I was hanging out at the annual Zine Fest last year, chatting with local artist Jessi Jordan about her book of cryptid doodles. As we talked, a woman named Alexandra Constantinou joined us and asked if we had ever heard about the NASA Gargoyle.
While Constantinou, a partnership development specialist with NASA, had never seen it herself, she had heard of the legend at work and read about it in renowned cryptozoologist Nick Redfern’s book The NASA Conspiracies.
“Frank Shaw was the engineer who had the experience,” she told us. “He saw, a few times at least, I believe, a gargoyle figure at the NASA Johnson parking lot area on the roof. It was hunched over and demonic-looking.”
In the late ‘00s, Redfern interviewed Desiree Shaw, Frank’s daughter. According to Desiree, her father (who was an archivist, not an engineer), saw the gargoyle in 1986. Redfern described the encounter in his book based on Desiree’s recollections of her deceased father’s tale.
While walking to his car that night, he had seen, to his complete and utter horror; perched on a nearby building, a large man-like figure that was utterly black in color, and that seemed to have a large cape draped across its shoulders and back, with two huge wing-like appendages sticking out of the cape. Looking more bat-like than bird-like, the wings made a cracking noise as they slowly flapped in the strong howling wind. The creature . . . had clearly realized it had been seen. Not only that, Shaw gained the very distinct impression that the beast was actually relishing that it had been noticed, and was even seemingly deriving pleasure from the fact that it had struck terror into the heart of Shaw.
Fans of Houston legends will immediately notice similarities to the city’s most famous cryptid, The Bat Man. On June 18, 1953, a man in black with wings was spotted in a tree by Hilda Walker and two others. The sighting occurred at a now demolished apartment complex on Third Street in The Heights, about 28 miles as the winged humanoid flies from NASA. The creature was seven feet tall and perched on a thick branch. After several minutes, it flew straight up into the air on a shaft of light and disappeared.
There have been a handful of other sightings of the Bat Man since. Ken Gerhard, who moved to Texas specifically to study flying cryptids, reports a secondhand story of the Bat Man also appearing on rooftops near the old Bellaire Theater.
So, flying, winged men in black are not unknown in the Bayou City. However, even among the cryptozoology set, the NASA Gargoyle is fairly obscure. In Redfern’s book, Desiree says her father reported the sighting to management and was told he wasn’t the first to see the gargoyle.
When we reached out to the Johnson Space Center about the matter, they expressed ignorance of the story.
“Sorry, never heard of it, and I’ve been here 37 years (since 1986),” read the one-sentence reply from Kelly O. Humphries, Johnson Space Center News Chief.
For what it’s worth, even Redfern has doubts about the legend.
“Her story was a fascinating one. Sometimes, I thought it was a bit too fascinating,” he told us via email. “Admittedly, though, it was something to continue to look into. But, for hard facts? There really were none at all.”
Redfern no longer has any contact with Desiree, having junked many of his files from that time when he and his wife moved to the United Kingdom to care for his ailing mother. He was unable to locate a phone number or email address to follow up with her, and dedicated online searching didn’t turn her up on social media. The only firsthand account of the NASA Gargoyle that anyone is aware of died with Frank Shaw. Now, it lives on only as a minor legend.
“Apparently, [Frank] talked to the NASA history office at Johnson, and they had said they had also heard stories, but later they said they had no idea what he was talking about,” said Constantinou.
Was there a gargoyle that haunted living around Johnson Space Center in the latter days of the Cold War? Could it be part of a race of winged beings that have been seen in Houston since the 1950s, or related to the strange flying cryptids that have been spotted across the state for decades? No one can say, but if you’re out by NASA, keep your eyes on the skies for more than just rockets and satellites.
