Sunday, August 09, 1970

‘Monster’ Sighted Near Kickapoo

Champaign-Urbana – News Gazette

Possibly Scotland’s Loch Ness Monster has wings . . . or there are a few “strange types” left over from the recent Kickapoo Creek Rock Festival….

One way or the other, there are people who claim “monster sightings: in the Heyworth-Farmer City area.

Most generally, the reported monster has kept to the Kickapoo Creek area ambling in and around the river and near by timber area. It is as big as a cow, some say . . . Its eyes are red and it snorts, others claim.

The eating habits of the unchained creature are a bit strange as one individual, who after sighting the creature, followed it and found a string of opened clams, but half eaten minnows.

Three Rantoul youths recently decided on a fishing trip very early in the morning. As they were trekking down toward the river in the marshy, foggy, bottom land, they saw in their car’s headlight, it.

At the time, the trio, non of whom were aware of previous creature sightings, tried to discover what it was. Their lights did not seem to bother him, her, or it, any as it, him, or her, continued along ambling through the shore of the river heading for the nearby
timber.

The trio, well schooled in the Boy Scouts and being prepared, took their collective weapons of a hunting knife, a flashlight, and fishing knife, and sought to stalk the creature.

They claimed it was about as big as a cow, which, was standing on its back two legs. They said it did not make a sound which was audible and it moved into the timber and they lost track of it.

The Bloomington Pantagraph had a report of a sighting some two weeks ago, but this time, he, she, or it was in the Farmer City area.

“Something destroyed some tents and scared the daylights out of some kids who were camping,: it was reported.

The Rantoul trio, after failing in their attempt to find the monster, settled down to fish a little when they heard a rustling in the woods behind them.

This time, it was not the monster but a local farmer who was complaining about fences being down and his cattle scattered all over the country side.

A spokesman for the DeWitt County Sheriff’s office gave little credence to the story:

We had a monster up near Weldon Springs a few years ago and it turned out to be a kid playing games with a bear rug.”

A resident of Farmer City claimed:

“There is not truth to that story at all. It is just a couple of long haired hippies who are causing trouble.”

No matter what he, she, it, is; it , he , she, is real to young fishermen from Rantoul.