Prepping for 'Le Loyon'
Planning a feature film about one of the world's strangest urban legends.
It was a cloudy Thursday in May of 2025. I was somewhere in the Gruyère region of western Switzerland, looking for ‘Patrick’. This was not his real name; he had used this pseudonym more than a decade ago when he made the news. It had been a wise decision, because a single, low-quality photograph he had sent to a regional newspaper had unleashed a worldwide sensation. It put a small Swiss village on the map for countless horror-lovers from as far away as Los Angeles, Sweden and Hong Kong.
In August of 2013, ‘Patrick’ captured a photo on his cellphone just outside the woods of Maules in the Swiss community of Sâles. It showed a strange, camouflaged figure wearing a World War II-style gas mask, skulking around amongst the trees. ‘He approached me, from about ten meters away’, Patrick told Le Matin, a Lausanne-based newspaper. ‘He was wearing a military cape, boots, and an army gas mask- an old model, I think. He was over 1.90m tall. He stared at me. Then he turned his back on me and walked off very quietly’.1
Patrick’s cousin had previously mentioned this odd fellow to him. If he had been alone that day, he would have admonished the stranger for scaring local children in his bizarre get-up. ‘Except I was with my own children, who were scared and whom I had to reassure’, Patrick told Le Matin. Granting his request for anonymity, the tabloid published his photo and sent a couple of reporters off to Maules to investigate.
A local woman named Marianne Descloux was having a quiet walk in the woods when she encountered the two newsmen by a small lake. She told them that she had encountered the ghostly figure too. ‘It was a rainy Sunday’, she told the journalists. ‘He had a hood on, a cape, and a gas mask. What goes on in his head? I don’t know, but it was disturbing and unpleasant. I hope I never run into him again.’2 As more stories trickled in from the villagers, it became clear that this apparition had been haunting the forest since at least the early 2000s. No one seemed sure about his identity; rumors varied from it being a mentally ill woman to a survivalist ‘prepper’ anticipating the end of the world.
‘This story has been resurfacing regularly for years,’ explained Mayor Jean-Marc Piguet to Le Matin. ‘People swearing they saw a shadow or I-don’t-know-what in the forest…But in any case we have never had a complaint. There’s nothing to worry about.’ But several residents didn’t share Monsieur Piguet’s outlook. One local woman recalled seeing the cloaked figure a year prior, telling the same newspaper the experience was palpably ‘frightening’ and adding ‘I know some women who will not venture into the forest alone anymore’.3
Neither did the public at large share the Mayor’s apparent desire for the town’s attention to dissipate. The traction generated by Switzerland’s Le Matin was just the start; the story was soon picked up by Australian outlets like Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and the Adelaide Advertiser, likewise being given considerable copy in one of Sweden’s largest newspapers, Aftonbladet.4 Tabloids like Britain’s Daily Mail and Hong Kong’s Apple Daily featured the story, as did numerous websites like Reddit, Unexplained Mysteries and Poland’s irresistibly-titled ‘Szwajcarskie BlaBliBlu’.5
Above: A collage of various international articles about Le Loyon. Credit: La Télé (Vaud-Fribourg).
Fast forward to over a decade later, and countless mystery enthusiasts from Geneva to Detroit know what happened next. A letter was found in the woods of Maules four months after Le Matin’s first report. It lay atop the mysterious stranger’s cloak and gas mask, abandoned amidst the twigs and leaves. The letter was titled The Death Certificate and Testament of the Ghost of Maules. It read like a suicide note, albeit more figurative than literal. The writer professed to be the cloaked soldier who had stalked the woods.
‘The Ghost of Maules’ proclaimed the media’s interest in him had provoked ‘a hunt for the beast’, leaving no alternative but to discard his cloak and gas mask and to vanish forever. After scolding the public for ruining his regular costumed walks, which he described as ‘a genuine therapy of happiness’, he ended his letter with these ominous words: ‘The Ghost disappears…He will return to haunt the narrow minds of your kind. Because ultimately a ghost never dies’.6
While in Sâles, I managed to locate the man who had originally found this unsettling letter alongside the Ghost’s abandoned military gear. The gentleman requested anonymity, so I will refer to him pseudonymously as ‘Pierre’. He graciously spoke with me off the record about his experience. The letter’s contents were eventually published in the local news bulletin, preceded by Mayor Jean-Marc Piguet’s preface. ‘Farewell, Ghost of Maules’, the Mayor wrote. ‘We will never be able to meet again. But I hope you find a new way to escape the vicissitudes of life that brings you the peace and happiness that you aspire to and are entitled to’.7
Above: ‘Pierre’, the man who found Le Loyon’s letter and discarded military gear in 2013. Photo by the author, May 2025.
The bizarre story maintained an international interest in the years following the pseudo-cosplayer’s 2013 ‘suicide’. Popular American podcasts like Let’s Get Haunted and Astonishing Legends featured the story in 2020 and ‘21 respectively, while VICE News featured it a couple of years before that. YouTubers with millions of fans made documentaries about it, including ScareTheater in 2018, The Paint Explainer in 2024 and Shrouded Hand last February. TikTok stars have likewise recounted the story; someone called ‘Hesoswag’ made a video about it for his innumerable followers, while a makeup enthusiast named ‘Orane’ did the same in July of this year.
Above: Some recent videos and articles about Le Loyon. Credit: VICE News, Hesoswag, Orane, Shrouded Hand & The Paint Explainer.
Anyway, the ‘Ghost of Maules’ had another nickname, as locals revealed to Le Matin when the story first went viral; he was referred to as ‘Le Loyon’. Barely any hints have been unearthed regarding the significance of that name…until now!
You see, on October 23rd of this year, a newspaper serving the Swiss canton of Fribourg ran an article about my plans to film a fictional movie in Sâles and the surrounding environs. The film will be inspired by the whole ‘Loyon’ debacle, using it as a springboard for a narrative drama with horror elements.
Above: A social media post by the Swiss newspaper ‘La Liberté’ with an extract from their recent article about my planned film. Credit: La Liberté’s Instagram page.
A local in the region who I had developed a friendship with tipped off La Liberté’s Victoria Martin about my little project. Victoria was writing an article for Halloween about Le Loyon’s global notoriety, and she wanted to talk about my film. She also wanted to hear some new information I’d gleaned about Le Loyon from Sâles’ inhabitants. Some of that information is in Victoria’s article, which is in French (you can read it here). But for any English-speakers interested in this strange story, a few key points are worth noting.
A member of the local scout group in Romont, a town near Sâles, had told his uncle that Le Loyon was possibly a former member of their group. A farmer in Maules who had encountered Le Loyon numerous times told me the cloaked spectre was not wearing just any type of cloak; it appeared to be a specific cape worn by instructors in the Swiss military. Meanwhile, an elderly Maules resident told me that he heard Le Loyon was a man originally from the canton of Valais, more than a hundred miles to the south. I also heard a rumor that Le Loyon was a resident in a psychiatric hospital. That one has surprisingly more weight than may initially be assumed, for reasons you’ll learn about in my movie.
I’m aware that’s a lot of anecdotal, unsubstantiated info. Hence my use of the word ‘legend’ to describe this odd phantom. But I did manage to unearth some documentation about the origin of the nickname ‘Le Loyon’ while in Maules. Additionally, I discovered the true identity of ‘Patrick’, the photographer who started it all. I met him and, for now at least, Le Loyon’s photographer still does not want his identity known publicly. I made it clear to him that I would respect that. Fortunately, he’s indicated that he’ll talk to me soon, and his story will hopefully be integrated into my film’s script.
For now, the main focus is getting funding to actually film this project. With La Liberté having a sizeable regional audience, I’ve been delighted by their coverage and readers’ reactions to my plans. It’s now important to keep the momentum going so potential funders will see the intense interest surrounding this Swiss legend globally, thereby encouraging them to support this film project.
The procedure for acquiring funding to make a film in Switzerland is actually less confusing than I feared. As a fellow European but not Swiss, it seems I first need to find a Swiss producer who’ll get on board with the project. That will allow us to then apply for funding from Swiss organizations like Cinéforom (which funds films made specifically in French-speaking Switzerland) or the country’s Federal Office of Culture. Fortunately, there are a number of small yet ambitious production companies scattered throughout the canton of Fribourg, including in Bulle (a charming city twenty minutes away from Le Loyon’s territory).
Given the beauty of the region I plan to film in, I hope to allocate some funds on 16mm or 35mm cameras to make the most of the sweeping landscape. For my first and most recent feature film, a documentary called Mothman: The Film That Never Was, I used my trusty iPhone 13 to film in an American Appalachian township. I was pleasantly surprised by the job it did, but I’m excited too by the visual opportunities film cameras could provide for shooting in Switzerland’s Gruyère region.
Above: A photo I took last May near Maules in Switzerland’s Gruyère region, using my iPhone 13. Imagine what a 35mm camera could do here!
Hyper-locality is the focus of this project. So once funding is secured, it will also go towards paying local actors and crew. I aim to make the region’s residents central to this project. This could be achieved by hiring local acting troupes in Romont or Bulle, or even having residents participate in the film. Making my documentary about Doug TenNapel’s Mothman inspired in me that regard; TenNapel incorporated actual interviews with West Virginians into his otherwise fictional narrative. Similar techniques were later used in films like Michael Winterbottom’s The Road to Guantánamo, which incorporated actors’ scripted interviews into a nonfiction storyline.
Above: A news article about Romont’s local acting troupe, the Théâtre des Remparts. Credit: Théâtre des Remparts’ Facebook page.
As for distribution? Well, I need to make sure it’s actually an adequate film before jumping to such matters. I will say that the canton’s capital city, Fribourg, holds an annual Irish film and culture festival with movie screenings. Its co-founder, a fellow Dubliner named Clare O’Dea, is a former journalist for The Irish Times and the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. The festival has links to all sorts of interesting groups like the Basel Irish Club, the Irish Embassy and the Irish Business Network.8 Its annual screenings, talks and festivities see literature and cinema practitioners gather together- a possible site for building this film’s future once it’s been shot.
I end this article inviting your ideas, suggestions and advice for getting this project off the ground. I am all ears and no comment is too small. In the meantime, I also end this piece with two spooky anecdotes suggesting that, as Le Loyon put it, a ghost truly ‘never dies’.
In 2018, a Sâles local told Swiss national broadcaster RTS that her daughter had seen Le Loyon roaming the woods recently.9 Similarly, the local man I befriended who told Victoria Martin about my project had a story to tell; he told me that he may have seen Le Loyon several months after the phantom’s poetic ‘suicide note’ was found. This man, a delightful fellow who has been very supportive of my project, repeated his story to Victoria for her article;
‘It was in Winter, several months after Le Loyon left his testament. It was very cold that day. I was walking towards the Bugnons pond, above the village, where you can skate if the ice reaches a certain thickness. There was a lonely man, very tall, wearing a long coat. He was playing eights with his hockey stick. I said to myself- “That’s him!”’10
Above: Maules, May 2025. Photo by the author.
‘A Strange Unknown Haunts the Forest’. Le Matin, 27th August 2013.
https://www.lematin.ch/story/un-etrange-inconnu-hante-la-foret-333251629083
‘“Le Loyon” Doesn’t Make Anyone Laugh’. Le Matin, 30th August 2013.
https://www.lematin.ch/story/le-loyon-ne-fait-rire-personne-848454602532
Ibid.
‘Beneath the Mask’. La Télé, 12th March 2021 (segment starts at 09:29).
https://latele.ch/emissions/radar-fribourgeois/radar-fribourgeois-s-2021-e-50
‘Swiss Batman’. Szwajcarskie BlaBliBlu, 10th September 2013.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140228113415/http://szwajcarskie-blabliblu.blog.pl/2013/09/10/szwajcarski-batman/
‘Death Certificate and Testament of the Ghost of Maules’. Author unknown. Republished in the Bulletin Information Communal de Sâles, no. 33, December 2013, p. 6.
https://disco-legacy-data.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/public/upload/3/1/31752.pdf
‘Farewell, Ghost of Maules’. Jean-Marc Piguet. Bulletin Information Communal de Sâles, no. 3, December 2013, p. 6.
https://disco-legacy-data.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/public/upload/3/1/31752.pdf
‘The Irish Festival in Fribourg Putting Irish Culture on the Map in Switzerland’. Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
https://www.ireland.ie/en/switzerland/the-irish-festival-in-fribourg-putting-irish-culture-on-the-map-in-switzerland/
‘In Maules, a Mysterious Individual Haunts the Forest’. Radio Television Suisse (RTS), 2nd November 2018.
https://www.rts.ch/play/tv/couleurs-locales/video/a-maules-un-mysterieux-individu-hante-la-foret?urn=urn:rts:video:9966119
‘A Film About Le Loyon Soon? An Irish Director Has Taken a Passion for the Ghost of Maules’. La Liberté, October 23rd 2025.
https://www.laliberte.ch/articles/regions/gruyere/un-fantome-gruerien-fascine-jusquen-irlande-ou-aux-etats-unis-1223850?srsltid=AfmBOorm-ZwYAgwXqLcYaZG28P7p55f2vsr02eloQlFENkrZ3Q72BW1A