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Monday, May 07, 1973

‘It’s Something That’s There” – Monster Lurks Along Wabash

The Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune

Enfield, Ill. (UPI) – Henry McDaniel said he’s seen it twice: a gray, hairy, three-legged monster standing tall like a human being with pink-reflecting eyes bulging from a huge head.

The second time was Sunday morning, after his original report on the monster had brought newsmen, police, anthropologists, experts on unidentified flying objects and the just plain curious to the Wabash River Valley to investigate.

McDaniel, a disabled war veteran, said they found footprints covering the woodland areas around his home. The tracks were three to five inches across with six toes and little hoof marks, he said.

Ed Phillips, a pet shop owner from Kokomo, Ind., came out to look around and verified McDaniel’s description of the tracks.

“It couldn’t be a hoax.” Phillips said. The tracks were hidden under dense bush as well as in the open, he said. Plaster casts were made.

McDaniel said the first time he saw the monster was about 9:30 p.m. on the night of April 25. His family heard a scratching noise at the back door and he went to investigate.

“When I first saw it, I thought it was an animal. I went back (inside the house) and got a gun and a flashlight.” he said. “It was right about three feet from me, I wasn’t scared.

“Then I saw those pink eyes shine at me like a reflector on a car. It had pink eyes, a large head and was a kind of dirtyish gray color …hairy…about four or five feet tall. Standing righ in front of the door on three legs just like a human being.”

McDaniel said he shot at the monster four times.

“I knew I hit it once,” he said. The monster, he waid, hissed, leaped 75 feet in three jumps and disappeared down the the railroad tracks near his home.

Sunday morning, about 3 a.m. CDT, the barking of his dogs awakened McDaniel and he opened his door and looked out. He said he saw the same three-legged monster on the railroad tracks 75 feet away.

“I wasn’t scared,’ he said. “I’d like to have it as a pet and charge admission. It’s something that’s there and we’ve got to accept it.”

Saturday, December 07, 1985

Reliving the tale of the Big Muddy Monster

By Ann Schottman Knol

The huge creature was the stuff of nightmares.

Monster sightings

– note – the entire article is located here:

Reliving the tale of the Big Muddy Monster – Jackson County, Illinois

Because of the reference to Union County I placed that excerpt here in Union County, Illinois

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July 16, 1972: A jogger reported seeing something like the Big Muddy Monstrer near the Ohio River levee at Cairo. (Alexander County)

June 26 – July 1973: Nine people reported seeing it in four separate incidents in Murphysboro. (Jackson County)

Sept. 2, 1974: Three Anna youths reported seeing it in the Beach Grove area near Wolf Lake. (Union County)

Jan. 26 1975: Four truckers, traveling separately, radioed in reports of seeing a “bear-like” creature along Illinois 3, near the Illinois 149 junction west of Murphysboro. (Jackson County)

July 7, 1975: Two Murphysboro men reported something they thought my have been the Big Muddy Monster near a pond in the Harrison community, north of Murphysboro. (Jackson County)

June 19, 1976: Three youths said they saw “something” near the Westwood Hills Subdivision – the area of two previous sightings. (Jackson County)

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At least 21 people reported seeing what was called the Big Muddy Monster in 12 separate incidents between Jul 26, 1972 and June 19, 1976. Seven reports came from in or near Murphysboro, one from Cairo and one from near Wolf Lake.

There have been no reported sightings in the past nine years. But the people who saw it still swear by their sightings.

Another man, Eddie Pitts, who reported seeing the thing near Wolf Lake (Jackson County), also declined to be iinterviewed.

“It was there, but nobody believed us then and nobody will believe us now. We were made out at the time to be fools,” he said.

Monday November 06, 2006

Did a hairy monster stalk Tazewell County, Illinois?

By Nick Vogel

Pekin Daily Times

Pekin, Illinois – Thirty-four years ago in Tazewell County, 100 armed men walked the woods around East Peoria’s Cole Hollow Road in search of a monster.

The search was called off about 7:45 p.m. when one of the men accidentally shot himself in the foot. The creature was never found.

The monster hunters were looking for was dubbed the Cohomo Monster, a beast thought to be lurking in Tazewell County in the summer of 1972.

James Donahue, Tazewell County Sheriff in 1972, still remembers the infectious hysteria of that summer.

“At the time it was a very big deal,” Donahue recently told the Pekin Daily Times. “Several people indicated they’d seen a monster up in that area. It was described as something like Bigfoot. All the neighbors showed up. We spent a lot of time up there. We never found anything to substantiate the claims. We were up there for a week or two weeks. A lot of volunteer people came out looking for this monster.”

On Tuesday, July 25, 1972, Creve Coeur authorities reported that a witness saw something big swimming in the Illinois River. The following evening, the Tazewell County Sheriffs Department received a call from a Eureka man who said he and his family were having a birthday party in Fondulac Park in East Peoria. The witness said he and his party saw strange lights come in a vertical position and go down behind some trees. The light allegedly left a vapor or smoke trail.

That same night, more than 200 phone calls about monster sightings jammed the switchboard at the East Peoria Police Department.

On July 28, a rural Pekin woman reported that she saw Cohomo while picking berries by an old coal mine. The woman told the Tazewell County Sheriff’s office she was so scared she ran off, leaving her purse behind.

That same night, East Peoria Police said two reliable citizens claimed they saw Cohomo. It was described as 10 feet tall. The creature’s face had long, gray U-shaped ears and a red mouth with sharp teeth. The reliable citizens said the creature possessed thumbs with long second joints and looked like a cross between an ape and a cave man.

Newspaper articles of the time suggest that Cohomo had a horrible smell, sometimes compared to that of a wet dog, rotten eggs, or as sulphur-like. The Cohomo craze swept over Tazewell County.

It’s hard to pin down exactly when and where all the excitement over the Cohomo monster started. Old articles found in the Daily Times archives blame a monster called Momo who was first spotted in rural northeastern Missouri a year before the Tazewell County sightings.

One of the first Illinois reports came from Randy Emert, then 18, of Peoria, who claimed he spotted some type of hairy creature in the woods near Cole Hollow Road in Tazewell County. Emert said he didn’t report seeing the monster at first because he feared people would think him crazy.

In 1991, the Peoria Journal Star received a phone call from Emert, who said that he made the whole thing up. Emert told the newspaper that he and his friends made the story up to scare another friend who worked late nights at a gas station.

But one remains. If Cohomo was the product of mass hallucination, caused by the sightings of a Missouri monster called Momo, why did only the citizens of Tazewell County invent the elusive beast?

And although he has no idea what it may have been,  Donahue says he thinks somebody may have seen something.

July 26, 1972

Man Reports Seeing ‘Hairy Creature’ In Woods Near Cole Hollow Road

The Pekin Daily Times

A Peoria youth reports he has seen a large, hairy creature in the East Peoria area near Cole Hollow Road.

Randy Emert, 18 of 3527 Twelve Oaks, Peoria says he and many friends have seen some type of “hairy” creature in the woods near Cole Hollow Road in East Peoria. Randy says he first saw the “creature about two months ago but that he didn’t report it at that time because ” people would think we’re crazy.”

When he heard about the story of a “monster” sighted in Louisiana, Mo., he decided to come forward with his own story. Randy said he first heard about a “creature” in the Cole Hollow Road area about a year ago from a friend. He reports he has seen it twice in the last two months. He claims there are footprints “all around up there,” and that they show three big toes.

Randy describes the “creature” as being between 8 and 12 feet tall, “kinda white and it moves quick.” The teenager also claims he has heard the “creature” several times and says it “lets out a long screech kinda like an old steam engine whistle, only more human.”

He says a friend in Wisconsin has photographs of the footprints. Randy says many of his friends have seen the footprints or the “creature” but don’t want their names mentioned. He says he is not ” doing this for publicity, “adding he “believes this is for real.”

Saturday, September 08, 1883

A Roaming Madman – Startling Experiences of An Illinois Lady with a Wild Man – As Naked as the Day He was Born

The Saturday Herald – Decatur, Illinois

Centreville, Ill., Sept . 4 – A wildman, naked as Adam, has been roaming around the country in this vicinity for several days, causing intense excitement and consternation among the farmers’ families.

His long tangled beard and matted hair, his tall athletic form and the fierce look out of his eyes make him an exceedingly unpleasant person to meet in a lonely spot. He is begrimed with dirt from head to foot, for he never gets a bath except when it rains or when necessity compels him to wade a creek in search of prey.

He was seen by the wife of Dr. John Saltenberger, who lives about three miles west of this place. Mrs. Saltenberger was returning home shortly after nightfall, and was near the Stelzelriede farm. The wild man crept stealthily out of the orchard, and when near the buggy, made a rush to stop the horse.

The lady gave the animal a frantic cut with the whip, and he bounded along the road at a furious pace, but almost before she had recovered her breath, the wild man had overtaken her and leaped into the vehicle from behind. He uttered not a word, and seemed immediately to become as badly frightened as the lady herself.

He spring down and ran rapidly towards the woods. A telephone message was sent to Belleville, yesterday, asking the sheriff to come and capture the creature. Young men of the settlement are searching the woods in every direction today, but some of them are not over anxious to encounter the monster.

Superstitious persons declare it to be the ghost of one of the Stelzelriede family, five of whom were murdered and robbed about eight years ago. Others are puzzled to decide whether it is the Missing Link or an escaped lunatic.

Thursday, June 12, 1890

Stackmer’s Bend Wild Man

Davenport (Iowa) Morning Tribune

STACKMER’S BEND, near Jacksonville, Ill., is much alarmed over the presence of a wild man in a section of wood near town.

Wednesday, March 30, 1977

Spring resurrects ‘Kickapoo Monster’

By Rick Baker
Bloomington Pantagraph

Downs – “You didn’t really see that thing, did you, Dale Mitchell?”

“Yes, I did,” Dale Mitchell said earnestly.

“Aw, come on.”

“I saw it,” Dale Mitchell said.

Dale Mitchell, a 23 year old mechanic from Downs, said he saw, and was pursued by, something about seven feet tall and “covered with fur” late Monday night about two miles north of Downs.

Mitchell said he was driving to his home in Downs from his job in Wapella, when the headlights of his pickup truck shone on what he said looked like “a bigfoot monster.”

“Aw, come on.”

“I saw it.” Dale Mitchell said.

Mitchell said he saw the thing near a bend in Kickapoo Creek, and when he saw it, he said he stopped his truck on a rural road to look at the thing. He said that when he stopped, the thing started rushing toward him.

Mitchell took off. He said he didn’t get a very good look at the thing, but said it “had a kind of human face and hands.” Mitchell said he nervously drove home and, as many people who have seen monsters do, call The Daily Pantagraph.

Since 1970, there were several reports of a “bigfoot monster” in Tazewell County near the Coal Hollow Road. A lot of people got pretty riled up over those monster sightings.

About 75 men in Tazewell County formed a posse, equipped with guns and flashlights to find the monster. The monster wasn’t found and the posse broke up shortly after one of the searchers, an East Peoria man, accidently shot himself in the leg.

Some members of the posse figured the monster went back home in outer space.

And in 1973, the United Press International was moving quite a few stories about monster sightings near the small town of Enfield, in Southern Illinois.

Henry McDaniel, a disabled war veteran from Enfield, told UPI that he heard something scratching on the rear door of his house in the spring of 1973. He said he went to the door and saw a gray, hairy, three-legged monster standing like a human being with pink reflecting eyes bulging from a huge head. (Holy Moses)

“I wasn’t scared.” McDaniel told UPI. He went back into his house and got a gun. Then he shot it four times. He said the monster hissed, leaped 75 feet in three jumps, and disappeared.

The monster story got national attention. When a man in Elyria, Ohio, read it, he recognized the description. It was his pet kangaroo that had escaped. Its tail looked kind of like a third leg. The most reports of a monster in any one place in the area came from Farmer City in July of 1970. Within a week about 30 people reported seeing a “manlike thing” covered with grayish-white fur near a rural campsite.

Four young men camping at the site said they saw it and manged to get a set of car lights on it before it ran away. Soon after the thing ran away, they ran away. One of the young men had his broken foot set in a cast. He ran off without his crutches. They reported the sighting to police.

A couple of nights late, about a dozen people said they saw “a thing’s” eyes glowing at them in the dark. A few nights after that, three people swore to police they saw the furry creature again.

And a couple of nights after that, about 10 people told police they saw the thing standing by a dead tree about 100 feet away from the campsite.

Farmer City police officer Robert Hayslip, after getting all the reports, went to the campsite one morning about 2 o’clock. Hayslip said he heard something running through tall grass, but didn’t see anything.

When Hayslip left, there was a tent standing at the camping area. Four hours later, the tent was found ripped to shreds.

And it hasn’t been heard from in the Farmer City area since.

A couple of weeks after the Farmer City sightings, several youths said they saw a similar creature on the Kickapoo near Heyworth.

“I really saw it,” Mitchell said Tuesday. “I got pretty shook up.”

Tuesday, August 11, 1970

Hairy ‘Human’ Sighted At Kickapoo Creek

by James Keeran

Bloomington Pantagraph

The mystery continues.

Something somewhat like the Farmer City monster of a few weeks ago was sighted near Heyworth last week.

The report has it that three Rantoul youths, camping on the banks of Kickapoo Creek, sighted a strange-looking human creature, covered from top to bottom with hair and walking upright.

Shells Ripped Open

The youths gave chase, but at a comfortable distance, and could find nothing except a few half-eaten minnows and some clam shells ripped apart and scooped clean.

In all likelihood the “thing” was not a hippie left over from the Memorial Day weekend rock festival.

Hippies eat weird things when there’s nothing better, but surely not dead fish and raw Kickapoo Creek clams. Besides, there wasn’t one hippie at the rock festival who had fur growing on his knee caps.

Studied Monsters

Loren E. Coleman of Decatur, a former anthropology student at Southern Illinois University, has made a study of “monsters” during the past 10 years.

Mr.Coleman’s theory, substantiated by years of study, many interviews and examination of several footprints, is that the variety of abominable snowmen (or ABSMs, as Mr. Coleman calls them) in Illinois range in size from three to four feet and are more apelike than manlike.

Wants Data

One in Northern California, which has actually been photographed, is more manlike than apelike, Mr. Coleman says.

He first became interested in his study when he read of the abominable snowman of the Himalayas. Since then he has gathered data from all over the country and particularly in Illinois.

Mr. Coleman hopes he will continue to get reports from people who sight “monsters.” He promises to take them seriously.

Unpopular Study

Mr. Coleman says his field of study is not a popular one with scientists because it has not real beginning and no real end. “It’s there,” he says, “but you can’t touch it.”

“The data” on such animals “is just lying all over,” he said, “but nobody’s getting it together.”

“People are afraid to talk about it,” he said. “I’d like for people to call or write me.” His mailing address is 1564 W. Hunt in Decatur.

Known 150 Years

Mr. Coleman’s goal in monster-hunting is to move to Northern California and hunt for Bigfoot.

Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, as the Indians of 150 years ago called it, was photographed on Oct. 20, 1967 , northeast of Eurka, Calif.

Hundreds of sightings of Bigfoot have been reported in Northern California and British Columbia for nearly 150 years.

The Bigfoot photographed was about eight feet tall and weighed between 350 and 400 pounds. Its footprint measured 17 inches from toe to heel and it was covered all over, except face, hands and feet, with thick brown hair.

Move Over

The most plausable explanation for Bigfoot is that it is a sub-human creature which migrated to this continent over the Bering Straits between Siberia and Alaska.

In any case the evidence on Bigfoot and on the things in Central Illinois are enough to keep Mr. Coleman going for a long time, at least until more sightings are reported.

In the meantime: Take it easy, Pricilla’s Pop, Bigfoot’s cousin seems to be visiting us.