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welcome to “weird darkness” i’m your creator and host, darren marlar. this episode is a collaboration with my friendsand haunting stories. i’ll be telling you about bigfoot – andover at haunting stories they’ve posted another video, with me narrating a continuationof this regarding the minnesota iceman! be sure to check out their video right afteryou watch this one! this is weird darkness – where you’llfind creepypastas, ghost stories, unsolved mysteries, crytptids like bigfoot, and otherstories of the strange and bizarre. feel free to share your own creepy story atweirddarkness.com, i might use it in a future

episode! now.. sit back, turn down the lights, andcome with me into the weird darkness! it all started with a bunch of footprintsat a construction site. or at least the modern-day fascination with“bigfoot” did. stories of hairy giants in the woods and wandering“wild men” had been a part of american lore for nearly two centuries by the timethe nickname “bigfoot” was coined in the late 1950s. but it was then, with the advent of televisionand the modern media, that chasing down giants in the woods became a national craze.

it was the spring of 1957 and a road constructionproject was underway near bluff creek in northern california. the project was run by a contractor namedray wallace and his brother, wilbur. they hired thirty men that summer to workon the project and by late in the season, wilbur wallace reported that something hadbeen throwing around some metal oil drums at the work site. when winter arrived that year, cold weatherbrought the work to a halt, even though only ten miles of road had been completed. in early spring 1958, some odd tracks werediscovered near the mad river close to korbel,

some of the locals believed they were beartracks. as it happened, this was close to anotherwork site that was managed by the wallace brothers. later on that spring, work started up againon the road near bluff creek. a number of new men were hired, includingjerry crew, who drove more than two hours each weekend so he could be home with hisfamily. ten more miles of road were constructed, anglingup across the face of a nearby mountain. on august 3, 1958, wilbur wallace stated thatsomething threw a seven-hundred-pound spare tire to the bottom of a deep gully near thework site.

this incident was reported later in the month,after the discovery of the footprints. on august 27, jerry crew arrived for workearly in the morning and found giant, manlike footprints pressed into the dirt all aroundhis bulldozer. he was at first upset by the discovery, thinkingthat someone was playing a practical joke on him, but then he decided to report whathe found to wilbur wallace. at this point, the footprints had not beenmade public. that occurred on september 21, when mrs. jessbemis, the wife of one of the bluff creek work crew, wrote a letter to andrew genzoli,the editor of a local newspaper. genzoli published her husband's "big foot"story and caught the attention of others in

the area. one of these was betty allen, a newspaperreporter who suggested in a late september column that plaster casts should be made ofthe footprints. she had already talked to local native americansand interviewed residents about hairy giants in the area. she convinced genzoli to run other storiesand letters about bigfoot. this would be the beginning of a story thatwould capture the imagination of america. on october 1 and 2, jerry crew discoveredmore tracks, very similar to the first ones. in response to the new discovery, two workersquit and wilbur wallace allegedly introduced

his brother ray to the situation for the firsttime, bringing him out to show him the tracks. on the day after the last tracks were found,jerry crew made plaster casts of the footprints, with help from his friend bob titmus and reporterbetty allen. he was irritated that people were making funof him and wanted to offer the casts as evidence that he wasn’t making the whole thing up. on october 5, andrew genzoli published hisnow-famous story about "bigfoot." it was picked up worldwide by the wire services,and soon the term was being used in general conversation. in 1959, famous zoologist ivan t. sandersonwas touring the country for a planned book

on ecology and used the time to also do someinvestigative work on unexplained phenomena. he had long been interested in the yeti creaturesof asia and decided to stop off in bluff creek for a look at the site involved in jerry crew’saccounts. he stayed at a local hotel for a little overa week, looking at files provided by betty allen and talking to witnesses from the area. when he left, he was supposed to make somecandid assessments about the incidents to tom slick, a texas millionaire who had fundedsome on-site investigation into the bigfoot encounters, as well as a search for the yetiin nepal. when the report was made, though, what hecalled "various small items in the past" were

left out. sanderson was impressed by many of the peoplethat he met, including betty allen and jerry crew, but he had some reservations about others-- especially ray wallace. it’s likely that he had good reasons forthose reservations. when ray wallace died in november 2002, newspapersacross america ran stories that featured three words: “bigfoot is dead!” when wallace passed away, his son, michael,told the seattle times that his father had been "bigfoot" all along, and that the "realityis, bigfoot just died." needless to say, the media -- and those skepticalof the idea that a creature like bigfoot could

even exist -- went wild. many hastily written stories followed thatdeclared that wallace, using a pair of crudely carved wooden feet, made phony tracks allover the pacific northwest, and that his wife had donned a monkey suit and helped to hoaxa controversial film that many respected researchers believe shows an authentic bigfoot. the answer as to whether or not enormous,hairy, human-like creatures could be lurking in the woods and remote regions of the americancontinent had just been answered. there is no bigfoot, the newspapers said;it had been a hoax all along. but had it really?

for many, ray wallace was the father of modernbigfoot stories, but what happened at a construction site where he was a contractor was actuallya minor event involving some mysterious footprints. the incident occurred at a time when americanswere ready for something exciting to grip their imaginations, and the media pouncedon the discovery of the tracks. the word "bigfoot" was coined and became aterm that people have used ever since. no matter how you look at it, what happenedin bluff creek in 1958 ushered in the modern era of bigfoot and created an interest inthe subject that is still alive today. “bigfoot” didn’t die when ray wallacepassed away in 2002. he’d already been with us for centuriesand if many people – hunters, researchers

and scientists – are to be believed, heis alive and well today. in 2002, the media was trying hard to convincethe general public that ray wallace was a highly respected figure in the world of bigfootresearch, but in truth, he had been regarded with suspicion by luminaries in the fieldlike ivan t. sanderson, as far back as 1959. during his lifetime, wallace claimed to haveseen ufos as many as two thousand times. he said he spotted bigfoot hundreds of timesand also claimed to have filmed footage of bigfoot a year before jerry crew found thefootprints at the construction site. at one point in 1959, he even claimed to havecaptured one! when tom slick offered him money for it, though,wallace failed to produce the creature.

he later claimed that he told amateur documentarymaker roger patterson where to go to film bigfoot in 1967, but few believed this. wallace said that he had many films of bigfootbut each turned out to be an obvious hoax. later, a retired logger named rant mullens,who was known for perpetrating hoaxes, said that he often made large wooden footprintsand gave them to wallace, who then prepared plaster casts from them to put on display. with his involvement in all sorts of questionableactivities, wallace had been regarded with suspicion by those with even a mild interestin bigfoot for years. sanderson was concerned about wallace fromthe beginning, and became even more worried

when he received letters about bigfoot tracksbeing discovered in areas that turned out to be near other wallace construction sites. he stated that everyone who did not believethe tracks were made by some sort of unknown, living entity believed that they had beenmade by wallace. "he was a great 'funster,'" sanderson wrote,and hinted that if there were enough problems on a work site, wallace could get his workcontracts changed and get no-cost extensions granted. could this have been the motive for creatingthe phony tracks? unfortunately, the other things that wallacegot involved in from the 1950s until his death

did not alleviate early suspicions about him. his continued involvement with fakes and fraudsand his later claim that he hoaxed the tracks to bring attention to the plight of the realbigfoot and to keep him from being killed by hunters, caused many to believe that the1958 bluff creek tracks were a hoax. it also appears that wallace planted phonyprints at other worksites in the region over the years. this seems to mean that the so-called "birthof bigfoot" was nothing more than a clever hoax: a hoax that managed to fool people allover the country and around the world. so, if this is the case, does this mean thatthe existence of bigfoot -- a giant, hairy

creature that lives in the most remote regionsof america -- is just a hoax? the skeptics would certainly like you to thinkso. but just as they, and the media, overlookedthe fact that most bigfoot researchers had already discredited ray wallace at the timeof his death, they also overlooked the scores of reports, first-hand accounts and authenticevidence of the man-like creature that had been around for years. before we go any further, i should note thati’m not a bigfoot researcher. while i have always been intrigued by theidea that such beings could exist, i have never encountered one, hunted for them, investigatedcase reports, picked up dung samples or took

anything other than a mild interest in them. i have occasionally run across reports ofbigfoot creatures while researching other things, though, and being intrigued, havesometimes included accounts of bigfoot in my writings. however, i think it was my non-expert interestin bigfoot that got me so upset in 2002 when ray wallace passed away. to be honest, i was alarmed by the revelationthat wallace had been involved in so many hoaxes over the years. having no other knowledge about him or thathe was already a suspicious figure to those

in the field, i wondered about the damagethis was going to do to bigfoot research. rather than jump to conclusions about thevalidity of bigfoot study as a whole, however, i decided to do a little research into itshistory, which is probably something that the media should have been doing rather thanprinting half-baked theories about how bigfoot had been a hoax from the beginning. to "discover" bigfoot, i turned to the past. how had history shaped the creature that wehave come to know over the years, and in turn, how had bigfoot shaped the unexplained inamerica? i began looking into the "history of bigfoot"and what i found was fascinating.

bigfoot had not been "born" in 1958 but hadbeen around for decades -- even centuries. i soon discovered some pretty amazing accountsof bigfoot encounters from the past and it became obvious that the bigfoot reports hadnot started in 1958, as the media claimed. before continuing, let me make it clear thati do not consider myself to be an expert on bigfoot research. you won't find any technical writings herethat delve into bigfoot physiology or the best ways to capture one. what i have instead tried to do is to makethe case that the existence of bigfoot is possible -- even probable -- based on thefact that these creatures have been with us

throughout the history of america. i have tried to collect the best, and mostcompelling, historical incidents of encounters with bigfoot and have also included a fewof the most interesting ones from modern times, as well. strange things are out there "in the wild"and the creatures that lurk in the dark woods and remote regions may even be stranger thananything you’ve ever imagined. there was no question what the first entryin this book had to be. there is no greater mystery in the annalsof the unexplained in america than sasquatch, the creature most commonly known as "bigfoot."

reports of giant, ape-like monsters have beendocumented all over the country, although primarily in the forested regions of the pacificnorthwest. there are tales of giant hairy figures inevery state in america, although the "traditional" bigfoot is believed to roam the vast regionsof california, oregon, washington, idaho and the western edge of canada. the narrative that follows will include historyand lore from a variety of locations. although most mainstream scientists maintainthat no such creatures exist (and short of an actual specimen, their minds will not bechanged), it is not inconceivable that undiscovered creatures could be roaming this wide regionof mountains and forests.

there are areas there that have been almostcompletely untouched by man and where few signs of the modern world can be found, eventoday. if we combine these remote areas with thehundreds of eyewitness accounts and pieces of evidence left behind, then we have no choicebut to at least consider the idea that these creatures may actually be real. of course, the reader is asked to judge forhimself, but let's consider the history of bigfoot in america. according to many eyewitnesses, sasquatchaverages around seven feet in height, sometimes taller and sometimes a little shorter.

they are usually seen wandering alone andhair covers most of their bodies. their limbs are usually powerful, but theyare described as being proportioned more like humans than like apes. however, their broad shoulders, short necks,flat faces and noses, sloped foreheads, ridged brows and cone-shaped heads make them appearanimal-like. they reportedly eat both meat and plants,are largely nocturnal and are less active during cold weather. the creatures are most commonly reported asbeing covered in dark, auburn-colored hair, although reports of brown, black and evenwhite and silver hair do occasionally pop

up. the footprints left behind by the monstersrange in size from about 12 to 22 inches long, with around 18 inches being the most common. their tracks are normally reported to be somewherearound seven inches in width. the stories of sasquatch and other man-likecreatures have been part of american history for generations. native american legend and lore is filledwith creatures that sound a lot like bigfoot. one such creature was the "wendigo." while this creature is considered by manyto be the creation of horror writer algernon

blackwood in his classic tale of the samename, this spirit was considered very real to many in the north woods and prairies. many legends and stories have circulated overthe years about a mysterious creature that was encountered by hunters and campers inthe shadowy forests of the upper regions of minnesota. in one variation of the story, the creaturecould only be seen if it faced the witness head-on, because it was so thin that it couldnot be seen from the side. it was said to have a voracious appetite forhuman flesh, and the many forest dwellers who disappeared over the years were said tobe its victims.

the american indians had their own tales ofthe wendigo, dating back so far that most who were interviewed could not remember whenthe story was not part of their culture. the inuit called the creature by various names,including wendigo, witigo, witiko and wee-tee-go, each of which roughly translates to mean "theevil spirit that devours mankind." around 1860, a german explorer translatedwendigo to mean "cannibal" among the tribes along the great lakes. native american versions of the creature spokeof a gigantic spirit, over fifteen feet tall, that had once been human but had been transformedby the use of magic. though all of the descriptions of the creaturevary slightly, the wendigo is generally said

to have glowing eyes, long yellow fangs anda long tongue. most are said to have sallow, yellowish skin,but others are said to be matted with hair. they are tall and lanky and are driven bya ravenous hunger. but how would a person turn into one of thesestrange creatures? according to the lore, a wendigo is createdwhenever a person resorts to cannibalism in order to survive. when tribes and settlers were cut off fromcivilization by bitter snows and ice, they occasionally resorted to eating human flesh– and the wendigo was created. but how real were these creatures?

could the legend of the wendigo have sprungup merely as a warning against cannibalism? or could sightings of bigfoot-type creatureshave created the stories? while this is unknown, it is believed thatwhite settlers to the region took the stories seriously. it became enough of a part of their culturethat tales like those of algernon blackwood were penned. purportedly real-life stories were told aswell, and according to the settlers' version of the legend, the wendigo would often appear,banshee-like, to signal an impending death in the community.

a wendigo allegedly made a number of appearancesnear a town called rosesu in northern minnesota from the late 1800s through the 1920s. each time that it was reported, an unexpecteddeath followed. even into the last century, native americansactively believed in, and searched for, the wendigo. one of the most famous wendigo hunters wasa cree indian named jack fiddler. he claimed to have killed at least fourteenof the creatures in his lifetime, although the last killing resulted in his imprisonmentat the age of 87. in october 1907, fiddler and his son, joseph,were tried for the murder of a cree indian

woman. they both pleaded guilty to the crime butdefended themselves by stating that the woman had been possessed by the spirit of a wendigoand was on the verge of transforming into one. according to their defense, she had to bekilled before she murdered other members of the tribe. there are still many stories told of wendigothat have been seen in northern ontario, near the cave of the wendigo, and around the townof kenora, where a creature has been spotted by traders, trackers and trappers for decades.

there are many who still believe that thewendigo roams the woods and the prairies of northern minnesota and canada. whether it seeks human flesh, or acts as aportent of coming doom, is anyone's guess, but before you start to doubt that it exists,remember that the stories and legends of this fearsome creature have been around since beforethe white man walked on these shores. like all legends, this one was likely startedfor a reason. the yakama indians of the pacific northwesthad a tradition of a "qah-lin-me," which was a devourer of people and the hupa indianscalled the man-like beasts the "omah," a demon of the wilderness.

the nisqually tribe of western washingtonhad the "tsiatko," a gigantic, hairy beast, and the "tenatco" was known by the kaska. these creatures were known to dig a hole inthe ground as a place to sleep and would sometimes kidnap women and children. most of the woodland giants in the lore ofthe native americans seem to be more aggressive than the creatures we know as bigfoot, butthere is little mistaking them for something else. in fact, in 1934, author diamond jenness reportedthat the members of the carrier first nation of british columbia, now generally referredto as the dakelh, told of a monster that left

enormous footprints in the snow, had a facelike a man, was very tall and was covered in long hair. this hardly seems to be coincidence when comparedto "modern" version of bigfoot. the legend of bigfoot-type creatures is somired in the history of american that even the native american term "sasquatch" is abit of an extraction from mythological stories. the folkloric sasquatch (the word is the americanizedversion of a term used by the coast salish indians of canada) was introduced to the worldin the writings of j.w. burns, a schoolteacher at the chehalis indianreservation near harrison hot springs, british columbia.

burns' sasquatch was a legendary figure thathe learned of through native informants and was really more man than monster. he was an intelligent "giant indian" who wasendowed with supernatural powers. somehow, the name managed to stick for thehuge beings that we would come to call bigfoot. legend has it that bigfoot began to be encounteredon this continent as early as the days when the first vikings landed on our shores. leif erickson reportedly wrote of encounteringhairy monsters with great black eyes, and in 1603, samuel de champlain was told of agiant, hairy beast that roamed the forests of eastern canada.

this creature was said to be much feared bythe micmac indians of the region. in the 1790s, accounts told of large, hairymonsters in north and south carolina and in that same decade, creatures were being reportedin the northwest by explorers and hunters who came to the region. while exploring the coast of british columbiain 1792, naturalist jose mariano mozino interviewed locals who spoke of the "matlox," a large,hairy, human-like creature with huge feet, hooked claws and sharp teeth. throughout the nineteenth century, accountsof bigfoot-type creatures continued to appear in newspapers and periodicals of the day.

obviously, the word "bigfoot" had not beencoined yet, and frankly, readers were not even familiar with any creature of this sort. the idea of even an "ape" was completely foreignto them, as the great apes of africa were not officially “discovered” until laterin the century, although there had been reports of them dating back to the fifth century b.c.e.by greek explorer hanno. for this reason, a search through old periodicalswill not reveal historical bigfoot accounts, but what did sometimes appear in newspapersof the 1800s were stories of "wild men" and beast-like creatures that were encountered,sometimes captured and occasionally killed. these reports likely thrilled readers of theday and may offer the modern researcher the

first reports of bigfoot in america. likely the oldest account of a man-like creaturein north america appeared in the london times in january 1785. the report stated that a wild man was caughtin the forest, about two hundred miles from lake of the woods, manitoba, by a party ofindians. the creature was said to have been seven feettall and covered with hair. the wild man did not speak and seemed incapableof understanding his captors. it was found beside the body of a large bear,which it had just killed. this is unfortunately the extent of the informationoffered and no other news apparently followed.

the oldest known bigfoot account in americannewspapers appeared in september 1818 in ellisburgh, new york. the incident apparently occurred on august30. the story involved a local man of good reputationwho had an encounter with an animal resembling a "wild man of the woods." the creature came out of the forest, lookedat the man and then took flight in the opposite direction. he described it as bending forward when running,hairy, and having a narrow foot that spread wide at the toes.

the article, which appeared in the exeterwatchman, went on to say that hundreds of people searched for the wild man for severaldays, but no trace of it was found. in the late 1830s, there were reports of a"wild child" around fish lake in indiana. it was said to be four feet tall and coveredin chestnut hair. the creature was often seen on the shore aswell as swimming in the water. it made awful screeching noises, and no onewas able to catch up with it because it ran so quickly. there were also reports in pennsylvania ofsimilar creatures, each much smaller than the typical bigfoot creatures of the modernera.

one of the creatures seen in pennsylvaniawas covered in black hair and was said to have been the size of a six- or seven-year-oldboy. could these have been young bigfoot, or perhaps,as authors janet and colin bord have suggested, a different species of creature altogether? the bords also make reference to severalwild men that were seen in arkansas in the 1830s. the creatures were of gigantic stature andhad been well known in st. francis, greene and poinsett counties since 1834. two hunters had a close encounter with a wildman in greene county in 1851, after seeing

a herd of cattle that was apparently beingchased by something. they discovered that the cows were being pursuedby "an animal bearing the unmistakable likeness of humanity. he was of gigantic stature, the body beingcovered with hair and the head with long locks that fairly enveloped the neck and shoulders." apparently, the wild man looked at the twohunters for a moment before running off into the forest. his tracks measured about 13 inches in length. interestingly, the local explanation for thiscreature was that he was a "survivor of the

earthquake disaster that desolated the regionin 1811." the implication was that he was a human whohad lost his sanity and home during the massive earthquake along the new madrid fault andhad "gone native," living in the woods and growing his hair long. author and bigfoot researcher john green pointedout that some of the prospectors of the 1849 california gold rush were also encounteringbigfoot. according to a correspondent, his grandfatherprospected for gold around mount shasta in the 1850s and told stories of seeing hairygiants in the vicinity. in the late 1860s, residents in the arcadiavalley of crawford county, kansas, were encountering

their own wild man. what the newspapers were calling a "wild manor gorilla" or a "what is it?" was approaching the cabins of settlers, tearing down fencesand generally wreaking havoc. the creature was described as being so nearto a human in form that the "men are unwilling to shoot at it.” however, it had a stooping gait, very longarms with immense hands and claws and an extremely hairy face. according to newspaper reports of the time,the settlers were divided as to whether or not the creature belonged to the human familyor not.

some thought it to be an ape that had escapedfrom a menagerie that was located at a settlement east of the valley. in the fall of 1869, a hunter from grayson,california, wrote a letter to the antioch ledger and described his own experiences witha wild man in the forest. he returned to camp from hunting in the mountainsaround orestimba creek, and found that the ashes and burned sticks from his campfirehad been scattered about. he searched around the area out of curiosityand a short distance away, he found "the track of a man's foot -- bare and of immense size." thinking that he would try to catch a glimpseof the odd, barefooted visitor, he took up

a position on a ridge overlooking his campand waited there for nearly two hours. suddenly, he was surprised by a shrill whistleand looked up to see a huge figure, standing erect by his campfire. "it was the image of a man," the hunter wrote,"but it could not have been human." the creature stood about five feet high butwas very broad at the shoulders. its arms were of great length but its legswere short and his head seemed to be set upon his shoulders with no neck. it was covered with dark brown and cinnamon-coloredhair that was quite long. the wild man continued to make the odd whistlingsound as he scattered the rest of the firewood

and ashes. after a few minutes, he started to leave theclearing where the camp was located but went only a short distance before returning. this time, he brought with him another, similarfigure, although this one was unmistakably female. the two creatures passed close to the hunter'shiding place and then disappeared into the forest. another wild man that was encountered in thelate 1860s was seen in northern nevada. the creature caused great excitement, andunlike most bigfoot reports, this wild man

carried a weapon. according to accounts, an armed party startedoff in pursuit of it shortly after it was spotted. the searchers concluded that it had once beena "white man, but was now covered with a coat of fine, long hair." it was seen carrying a club in one hand anda slain rabbit in the other. the moment that it caught sight of its pursuers,it let out a scream like "the roar of a lion," brandished the club, and attacked the men'shorses. the men set their dogs after it, but the wildman managed to hide behind some fallen logs,

uttering terrible cries throughout the night. it was gone by the following morning, leavingonly "size 9" tracks behind. in 1870, a report appeared in the antioch,california, newspaper that spoke of a man seeing "a gorilla, a wild man, or whateveryou choose to call it" in the forest. the creature's head "appeared to be set onthe shoulders without a neck," which sounds remarkably similar to a modern bigfoot report. one wild man report from february 1876 waslikely just that: a wild man. except for the fact that the creature wascovered with hair, it had no other characteristics of bigfoot.

while prospecting in san diego county, a mannamed turner helm heard a whistling sound and came face to face with a wild man. he was sitting on a large boulder, and whilehelm first assumed it to be an animal, he soon realized that it was a man. he was covered with coarse black hair, likethat of a bear's fur, and had a beard that was long and thick. he was of medium size and had fine facialfeatures, unlike those generally described for bigfoot. helm was startled but spoke to the man inboth english and spanish.

he received no reply. the wild man looked at him for a few momentsand then jumped down from the rock and vanished into the woods. helm later stated that he and his prospectingpartner had seen a man’s tracks in the mountains many times, but had assumed they belongedto an indian. the rugged green mountains of vermont havealways had a reputation for strangeness. the area known as glastonbury mountain wasonce home to a small village of the same name. the town is long since gone and stories aretold of how the residents were plagued with misfortune, disease, death and madness.

it was near the vanished town that a coachfull of travelers was attacked by the "bennington monster" in the 1800s and where, in 1892,henry macdowell went insane and murdered his friend, jim crowley. he was locked away in the waterbury asylumbut he escaped and disappeared into the forests and rocks of glastonbury mountain and wasnever seen again. these tales were recalled in october 1879when two young men who were on a hunting trip south of williamstown, massachusetts, sawa wild man. they described the creature as being aboutfive feet tall, and while he resembled a man in form and movement, he was covered withbright red hair, had a long beard and very

wild eyes. when they first saw the creature, it sprangfrom a rocky cliff and began running toward the woods. thinking that it was a bear or some otherwild animal, one of the young men fired a shot and apparently hit it, because the creaturelet out a cry of pain and rage. it turned and then started toward the huntersin a furious state. the two men ran quickly in the opposite directionand lost their guns and ammunition on the way down the mountain. they never returned to retrieve them.

but one of the strangest of the early “wildman” reports is undoubtedly the “jacko” story, which allegedly occurred in july 1884. according to the story, several men actuallycaptured a young bigfoot along the fraser river outside of yale, british columbia. i remember reading this story when i was akid in several books for young readers about the unexplained. i always considered it one of my favoritesand always wondered what the eventual outcome of it was. in hindsight, the story was almost too goodto be true, probably because it was.

i was to be disappointed years later wheni learned that respected bigfoot author john green revealed that it was likely a hoax. the story appeared in victoria's daily britishcolonist and told the story of several railroad workers, on the regular lytton to yale line,who found the creature lying alongside the tracks. apparently, it had fallen from the steep bluffsand was injured, although when the train stopped, the creature jumped up, let out a sharp, barkingsound and attempted to climb back up the bluff. the railroad men gave chase and managed tocapture him. they nicknamed the creature "jacko" and describedhim as being "half man and half beast."

he stood approximately four feet, seven inchestall and weighed about 130 pounds. he had long, dark hair and resembled a human,except for the fact that his body (except for his hands and feet) was covered with hair. his forearms were exceptionally long and hewas very strong. as no one was able to determine jacko's identityor origin, he was eventually entrusted to the care of george telbury, who planned totake the creature on tour or sell him to the circus. some reports say that jacko was on displayin yale for a time, but all trace of him later disappeared.

at the time of the creature's alleged capture,newspapers reported that more than two hundred people came to the jail in yale to see him. however, another newspaper, the british columbian,stated that the only "wild man" present was the head of the jail, who had "completelyexhausted his patience" with the curiosity-seekers. the colonist, which originally ran the story,never disputed the criticisms of the other newspaper, and it was likely just anotherof the tall tales that were common in the western papers of the late 1800s. in the summer of 1885, hunters led by a mannamed fitzgerald encountered a wild man in the cascade mountains.

when spotted, the creature was eating rawdeer flesh. interestingly, the locals were so sure thatthis was a man, not a beast, that they even identified him as a missing person. the "wild man of the mountains" was said tobe a man named john mackentire, who had been lost in the forest while hunting about fouryears before. he and another man in his party had wanderedoff and were never seen again. the hunters claimed that the man they sawresembled mackentire. he was naked but was "as hairy as an animaland was a complete wild man." he was bent down by the river and was eatingpart of a deer that had been recently killed.

the hunters approached to within a few yardsbefore he saw them and fled. according to the account, the wild man hadbeen seen in the area as far back as two years before by other hunters, and it was believedthat mackentire had become deranged and was now living in a cave. a group of men organized a search party togo back and look for him but no other information was ever given about the result of the expedition. in october 1891, a wild man encounter in michiganhad dire results for the dogs used to hunt down the creature. george frost and w.w.

vivian ("both reputable citizens," the reportadded) were near the tittabawassee river in gladwin county when they ran into a nakedman who was completely covered with hair. he stood over seven feet tall, with arms thathung down to his knees. vivian released one of his bulldogs at thewild man, but with one mighty swing of his arm, the creature struck the dog and killedit. another hairy wild man appeared in late november1893 in rockaway beach, new york. both this report, and the one that follows,are important in that not every "wild man" report that appeared in newspapers of theperiod could have been a bigfoot sighting. some of the accounts, like these two, arejust as strange, though, and are perhaps even

more frightening. a series of unprovoked attacks in rockawaybeach were made by a "wild man of large stature, weird in appearance, with fierce bloodshoteyes, long, flowing matted hair and a shaggy beard." armed with a "large cavalry saber," the wildman wreaked havoc in a saloon and later wrenched a shotgun out of a man's hand and fired itat him. according to witness descriptions, the manwas about six feet tall and weighed about 200 pounds. unlike most of the earlier reports about nakedwild men, this one reportedly wore one shoe

and a tattered oilskin jacket. the locals believed that he was a derangedsailor named james rush, whose boat had been driven into shore during a recent storm andhad gone missing. this was obviously not a bigfoot, but seemedto be strangely tied into another case that occurred just five weeks later. a similar wild man terrorized the mine hill-doverarea of new jersey. in early january, three young women namedbertha hestig, lizzie guscott and katie griffin encountered a wild man near the edge of town. he stormed out of the woods, completely nakedand covered with cuts and bruises.

with a shriek of terror at seeing the youngladies along the road, he ran back into the a few days later, two woodcutters were workingnear the indian falls clearing when their dogs began barking at a nearby rock. thinking that a bear was nearby, the two mengrabbed their axes and cautiously approached the area that seemed to be bothering the dogs. as they approached, a savage-looking figurejumped up from behind the rock. the stranger was said to be middle-aged, nearlysix feet tall and weighing about 180 pounds. his face was covered with a long, unkemptbeard. the wild man looked at the two woodcuttersfor a moment and then jumped onto the rock

and began speaking loudly to himself in gibberish. whenever the men got too close to him, hebegan to run back and forth yelling frantically, "all the time working his arms as though rowinga boat," they said. the woodcutters tried to seize the man buthe picked up a club and swung it at them. the two men wisely fled and telephoned forhelp from a nearby store. a search led by police officers commencedand lasted throughout most of the night, but no trace of the man was found. he appeared again on saturday and tried unsuccessfullyto break into the home of the russell family. on sunday, a man named william mullen encounteredthe wild man when taking a walk.

he appeared in front of him on the road andthe two of them eyed one another uneasily for a few moments before the wild man shriekedloudly and ran into the woods. the search continued for the man but onlyprints from his bare feet were discovered, along with a brush hut and an axe that mayhave belonged to the strange individual. the last sighting took place at the doversilk mill when several ladies who were looking out the window saw the underbrush part anda naked man walk out. their screams brought other employees butthe wild man ran back into the woods. by the time the mill workers got outside,he was long gone. various search parties continued to look forhim, but he was never found.

according to reports, inquiry was made atthe morris plains asylum but no inmates were missing. who this man may have been is unknown buti suppose it's possible that he could have been the same wild man who was causing problemsin new york just five weeks earlier. in may 1894, a more classic bigfoot-type of“wild man” report was recorded in rural kentucky. for months, people around deep creek had beennoticing that someone – or something -- was stealing chickens, eggs, young pigs, lambsand various food items from area farms. finally, a man named joseph ewalt spotteda creature and reported that it had long white

hair all over its body and wore only a pieceof sheepskin for clothing. ewalt said that a "light came from his eyesand mouth similar to fire," which may have been a bit of an embellishment on his part,or on the work of an imaginative newspaper reporter. some of the local men decided to try and capturethe creature, but had no luck. one morning, eph boston and his sons saw itlurking around their barn. they described the creature the same way thatewalt did, but added that it was about six and a half feet tall and had long claws. there was no mention of it having glowingeyes, though.

a few moments after they spotted it, the wildman went running from the barn with three chickens clutched in its hands. tom boston shot at it but missed. he and his brothers and father, along withseveral neighbors, tracked the creature to a nearby cave, where a scattering of bonesand feathers suggested that the wild man was living there. they walked a short distance into the cavebut an "unearthly yell" sent them running. efforts to try and capture the beast, includingsmoking it out of the cave, failed. in 1897, a wild man sighting took place nearsailor, indiana.

a man took a shot at it and seemed to hitit, but no trace of the creature was found. the sighting occurred in late april when twofarmers saw a hair-covered, man-sized beast walking near the edge of a field. when the wild man saw them approaching, itdropped from two legs to four and raced into the woods with great speed. in april 1897, another wild man was seen inthe woods near stout, ohio. although covered with hair, the creature wassaid to be wearing a pair of tattered trousers. it attacked a young boy in the forest andthen led a party of thirty men on a chase for several hours before disappearing.

on may 26, the same creature may have appearednear rome, ohio. it was described as a "wild man" and “gorilla-like,"and was spotted by two men who were cutting timber in the forest. they chased the figure into a rocky area alongthe ohio river, where it vanished. one of the final reports from the 1800s showsa traditional bigfoot in a less threatening role than was noted in most of the previousencounters. in 1897, a native american fisherman reportedlydiscovered an emaciated bigfoot near tulelake, the man took pity on the creature and gaveit his catch. a few weeks after the encounter, the storygoes that the fisherman awoke to find several

fresh deerskins neatly arranged outside hiscabin. in the following months, a nighttime visitorleft firewood, pelts, berries and fruit for him to find each morning. the fisherman came to believe that it wasthe bigfoot that he had helped who was leaving the gifts. eventually, the offerings ceased and the manguessed that the creature had left the area. about a year later, though, the man was bittenby a rattlesnake and fell unconscious in the he awoke a few hours later to find himselfbeing carried by three large creatures, who took him to his cabin and wrapped his snakebite with moss, which drew out the poison.

the monsters left him at his door and he neversaw them again. in his 1893 book, hunting the grizzly, theodoreroosevelt relates a purportedly true story of a hunter who was abducted from his campsiteand killed by an eerie creature that was covered with hair. roosevelt was born on october 27, 1858, andhe spent his childhood as part of a privileged family in new york city. he was the seventh generation of rooseveltsto be born in manhattan, and the second of four children in his household. always a sickly child afflicted with asthma,the young roosevelt was educated at home by

private tutors prior to going to harvard,where he excelled in boxing and academics. after college, roosevelt married alice hathawaylee, a nineteen-year-old friend of his harvard roommate. he then enrolled in columbia law school, butdropped out after one year to begin a career in public service, winning election to thenew york state assembly in 1882. a double tragedy struck roosevelt in 1884,when his young wife died giving birth to their daughter, followed by the death of his mother– on the same day, in the same house. devastated, roosevelt left his daughter, namedalice after her mother, in the care of his sister and fled to the dakota badlands toforget.

after two years out west, where he "busted"cows as a cattle rancher and chased outlaws as a frontier sheriff, roosevelt returnedto new york rejuvenated and full of energy. he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of new yorkcity, wrote three books about his adventures in the west, and campaigned for republicanpresidential nominee benjamin harrison. when harrison won the election, he appointedroosevelt to the u.s. civil service commission in 1889. his burgeoning career in politics would laterlead him to the white house. roosevelt then married his childhood sweetheart,edith kermit carow. he took little alice and moved with edithto a beautiful house at oyster bay, long island,

that he had built for his first wife. he called the house sagamore hill. the happy couple soon filled the home withfour boys, another girl, and little alice. even during his political career, the adventuresthat roosevelt experienced in the american west left a permanent mark on him. his thirst for adventure would later leadhim to act as the police commissioner of new york city, to fight bravely in cuba with the"rough riders" and, later in life, to become renowned as a big game hunter. in 1893, when he wrote his first books abouthis western adventures, roosevelt had already

roamed most of the country in search of biggame. he wrote: "in hunting, the finding and killingof the game is after all but part of the whole. the free, self-reliant, adventurous life,with its rugged and stalwart democracy; the wild surroundings, the grand beauty of thescenery, the chance to study the ways and habits of the woodland creature -- all theseunite to give to the career of the wilderness hunter its peculiar charm." and "peculiar" would be the only word to describea story that roosevelt saw fit to include in one of the volumes of his western accounts. "frontiersman are not, as a rule, apt to bevery superstitious," roosevelt wrote.

"they lead lives too hard and practical andhave too little imagination in things spiritual or supernatural.... but i once listened toa goblin story which rather impressed me. it was told by a grizzled, weather-beatenold mountain hunter named bauman, who was born and had passed all his life on the frontier. he must have believed what he said, for hecould hardly repress a shudder at certain points of the tale." when the event occurred that bauman relatedto roosevelt, the mountain hunter was still a young man and was trapping with a partneramong the mountains dividing the forks of the salmon river from the head of the wisdomriver in idaho.

the two men worked the area for a time withoutmuch luck and then decided to try another location, where a branch of the snake riverran through a particularly wild and lonely pass. the stream was said to be filled with beaverbut was avoided by many of the indian trappers in the region. the story went that a lone hunter had wanderedinto the pass the year before and had been killed by some wild beast. the man's half-eaten remains were discoveredby a party of prospectors who had passed the man's camp only the night before.

bauman and his friend decided to trap thestream anyway. they rode to the foot of the pass and lefttheir horses tied in a meadow, because the rocky and heavily forested lands were nearlyimpassable for the animals. the trappers struck out on foot through thegloomy woods, finding the country dense and hard to travel through with their heavy packsand their need to bypass the stands of fallen timber and outcroppings of rock. after about four hours of walking, they founda small forest glade that offered easy access to the river. an hour or two of daylight remained when theymade camp, so they built a brush lean-to and

unpacked their gear. then they decided to take a short hike upstreamand look for signs of game, returning to camp around dusk. they were surprised to find that in theirabsence, something, apparently a bear, had visited the camp and had rummaged throughtheir things. the contents of their packs had been scatteredabout and the lean-to had been torn down. the beast had left a number of footprintsbehind but the men paid little attention to them as they had much to do to rebuild thecamp before darkness fell. after starting a fire, they quickly rebuilttheir shelter.

while bauman began cooking supper, his companionstudied the animal tracks more closely in the failing light. he was so intrigued by them that he lit asmall stick in the fire and used it as a torch to follow the tracks to the edge of the clearing. when the light flickered out, he returnedto the fire and ignited another stick, continuing his inspection of what appeared to be increasinglycurious tracks. a few minutes later, he returned and stoodnext to where his friend was cooking dinner, peering uneasily out into the darkness. he suddenly spoke up.

"bauman, that bear has been walking on twolegs," he said. bauman later recalled laughing at this, althoughhis partner insisted that it was true. the two of them again examined the tracksand bauman's partner showed him that they had been made by just two paws or feet. after discussing whether the prints couldbe those of a large person, and deciding that they could not be, the two men rolled up intheir blankets and went to sleep beneath the shelter of the lean-to. around midnight, bauman was suddenly awakenedby a loud noise. he sat up quickly in his blankets and rememberedlater that he was struck by a strong, pungent

odor. the horrible smell was soon forgotten, asthe embers of the fire illuminated a large form looming at the entrance of the lean-to. bauman grabbed his rifle and immediately firedoff a shot. almost as soon as he squeezed the trigger,the huge shape vanished and he heard the thing crashing through the undergrowth as it ranoff into the night. not surprisingly, the two men slept very littleafter this. they sat up next to the rekindled fire, waitingand watching, but heard nothing more. in the morning, they checked the traps thathad been put out the night before and began

finding locations for new ones. by an unspoken agreement, they stayed withinclose proximity to one another all day and returned together to camp as night began tofall once again. again, they saw that the lean-to had beendestroyed. the visitor from the previous day had apparentlyreturned and had again scattered their gear and belongings. whatever the beast was, it had left more ofthe large, two-legged tracks in the soft earth by the river but neither man had the nerveto follow them. instead, they gathered up as much wood asthey could find and built a roaring fire that

lasted throughout the night. one or the other of them stayed on guard duringthe darkest hours. at one point, both of them heard the creatureapproach once again, staying on the other side of the river. they heard it moving and crashing around inthe forest and once it uttered a harsh, grating moan that chilled both men to the bone. this time, it did not venture near the fire. in the morning, the trappers decided thatthey’d had enough. they were too almost too tired to tend totheir work and believed that they could find

just as good a location somewhere else. they discussed the strange events and decidedthat it would be best to pack up their gear and leave the valley by the afternoon. the men pulled their trap lines all morning,staying close together, and strangely, they found that all of the traps were empty andsprung. it looked as though they had snagged somethingbut then the animals had been removed from the trap. signs and tracks remained behind and the menhurried their work along even faster. ever since leaving camp, they had experiencedthe uncomfortable sensation of being watched

and followed. occasionally, they would hear the snap orcrack of a twig in the gloom of the forest, as well as the rustling of pine trees, andwhile they saw nothing, they became convinced that something was there. by noon, they were within a couple of milesof the camp and there were still three beaver traps to collect from a little pond in a nearbyravine. bauman offered to go and gather them whilehis friend went ahead to the camp and put their gear together. they planned to meet as soon as bauman returnedand then go down the mountain to the horses.

his companion agreed and they parted ways. on reaching the pond, bauman found three beaversin the traps, one of which had pulled loose and had carried the trap into a beaver house. he spent the next several hours securing andpreparing the animals and when he started back to camp, he experienced a sinking feelingas he saw how low the sun was beginning to dip in the sky. as he reached the clearing where the campwas located, bauman called out to his friend but got no reply. the campfire had gone out and the packs laynearby, all secured and ready to go.

the woods were silent and bauman called outagain. once more, he was met with silence. the trapper looked around, at first seeingnothing, but then he glimpsed a splash of color at the edge of the camp. as he walked forward, he spotted the bodyof his friend. he was stretched out on the ground next tothe trunk of a fallen spruce and blood was sprayed all over the ground and the surroundingtrees and bushes. bauman rushed over to the man and found thathis body was still warm. his neck had been broken and his throat hadbeen torn out with what looked to be huge,

sharp teeth. the footprints of the beast that had beenvisiting the camp were marked deep in the surrounding soil and told the story of whathad occurred. bauman's friend, having finished packing theirgear, must have sat down on a log facing the fire, with his back to the woods, to awaithis partner. while he was waiting, the unknown assailant,which must have been lurking in the woods the entire time, came silently up behind theman and broke his neck, while burying its teeth in his throat. it had not eaten the body but had apparentlytossed it around, rolling it over and over,

before retreating back into the woods. bauman was utterly unnerved by his gruesomediscovery. the creature, which they had assumed was abear, was either something half-human or half-devil or some great beast from the stories of theindian medicine men, who spoke of evil beings that haunted the forest depths. roosevelt wrote that bauman "abandoned everythingbut his rifle and struck off at speed down the pass, not halting until he reached themeadows where the hobbled ponies were still grazing. mounting, he rode onward through the night,until far beyond the reach of pursuit."

in 1901, another account of a sasquatch encounterappeared in the daily british colonist. in this story, a lumberman named mike kingstated that he was working alone on vancouver island, near campbell river, because his indianpackers had refused to accompany him, due to their fear of the "monkey men" they saidlived in the forest. late in the afternoon, he observed a "manbeast" washing roots in the river. when the creature became aware of king, itcried out and ran up a nearby hill. king described it as being "covered with reddishbrown hair, and his arms were peculiarly long and were used freely in climbing and brushrunning; while the trail showed a distinct human foot, but with phenomenally long andspreading toes."

three years later, on december 14, 1904,the colonist again featured a sasquatch story, this time from "four credible witnesses" whosaw a man-like creature on vancouver island. in 1907, the newspaper told of the abandonmentof an indian village due to the inhabitants being frightened away by a "monkey-like wildman who appears on the beach at night, who howls in an unearthly fashion." one of the most bizarre bigfoot encountersin history occurred in 1924, although it would not be reported until many years later, in1957. it involved a man who claimed to have beenabducted and held captive by a party of the creatures while on a prospecting trip in britishcolumbia.

although such tales seem to stretch the limitsof believability, those who interviewed the man years later, including esteemed investigatorsjohn green and ivan t. sanderson, did not for a moment doubt his sincerity or his sanity. primatologist john napier remarked that theman gave a "convincing account... which does not ring false in any particular." the same cannot be said for all alleged bigfoot"abductions," though. in 1871, a young girl named seraphine longwas said to have been kidnapped by a male bigfoot and taken to a cave where she washeld prisoner for a year. she eventually got sick and so her captorallowed her to leave.

however, when she returned home, it was discoveredthat she was carrying the creature's baby. she gave birth to the child but it only liveda few days. of course, that was the story. the reader asked to judge the validity ofit for himself. a story with a much more authentic feel toit took place in 1924. that summer, a man named albert ostman wasprospecting for gold near the toba inlet in british columbia. he claimed that he was abducted by bigfoot,and his detailed accounts of the creature's habits and activities remain unique to thisday, leading many of the most respected authorities

in the field to wonder if perhaps he was tellingthe truth about this adventure. toba inlet was a secluded wilderness in 1924when albert ostman decided to visit the area during a much-needed vacation. the construction worker and lumberjack likedto prospect for gold as a hobby, and in addition to doing some hunting and fishing, he plannedto search for a legendary lost gold mine that was rumored to be in the area. ostman hired an indian guide to take him tothe head of the inlet and on the way, the indian told him about a white man who usedto come out of the area laden with gold. when ostman asked the guide what happenedto the man, the guide replied that he had

disappeared and had probably been killed bysasquatch. ostman scoffed at the story, not believinga word of this tall tale. when they reached the inlet, the guide helpedostman to set up his base camp and then he departed. ostman had paid him to return in three weeks. for the first week or so, he hunted and fisheda little and spent quite a bit of time hiking in the woods and searching for any tracesof the lost mine. he was quite casual about the search, though,enjoying the outdoors and the freedom away from his work.

then one day, he returned to camp to findthat his gear had been disturbed. nothing was missing, but it had all been movedaround. ostman assumed that a porcupine or some smallanimal had been looking for food. he tried to stay awake for two nights to tryand catch the annoying animal but each time, he fell asleep. on both mornings when he awoke, he discoveredthat food was missing from his pack. now irritated, and determined to trap theculprit, he loaded his rifle and shoved it down in his sleeping bag, along with his clothesand some of his personal belongings. he planned to stay awake the entire nightand drive off the pesky animal.

despite his good intentions, however, ostmanfell asleep. later on that night, still half asleep, ostmanawoke to find that he had been picked up, still inside his sleeping bag, and was beingcarried through the woods. he first assumed that he had been tied upand thrown over the back of a horse, but then realized that he was pinned into his sleepingbag by two large arms. unable to reach his rifle, or his knife, hewas trapped in the bedroll. there was no sound but the huffing of breathfrom the figure who carried him, the sound of powerful feet trudging through the forestand the occasional rattle of a fry pan and canned food in ostman's pack, which the gianthad also picked up from the camp.

ostman traveled for several hours and estimatedthat he journeyed about thirty miles inland. eventually, he was dumped onto the groundand he slowly crawled out of the sleeping bag in the darkness. his whole body ached from being jostled, andas he was trying to massage some feeling back into his legs, the sun came up and the prospectorgot his first good look at his abductors. squatting nearby were four hairy giants, thesame type of creatures that had been described to ostman by the indian guide. they sat there looking at ostman with curiosity,but did not seem threatening in the least. the two older creatures were male and femaleand the two younger ones were also of both

sexes. the oldest male stood nearly eight feet talland weighed an estimated 750 pounds. the oldest female was slightly smaller andhad large, hanging breasts. the younger creatures were of smaller proportionsthan what ostman assumed were the parents and the younger female had no breasts. all four of them had coarse, dark hair thatcovered their bodies. ostman later recounted that the older femaleseemed to object to his presence during the first day of his captivity. she chattered and grunted angrily at the malelike a nagging housewife displeased by the

presence of an unwanted guest. eventually, her mate seemed to win the dayand was allowed to keep ostman around. the two females avoided him as much as possible,spending their time hunting for roots, nuts and berries. the two male creatures were curious abouteverything the prospector did and found the contents of ostman's pack and sleeping bagto be quite fascinating. he had carried along with him his food, hisrifle, a few pots and pans and his knife. they often looked at these items but nevertouched them, although the oldest creature was very interested in ostman's snuff boxand its contents.

this keen interest would eventually proveto be integral in ostman's escape. two days into his captivity, ostman triedto run away. the sasquatch lived in a small ten-acre basinthat was cut between two cliff walls. a narrow break in the rock provided the onlyentrance. when ostman tried to slip out of the valley,the oldest male quickly caught him and pulled him back into the basin. he considered using his rifle and trying toshoot his way out, but knew that if he did not kill the creature with the first coupleof shots, the beast would surely tear him apart.

after six days, ostman had another idea. he was becoming increasingly nervous of thecreatures because he was starting to get the impression that he had been captured in orderto provide a mate for the younger female. not wanting to spend the rest of his lifein captivity, he began working on a plan to break free. he knew that the elder bigfoot was very interestedin his chewing tobacco. each day, he gave the creature a small amountof it to chew on. he wondered if there might be a way to usethe bigfoot's interest in his snuff to his advantage.

on the morning of the seventh day, ostmanmade a fire for the first time since he had arrived. he decided to make some coffee, which interestedthe two males. as he was eating his breakfast and drinkingcoffee, he decided to try out his idea. he reached over and offered the older creaturesome of his snuff. he held on tightly to the box so that thecreature could only take a small amount, which irritated him. he jerked the box from ostman's hand and proceededto devour the entire contents. he liked the taste so much that he literallylicked clean the inside of the container.

it only took a few moments for the creatureto become violently ill. retching and coughing, he ran towards thestream and collapsed on all fours. at the same time, ostman grabbed his rifleand his pack and began to run. he shot towards the narrow entrance but hisescape attempt was noticed by the older female, who set off after him. he made it to the gap in the rock just secondsbefore she caught up with him and turning quickly, he fired a shot over her head. the creature stopped in her tracks and letout a squeal. she did not pursue him any farther.

using his compass, ostman managed to makehis way back to civilization. after three days, he met up with a party oflumberjacks and told them that he had gotten lost while prospecting. he was sure that no one would ever believehis account of what really happened and he remained silent for more than thirty years,finally telling his story in 1957. although ostman has long since passed away,bigfoot researcher john green knew him for more than twelve years and questioned himextensively about his captivity. he had no reason to consider him a liar andneither did the police officers, primate experts and zoologists who also looked into his account.

none of them ever believed that he was lying. the truth of his story remains for the readerto decide. in july 1924, a weird incident involving agroup of bigfoot occurred in the mount st. helens region of southwestern washington. the incident involved an all-night assaultby unknown creatures on a cabin where a group of miners were staying. the men had been prospecting a claim on themuddy, a branch of the lewis river, about eight miles from spirit lake. one of the most interesting parts of the storyis that there are detailed news articles that

exist from the time of the incident, and therehas been much since then to substantiate the events of that summer. an article in the portland oregonian for july12 noted that the encounters with the creatures were not the first. the article begins by calling these “thefabled ‘mountain devils’ or mountain gorillas of mount st. helens” and mentions that “smithand his companions had seen tracks of the animals several times in the last six years,and indians have told of the ‘mountain devils’ for sixty years.” in the news article, the “devils” aredescribed as “huge animals, which were about

seven feet tall, weighed about four hundredpounds, and walked erect.” tracks “thirteen to fourteen inches long”were found where the animals were seen. in 1967, fred beck, who was one of the miners,and his son, r.a. beck, privately published a small bookletabout the incident called i fought the apemen of mt. st. helens. for many years, prior to the advent of theinternet, it was extremely hard to find. since then, the story has become a classicof bigfoot literature and is essential to the narrative of bigfoot in historical terms. but this case may be even stranger than mostpeople believe.

and when it comes to bigfoot stories, that’sreally saying something. starting in 1918, fred beck and his partners– marion smith, his son roy smith, gabe lefever and john peterson – began prospectingfor gold in the mt. st. helens and lewis river area of southwestern washington. before they built a cabin, they lived in atent below a small mountain called pumy butte. there was a small creek nearby and a sandbarthat was about an acre in size where they went to wash their dishes and get drinkingwater. early one morning in 1922, one of the mencame back to the camp and urged the others to follow him back to the creek.

when they got to the sandbar, he showed themtwo huge, human-like tracks that were sunk about four inches deep into the sand. strangely, there were no other tracks nearby. because the nearest place where someone couldhave jumped and landed in the center of the sandbar was 160 feet away, the men reasonedthat the creature either had a huge stride, or “something dropped from the sky and wentback up.” as time passed, the miners came upon similartracks, which they could not identify. the largest of them was nineteen inches long. after they had built their cabin, beck and

the other four miners who were working theclaim would hear a strange “thudding, hollow thumping noise” in broad daylight. they could not find the cause, though theysuspected one of their number might be playing tricks on them. that proved not to be the case, since evenwhen the group was gathered together, the sound continued all around them. they thought it sounded as if “there’sa hollow drum in the earth somewhere and something is hitting it.” these were not the last strange sounds theywould hear.

early in july 1924, a shrill whistling, apparentlycoming from atop a ridge, was heard in the evening. an answering whistle came from another ridge. these sounds, along with a booming “thumping,”as if something huge was pounding its chest, continued every evening for a week. thoroughly unnerved by what they were hearing,the men began carrying their rifles with them when they went to the spring that was locatedabout one hundred yards from the cabin. beck and a man only identified as “hank”in order to protect his anonymity (it was later revealed that it was marion smith) weredrawing water from the spring when hank yelled

and raised his gun. beck looked across a little canyon and sawa seven-foot-tall apelike creature standing next to a pine tree. the creature, about one hundred yards awayfrom the two men, ducked quickly behind the tree. when it poked its head out to get a look atthem, hank fired three quick shots, hitting the tree but apparently missing the creature,which momentarily disappeared from sight. it then reappeared about two hundred yardsdown the canyon, and this time beck managed to get off three shots before it was gone.

unnerved by the encounter, hank and beck ranback to the cabin and spoke to the other two men there. the third member of the party was absent. they agreed to abandon the cabin, but notuntil daybreak. it was too risky to try and make it back totheir car after dark. they went ahead and packed up most of theirgear, ate some supper and then settled down to try and get some sleep. around midnight, they awakened to a tremendousthud against the cabin wall. whatever it was, it hit the wall with suchforce that some of the chinking between the

logs fell out and landed on hank’s chest. the impact was followed by what sounded likea group of people tramping about and running around outside. the men grabbed their guns, fearing the worst. since the crude cabin had no windows, hanktried peering out through the gap that had been opened between the logs when the chinkinghad been dislodged. he said that he spotted three of the “apes”outside. from the sounds the men could hear, therewere likely many more of them. the creatures pelted the cabin with rocks.

the men inside were terrified – in fact,two of the miners cowered in fear in the corner – but beck said that they should only fireat the creatures if they physically attacked the cabin. this would show that the miners were onlydefending themselves. a short time later, beck’s worst fears cametrue. the “apes” began to attack the cabin. some of them jumped up and down on the roof,trying to get it to collapse. hack and beck fired upwards through the roof,hoping to scare them away. in the meantime, other creatures were tryingto break down the door, slamming against it

as they tried to smash it open. the miners inside braced the door with a longboard that was taken from a bunk bed. it seemed to hold, but beck and hank riddledthe door with bullets in an attempt to frighten the invaders away. the attacks continued all night, pausing onlyfor short periods of eerie silence. at one point, a creature reached through thegap between the logs and grabbed an axe by the handle. beck lunged forward and turned the axe uprightso that the creature couldn’t get it out. as he was doing so, a bullet fired by hankbarely missed the creature’s hand.

it quickly withdrew its arm and retreated. finally, just before daybreak, the attackended. the beleaguered miners waited for the sunto rise and then cautiously stepped outside, guns in hand. a few minutes later, beck saw one of the creaturesabout eighty yards away, standing near the edge of the canyon. taking careful aim, he fired three times andthen watched as it fell over the cliff and plunged down into the gorge four hundred feetbelow. the men hastily departed, heading for spiritlake, washington, and leaving $200 worth of

supplies and equipment behind. they never returned to retrieve any of it. at spirit lake, hank told a forest rangerabout their experience. once back home in kelso, the story leakedto the newspapers and caused a sensation. reporters found giant tracks at the scene,but no other evidence of the creatures. the canyon where the incident allegedly occurredbecame known as ape canyon and it still bears that name today. as mentioned, the tale has become a classicof bigfoot literature and while it’s certainly strange, it’s gotten even stranger overthe years.

in the 1967 booklet that beck wrote with hisson, he gave the experience a completely different spin, noting that even prior to the encounter,he had numerous psychic experiences, including many with supernatural “people.” he was convinced that the “apemen” were“not entirely of this world… i was, for one, always conscious that we weredealing with supernatural beings.” beck stated that he believed that creaturesknown as sasquatch were from “another dimension” and were a link between human and animal consciousness. they are composed of a substance that rangesbetween the physical and the psychical, sometimes more of one than the other, he said, and becauseof their peculiar nature, none will ever be

captured, nor will their bodies ever be found. according to the booklet, beck saw the entireexperience as spiritual, with the thumping as poltergeist activity and the bigfoot asspirits. it’s hard to say whether or not beck’s1967 booklet was merely the fantasy of an old man, or was due to the contemporary 1960sinfluences of his son, who wrote a large section of it. but he had certainly changed his views onthe 1924 events during the four decades after they happened. it should be noted that fred beck never mentionedthe paranormal when bigfoot researchers interviewed

him about his experiences in the early 1960s. the paranormal elements popped up when beckand his son decided to tell the story in 1967. the news stories of the 1920s seem to be closerto the actual details of the event. those stories told of ape-like creatures thatwere far shorter than our standard idea of bigfoot, with smaller strides and footprints. the articles, which were a series of storiesfrom the kelso area between 1918 and 1924, also mentioned four stubby toes, as opposedto the five toes normally included in modern bigfoot reports. according the newspaper articles, the nativeamericans in the region called the reported

creatures seeahtiks, siatcoes and selahtiks. in july 1924, the sheriff sent out searchparties, but only footprints were ever found. regardless of how you look at it, the storyof ape canyon is a strange tale and presents another classic example of the historicalbigfoot. sasquatch sightings and encounters continuedand were occasionally mentioned in newspaper accounts, most of them issuing from canada. bigfoot did not enter the american mainstreamuntil 1958, when the now-infamous tracks were discovered at bluff creek. this was a time when america's fascinationwith bigfoot was only beginning.

through the remainder of the 1950s, the 1960sand the 1970s, interest in these elusive creatures reached its high point. after a cooling down period of about two decades,when only bigfoot hunters and diehard enthusiasts were seeking information about sasquatch,public interest began to rise in the late 1990s and continues today. but that interest has not been without controversy. by the decade of the 1960s, bigfoot was firmlyentrenched in the american imagination. though scientists refused to admit that whatwitnesses were seeing was actually what they claimed to see, a number of investigatorshad begun seeking out sightings and venturing

into the forest, hoping to catch a glimpseof one of the monsters. books began to appear and articles began togenerate even more interest with readers of magazines like true and saga. among the amateur investigators who went lookingfor bigfoot was roger patterson, a onetime rodeo rider, amateur documentary film makerand bigfoot hunter. in 1967, patterson was barely scraping byas an inventor and promoter when his interest was piqued by a 1959 true magazine articleabout bigfoot. from them on, he devoted as much of his sparetime as possible to roaming the woods of the pacific northwest in search of the elusivecreature.

patterson always carried a motion picturecamera with him on his expeditions, hoping that he might be able to catch one of themonsters on film. around 1:15 in the afternoon on october 20,1967, patterson and a friend, bob gimlin, were riding on horseback north along a drystretch of bluff creek in the six rivers national forest of northern california. at one point, a large pile of logs in themiddle of the stream bed blocked their path, and they had to maneuver their horses aroundto the east. as they rode along the logs, they veered leftand resumed their original course, only to see something that still has investigatorsand researchers puzzled today.

a female bigfoot stood up from the creek whereshe had been squatting and walked away from the approaching men and horses, moving brisklyand swinging her arms as she moved toward at the same time this occurred, all threehorses (including the pack horse) began to panic. patterson's horse reared up and fell oversideways, but managed to stagger back to its feet again. as it did, patterson quickly reached for the16mm camera in his saddlebag and began to follow the creature, filming as he went. unfortunately, only 28 feet of film remainedin the camera but patterson managed to use

it to record the bigfoot's escape from threedifferent positions. after his return to civilization, pattersonenlisted the help of researcher john green to get some sort of scientific confirmationof the evidence that he had captured, without any luck. the amateur investigator was ignored and beratedby the established scientific community, so in 1968, he took his case to the public. after padding his film footage with a documentary-stylelook at other evidence gathered in the search for bigfoot, he went on a tour of the americanwest, renting small theaters and auditoriums for one-night shows and lectures.

since that time, the footage has gone on tobecome one of the most famous -- and most controversial -- pieces of bigfoot evidence. patterson's life was cut short in 1972 whenhe died, nearly broke, from hodgkin's disease, but he swore to the end that the sightingand the film were authentic. bob gimlin also maintained that the eventsreally took place and that his friend's film was the genuine article. gimlin did not start out as a believer inthe creature. he was interested but unconvinced and onlycame along on patterson’s expeditions out of friendship, rather than a belief that theywould actually find anything.

"he'd talk about it around the campfire,"he said in an interview. "i didn't care, but after a time you'd findyourself looking for the doggone thing too." the first investigator on the scene of thesighting was a man named bob titmus, who found tracks that matched the creature's stridedepicted in the film. he made ten casts of them and discovered thatthe footprints led up a small hill, where the creature had paused to look back on themen below. patterson and gimlin had elected to recovertheir horses rather than pursue the bigfoot and risk being stranded in the wilderness. the legacy of patterson’s film lives on,despite the fact that it has never settled

the question as to whether or not bigfootexists in the forests of america. researchers have argued about the speed ofthe film, the gait of the creature, the length of its stride and more. most biologists and zoologists who have studiedit remain noncommittal. film experts and individuals experienced withhoaxes have been unable to find evidence that it is not authentic. for this reason, the film has never been successfullydebunked. of course, that's not for lack of trying. recent claims against the validity of thefilm have stated that the bigfoot was actually

a man in a monkey suit. some maintain that patterson and gimlin wereknowing participants in the hoax, and that they rented the suit with the idea of profitingfrom the resulting film. this is in spite of the fact that the menmade very little money from it and patterson died nearly broke. regardless, this theory has it that pattersonand gimlin (who were both barely making ends meetâ  as rodeo riders in 1967) rented anexpensive costume, transported it to an area that was nearly inaccessible by car and cleverlyshot the grainy, jerky and poorly executed film.

defenders of the film believe this is ridiculousand state that a frame-by-frame analysis of the footage shows a creature that does notwalk like a man. anthropologist grover krantz demonstratedthat humans lock their knees when they walk, but the filmed bigfoot does not do this. it would have been very difficult for a hoaxerto pull off and still walk as smoothly as this creature does. in addition, after viewing the film with bigfootinvestigator peter byrne in 1973, the chief technician at disney studios stated that "theonly place in the world a simulation of that quality could be created would be here, atdisney studios, and this footage was not made

here." if the bigfoot was a fake, it was one thatwas very, very well done. and while the disney tech may have been overstatingthe importance of his studio, there were very few places that such a film (or a suit likethat) could have been made in the late 1960s. even the detractors grudgingly agree thatpatterson and gimlin did not have the resources to pull off a hoax of that magnitude, andcertainly could not have paid to have such a convincing-looking suit created. only two companies could have created a costumeof that type, at that time, and both claimed that they did not do so.

to make matters more mysterious, the personin the suit (if there was one) has remained silent for more than thirty-five years, ignoringthe opportunity for financial gain by confessing. interestingly, a more popular theory as towho made the suit has emerged within the last few years. according to some conspiracy theorists, thepatterson bigfoot was actually a man wearing a suit created by master makeup artist johnchambers, who created the makeup for the classic film planet of the apes, along with numerousother makeup credits. the debunkers have fixed on chambers for acouple of reasons, including his award-winning makeup effects for the movie and also forthe fact that the movie finished filming on

august 10, 1967, just a couple of months beforepatterson's encounter. the idea is that patterson could have easilyrented one of the surplus monkey suits for his own purposes. even though this seems somewhat plausible,the theory has its problems. for one thing, the bigfoot in patterson'sfilm looks nothing like the apes that were created for the movie. the apes in planet of the apes were not suitsbut were mostly facial makeup. the bigfoot in patterson's film does not resemblethese apes at all. the idea that chambers may have created thebigfoot suit was apparently the result of

director john landis joking about it to somefriends at a party. as anyone who knows anything about hollywoodknows, you can't take every rumor you hear seriously in that town. to complicate things further, chambers repeatedlydenied the claims until his death. he told interviewers that he was "good, butnot that good" in response to the story. it has been the general consensus that chambersenjoyed having people think that he might have made the suit because it bolstered hisskills as an artist. the truth is that it's very unlikely thathe made it. in spite of this, the story lives on.

to this day, the debate continues to rage. many bigfoot experts believe that it is validfootage of an unknown creature, but just as many people laugh when the subject is broughtup. while i see that it might be possible forchambers to have created the suit and helped to perpetrate a hoax, i really have to askif it's plausible. i have no hard evidence to back up my opinionthat the film is genuine. i have followed the debate for quite sometime and have found nothing to convince me that this is a person wearing a costume. based on the time period, i don't think thatenough information had been made available

to the general public for someone to haveimitated a creature in the way that the bigfoot moves in the patterson film. just because chambers could (and this is debatable)have made the suit does not mean that he did. after the remarkable film footage obtainedby roger patterson began making the rounds, the feeling in bigfoot circles seemed to bethat they were close to catching the animal. over the years, there have been literallythousands of fraudulent footprints, photos and film that have been "discovered" sincebigfoot entered the mainstream. while much of the alleged evidence appearsdubious at best, other bigfoot so-called “evidence” has managed to defy easy explanation.

when such evidence appeared, it gave researchersthe feeling that anything could happen next. in the wake of the patterson film, the nextmajor event to occur was in bossburg, in the extreme northwest corner of washington state. on november 24, 1969, near bossburg’s towndump, a butcher named joseph rhodes found a bizarre set of tracks. they appeared to belong to a creature thatwalked on two feet, one of which was deformed. the word spread quickly among bigfoot researchers,including rene dahinden, a canadian who spent decades conducting field investigations andinterviews throughout the northwest. he was a major advocate for the authenticityof the patterson film and the character of

the french canadian bigfoot hunter in thefilm harry and the hendersons was based on him. when dahinden arrived in bossburg, he foundand covered one of the better pair of tracks. one clearly shows that the right foot thathad made the track was deformed. it looked as if it had two bumps out to theside and only four toes showing. using what he had available (a cardboard box),dahinden casually preserved what many consider to be one of the best pieces of bigfoot evidenceever found. from seven hundred miles away, in western british columbia, bob titmus, a taxidermistand bigfoot researcher who taught jerry crew

how to make plaster casts of the tracks atbluff creek in 1958, made his way to bossburg. his behavior seemed eccentric to dahinden,who wrote that titmus, “went out and bought an eight-pound slab of beef and hung it ina tree. i believe that he was sitting out there atnight in a panel truck, watching the meat, thinking that if this thing was a crippleand was living off the garbage dump, when it came along, he would just grab it by thearse and throw it in the truck and run off home with it.” another bigfoot hunter named norm davishad a similar plan. he put out a big bowl of fruit in the hopeof luring bigfoot.

titmus left within three days. dahinden and davis became friendly and begansharing a trailer, which they moved onto land that belonged to ivan marx, who had been partof the tom slick expedition to look for the yeti a few years before. the three of them combined resources to continuethe search around bossburg. on december 13, 1969, after a significantsnowfall, dahinden, marx and a local man named jim hopkins went scouting for signs of bigfootaround roosevelt lake. it was there that they stumbled upon a seriesof 1,089 tracks: the remains of the best footprints ever discovered in america.

they measured 17-1/2 inches long and aboutseven inches wide and seemed to indicate that the creature that left them had a right clubfoot,the result, some surmised, of a childhood injury. this minor detail seemed to rule out any chanceof a fraud for it's unlikely that any hoaxer would have gone to the trouble to includethis deformity in such a huge number of tracks. the unusually long trail followed waterways,going around a lake and along a river. it crossed railroad tracks, and stepped overa five-wire fence that was forty-three inches high. then, the creature rested, apparently in adepression in the floor of the pine forest,

before going up a hill, then back down, leavinga patch of yellow snow where it had relieved itself. from there, the bigfoot appeared to backtrack,going through some underbrush, and to an overhang by the river’s edge. the trail of tracks finally vanished wherethe creature descended the river’s bank to the rocky edge where the trail could notbe followed. dahinden photographed the tracks carefullyand examined each print along the route. the three men did not have many resources,so they kept some of the prints from the snow in marx’s freezer.

they were later inadvertently destroyed. regardless, plenty of proof existed to showthat the prints were real. their sheer number and occurrence in a remoteand seldom-traveled area argued against a hoax. why would someone go to the trouble of creatingphony bigfoot tracks in a place where no one would likely ever see them? not surprisingly, when word of the tracksleaked out, tourists with cameras descended on the area, ruining and trampling the fragileevidence. but the bossburg events continued anyway.

a u.s. border patrol officer found new trackson the far side of the river on december 18. the distinctive prints of the crippled rightfoot could be seen, though a recent rain had mostly washed them out. more bigfoot hunters arrived, including royfardell and roger st. hillaire, a young zoologist from san francisco; roger patterson and hisassociate, dennis jensen. patterson came and went, but jensen stayedbehind to “protect” patterson’s role in the hunt. ohio millionaire tom page pledged money tothe hunt and soon off-road vehicles and snowmobiles arrived and the hunters were backed up byair searchers.

dahinden, patterson, marx, jensen, fardell,st. hillaire and others held together as a loosely-knit group of hunters through mostof early january 1970. then on january 27, a startling announcementwas received at the hunters’ camp. on that day, joe metlow began claiming thathe had found a cream-colored sasquatch, discovered where it lived, and had captured it in itscave. he wanted the researchers to start biddingfor the cave’s location. patterson was being marginally funded by tompage and he was on the telephone to page right away. page flew out to meet him and the big splitbetween the patterson camp and the dahinden

camp began. page was initially willing to spend $35,000for a bigfoot, dead or alive. then dahinden got into the bidding and researcherjohn green came to bossburg. green essentially served as a mediator betweenthe two camps. the bidding had reached $55,000 for the bigfoot. page’s helicopter was standing by at colvilleairport to take the creature away. things were reaching circus-like proportions. the problem was that metlow’s story keptchanging. dahinden, during a moment of truce with thepatterson camp, paid a visit with dennis jensen

to metlow’s home. conversation was general and friendly untilmetlow casually mentioned that he had a sasquatch foot in his freezer. dahinden became excited and offered $500 fora look at the specimen. metlow demanded $5,000. before anything could be confirmed, a cronyof metlow had a contract sketched out that would include john green to write a book aboutthe discovery, bob titmus to skin and dissect the owner of the foot – presumably stashedin a cave somewhere above the snow line – and dr. grover krantz to present the creatureto science.

dahinden was soon shut out of the mix, andso was patterson. after a series of fruitless searches, followinginstructions provided by metlow, the bigfoot hunters figured out that there was nothingto his wild claims and things grew heated and raw in bossburg. a lot of time, money and energy had been wasted. the hunters left town discouraged, but a littlemore aware of the shenanigans that would often run rampant in the bigfoot hunting field. but that wasn’t the end of the bossburgstory. rene dahinden kept in touch with ivan marxthroughout 1970 and marx always had some new,

exciting find to tell him about: a new footprint,some handprints and even a new bigfoot film in 1971. tom page returned to the area, offering marx$25,000 for the film, but it turned out to be a hoax. researcher and author john green called marx“the biggest, well, yarn-spinner in california.” marx had lived in california for many yearsbut had moved to bossburg in 1969. the famed bossburg “crippled” footprintsstarted soon after and continued until 1971, with dahinden, krantz, green, patterson andothers finding their way to the area. millionaire bigfoot enthusiast tom page madean appearance and researcher peter byrne reportedly

put marx on a $750 monthly retainer as a sasquatchhunter after the 1971 film surfaced. but byrne soon discovered that the film wasa fake. were the bossburg prints authentic, or werethey, as some researchers came to believe, the product of ivan marx? in 1978, john green simply stated: “i tendto write off the whole bossburg episode to entertainment.” but not everyone agreed. many believe the prints were genuine, theirreputation damaged by the questionable activities (and people) that surrounded the incident.

the casts that still exist of the crippledtracks led authorities like grover krantz, the late anthropologist who was one of thefirst academics to consider the possibility that bigfoot exists, to believe in their reality. anthropologist john napier also felt the trackswere genuine. he wrote, “either some of the footprintsare real, or all are fakes. if they are all fakes, then an explanationinvoking legend and folk memory is adequate to explain the mystery. but if any of them is real, then as scientistswe have a lot to explain. among other things we will have to rewritethe story of human evolution.

we shall have to accept that homo sapiensis not the one and only living product of the hominid line, and we shall have to admitthat there are still major mysteries to be solved in the world we thought we knew sowell.” the grover krantz-certified footprints havebecome famous in the bigfoot community and have been largely accepted as authentic, atleast to everyone who considers the possibility of the existence of bigfoot. but the question still remains: was ivan marxmerely lucky once and then attempted to stay in the limelight through hoaxes later on? or was the bossburg incident, from start tofinish, just an entertaining episode that

we can only view today as a cautionary tale? the reader will have to be the judge. growing up in illinois, and always being insearch of the strange and unusual, i discovered the works of author loren coleman, anothercentral illinois native who went on to write a number of books and articles on the state’smysterious monsters. loren’s passion for high strangeness wasinfectious, and i was soon tracking down the sources of his stories – as well as stumblinginto a few of my own. for more than a century, reports have filteredout of rural and southern illinois about strange, man-like beasts that resemble a cross betweenman and ape.

most witnesses talk of their odd appearanceand the horrible odor that seems to accompany them. the stories of these bigfoot creatures havebeen passed along from generation to generation and have long been chronicled by both professionaland amateur researchers. there are so many reports of bigfoot in illinoisthat it is only rivaled by the pacific northwest for its number of creature sightings. some of the classics of bigfoot literaturestem from illinois, which makes it worth mentioning in this chapter. the earliest sighting that i could find fromthis region comes from centreville in september

1883 and concerned a “wild man” that wasseen in the nearby woods. he was described as a “naked roaming madman,”who had been “roaming around the country” for several days and had been causing “intenseexcitement and consternation” among the rural folks who lived in and around this smallcommunity. the man was described as having a long, darkbeard and his body was covered with matted hair. he had a tall “athletic form” and a fiercelook in his eyes that “make him exceedingly unpleasant to meet in a lonely spot.” the creature was first seen by the wife ofdr. john saltenberger, who was returning home

shortly after nightfall when she saw him creepingout of the orchard on her property. as he made a quick rush toward her horse andbuggy, mrs. saltenberger lashed frantically at him with her whip and then snapped thereins. the horse picked up the pace but the creaturestayed close behind and then, suddenly, it leapt onto the back of the carriage. he only remained there for a few moments beforejumping down and running into the woods. needless to say, mrs. saltenberger was terrifiedby the encounter. the following day, her husband placed a telephonecall to belleville and asked the sheriff to come and capture the creature.

he was joined in his hunt by several youngmen from the area but despite a thorough search of the woods around centreville, the monsternever turned up. after that, the next report dates to around1912. a woman named beulah schroat reported thatshe and her brothers had often encountered hairy creatures in the woods near their homeoutside of effingham when they were children. according to her description, the beasts stoodon their hind legs and were about as tall as a normal people, with large eyes and copiousamounts of hair. the creatures seemed very shy and harmlessand always ran away whenever they were approached. the children usually saw them near a smallcreek on the farm, where they waded and splashed

about. mrs. schroat said that her brothers wouldoften run to the house after an encounter to report the sighting, but their parentsdismissed the stories as practical jokes until they found an article about similar monstersin a chicago newspaper. the next documented account was a brief reportabout a man-like beast covered in brown hair and with an apelike face that was spottednear alton in 1925. there are unfortunately no other details toaccompany this account. another report comes not long after the altonsighting. in this brief snippet, we find that a "hugegorilla" was seen in the woods near elizabeth

in july 1929. then, in 1941, the reverend lepton harpolewas hunting squirrels near mt. vernon when he encountered a large creature that "lookedsomething like a baboon." he struck it with the butt of his rifle andfired a warning shot that sent it scurrying back into the underbrush. more sightings of the same creature occurredthe next year, and searches were conducted along the gun creek bottoms in hopes of trackingthe creature down. more than 1,500 men attempted to flush outthe beast, which was said to have a “wildcat’s scream,” combing the bottoms with shotgunsand rifles at the ready.

the animal was blamed for the death of a dogin the vicinity. no trace of it was ever found. from the 1940s and into the 1960s, huge printswere discovered along the marshy areas of indian creek in southwestern illinois. the creature leaving the tracks was dubbedthe “gooseville bear,” taking its name from an area of farmland and small businessesthat were located about three miles east of bethalto at the intersection of route 140and indian creek. some identified the tracks as belonging toa bear but others insisted that they were man-like.

whatever the beast was, it was never seen,and after leaving its mark on the area for almost two decades, it disappeared. in 1962, a grayish-colored creature was spottedby steven collins and robert earle standing in a riverbed east of decatur, just off ofeast williams street road. the monster was looming upright in the water,looking straight at them. at first, they thought it was a bear, untilthey noticed its strange, human-like features. the creature vanished into the woods and theastonished witnesses told the local newspaper that it was "like no other animal we had everseen before." in september 1965, four young people wereparked in a car near an undeveloped area outside

of decatur called montezuma hills. the area would later become a housing additionbut at that time, it was a secluded lovers’ lane. the young couples were sitting in the carwhen a black, man-like shape approached the vehicle. the creature seemed massive and it frightenedthe teenagers badly. they drove off in a panic, but after droppingoff their dates at home, the two young men returned to the area for another look. they once again saw the monster, and it walkedup to their car as though it were curious.

the boys were too scared to get out, but evenwith the windows rolled up, they gagged at the monster’s horrible stench. they quickly summoned the police, and withseveral officers as support, they made a thorough, but fruitless, search of the woods. the police officers said they had no ideawhat the young people had witnessed, but they were obviously very frightened by whateverit had been. another man-like creature was encounterednear chittyville in august 1968. two young people, tim bullock and barbarasmith, were driving north of town on august 11 when they spotted a ten-foot-tall monsterthat was covered with black hair and had a

round face. it threw dirt at their car and they quicklyleft to summon the police. when the authorities returned, they founda large depression in the grass that was apparently a nest. local residents claimed that their dogs hadbeen "carrying on" for the two weeks before the encounter. another frightening encounter occurred aboutone month later, in september 1968, a few miles outside of carpentersville in cook county. two young men were driving along some backroads, searching for a party they had been

invited to, and got lost somewhere east ofwhat is now barrington hills. as they drove along the wooded roads, theystopped and then started to turn around and drive back towards carpentersville when theysaw something at the edge of the road. a creature, which the witnesses stated was“about as tall as our ford van,” started out across the roadway, about fifteen to twentyfeet in front of their vehicle. the creature had a long stride, stood uprightand was covered with dark brown (almost black) hair that was matted and longer in some spots. it swung its arms as it walked, in a mannerthat suggested they were too long for its torso.

as it crossed the road, it turned and lookedat the two men. its face was covered with hair, except aroundthe eyes, nose and mouth. its face was flat, they said, more like anape’s than a man’s. as the driver was backing up and turning thevehicle around, the passenger looked to his right as they pulled away. what he saw gave him quite a fright: the creaturehad changed direction, as if to chase their van! they were terrified as “it looked so powerfulthat it could have torn the doors off the van with no trouble whatsoever.”

they immediately left the area and did notreturn for another look at whatever they had encountered there in the woods. a violent encounter with some sort of hairymonster occurred about one month later, in october 1968, just outside lewiston in fultoncounty. at about 9:30 p.m. one friday evening, threehigh school boys in a truck were following a friend in his car near the dutch henry crossing. all at once, the boys in the truck were forcedto stop, as they saw their friend’s car was now parked crossways in the road in frontof them. in the headlights, they could see their friendlying on the road, seemingly unconscious.

the boys got out of the truck and were walkingtoward the other boy when something came out of the darkness and knocked them to the ground. each time they tried to get up, they wereknocked back down again. the boys later reported that, whatever itwas, it did not hit them with its fists but backhanded them with terrific force. at one point, the boys managed to wrestlethe creature to the ground, but it knocked them aside with ease. during the fighting, the first boy, whom theothers had discovered lying on the ground, ran for the truck and locked the doors.

he said he got a fairly good look at the creature,and that it was not too tall but was very strongly built and seemed to be very hairy. too terrified to get out of the truck, heremained there until something frightened the monster away. it vanished into the woods. the boys were not badly harmed but they wereshaken up and the incident was reported to the local police. no trace of the creature was ever found. one of the strangest illinois incidents tookplace in july 1970, near farmer city.

early that spring, three sheep had been killednear town. local officials dismissed it as the work ofwild dogs, which had been known to roam the area. outside the small town, near salt creek, wasa ten-acre section of woods and fields that was a popular parking spot for teenagers. three teenagers decided to camp out thereone night. very late in the evening, they reported hearingsomething approaching their campsite in the tall grass. they turned a light in that direction andsaw a huge, black shape crouching near their

tent. the shape had a pair of gleaming, yellow eyes,which was a color that would be repeated in every account to follow. the terrified screams of the teenagers scaredthe creature and all of them ran off in different directions. stories about the "farmer city monster" quicklyspread. dozens of people reported seeing the creatureover the next several days, with all of the sightings taking place near the wooded areaoutside of town. robert hayslip, a farmer city police officerwho investigated the scene, reported his own

encounter. in the early morning hours of july 15, hesaw the broad back of the creature moving along the trees. the creature turned in his direction and hayslipnoted its yellow eyes. the local police chief, who until that pointhad been skeptical about the sightings, decided to close off the area. the creature was soon to move on. on july 24, a couple driving near weldon springsstate park, outside of clinton, saw what looked like a huge bear in the river.

later, a policeman and a conservation officerfound tracks along the water‘s edge that definitely did not belong to a bear. they were reportedly very large and human-like. a few days later, farther north, a woman caughtthe reflection of eyes with her car headlights as she was traveling outside bloomington. she thought the eyes might belong to a dogthat had been injured by a passing car, so she stopped and approached the ditch whereshe had seen the eyes shining. suddenly, a large creature jumped out of theditch and ran away on two legs. she was unsure about what she had seen, butwhatever it was, it seemed ape-like.

later that same week, another witness reportedseeing an identical creature near heyworth. on august 11, three young men reported seeinga large, dark-haired creature near waynesville, and five days later, construction workerssaw the creature near the same location. it ran across the highway in front of theirtruck and disappeared into the forest. that was the last report of the so-called"farmer city monster." one can’t help but wonder if it continuedits strange journey northwest across central illinois. if it did, it was never reported again. in may 1972, there were new reports comingin from the pekin and peoria areas.

in late may, a young man named randy emmert,along with some of his friends, reported a large, hairy creature near cole hollow road. this monster was eight to ten feet tall andwhitish in color. the witnesses stated that it made a loud,screeching sound and they suspected that it was living in a hole beneath an abandonedhouse. it left very unusual tracks, having only threetoes on each foot. soon, others were reporting the same monsterand it became known as "cohomo," short for the "cole hollow road monster". on may 25, local police logged more than twohundred calls about the monster, including

one where the creature destroyed a fence. the police departments were naturally skeptical,but the calls kept coming in. by july 1972, there had been so many sightingsthat nearly one hundred volunteers were organized to search for cohomo. tazewell county sheriff's officers eventuallysent the volunteers home after one of them, carl r. harris, accidentally shot himselfin the leg with a .22 caliber pistol. the sightings continued and they couldn'tbe written off to local panic, either. one witness, from eureka knew nothing aboutthe creature, yet happened to be in fondulac park, in east peoria, for a birthday partywhen he spotted it.

he reported the creature and, strangely, aset of strange lights that seemed to descend vertically and land behind some trees. were the two sightings connected? no one knows, but whatever the creature was,it was gone. in the summer of 1973, the town of murphysboroin southwestern illinois became the scene of a series of monster sightings. the enigmatic creature, now recalled as the“murphysboro mud monster,” or the “big muddy monster,” appeared without warningand then suddenly disappeared two weeks later, seemingly without a trace.

in its wake, the monster left a number ofconfused and frightened witnesses, baffled law enforcement officials and an enduringlegend. the monster that wreaked havoc in murphysborowas first seen around midnight on monday, june 25, 1973. on that humid and steamy night, a young couple,randy needham and judy johnson, were parked near a boat ramp into the big muddy rivernear murphysboro. the night was quiet until a strange, roaringcry shattered the stillness. it came from the nearby woods and randy andjudy looked up to see a huge shape lumbering toward them from out of the shadows.

whatever it was, it walked on two legs andcontinued to make the horrible sound. they later described the noise as "somethingnot human." according to their account, the monster wasabout seven feet tall and was covered with matted, whitish hair. the "fur" was streaked with mud from the river. as it lurched toward them, the tone of thecreature's cry began to change, alarming them even further. when the creature approached to within twentyfeet of them, they quickly fled the scene, and went directly to the murphysboro policestation.

"they were absolutely terrified," former policechief ron manwaring recalled in 2003, the thirtieth anniversary of the sightings. the retired officer agreed to be interviewedabout the case and remembered all that he could about what happened. "i'm convinced that they saw something thatnight... i can't tell you what it was that they saw,whether it was a bear or something else. but something was definitely there." a short time later, officers meryl lindsayand jimmie nash responded to the area and surveyed the scene.

although skeptical, they were surprised tofind that a number of footprints had been left in the mud. the footprints were "approximately 10-12 incheslong and approximately three inches wide." at 2:00 a.m., nash, lindsay, a jackson countysheriff's deputy named bob scott, and randy needham returned to the scene. this time, they discovered more tracks andlindsay left to go get a camera. the others followed the new footprints, tracingtheir path along the river. suddenly, from the woods about one hundredyards away, they heard the creature's terrifying scream.

they didn't wait to see if they could spotthe monster. they made a quick retreat for the patrol carinstead. needham later recalled that the sheriff'sdeputy was so scared that he dropped his gun into the mud. after waiting in the darkness for a littlewhile, they got back out of the patrol car and spent the rest of the night trying totrack down a splashing sound they heard in the distance. things quieted down after daylight, but thenext night, the creature was back. the first to see the monster this time wasa four-year-old boy named christian baril,

who told his parents that he saw a "big whiteghost in the yard." they didn't believe him, but when randy creathand cheryl ray saw an identical monster in a neighboring yard just ten minutes later,christian's parents, and the police, quickly reconsidered the little boy's statement. randy and cheryl spotted the monster at about10:30 p.m. while sitting on the back porch of the ray house. they heard the sound of something moving inthe woods near the river and then spotted the muddy, white creature staring at themwith glowing, pink eyes. cheryl would insist that the eyes were actuallyglowing and were not reflecting light from

some other source. they estimated that it weighed at least 350pounds, stood seven feet tall, had a roundish head and long, ape-like arms. cheryl turned on the porch light and randywent for a closer look. the creature seemed unconcerned and finallyambled off into the woods. investigators would later find a trail ofbroken tree branches and crushed undergrowth, along with a number of large footprints. they also noticed a strong odor left in themonster's wake, which lingered for a short time.

the officers who arrived on the scene, jimmienash and chief ron manwaring, quickly summoned jerry nellis, a local dog handler who oftenassisted the police department in searching buildings and tracking suspects. he brought a german shepherd to go in pursuitof the monster. the dog followed a trail through the weedsand then managed to track the creature through the woods and down a hill to a small pond. eventually, the trees and undergrowth becametoo thick for the dog to continue and he was put back on the leash after almost pullingnellis off a steep embankment. the officers began searching the area withflashlights, and the dog began sniffing near

the trees, hoping to pick up the scent again. he then set off toward an abandoned barn,but refused to go inside. instead, the animal began shaking with fearand started barking. nellis called the two officers over and theyopened the barn and went inside. after a few moments, they realized that itwas empty. the three men were puzzled. the dog had been trained to search buildingsand nellis could not explain why it had refused to enter the barn. a short time later, the search was calledoff for the night.

the mud monster was reported two more timesthat summer. on the night of july 4, traveling carnivalworkers stated that they spotted the creature disturbing some shetland ponies that werebeing used for the holiday celebration at riverside park. this report actually came in on july 7, becausethe carnival owner was concerned that the sighting might scare away potential customers. however, he did tell the police that severalof his workers noticed the ponies attempting to break loose from the trees where they hadbeen tied up for the night. according to the police report, the workersdescribed the monster as being seven to eight

feet tall with light brown hair all over itsbody. it stood erect on two legs and weighed atleast 300 to 400 pounds. the creature stood very close to the poniesand while it seemed curious, it did not advance on them or threaten them in any way. then, on july 7, mrs. nedra green hearda screaming sound coming from a shed on her rural farm. she did not go out to investigate but thedescription of the cries matched the description given by randy needham, judy johnson and thepolice officers who also heard it. this was the last incident connected to themonster to occur that summer.

as the story leaked out, it turned up in thenewspapers, got posted to the wire services and soon made headlines across the country. even the new york times sent a reporter toinvestigate. the story of the big muddy monster made itaround the world and soon letters came pouring into the murphysboro police department fromas far away as south africa. researchers, curiosity-seekers and even scientistswere pleading with the local authorities to release more information. they received letters from hunters and trapperswho offered to track down the monster and kill or capture it.

two men from oregon offered to do the joband wrote that they "would be willing to take on this adventure at only the cost of expensesand materials for doing so." some wrote suggesting that the police tryusing bait to snare the creature. a florida man suggested, "why don't you putbread and cheese and eggs out for your creature? you would have a splendid attraction if youcould have it in a little hut, to show people." assistant professor leigh van valen, fromthe university of chicago's biology department, also wrote to chief manwaring. "i have heard of your creature," his letterstated, "which could be of considerable scientific interest.

there have been many reports of such animalsbut no real specimens have been available for scientific study." professor van valen went on to explain howthe creature, if circumstances required shooting it, should be properly embalmed or "preservedin good condition." the professor agreed to cover the necessaryexpenses to procure the monster for scientific study. in the end, all of the ideas and suggestionsdidn’t matter, for the monster never returned to murphysboro. there was only one other sighting that couldpossibly have been the creature.

it occurred in the fall of that same year,a number of miles southwest of town, near the mississippi river. a local truck driver told police that he sawa monster that resembled the murphysboro creature along the edge of the road. it vanished before he could get a good lookat it, but it left behind a number of large tracks in the mud. the authorities made casts of the impressionsbut they were unable to determine if they matched the previous footprints or were thework of a prankster. after that one last gasp, the big muddy monstersimply faded away.

so what was the murphysboro mud monster? local authorities admitted that they didn'tknow then and to this day, no one has offered a logical explanation for the sightings. one of the police officers involved in thecase said, "a lot of things in life are unexplained and this is another one. we don't know what the creature is, but wedo believe what these people saw was real." some of the locals were skeptical. jerry nellis, the dog handler, said many yearsthat that, "in my opinion ... we were tracking a bear."

but randy needham, one of the first to seethe monster, disagreed. he stated with certainty, “it would be kindof naã¯ve for us to think that we know everything that's out there.” needham added that after his encounters in1973, he never went into the woods at night again. and even in the daytime, he never went alone. "i always look for way out in case i needto leave fast,” he said. many bigfoot researchers, like author andcryptozoologist loren coleman, have come to believe that perhaps the sasquatch of thepacific northwest and the creatures sighted

in some other parts of the country may bedifferent monsters entirely. the creatures of many of the southern andcentral states (like the so-called “skunk apes” of florida) seem to be different thanthe traditional bigfoot. they have been seen and tracked throughoutthe south and lower midwest, usually in the swampy woods, bottomlands and along the rivers. the classic bigfoot stands upright, walkingon two legs, and averages between six and eight feet tall. it leaves a giant print that looks like anoversized human footprint, complete with five toes.

however, what coleman called the “northamerican apes,” are more ape-like, shorter (as has been noted in some of the previousaccounts), and are sometimes seen walking on all fours. it often leaves a footprint that is more likea hand – that is, with the big toe sticking out to the side, like a thumb. in many reports, the word gorilla was usedto describe these river-bottom dwelling creatures. in boone county, indiana, in 1949, two fishermenwere chased away from sugar creek by a brown “gorilla.” in 1962, a kentucky farmer named owen powellspotted a “gorilla” that was six feet

tall, walking on its back legs and havingfront legs or arms that hung down to its knees. in 1968, a kinloch, missouri, boy was allegedlysnatched and then released in the backyard of his home by what he called a “gorilla.” the creature was frightened off by a barkingdog and the screams of the boy’s aunt. in 1968, newspapers near hamburg, arkansas,printed stories about a prowling “gorilla.” over a three-year period from 1967 to 1970,a calumet, oklahoma, man believed that he was seeing an ape on a regular basis. he left out bananas and oranges for the animal,which he hoped to capture. the effort ended without success.

these reports – along with many others – areoften buried in among the traditional bigfoot accounts because that term is more widelyused today. in many such cases, sightings and reportshave become part of the folklore of the area in which they occurred. in allen county, kentucky, the name monkeycave hollow was given to an area northeast of scottsville. early settlers to the area stated that itwas inhabited by a tribe of beings that they identified as some kind of monkey. the creatures foraged in the woods and tookrefuge in small caves.

an account from an “old-timer” recalledseeing the carcass of the last “monkey.” a hunter had brought the body to his father’shouse when the man was only seven or eight years old. he could not remember exactly what it lookedlike after nearly eighty years, but said that the creature had hands and feet “like aperson,” was about the same size as the boy, had no tail, but was covered in brownhair. in some cases, the old events become cloudywith the passage of time. an incident from 1900 in hannibal, missouri,said that local residents noticed a mysterious animal moving about on a large wooded islandon the mississippi river near the town.

the sheriff was notified and he said thathe thought it was a hyena, except that it was eating grass. when the sheriff and a few other men capturedit, it turned out to be “the man from borneo,” who had allegedly escaped from a circus, whichwas happy to get him back. in those days, the “man from borneo” wasa common nickname for an orangutan – which would have been incapable of swimming themississippi or any other river. despite the fact that the known species ofgreat apes do not swim, the north american apes never seem to have a problem doing so. they are very often found up and down themississippi waterways, as well as in the forests

that border the river systems. a high percentage of sightings take placein the river and creek bottoms of rural america. the popular film the legend of boggy creek(a docudrama in that it was mostly factual in the details, but melodramatic in the re-creations),is about fouke, arkansas’, ape-like “monster.” it noted several times that “he always travelsthe creeks.” a sighting of a swimming ape in 1969 reinforcesthe point. on november 7, a man named charles buchananwas camping on the shore of lake worth in texas when he awoke around 2:00 a.m. to seea hairy creature that looked “like a cross between a human being and a gorilla or anape” towering above him.

buchanan had been sleeping in the bed of hispickup truck when the beast suddenly jerked him out and pulled him to the ground, stilltrapped in his sleeping bag. gagging from the creature’s foul stench,charles did the only thing that he could think of and grabbed a bag of leftover chicken andshoved it in the creature’s face. it took the sack in its mouth, made some gruntingsounds and then ran off through the trees toward the lake. it first splashed into the water, then beganswimming with powerful strokes toward greer island. the authentic tracks and credible sightingsof these mysterious apes seem to suggest that

there may be another creature lurking outthere in woods and forests of america, along with bigfoot, the most elusive of the hairybipeds. are such creatures real, the product of wildimaginations run amuck, or could they be an almost-vanished race of unknown animal thatis encountered on rare occasions in remote and isolated areas? believe it or not, evidence suggests thatthere really is something out there. in addition to the numerous eyewitness accounts,there are the hundreds of plaster casts and photographs of giant, unexplained footprints. other evidence that has been discovered consistsof feces and hair samples that are either

associated with sightings or may have beenindications of a bigfoot's recent passing. many of these samples seem to resist identification. but what about the body of a bigfoot? debunkers and skeptics say that bigfoot cannotexist for if it did, then someone would have found the corpse of one by now. jeffrey meldrum, an associate professor ofanthropology at idaho state university, disagrees. "think about it," he said in an interview. "it's rare, reproduces infrequently, and ifit's like other apes, it may live for fifty years.

it's at the top of the food chain, so deathmost likely comes from natural causes. when an animal is ill or feeble, it'll hidesomewhere safe, which makes it more difficult to find any remains. scavengers strip the carcass and scatter thebones. rodents chew up what's left for the calcium. soil in the northwest is acidic, which isconducive to plant fossilization but not to bones. they disintegrate." beyond the physical evidence, there have alsobeen recordings that have been made by bigfoot

hunters of what is alleged to be the "voice"of the creature itself. many of the tapes have been analyzed, includingone notable recording that was obtained on october 21, 1972 in california's high sierramountains. that night, investigators recorded a seriesof moans, whines, growls and grunts that were coming from the darkness. two electronic specialists, one from the universityof wyoming and one from rockwell international, came to the conclusion that the sounds camefrom "more than one speaker, one or more of which is of larger physical size than an averagehuman male. the formant frequencies found were clearlylower than for human data, and their distribution

does not indicate that they were a productof human vocalization and tape speed alteration." but, no matter how convincing the pieces ofevidence might be, the real proof of the creature's existence would be not just capturing itsfootprints - but the creature himself. if someone could find one and bring it back,it would be the ultimate evidence that bigfoot really exists. today, there are still many researchers outthere hunting for bigfoot, hoping to bring back remains, tracks or anything else thatwill prove these creatures exist. as mentioned already, the reader is askedto judge the existence of these creatures for himself, for short of solid evidence,we can only surmise that the mysterious giants

are out there in the forests of the northwest. until one is found, though, they have to remainone of the greatest of the mysteries in the annals of the unexplained in america. thanks for listening to weird darkness (andmy haunted life toosday). this episode is a collaboration with hauntingstories, and if you like bigfoot, you’ll love the true story surrounding a similarcreature that traveled the freak show circuit… the minnesota iceman! check out that video now at hauntingstorieson youtube! this series is made possible by all of mygenerous patreon supporters.

all marlar house patrons giving $10/monthor more automatically receive every audiobook i narrate as they are released. if you’d like to learn more about becominga patron, visit patreon.com/darrenmarlar or click the patreon button at weirddarkness.com. “plaster casts: bigfoot in america” isused by permission from troy taylor from his book “cabinet of curiosities 2”. music provided by shadow’s symphonyall content in “weird darkness” is used by permission of the authors and composers. copyright marlar house productions, 2016.

rebroadcast or duplication without expresswritten permission is strictly prohibited. i’m your creator/host, darren marlar. thanks for joining me… in the weird darkness.

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