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Wednesday, September 22, 1965

Youths Report ‘Monster’ Near Edge Of City

Decatur Review

Sheriff’s deputies went on a “monster” hunt early today at the northwest edge of Decatur.

They were called to Montezuma Hills when four young persons claimed a black, man-like monster approached the car in which they were parked.

They said they left the place, drove to Decatur, where the young men let their girl companions out of the car.

The young men returned to the scene, parked the car a second time and waited to see if the “monster” would return.

It did, they said.

The youths left hurriedly a second time.

Sheriff’s deputies were called and they made a fruitless search of the area.

The deputies said they didn’t want to guess what the youths saw, but they appeared to be well frightened.

Friday, April 22, 1887

Wild Man Of The Woods

Decatur Daily Review

An alleged wild man of the woods is making life miserable for rustics of Logan county.

Tuesday, July 06, 1976

It speaks softly, carries a big foot

Rockford Morning Star

17-inch tracks found

Dixon – Is Big Foot, the huge, legendary man-like creature whose existence never has been documented, visiting the Lowell Park area near hear [sp] ?

That’s a quesiton being asked by some Dixon area residents after 17-inch-long footprints were discovered Monday at the edge of the Rock River, a short distance north of the heavily-timbered 200-acre park, two miles north of Dixon.

The two clearly-defined footprints were of flatish feet, with five toes of nearly equal length. One print was of the right foot; the other a left footprint and the stride between the two prints was 40 inches. There also were several heelprints.

The prints measured 8 3/4 inches wide at the ball of the foot.

An unidentified fisherman, who was in the park early in the morning, said he found “park benches were thrown around and big footprints all around them.”

By afternoon, however, the only big tracks that could be found were upstream from the park in a deserted area. The prints ended at the riverbank.

Lou Gerdes, who has a cottage nearby, at first said “maybe I did it. I have the biggest feet around here.”

But when Gerdes feet were measured, they turned out to be only 11 inches long, six inches short of the Big Foot tracks.

Dixon Police Officer Howard Kendell, who has been on duty in Lowell Park since April 16, said he had not seen any sign of any creature resembling Big Foot.

Thursday, June 30, 1988

Area man recalls encounter with infamous Bigfoot monster.

By Joe Jones

Lawrenceville Daily Record

Bigfoot, Yeti, abominable snowman, Big Muddy Monster, the missing link.

Whatever the name, wherever the sighting, the description is basically the same – large, hairy, upright-walking creatures that continue to mystify and terrify.

While persons who swear they have seen the elusive beasts are sometimes brushed aside as kooks or over imbibers of distilled spirits, most are dead-sure of what they saw.

Darwin Hart, 50, Route 1, Claremont, recalls his experience as vividly as the night it happened – about 35 years ago – near Lawrenceville.

“There were five of us, two girls and three boys, going swimming in the gravel pits north of Lawrenceville,” Hart said from his residence in rural Richland County.

“We were in a 1952 Ford and were driving along a gravel road that led to the pits when this…thing…crossed the road in front of the car. We stopped, it stopped in front of our car’s headlights, and just stared.

“It made no sound and I don’t remember any particular odor. The thing was about seven or seven-and-a-half-feet tall and thin, not wide like a gorilla, and covered with brownish-gray hair. Its face was completely hair covered and the head was pointed. What I remember most was the length of its arms. They were very long and hung below the knee.”

Hart, who was about 15 at the time of the sighting, said the five went on to the pits and went swimming, but it was nearly 20 minutes before anyone brought up what they had seen.

“Someone, probably me, the ’mouth of the group,’ asked ’Did you see what I saw?,’” Hart said. “Everyone answered that they had. We weren’t really scared, but it was like we were all mesmerized and not quite sure of what had happened.”

After telling the story to his parents, Hart said many of his friends at school laughed off the sighting as a tall tale and he decided to keep the story quiet.

It was only after reading of recent sightings of the so-called Big Muddy Monster near Murphysboro that he consented to retell his story.

“I’m not crazy and I would stand on a stack of Bibles and swear to what I saw,” he added. “Others in the group could corroborate the story. I haven’t mentioned their names, only because I haven’t had contact with them for some time. Two live in Oklahoma and I’m not sure where two are now. But we all saw the same thing, whatever it was.”

Hart said the creature was no more than 20-30 feet from the vehicle and in plain view of the car lights.

“It crashed off into the woods and we went on and swam. That was a long time ago, but with all the sightings around, it makes you wonder if they live in pairs and if some offspring are still around. And it brings to mind that they must eat to survive. Are they vegetarians or meat-eaters?”

And do they still frequent the local gravel pits on nocturnal visits?

Monday, January 26, 1974

Aurora comes clean . . . it’s ‘Abominable’

Elgin Daily Courier – News

Geneva – The Abominable Snowman – or his counter-part – has been sighted in Aurora, according to persons here who wish to remain anonymous.

Other Aurorans refer to the “monster” as Big Mo. It is said to be huge, hairy, of dirty white color and with a “peculiar” howl.

Some residents report that dead dogs have been found with their throats torn out.

Others say they have seen footprints similar to a barefoot man but much larger and with longer toes.

The “thing” is supposed to be in the North Lake Street region where there is a tunnel leading to the river.

It is said to have been in the area for about three weeks.

Kane County Sheriff’s police say they’ve had no reports on wild animals or strange happenings.

They didn’t seem surprised at the question, however.

Friday, July 26, 1929

Gorilla Scare Ends

Oshkosk, Wisconsin, Daily Wisconsin

Freeport, Ill. – (AP) – The terrible gorilla which yesterday, had Elizabeth, Ill., agog, astir and aghast had shrunk today to a monkey, if that.

The farm women who locked themselves indoors, and their men folk who went forth with guns and grim determined faces were breathing more easily. The ‘gorilla’ they wanted was the one who started the story.

Friday, July 26, 1929

Illinois Village Now Engaged In Big Gorilla Hunt

Middlesboro (KY) Daily News

Elizabeth, Ill., (U.P.) – This community was engaged in a great gorilla hunt today.

Posse of farmers searched the countryside for a huge Simian. The “big boy” first observed in a big patch of woods just outside of this town late yesterday, is believed to have escaped a carnival at Savanna, twenty miles from here.

He was wandering around about aimlessly, reports here stated. Housewives barricaded their doors as men folks sought the unwelcome guest.

March, 1946

Hoosier Folklore

Vol. 5, p. 19

Another type of story that is of much more concern to us here in Southern Illinois nowadays is the “strange beast” legend.… Every few years some community reports the presence of a mysterious beast over in the local creek bottom.

Although it is difficult to determine just where a story of this sort has its beginning, this one seems to have originated in the Gum Creek bottom near Mt. Vernon. During the summer of 1941, a preacher was hunting squirrels in the woods along the creek when a large animal that looked something like a baboon jumped out of a tree near him. The preacher struck at the beast with his gun barrel when it walked toward him in an upright position. He finally frightened it away by firing a couple of shots into the air.

Later the beast began to alarm rural people by uttering terrorizing screams mostly at night in the wooded bottom lands along the creeks. School children in the rural districts sometimes heard it, too, and hunters saw its tracks.… By early spring of 1942, the animal had local people aroused to a fighting pitch. About that time, a farmer near Bonnie reported that the beast had killed his dog. A call went out for volunteers to join a mass hunt to round up the animal.

The beast must have got news of the big hunt, for reports started coming in of its appearance in other creek bottoms, some as much as 40 or 50 miles from the original site. A man driving near the Big Muddy River, in Jackson County, one night saw the beast bound across the road. Some hunters saw evidence of its presence away over in Okaw. Its rapid changing from place to place must have been aided considerably by its ability to jump, for, by this time, reports had it jumping along at from 20 to 40 feet per leap.

It is impossible to say how many hunters and parties of hunters, armed with everything from shotguns to ropes and nets, went out to look for the strange beast in the various creek bottoms where it had been seen, or its tracks had been seen, or its piercing screams had been heard. Those taking nets and ropes were intent on bringing the creature back alive.

Usually this strange beast can’t be found, and interest in it dies as mysteriously as it arose in the beginning.… About 25 years ago, a ‘coon hunter from Hecker one night heard a strange beast screaming up ahead on Prairie du Long Creek. Hunters chased this phantom from time to time all one winter. Their dogs would get the trail, then lose it, and they would hear it screaming down the creek in the opposite direction. It was that kind of creature: you’d hear it up creek, but when you set out in that direction you’d hear it a mile down creek.

Monday, March 30, 1942

Mass Hunt For Animal Fails To Solve Mystery

Carbondale Free Press

The mystery of Gun Creek bottoms still is a mystery.

Not even 1,500 Southern Illinois hunters could flush the mysterious animal with a ‘wildcat’s scream’ and “paws like a hugh raccoon” yesterday, although they combed the bottoms with shotguns and rifles on the ready.

The object of the mass hunt was blamed last October for an attack on a squirrel-hunting Mt. Vernon minister. Screams like those of wildcats have been reported heard frequently at night. The animal was declared responsible for the death of a dog and was said to make tracks similar to a raccoon “but four times as large.”

The affair wasn’t without results, however. Merchant J. R. Reed, who organized the hunt, sold out his candy bar, soda water and lunch meat stocks. Some hunters shot a large hoot owl and several crows.

There was considerable others sharpshooting – of the political variety. Practically every Jefferson County office seeker was on hand.

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

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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)

————————————————————————————–

They said it came walking out of the shadows and muck around the Big Muddy, stinking of the dank river. The massive bulk of its eight-foot frame struck terror in those who reported it.

But, like a curious child, it only stared at the people who came across its path. Or, sometimes, it screamed – a shrill, unearthly cry.

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.

Randy Creath is now a minister at the First Baptish Church in Sheffield, Iowa. He was a 17-year-old out on a date with Murphysboro Township High School classmate Cheryl Ray when the couple spotted the Big Muddy Monster in the Westwood Hills subdivision of Murphysboro.

It was about 10 p.m. on June 26, 1973. Ray, now Cheryl Rath, a Coco Beach, Fla. housewife and mother of two, remembers the scene vividly.

“Randy and I were sitting in my parents’ breezeway when we heard something in the woods,” Mrs. Rath said. “We both went down, but Randy was walking a little bit ahead. Then he said ‘Come here,’ and there it was. We stood there looking
at it.”

Creath said “The thing I remember was the bulk of it, the shape, the human form, and the stench of the river slime it apparently had on it. It was about eight feet tall, and at least as stocky as ny football player.

“We were within 15 feet of it, close enough to see the body, the texture of the fur, long and hairy, like an English sheepdog,” Creath continued.

Monster? Sketch from description by Creath.

Its eyes reflected red from the glow of a distant streetlight. It stood more erect than an ape but didn’t have human features.

“It was real tall, hairy,” Mrs. Rath said, “I think it was white, but it was dirty, matted. It had a real bad odor. It was really rank. I never smelled anything like it. It seemed like an
eternity we stood there, and then it just turned around and walked off into the woods. We could hear it trampling through the woods.”

Murphysboro Police Officer Ron Manwaring investigated.

“I heard some unusual shrieks, smelled the foul smell, and saw the ground trampled down in the area, where they said this thing was standing,” he recalled.

Another investigator, Jerry Nellis, brought in his dog, trained as both an attack and tracking dog. The dog took a path down the hill, stopping periodically to sniff at a slimy substance on the weeds. At an abandoned barn,
the dog refused to enter. It ran back outside when pushed inside. Nellis said his dog never had backed down from anything. Officers searched the barn but found nothing.

Minutes before the sighting at the Rays’ house, 4-year-old Chrisian Baril, who lived nearby, told his partents he saw a large ghost in his back yard.

The night before, another couple had reported seeing the monster at the Big Muddy River boat ramp at Lindell street in Murphysboro.

According to the police report, they heard a loud screaming sound and saw a seven-foot-tall creature with light colored, mud-matted hair walking on two legs toward the car.

When police investigated, they found erratic footprints in the mud and then heard a “loud shrill scream” from a wooded area about 100 feet away, the police report stated. The officers quickly left the area – one of the officers droppping his gun in the haste.

Eleven days later, four workers from a carnival that had been set up at Riverside Park in Murphysboro told police they had twice seen a 300-pound, eight-foot-tall creature covered with light-brown hair. Both times the creature approached carnival
ponies. The creature seemed curious about the ponies, but not belligerent, the carnival workers said.

A crowd of local residents, many toting guns, gathered in Riverside Park the night after the carnies sighted the monster, current Police Chief Larry Tincher said.

Mrs. Rath remembers they had to close off the park and send people home for fear “there would be a big riot if somebody said ‘Boo!'”

A group of five men – reporters from the Kansas City Star, a lawyer, and an insurance man – camping out near Murphysboro in the fall of 1973 in an effort to find the Big
Muddy Monster. One of them, Harlan Sorkin, an insurance agent, has made a hobby of studying creatures commonly called Sasquatch, Big Foot, or Yeti.

Sorkin said they came armed with a stun gun for a 500-pound animal, and chocolate and banana to pacify the creature while the stun gun worked. They also had
loaded shotguns, to be used only if their safety was threatened. They had made arrangements for a cage to be flown in by helicopter and they had zoos standing by on
alert.

Private groups had offered as much as $2.5 million for the creature’s capture, Sorkin said.

The five didn’t see the creature, but they heard “a very loud yell or gutteral sound, between a roar and a bellow, saw huge footprints and found two-inch saplings pulled out of the ground, Sorken said.

Many experts – like mammologist George Feldhamer of the Southern Illinois University-Carbondale zoology department and archeologist John Muller – said it’s likely that people mistook a wild animal or a dressed-up prankster for a monster.

Tincher, the police chief, isn’t so sure.

“I’m confident these people saw something,” he said. “These people were too frightened. What makes it hard to believe it was some man in costume is knowing about all the hunters around here with rifles. It would really be taking a big chance.”

Those who say they saw the Big Muddy Monster are stubborn in their belief.

“I wasn’t going to make up anything like that,” Mrs. Rath said. “I got a lot of kidding, but I know what I saw.”

Some who saw it flinch from the memory, particularly from the ridicule that followed it. One man, who said he doesn’t want his children mocked in school as he was mocked, refused to talk about what he saw. But the creature still haunts him in his dreamss, his wife said.

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.

Others said they fell peculiarly blessed. They occasionally tell their friends, their spouses and their children about their adventure. Some kept scrapbooks.

“Right afterwards it gave me a funny feeling, but now I don’t feel bad about it,” Mrs. Rath said.

Creath said he hardly ever talks about the monster, but he feels his life was changed by what he saw.

“It reinforced my belief that humanity is not nearly as intelligent as we think,” Creath said. “Our system of natural laws is not really as fixed as we would like to believe. We don’t know nearly as much about the world as we pretend.”