The Bogg Creek Monster: Arkansas’ Bigfoot
Imagine a tall, hairy creature staring at you from the shadows around Fouke, Arkansas.
This week, we discuss the bigfoot-like entity, the Boggy Creek Monster. For over a century, the Boggy Creek Beast has terrified residents, stalked folks, killed cattle and dogs, and more.
It is known to be 7 or 8 feet tall with thick, reddish brown hair, red eyes, and an awful odor. We dive into multiple encounters from various decades.
But, is this Arkansas sasquatch believable? Listen now.
What would you do if you saw a large, humanoid creature staring at you from the shadows?
Can you imagine being lunged at by a 7-foot beast?
What is lurking in the deep woods of Arkansas?
What is up, Bizarros? This week we track the three-toed footprints of the Boggy Creek Monster.
Where Is The Boggy Creek Monster At?
The Boggy Creek Monster can be found in Fouke, a nice little city in central Miller County, Arkansas. It’s about 150 miles or so outside of Little Rock.
What is the Boggy Creek Monster
The Boggy Creek Monster is a huge, ape-like creature that stands between 7 and 8 feet tall. It is estimated to be anywhere between 250 and 400 lbs. That is the kind of estimation I can get behind.
The Boggy Creek Monster is also known as the Fouke Monster, the Swamp Stalker, the Jonesville Monster due to the history of sightings near Jonesville in the 1940s, and the Boggy Creek Beast.
It is known to have very long, thick fur that covers its arms and legs. Its fur is dark, often appearing either dark brown or black.
In terms of its gait, there have been conflicting reports that it hunches over and swings its arms like an ape but also that it stands very erect like humans.
The Boggy Creek Monster is also accompanied by a putrid odor which is a clear giveaway that an encounter with this beast may be right around the corner.
The odor is described as a combination between wet dog and skunk.
Perhaps creepiest of all, it is reported the Boggy Creek Monster has bright, glowing red eyes.
What does he do?
While walking around with its big feet, it is known to kill livestock in the area and creep on people. While it hasn’t killed anyone as of the recording of this podcast, spoiler alert and knock on wood, it is known to be rather aggressive.
There are a few tracks and claw marks that have been discovered, which are said to belong to the monster.
One track of footprints reportedly measured 17 inches long & 7 inches wide, while another set of prints seemed to show feet that only had three toes.
There have also been a few movies made based on the Boggy Creek Monster, including The Legend of Boggy Creek.
Sightings Of The Boggy Creek Monster
The first reported sightings can be traced to 1834 when people started reporting a large, hairy “wild ape-man monster” was roaming around Arkansas.
The main 1971 Incident with the Legendary Monster:
The following incidents took place between April 28th and May 2nd, 1971.
During this time period, two families moved to a small rental home located at the north end of Fouke near Highway 71.
The families consisted of Don and Patricia Ford and their four children and Charles and Elizabeth Taylor, who did not have any children. They were there for work purposes.
On the night of April 28th, both families heard strange noises outside. Like something rustling around the property.
Then, they heard the creaking sounds of their porch’s old boards. Something was right by the home.
Startled, both families left and headed to the neighbor’s home.
Two days later, on May 1st, Don’s younger brother Bobby Ford and his friend, Corky, arrived at the home.
They were there just for the weekend for leisure, specifically wanting to fish at boggy creek.
Almost immediately after arriving, Bobby and Corky noticed a strange footprint in the mud. It was human-like but very long and only had 3 toes.
The creepy three-toed footprint and, now ominous, feeling of woods made Corky and Bobby rethink their plans about fishing – and instead decided to regroup at the house with everyone else.
Later that night, both families heard the strange visitor outside return. More creaking steps on the porch and rustling in nearby bushes.
But this time, it tried to break into the home. Doors and windows were tugged on and pounded against.
This time, the families stuck it out at the house until the unknown creature left.
The following night, May 2nd, Bobby was using the bathroom when suddenly, the monster appeared right outside the window.
Immediately, he ran into the living room. As it darted out, Elizabeth’s eyes shifted from Bobby to the bathroom where he emerged from.
However, her eyes stayed fixated there because she saw a huge, hairy arm come swinging in violently through the open window.
Its eyes flashed through briefly, shining a bright, horrifying red.
She was quoted as saying,
“At first, I thought it was a bear’s paw, but it truly didn’t look like that. It had heavy hair all over it, and it had claws, and I could see its eyes.
They looked like coals of fire… real red. It didn’t make any noise. Except you could hear it breathing.”
When Don and Charles became aware of what was going on with all of the screamings, they rushed to grab their shotgun and dashed outside.
They witnessed a large, hairy animal running on two feet, heading toward the back of the house.
They estimated the beast was about 7 to 8 feet tall, and its chest looked like it had to be at least 3 feet wide.
Rapidly, the beast entered the woods and vanished.
They called the local constable, but he was unable to do much for the families except leave another shotgun for them for safety.
For the remainder of the night, Bobby, Don, and Charles stood out on the porch with their now two shotguns and flashlights while the rest of the family stayed inside.
Surprisingly, the beast wasn’t done with them this night.
Just a short while later, they heard banging, not the back door. It was kicking it, trying to break inside.
The men responded quickly, darting around the house and firing at it with the shotguns.
It was heading for the woods again, and they thought they saw it fall but lost it in the shadows.
They were about to go check it out when they heard the women and Corky scream from inside the home. Bobby immediately turned around and sprinted toward the house.
As he was climbing the steps to the porch, the beast lunged at him from the shadows.
A quote from Bobby,
“I was walking the rungs of the ladder to get up on the porch when the thing grabbed me.
I felt a hairy arm come over my shoulder, and the next thing I knew, we were on the ground.
The only thing I could think about was to get out of there. The thing was breathing really hard, and his eyes were about the size of a half-dollar and completely red.
I finally broke away and ran around the house through the front door. I don’t know where it went.”
After hearing Bobby’s cries from the attack, Don and Charles ran back to the porch.
The beast had fled, and Bobby was in total shock. Beyond that, he was majorly scratched up.
They took him to the hospital, and he was tested for alcohol due to his incoherent, erratic state. He was determined to have not been drinking.
The next day, the constable and his team discovered pieces of metal around the bottom of the house had been ripped away, scratch marks on doors, the busted window, and strange 3-toed footprints in the dirt.
1908 – Mercer Bayou
A young girl named Kate had accompanied her family on a fishing trip to Mercer Bayou, just south of Fouke.
She claimed that while she was playing, she witnessed a hairy, man-like animal watching her from behind some bushes.
Once it saw that she acknowledged it, it ran away into the shadows.
1910 – Texarkana
A story from the Daily Arkansas Gazette in October of 1910 detailed a strange beast that was apparently running loose near Spring Lake Park in Texarkana, Arkansas.
This is about 20 miles north of Fouke.
The article reads:
“A strange beast, which roars like a lion, is reported to be running at large in the woods north of Spring Lake near Texarkana. The animal is said to have killed several pigs in the McAllister place and several dogs near New Town.
The roars of the strange beast have so frightened the people of that locality that they are afraid to leave their homes after dark, and windows and doors are kept securely barred.”
1916 – Wright Patman Lake
This took place about 19 miles west of Fouke near Wright Patman Lake, which is actually in Texas.
The story was told by a retired geologist, as told to him by his grandparents.
It was a warm summer night, and his grandmother at the time was only 18 years old.
His grandmother and grandfather were arriving home in their wagon, and despite it being late, it was a full moon, which lit the area very well.
As they were turning toward the farmhouse, their mules began acting scared, as if they heard or saw something unusual.
They looked around but didn’t see anything and thought maybe there was a snake nearby.
A few seconds later, they heard a strange noise coming from the East pasture, which was described as something like an eerie, high-pitched wail.
The mules began backpedaling and heaving.
After a few moments, the couple saw an intensely tall shadow emerge from the trees. It was taller than a man and covered with long, dark hair.
However, they noted that it walked very slowly and erect; it wasn’t hunched over like an ape.
It started angrily motioning toward them with its arm while approaching their wagon.
At this point, the couple was in a complete state of panic and fear. The man picked up a rifle and fired in the direction of the creature.
It missed, but the sound was enough to make the beast run away.
The next day, the geologist’s grandfather surveyed the area for blood, tracks, or any sign of the creature. But they never found anything.
1954 Incredible Three-toed Fouke Monster
In 1954, a woman and her two children lived in an isolated farmhouse about 2 miles outside of Fouke.
One night, the mother, a noise late at night, peered outside and saw a strange, large, hairy creature standing still as stone in their field.
Concerned, the woman sent her son to go get their landlord, but he had to travel on foot, and by the time the landlord got there, the creature was gone.
1955 – Fouke
A man named Willie Smith had two separate run-ins with the creature in 1955.
One night, he discovered the Monster lurking around the boggy creek, which ran closely behind his home. Terrified, he fired 15 shots at it with his army rife.
Whether or not he hit the creature, it was able to get away into the woods.
A few days later, he claims the creature returned and was throwing chunks of rock at his dog. Once again, Willie grabbed his rife, but the creature got away again.
Later on, in 1971, Willie became a target for interviews due to seeing the creature, and apparently, 3-toed footprints were found around his property.
The 1960s
In the 1960s, there were a couple of encounters in Jonesville, Arkansas, about 10 minutes from Fouke, that initially led the beast to be called the Jonesville Monster until being dubbed the Boggy Creek Monster in 1971.
The first story takes place in Jonesville in 1964.
Mary Beth Searcy was a teenager and spent the night at home with her mother, older sister, and baby niece. Her father and brother were out hunting.
Everyone besides Mary Beth went to sleep, she continued doing her school work as the sun set and moonlight poured in through their window.
Lost in the trance of her studies, her sister woke up and asked Mary Beth if she could cover the bedroom window to prevent the cool air to come in and chill the sleeping baby niece.
Mary Beth agreed and wandered over to the window.
She peered outside into the yard, which had enough moonlight to faintly reveal the presence of a large, hairy creature emerging from the woods.
Mary Beth was shocked at how this beast was walking on two legs, just as though it were human.
She screamed, ran from the window, and the entire family spent the sleepless night huddled in fear.
1965
Also, in Jonesville in 1965, a man named Fred Crabtree was hunting in dense woods when something caught his eye.
He turned and saw a dark, shadowy creature standing behind thick trees.
He immediately knew that this creature was aware of his presence, watching his every move.
Slowly, he tried to get closer to get a better look, but immediately after his first step, the creature disappeared.
Just a few months later, James Lynn Crabtree, a young teenager, was hunting for squirrels, also in the dense woods of Jonesville, like Fred.
As the sun began to set, he was sitting under a tall acorn tree when he heard the sound of multiple horses running down a nearby trail.
This piqued James’ curiosity, but they figured it was just the neighbor’s horses running around to escape the flies and such.
But, almost immediately after hearing the horses, he heard a dog bellow out in what seemed like pain.
Fearing this may be one of their own dogs, James went to investigate.
On his way to the neighbor’s area, the dog bellow eerily shifted to a low, deep grunt.
It was nothing like he’d ever heard before in his life. At this point, he started questioning whether or not it was a dog he was going to run into.
When he got to the clearing and the nearby lake came into view, he was shocked at what he saw.
Standing in the distance was a tall, hairy creature standing on two legs.
It was no more than 30 feet away, with it’s back turned to James.
He later called it a “hairy man or gorilla-type beast with very long arms.”
He realized this is the creature that spooked the horses and made the unusual groaning sound.
Trembling with fear and only being able to assume that this thing must somehow be a man, he raised his gun to try and scare the creature away.
It paid no concern to the weapon, but now its sole focus was on James. It started walking towards him.
Horrified, James let out a few shots and then fled in terror.
A year later, James’ father reported that the creature would periodically stalk their home.
He was quoted as saying,
“The thing came up to our house several times, at night only. It would scream out a few times and run the dogs away from home for a few days, but they would always come back.
The cattle would stampede and run through the woods from it. We would get out there with guns and lights. I was never sure enough of what I saw to actually shoot.”
1967
In our final encounter from the 1960s, in 1967, musician Carl Finch and his cousin were driving on a lonely patch of Route 71 South near Fouke.
They had just been in a battle of the bands in Louisiana and were heading up to Texarkana.
As they were driving late a night, they noticed their headlights hit a figure running on the side of the road.
At first, they figured it must have just been a man in a strange, brown boat.
But the closer they got and the more their headlights illuminated the running entity, they could tell something was off.
The way it ran was unlike any human they’d ever seen. It didn’t have a normal gait at all.
Also, the closer they got, the more obvious it was that this thing wasn’t wearing a coat. It was covered in thick fur.
They passed it quickly and were too afraid to stop and go back to see what it may have been.
They noted that the creature seemed to pay no mind at all to the speeding car.
1974
In 1974, Wiliam Richmond was living in Fouke as a working hand on a local ranch. While out squirrel hunting with his brother, they witnessed a large, humanoid creature swiftly walking through the trees.
They watched in amazement as this creature broke saplings and thrashed around.
It seemed very agitated.
It let out an eerie growl that seemed like a combination of whistling and low, guttural sounds.
It was a sound they’d never heard before.
Within a moment, the creatures charged at them. It was only about 25 yards away at this point, rushing at them.
It looked muscular, 8 feet high, and almost 4 feet wide.
Deep down, the brothers knew they didn’t have enough firepower to take this beast down, but they started firing anyway.
When the guns went off, the beast let out a blood-curdling scream.
The brothers slowly retreated, keeping their eyes on the creature. It eventually left in a different direction, and they hastily got the hell out of there.
2000
On a chilly, moonlit night in 2000, a hunter and a few other men were in a nearby area called Thornton Wells.
At one point, the hunter’s dog started aggressively tracking a raccoon’s trail deep into the swamp.
He followed his dog’s lead, separating from the others.
After locating the raccoon and starting back across the swamp to regroup with the others, he heard something walking on flooded timber, as he described it.
He called out, thinking it was the men from his hunting group.
There was no response.
Then, he heard a deep, gurgling growl and was overwhelmed by this awful odor.
The dog began whimpering and cowering behind the hunter’s legs, which was very unusual for this dog’s behavior.
The hunter was confused but tried to stay focused and get across the swamp.
In his words,
“After a few minutes, I heard the sound of someone or something walking on water again. So I stopped and turned around, and standing right behind me was a creature of immense size.
It was large, covered in dark, rusty brown hair that was wet and matted.
It was ape-like but stood straight up, at least 7 feet tall.
I don’t remember ever seeing that scared. It made a hissing sound, and reached down and took his hand and started scooping water and throwing it at me and making a deep throaty noise.
My dogs started chomping at the leash, trying to get at it, having regained their bravery.
I grabbed the leash and tore out across the swamp so cared that, for a while, I actually went in the wrong direction.
I could hear the thing behind me, and it sounded like about 100 yards or so back.
It followed me for ways; then, after a while, I could hear it across the bayou making a moaning sound and moving away slowly.”
2021 – Arkansas Times.com Excerpt:
Journalist Austin Bailey scouting out Fouke to check out encounter stories from locals.
“Shopkeeper Bridgett Story gamely pointed us to a paper map of Miller County on the wall, marked up with locations of the most recent sightings. She played us a clip of audio captured out in the woods of an angry howl in the wind. “I’m a skeptic,” she admitted, “but it makes my hair stand up.”
Her husband happened to be at the shop, too, sprawled out in full camo in a booth after an unsuccessful morning of squirrel hunting. And while he seemed like he would prefer to join his wife in the skeptics camp, he’s had a few run-ins that he can’t shake. There was the time he was out deer hunting by Horseshoe Lake and saw a grizzled brown face watching him. He looked over at his son, who was paying attention only to his phone screen. When he looked again, the face was gone. It was early in the morning, though, and Story wonders if he’d talked himself into it. “If you think about stuff, you’re going to see stuff,” he said.
But then there was the night the family went frog gigging on McKinney Bayou and ran into a wall of stink he described as “wet dog mixed with skunk.” He and his wife exchanged wide-eyed, knowing looks but said nothing about what they suspected was the source of the smell. “I don’t want my son to be scared to go out in the woods,” he explained.”
YouTube Encounters:
Encounter 1
In mid-summer 1969, I saw a creature. It was mid-afternoon on a clear day with perfect visibility, and was only about 50 yards from me and a buddy.
We were crossing a lake to a remote campsite when we heard splashing sounds coming from the shore on the back side of the lake.
Seeing anything like this was the last thing on our minds. We stopped to look, and it saw us, stood up and turned and walked in plain sight a few feet up an incline and then stepped behind a tree, where it stayed a few seconds peeking back at us.
It was covered with reddish brown hair from head to toe, and no visible skin showing anywhere, not even on its face. It was about 7 feet tall and maybe 250 lbs.
My friend seemed to shrug it off the next day, and no one else seemed to want to hear about it. I’ll never forget it.
Encounter 2
There are Bigfoot in Hot Springs Arkansas.
My daughter was five, and she was born in 1997.
I was walking back with my niece, and we went up into the mountains, and we walked up through the mountain. Then on the way back, we smell a real muskie bad smell.
When we came around the bin we had looked early there was nothing when we went buy but when we came back in the thickett was a black big creatures sitting in the back of the tickets, and I said to her do we have Bears here.
She said I don’t know if we have bears here, I said my hair is standing on end, and she said mine too. And I said well, I don’t think that’s a bear cuz it wasn’t there before, and it’s just staring at us. And it smells bad too.
She said yeah, what is that smell. we got scared and need to get going, so we ran for the rest of the way home. It did not look like a bear. It was sitting down and staring at us straight in our faces. So there are Bigfoot and in Arkansas Hot Springs.
Is The Boggy Creek Monster Real?
What do you think, Bizarros?
Is this 8-foot-tall monster stalking the people of Fouke, Arkansas?
Is this some American Folklore that has been passed down from generation to generation, keeping the legend alive?
Or is this another normal biological creature that people are exaggerating?
Let us know in the comments (and watch the Classic Horror Film The Legend Of Boggy Creek).
Sources
Legends of America, The Wylie News, Arkansas Times, Puzzlebox horror, cryptidz fandom
Boggy Creek Casebook by Lyle Blackburn, Atlas Obscura
Fouke monster.net