had seen and what other people said they saw, if there wasn’t some sort of truth to it. That’s when I started digging into that.”
When she posted her research on YouTube, she was approached by a publisher asking if she would be interested in writing a book. She and the publisher didn’t have the same vision, though.
“I was always really big on telling the truth to the best of my ability,” Sterling said. “… I like to stick to the facts, and I didn’t want to sensationalize anything. I realize that’s what sells books, but it’s just not my style.”
Sterling is self-publishing the book and looks to release it in late June. She said she isn’t stopping here though.
“I think this is my area,” Sterling said. “It’s funny because at one point, I would definitely have not wanted any part of this. I feel like it’s not acceptable to talk about these kinds of things, and that’s unfortunate. It’s not like that in other parts of the world. There’s a platform for that. There are communities, and they support one another. We make fun of one another and accuse each other of being on drugs. I kind of want to change that narrative around what paranormal means. It means we don’t understand it … yet.”
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 48 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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