All that remained Sunday morning at the Ford house was several strange tracks—that appeared to be left by something with three toes—and several scratch marks on the front porch that appeared to have been made by something with three claws.
Several pieces of tin nailed around the bottom of the house had been ripped away and another window had been damaged by the creature, according to Ford.
“We plan to stay here tonight and see if we can get the thing if it returns,” Don Ford said.
“I’m not staying here anymore unless they kill that thing,” Patricia Ford said.
As for Bobby Ford, he said, “I’ve had it here. I’m going back to Ashdown.”
That same year Fouke was invaded by tourists, bigfoot hunters and the movie crew for the low-budget movie The Legend of Boggy Creek to be released the next year.
An article in the Arkansas Democrat on October 25, 1981 by local resident Lou Farish mentioned that in 1977 a farmer in nearby Miller County checked his pigpen and discovered the remnants of a small-scale attack on his pigs. Several of them had been ripped open and one carcass was found outside and away from the pen where it had been seemingly dragged and abandoned.
Farish also says in the article that during 1978, several areas of Arkansas were experiencing strange phenomena again. In March of 1978, footprints were discovered by Joe Cook of Appleton. Cook and his brother had been prospecting about 45 miles north of Russellville when they discovered the large footprints. They measured 17 inches in length and seven inches in width. Cook also made mention of several caves in the area. (Daily Courier, Russllville, Arkansas, March 12, 1978)
Farish says that on June 26, 1978, 10-year-old Mike Lofton of Crossett, Arkansas, proved his courage by I shooting at a 7-foot “something” outside his home. The incident began as Mike was feeding his puppy when it began to tremble. He then saw this thing coming out of the woods. Young Lofton ran into the house and retrieved his father’s .22 caliber rifle. He i said he fired on the creature and it fled into the woods. (Farish’s reference: The News Observer, Crossett, Arkansas, July 12, 1978)
The BFRO website (Bfro.net) mentions that there have been other Arkansas sightings including some from the 1930s when moonshining (illegal alchohol distilling) was a big business. BFRO says that the group had the opportunity of talking with Don Pelfrey of Covington, Kentucky in 1982. Pelfrey said he had spent several summers at the home of his relative’s in Arkansas. He said his aunt and uncle live about 50 miles east of Hope near the Ozark Mountains and Black Lake. Fouke Creek (the “Boggy Creek”), which runs behind the house, was the center of activity over many years said Pelfrey.
His relatives (who wished to remain anonymous) had seen the creature on several occasions. They described the “monster” as a “gorilla type,” except that it looked more human than animal. Its arms are longer than a man’s and its face is covered with hair. The apeman allegedly leaves 17-inch footprints.
According to Mr. Pelfrey, one can see the dermal ridges on the prints. The ball of the foot is more flat than a human’s and there is no indication of an arch.
BFRO says that Pelfrey told them, “It is about 800 pounds and appears to be about 10 feet tall. It sounds like a bear with a screeching voice” he added. He also told them that it leaves a bad stink like that of a skunk. In addition, he said that several animals of the property had been found in a mutilated state, such as chickens, a calf and dogs with large lacerations. He told them of an incident that occurred on his aunt’s farm in July of 1977:
A scene from The Legend of Boggy Creek.
My Aunt Martha had two prize hogs that she always hand fed until they were a couple of hundred pounds. Late one night, we heard such a calamity, that we ran to the back porch and turned the light on. When we checked the pen, both hogs were missing. There was no sign of blood or anything else. While looking around the house, we found a huge path through the weeds leading into the swamp. We discovered the remains of the hogs about 500 yards away. There appeared to be large bites and scratches and the vital organs were torn out. It appeared that the hogs were killed for sport rather than food. The neighbors had two dobermans killed. Every bone in their bodies seemed broken. They were mutilated so rapidly, that by the time they got dressed and outside, the dogs were dead. I believe this creature has become more aggressive due to more people venturing into the swamps.
Pelfrey also to the BFRO investigators that the local authorities will not talk to anyone about the creature. In fact, Pelfrey claimed, they will chase you out of the county. (Brfro.net)
I Know a Skunk Ape When I Smell One
The Fouke Monster surfaced again in 2005 when the El Dorado News-Times (May 31, 2005) ran a story on the monster and the most recent reports of its activities. Said the article:
In Arkansas, when we hear talk of Bigfoot, we think of Fouke, and its highly-publicized trademark “monster.”
So prevalent are sightings and stories about Miller County’s Fouke monster, it was featured in its own low-budget movie, “The Legend of Boggy Creek” (and the two ensuing sequels). Though they are known by a variety of other names, these mysterious creatures have been casually dubbed “Bigfoot,” because of the abnormally large footprints found near some eye-witness sightings.
Considering that only two counties separate Miller and Union County, it may not come as a surprise that Union County has had its own share of Bigfoot sightings— the most recent being May 7, 2005.
According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (www.bfro.net) and the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Researchers Organization (www. gcbro.com) websites, Union County has had at least six submitted Bigfoot encounters. Most occurred in woodlands and bottoms along the route of U.S. 167, but several have been reported near heavily wooded timberlands along the Ouachita River north of Smackover and to the east of El Dorado near Strong.
In a report (No. 11632) posted on the BFRO website, investigators were sent to El Dorado May 9th to interview the “young man” who reported the latest encounter—and to search the site on Victor Dumas Road where the sighting allegedly occurred.
In his written submission, the unnamed man told investigators that he and a friend were parked at the end of the dead-end road, sitting on the tailgate of his truck, which was facing the woods. Happening around 8 p.m., there was just enough sunlight remaining in the day to clearly see, the witness reported. Approaching the passenger side door of his truck to retrieve his cell phone, the man said, he glanced up to see on the left side of the road a fur-covered creature about 15 yards away. “With great speed, it ran across the narrow road, and paused when it got to the other side,” he stated in his account. The man said the dark, hairy creature was stocky, hunched over and walked on two feet. Standing only about 5 feet tall, the creature ran with “great speed,” according to this account. The other witness, who had remained seated on the tailgate, did not see the creature, but she claims to have heard the loud noise that was made as it darted off into the woods. A strong, foul odor, said to be reminiscent of a skunk or decaying animal, is often noticed even before a sighting occurs, according to information from the websites. There was no odor associated with the Victor Dumas Road sighting, according to the report. In his initial submission, the man made reference to the unusually short stature of the hairy being and posed the question, “Do you think this may be a young sasquatch?”
“Sasquatch is just one of the many names of Native American derivation used to refer to bigfoot. The investigators’ comments indicated they believed the man was “sincere.”
It was also noted that the young man returned to the site with friends the next day looking for any signs to verify his experience. There was no related evidence found the day of the investigation.
Looking through the databases, Arkansas has 53 documented sightings. Miller County has the most on the BFRO database, followed by Saline County. Baxter County and Union County are tied. One of the more interesting accounts recorded in Union County occurred the summer of 1975. Two boys, aged 15
and 11, were riding on a motorcycle trail in the woods around Bayou D’Loutre just off Sunset Road (before the U.S. 82 bypass was built). The two boys had ventured deep into the woods, against their parents’ wishes. They had just crossed a medium-sized creek when the oldest boy looked westward, into the sun. “I saw an 8-foot black figure staring at us behind a pine tree trunk, and then jumping behind it as though it was playing hide-and-go-seek,” he wrote.
The creature was described as very thin for its stature. Its hair hung close to the body. Both boys decided it was time to leave. They jumped on their bikes and high-tailed it back the direction they had come. “I never looked behind me again, because I was near panic,” the man wrote. After crossing the creek, the older boy, who was riding behind the smaller boy, started hearing the pounding of feet behind him. He claimed he could feel the vibration from the pounding of the last several steps through his handle-bars. The two peddled ever faster, as one of them saw a movement of black to his left. The two friends completed the rest of the shaky journey home without speaking.
This man also claims to have met a man from Rogers, whose best friend saw a Bigfoot in the swamps near Parkers Chapel in the late 1980s. The man recalled how the two boys had smelled horrible odors in those same piney woods and saw unusually large and peculiar piles of excrement that he couldn’t link to any other animal.
In the summer of 1973, an 11-year-old boy had an encounter in Union County with something he believed to be a sasquatch. Camping with his family in the Ouachita River bottoms, near Eagle Lake, the boy volunteered to stay behind to gather firewood, while everyone else was out catching fish for dinner. The GCBRO website account claims that something started making gibberish noises, that he said sounded like a Tibetan woman auctioneer. It was loud and fast, reverberating through the bottoms like it was a large gymnasium. It happened three times, he said. The boy, now a grown man, said he has heard panther screams, coyotes, hoot owls, wolves, alligators and bears, but he, to this day, has never heard anything like that sound again.
Perusing various related websites, one can see thousands of documented sightings from areas across the nation. Most are investigated. A large map shows specks of color dotting states across the nation—indicating places where bigfoot encounters have happened. Audio tracks of odd howls and moans attributed to bigfoot can be accessed on one of the sites, which also includes an audio recording of an authentic 911 call from Washington state, in which a panicked homeowner requests law enforcement after he comes face to face with a creature in his own backyard.
Union County is far from alone in its mysterious encounters. Investigations have been launched by reports from Columbia, Ouachita and Drew counties in South Arkansas, North Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Texas. In one GCBRO report, a Columbia County hunter shared encounters, second hand information from the past 20 years and claimed to have retrieved dark tufts of hair lodged high among broken tree limbs. In 1992, a Ouachita County woman cleaning a family cemetery, saw a tall, dark, hair-covered figure watching her from the wood line. “I stared—petrified— at the figure long enough to run through the possibilities of what it might be,” she wrote in her entry. After staring at the figure “for what seemed like and eternity,” the woman turned her back and accepted her fate. “None came,” she wrote. “I turned back to face the thing, and it was gone. I made a hasty retreat back to my car.” The woman told investigators that her mother was raised in those woods, and never heard of any such encounters.
In the late 1950s, on a hot mid-August day, three siblings saw what they recognized as a bigfoot swimming in the pond behind their rural Drew County home. The 10-year-old brother ran back to the house to get a gun. He returned in time to fire a shot at the creature, who could stay under water for long periods of time and swim at a pretty good clip. They believed the bullet hit the target, but men, who came and searched the pond and the surrounding area after the incident could find nothing.
And so the smelly skunk apes of the swamps continue to terrorize the backwoods communities and trailer parks of the south. As the grizzled skunk ape hunter in Boggy Creek III said to a reporter: “Yep, they’re big—and hairy too.”
But, like most wildmen and hairy giants, they don’t bathe much. Folks smell them coming from quite a distance. The local dogs go wild. Teenage girls run to their rooms screaming. It is all like some B-movie gone horribly wrong. Trailer parks are known to attract tornados, rednecks, methamphetamine labs, and, apparently, the grassman, smelly as he is.
CHAPTER 8
SASQUATCH RULES
THE FOREST
Science must begin with myths,
and with the criticism of myths.
—Sir Karl Popper
When we remember that we are all mad,
the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
—Mark Twain
While the grassman of the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys and the skunk apes of the southern swamps were often seen as only slightly larger than humans, the bigfoot on the western coast of the United States and Canada would appear to be much larger. The bigfoot of the vast forests of the Pacific Northwest are said to reach 12 feet (nearly 4 meters) in height. Typically they are said to be eight or nine feet tall, and perhaps because of the high rainfall in that area, they do not smell quite as much as their cousins back east.
Native Americans have told stories of bigfoot for generations, in which he is given different names, including sasquatch.
One of the earliest known sightings occurred in Jasper, Alberta, in 1811 when a British fur trader and explorer named David Thompson encountered giant footprints in the Athabasca River area. Said Thompson in his diary published by the Oregon Historical Quarterly, Number 15 (March-June 1914):
I now recur to what I have already noticed in the early part of last winter, when proceeding up the Athabasca River ...we came to the track of a large animal, which measured fourteen inches in length by eight inches in breadth by a tape line. As the snow was about six inches in depth the track was well defined, and we could see it for a full hundred yards from us, this animal was proceeding from north to south. We did not attempt to follow it, we had not time for it, and the Hunters, eager as they are to follow and shoot every animal, made no attempt to follow this beast, for what could the balls of our fowling guns do against such an animal? Reports from old times had made the head branches of this River, and the Mountains in the vicinity the abode of one, or more, very large animals, to which I never appeared to give credence; for these reports appeared to arise from that fondness for the marvelous so common to mankind: but the sight of the track of that large a beast staggered me, and I often thought of it, yet never could bring myself to believe such an animal existed, but thought it might be the track of some Monster Bear.
More stories were to come out of Canada in the 1800s, including the amazing story of Jacko, first told by Ivan T. Sanderson in his book Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life.9 Jacko was said to be a smallish apelike creature captured near Yale, British Columbia in June 1884. Jacko allegedly had been found injured on a railway line near Yale, having fallen off of a cliff. He was “of the gorilla-type” though standing only four feet seven inches tall and weighing 127 pounds. He was covered in long glossy hair about an inch long.
Jacko was exhibited, supposedly, in the local jail, and stories to this effect did appear in local new spapers, such as the Mainland Guardian of New Westminster on July 9, 1884. However, cryptozoologists John Green, Loren Coleman and others think that this event may have been more of a newspaper hoax, as were common at the time, than a genuine tale of a young sasquatch who was held in the hoosegow of a remote frontier town.
Still, one wonders about the great detail in the Jacko story, too long to be told here, but one that includes many names of railway men and information about his “keeper,” a man named George Tilbury. John Green felt that the newspapers had been somehow duped into printing the stories. In one of the later newspaper stories, 200 people came to the loca
l jail to view Jacko but only saw a half naked human who was in the jail on some petty charge. A rumor exists that Jacko had been earlier placed on a train going back east where he was to end up in a circus show. Jacko, if he ever existed, vanished without a trace.
Still, there are plenty of tales of sasquatch from the north woods, and while there are certainly hoaxes as well we will probably find that where there is smoke, there is fire. And in fact, the forest fire started by the sasquatch may be a big one—a blaze that may take some time to put out!
Teddy Roosevelt and Bigfoot
One of the earliest known bigfoot stories was told by the future American President Teddy Roosevelt in his early hunting book, The Wilderness Hunter, published in 1893. In one chapter, Roosevelt shares a bigfoot tale involving a German fur trapper he calls “Bauman,” who was trapping with a friend near the Salmon River in the Bitterroot Mountains along the Idaho and Montana border sometime in the 1880s.
This is the story that Roosevelt told in his book:
I have heard but few ghost stories while living on the frontier, and a few were of a perfectly commonplace and conventional type.
But I once listened to a goblin story which rather impressed me. It was told by a grizzled, weather-beaten old mountain hunter, named Bauman who was born and had passed all his life on the frontier. He must have believed what he said, for he could hardly repress a shudder at certain points of the tale; but he was of German ancestry, and in childhood had doubtless been saturated with all kinds of ghost and goblin lore, so that fearsome superstitions were latent in his mind; besides, he knew well the stories told by the Indian medicine men in their winter camps, of the snow-walkers, and the specters, and the formless evil beings that haunt the forest depths, and dog and waylay the lonely wanderer who after nightfall passes through the regions where they lurk; and it may be that when overcome by the horror of the fate that befell his friend, and when oppressed by the awful dread of the unknown, he grew to attribute, both at the time and still more in remembrance, weird and elfin traits to what was merely some abnormally wicked and cunning wild beast; but whether this was so or not, no man can say.
Yeti, Sasquatch & Hairy Giants Page 16