The Enfield Monster
On April 25th, 1973, two neighbors in Enfield, Illinois witnessed something horrific and unbelievable. A monster that has since been dubbed the Enfield Horror.
Both a young boy, who was attacked, and a man protecting his family witnessed a creature with grey, slimy skin, short stubby arms, three legs, and red piercing eyes.
The town of Enfield went into a frenzy over the creature and countless monster hunters and news reporters visited the area, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Enfield Monster. But, is it believable?
Have you ever had to contact authorities to report an encounter that felt unbelievable?
What creature caused a major stir in a small Illinois town?
Can group think trick and entire town into believing the paranormal?
What is up, Bizarros? This week we dive into the tale of the Enfield Monster.
The Enfield Horror
This story takes place in Southern Illinois, in the town of Enfield.
On April 25th, 1973, 10-year-old Greg Garrett was playing in his backyard while his parents were inside watching TV.
Out of nowhere, Greg burst into the home, crying hysterically.
The parents shut the TV off and rushed over to Greg, trying to console him and ask what happened.
In between sobs and gasps of breath, Greg told his parents that he had been playing in the backyard when a terrifying, misshapen beast emerged from the darkness and tried to attack him.
When his parents asked him what he saw, Greg described the beast as being about 5 feet or so tall, with 3 legs, short stumpy arms with taloned hands, grey and slimy skin, and incredibly large, disproportionate red eyes.
He claimed that the creature charged at Greg and actually stomped on the boy’s feet, which ended up ripping his shoe in the process.
Terrified, confused, and worried for their son, the Garretts called the police.
The police showed up, and they weren’t able to find any evidence of this creature existing.
But that isn’t where the story ends for this night.
Just a half hour later, there was a second sighting. This time the creature was spotted by Garret’s neighbor, a man named Henry McDaniel.
Henry McDaniel was hanging out with his family inside when his children came up to him and told him they heard a funny noise outside.
He asked them what kind of noise, and they told their father that it was a scratching sound.
Thinking it may have been an animal, McDaniel went to investigate and realized he, too, could hear this scratching.
He went outside, preparing to scare off some cat or dog or small animal from the premises.
However, he had no way of preparing for what he was about to see.
There, creeping around his porch, was no cat or dog; it was this terrifying monstrosity that perfectly matched Greg’s description – 3 legs, short arms with talons, red eyes, and grey slimy skin.
Here is a quote from McDaniels:
“It had three legs on it, a short body, two little short arms coming out of its breast area, and two pink eyes as big as flashlights. It stood four and a half feet tall and was grayish-colored… it was trying to get into the house!”
McDaniel’s fight or flight struck, and he jumped back into his house and slammed the door.
His family was confused and nervous. They asked him what was wrong, concerned both by him slamming the door and the way he stalked through the house.
Without saying a word, McDaniels located his .22 pistol and went back to his door.
When he opened the door, the Enfield Monster was still there, scratching away at the home.
Frantically, McDaniels fired several shots at the creature, many of which hit it dead on.
He knew for a fact that he had struck the creature with a bullet or two.
However, it had little to no impact on it.
The Enfield Monster looked up at McDaniels, hissed at him, and started leaping away. But these weren’t tiny hops; the jumps that this creature made on its 3 legs were massive.
As McDaniels reports it, the beast covered about 50 feet in just three jumps before it disappeared into the darkness of the night.
Just like the Garetts, McDaniels immediately called the police and claimed to see, in his words, a “monster from outer space.”
The authorities showed up on the same street to investigate a report of a heinous and terrifying creature that matched no known animal description.
Unlike the Garett residence, this time, the police were able to find some evidence of an entity.
They discovered a series of footprints that measured about 4 inches across and looked very similar to a dog’s footprints, but it had 6 toe pads rather than the usual 4 of a dog.
Also, the footprints made it clear that whatever the creature was, it was, in fact, walking on 3 legs based on the layout.
Upon more investigation, they also discovered the scratch marks that the family reported, thus giving credibility to McDaniel’s report.
However, the authorities were still skeptical of both the Garett’s and McDaniel’s claims.
About two weeks later, McDaniels would have another encounter with the Enfield Monster.
McDaniel’s Second Sighting Of The Enfield Horror
Around 3 am, the witching hour, on May 6th, 1973, McDaniels was woken up by the sound of his neighbor’s dog barking in a frenzy.
Groggily, he got out of bed to see what was causing the dog to constantly bark.
He looked out the window, and there on the train tracks by his home, was the very same creature he had seen just a few weeks before.
The Enfield Monster was described as very casually trotting up and down the railway tracks.
He went outside to get a better look at the creature. But he did not take his .22 pistol or intend to shoot it.
Instead, this time he stared and observed the creature. He wondered what this thing could possibly be.
Eventually, the creature strolled off into the night.
Here is a quote:
“I saw something moving out on the railroad track, and there it stood. I didn’t shoot at it or anything. It started down the railroad track. It wasn’t in a hurry or anything.”
As days and weeks went by, McDaniels told family, friends, and neighbors about the monstrosity he had seen twice in his own yard.
He even called into radio station WWKI in Indiana, to discuss what he witnessed.
Word spread about this beast, which was becoming dubbed the “Enfield Monster” and the “Enfield Horror.”
Stories about it stalking around people’s yards at night kept neighbors awake and peering into the darkness before double-checking that they’d locked the doors before nervously slipping into their beds.
Others flocked to the McDaniels and Garetts street at night, hoping to catch a small glimpse of the Enfield Monster.
Then, people from out of town and out of state made their way to the quiet town. It became a whole ordeal, and not to the satisfaction of the towns folk.
It got to the point where the sheriff warned McDaniel to stop spreading his crazy stories in order to keep the rumors under wraps. Despite these threats, more and more people made their way to Enfield.
Although many of these visitors were merely curiosity seekers hoping to see the monster for themselves, others were more ambitious monster hunters who came armed and dangerous, ready to take the creature down as a trophy.
The aggression that some hunters had alarmed the locals. The last thing they wanted was trigger-happy monster hunters hanging about the same street corners where their children played.
As time passed, these monster hunters field the legend of the Enfield Monster by reporting sightings of their own.
There were two hunters from Indiana named Mike and Roger who claimed to see something that resembled a “large grey monkey” dashing through the underbrush.
They quickly aimed their guns, but the creature moved too quickly for them to pull off a shot.
On a separate night, five hunters were arrested by the local police for hunting violations and public safety charges.
This was caused by opening fire in unison on what they all claimed was a “grey hairy creature they spotted lurking in the woods.”
A couple of the hunters even claimed that their aim had been accurate, and they hit the beast, but their bullets seemed to have zero effect on the Enfield Monster.
Keeping a strong, skeptical stance – the Sheriff, Roy Poshard Jr, did not believe a word that they said.
He believed that they were a threat and simply thrill seekers who were out drinking and trying to raise hell.
A quote from Roy Poshard Jr:
“Those kids were out there shooting at anything that moved. Ever since this creature business got started, we’ve had people milling around here with guns and drinking, and if I don’t put a stop to it, somebody’s going to get killed. People around here are afraid to let their kids out at night, and not because of the monster. It’s because they’re afraid the kids will get shot. There isn’t any monster.”
The final major sighting of the Enfield Horror was made by a group of four men searching the area, with one of them being Rick Rainbow, the news director of radio station WWKI in Kokomo, Indiana.
He brought another man from the radio station, Ed Phillips, who was a big game hunter and brought a pretty extensive arsenal of specialty weapons and tranquilizer guns.
The group claimed that they had seen a grey, stooped-over ape-like creature loping through the woods near an abandoned house not far from McDaniel’s property.
They reported that the creature was moving at a speed far quicker than any man could run and then disappeared into the forest. Once it broke the treelined, the men claimed that it let out a bloodcurdling wail.
Rick Rainbow claimed to capture the screech. Although, you can’t find the audio file online anywhere, unfortunately.
Investigation Into The Mysterious Cryptid
The Enfield horror was investigated by a cryptozoologist named Loren Coleman, who later wrote an article about their experience in July 1974.
The article was titled “Swamp Slobs Invade Illinois” in the Fate Magazine.
Loren took time to examine areas where the Enfield monster had been seen, listened to the Rainbow Recording, and interviewed locals.
When he was specifically at the McDaniel’s residence, he actually claimed to hear the beast’s screech himself.
A quote from Coleman:
“I traveled to Enfield, interviewed the witnesses, looked at the siding of the house the Enfield Monster had damaged, heard some strange screeching banshee-like sounds, and walked away bewildered.”
Theories About What The Monster Could Be
A Kangaroo
On May 16th of 1973, a man named Alan Yorkshire of Elyria, Ohio wrote a letter to the newspaper in Enfield. Which, apparently they no longer had newspapers so the letter was opened by the City Treasurer and passed on to the police.
Yorkshire believed the Enfield monster was his kangaroo, Macey, who had either escaped or been stolen.
He offered a $500 reward for the animal’s return and announced plans to visit the city to search for the animal.
Just to be clear, Elyria to Enfield is about a 7-day hike.
But, a lot of people do theorize if it was an animal that a Kangaroo makes sense. It hops, the tail could easily be mistaken for a third leg in the middle of the night, and they can be aggressive.
They also can be grey. Now, whether or not it was from a zoo or escaped somewhere else, I don’t know.
McDaniels firmly stands on his belief that it was not a Kangaroo.
Never Existed
The young boy and McDaniels could have been mistaken or lied for publicity, and then the hunters could have fallen into mass hysteria.
Essentially, it mistook typical animals for the Enfield Horror.
Group Think
This is along the same lines.
Psychology Today Definition:
Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when a group of well-intentioned people makes irrational or non-optimal decisions spurred by the urge to conform or the belief that dissent is impossible.
In 1978, David L. Miller, Kenneth J. Mietus, and Richard A. Mathers of Western Illinois University wrote an essay about the Enfield Monster for the Sociological Quarterly.
“A Critical Examination of the Social Contagion Image of Collective Behavior: The Case of the Enfield Monster,” the article is titled.
They discuss groupthink and how mob mentality can cause individuals to believe the same hallucination in the report.
This is further believed to be true by some due to how everything heightened to the point that people were being arrested for shooting off guns and invading private property.
Enfield Monster Encounters
Reddit Story
“I cannot guarantee what I saw was the historical Enfield Monster, but regardless it was a very strange experience.
I was visiting Enfield in ’86, a good 13 years after the main sightings. Mind you, I had no idea this thing existed, nor had I heard any stories about it prior.
Anyway, I am from Chicago, as is my wife, and in 1986 we helped her parents move into a new home in Enfield. They had decided to downsize, so we spent the weekend moving them in.
By night two, everyone was exhausted. Her parents had a dog who was whiny from lack of attention during the move, and we could tell she was cramped from not moving around much.
Everyone else was dead tired, and honestly, I was too, but I offered to take the dog on a short walk.
One, because it was a nice thing to do and earned me some extra brownie points with my at the time girlfriend’s parents. And two, it let me have a little alone time, so to speak, as I’d spent just about every minute with them over the two days.
I few minutes later, I’m out the door with Roxy, ready to embark on a nice little walk.
It was late May and around 9:45 at night. So it was warm enough that the breeze felt nice and incredibly dark.
I passed a few houses and tried my best to keep recognition of where I was going to make sure I didn’t get lost.
Not too far away from where I left, Roxy decided to take care of her bodily duties. While I waited, I glanced around.
Something caught my eye in a tree. My eyes were still adjusting to the dark, but I could make out what looked like two very large, reddish-orange eyes staring at me between tree branches.
I shuddered and gave Roxy a quick yank. Thankfully she was done, so we continued on and away from the tree.
I started walking a bit faster, having a hard time shaking what I’d just seen. Typing his out, doesn’t seem very scary. But the way it made me feel was dreadful.
A moment later, I heard a deep thud and some scratching, like nails or claws on the pavement.
I whipped my head around and caught a tiny glimpse of something dashing away right from under that tree with the red eyes.
I took a corner away from that tree at the next intersection, trying to get away and hoping to cut the walk a little shorter than anticipated.
A few moments later, Roxy moved to the grass and returned to a squatting pose. Unrelated, but it was at this point I realized that I had brought nothing to scoop any doggie droppings.
Anyway, I wasn’t thinking of that long. I was still on high alert.
After she was done, her ears perked up, and she was looking off in the distance. I couldn’t see whatever she was looking at, and I wasn’t super familiar with this dog or her mannerisms, but I could tell she was distressed.
That was when my leading the walk ended. Rather, she was pulling me back in the direction of the house.
To be honest, I didn’t mind heading back to the house. Back inside safely with my future wife and her parents.
As we hustled back to the house, Roxy stopped dead in her tracks. This time I knew exactly why.
In the distance, we saw something, and I emphasized something, cross the road in front of us. It was grey, hairy, with long unnatural arms, and it was hard to tell in the night with how quickly it walked, but I swear it looked like it had 3 legs. And I swear to God I believed that before I read any stories about the Enfield Monster.
Needless to say, I almost shit my pants right there.
When we got back to the house, my future wife could tell something was wrong, but I didn’t want to tell her. One, I didn’t want to say I just saw something unbelievable and was terrified, and two, I didn’t want to freak her parents out; they just moved here after all.
A few years later, I told them the story, they thankfully said they’d never seen anything like what I described.
So that is my story. Could it be the Enfield Monster? I’m not sure – but one thing is for sure, it was an absolutely crazy experience.”
Is The Enfield Horror Real?
What do you think, Bizarros?
Is the Enfield Monster a lost Kangaroo that made its way to this sleepy town?
Could it have been an alien?
Or could it have been a new type of cryptid?
Citations:
Cryptids Fandom
Mysterious Universe
Cryptozoology cryptids
Unresolved
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