The Grafton Monster

On a fateful night in June 1964, Robert Cockrell’s drive home through Grafton, West Virginia, took an unexpected turn when he encountered a massive, headless creature with smooth, rubbery skin.

This bizarre sighting sparked a town-wide frenzy, with armed locals combing the woods in search of what became known as the Grafton Monster. Multiple witnesses described an 8-10 foot tall entity with broad shoulders and a seemingly non-existent head, lending credence to Cockrell’s account and fueling the growing hysteria.

As the monster-hunting craze reached fever pitch, UFO researcher Gray Barker linked the creature to extraterrestrial phenomena, adding another layer of mystery to the tale. But just as the investigation seemed to gain traction, both Cockrell and Barker abruptly abandoned their pursuits.

The sudden cessation of their inquiries raises unsettling questions: What forces compelled them to drop the subject? Did they uncover truths too disturbing to share, or were they silenced by shadowy figures determined to keep the Grafton Monster’s secrets buried?

The Grafton Monster

What would you do if you were driving home and saw a cryptid on the side of the road?

Is there a headless monster that roams the woods of West Virginia?

What is up, Bizarros?! This week, we are diving into one of West Virginia’s creepiest cryptids, The Grafton Monster.

What Does The Grafton Monster look like?

This entity is known to be 7 to 9 feet tall, four feet wide, and has rubbery, seal-like skin.

One very unusual characteristic about the Grafton Monster is its lack of a head.

It’s just kind of like a rounded torso with the head resting in the middle of the chest.

The monster has a very deep, echoing bellow that is said to be heard from miles away.

The Grafton Monster is also well known for the popular video game Fallout 76.

About Grafton, West Virginia

Grafton is a city in Taylor County, West Virginia, along the Tygart Valley River.

It originally developed as a junction point for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, serving numerous branches of a network that was vital to the regional coal industry.

Grafton is the home of both of West Virginia’s national cemeteries and was where the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association formed in 1895. Mother’s Day was founded in Grafton on May 10, 1908, and the city is home to the International Mother’s Day Shrine. Grafton was also among the first cities in the United States to observe Memorial Day.

The First Encounter With The Grafton Cryptid

The first encounter of the Grafton Monster took place on June 16th, 1964.

Robert Cockrell worked at the local newspaper, known back then as the Grafton Sentinel.

Around 11 pm at night, he finished his work and decided to head home.

He was the only car on the road of Riverside Drive since most folks in town were in bed at this hour.

While driving down Yates Avenue along the western banks of the Tygart River, he noticed something unusual.

He passed a bend, and his headlights caught something that piqued his interest.

There was a boulder that was mostly obstructing the right lane of the road. The other half of this large rock was on a clearing of grass.

It was late, so at first, Robert was prepared to swerve around the rock and continue his journey home.

But, then, it donned on him.

He had taken this exact path countless times, and there had never been a boulder or anything of the like here before.

So, he slowed down and took a few moments to truly take in what this large, boulder-like thing in the road was.

The phrase that popped into his mind was a “huge white obstruction.”

That was when he came to the haunting realization that this thing in no way was a boulder.

Moving at a snail’s pace, he peered out his window and witnessed what looked like a 7 to 9-foot tall, incredibly wide and muscular entity.

It had no discernible had that he was able to see.

With the way the light from his car reflected it, he noted that it didn’t have normal skin or hair or anything like that.

Instead, it was incredibly smooth and slick. Almost the rubbery skin you’d expect from a seal.

Then, for the first time since rounding the corner, the large entity moved, completely confirming to Robert that this inexplicable monster in front of him was truly alive.

In a moment of panic and fear, Robert slammed on his gas pedal and sped away.

Naturally, he had difficulty explaining exactly what he saw.

On the drive, he tried processing exactly what he witnessed. What could it have been? Where did it come from?

He had seen nothing like it before in his life.

When he arrived home, he did what all of us would have done: he excitedly told all of his friends what he had seen.

Nowadays, it would probably be a tweet, text message, or something. But this is West Virginia in the 1960s, so you know he had to use that landline, ring, you know, maybe his friend’s wife or family answered, he had to ask if so and so could come to the phone, and then be like DUDE YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS SHIT.

Regardless, he reaches out to his friends and tells them about the crazy experience he has, how he can’t believe it, and has no idea what it was.

So, Robert’s friends, Jerry Morse and Jim Mouser, were like, “We need to go looking for this thing!”

Despite all of the fear Robert felt, he took a couple of buddies, grabbed their guns, and went back to where he had seen the monster.

When they got back to the spot where Robert had witnessed the creature, it had disappeared.

They did find crushed grass, proving that someone or something had been there, but not even footprints or anything like that.

Thinking that maybe it was still in the area, the men took their flashlights and started searching around the area, hoping to find some type of clue.

A few moments later, Robert and his friends heard something strange.

It was very quiet and faint at first, but then they realized they were hearing an eerie whistling sound.

It sent shivers down their spines and seemed to be following the men around as they searched for this entity.

While the whistle seemed to grow nearer and further by the minute, they were never able to determine the source of the whistling sound.

Eventually, the mixture of looking for an unknown monster, along with this unnerving, disembodied whistling, was enough to make the men call it a night and end their search.

For a few days, Robert kind of sat on his sighting, wondering if he should tell anyone other than his close friends about the experience.

In all honesty, it was mostly the adrenaline and the excitement that even made him confide in his friends in the first place.

In the right state of mind, maybe it was all really just nothing, or he had been seeing things.

But, the encounter kept gnawing at him, and it was hard for him to keep that bottled up.

So, finally, after about 3 days, Robert decided to write up his experience and submit it to the local newspaper.

He didn’t really expect the story to latch on. If anything, it would probably be laughed at or brushed to the side.

Either way, for him, it felt good to get his story out there.

But Robert was very, very wrong.

Once his encounter was published in the newspaper and read by the local town of Grafton, there were countless individuals dead set on hunting and finding the “Grafton Monster,” as it was now called.

Folks of all ages roamed around the woodlands, armed with rifles, pistols, knives, and baseball bats.

Basically, anything that might give them a chance against this 9-foot-tall, 4-foot-wide beast.

For a short period of time, it was an absolute frenzy. There was, apparently, no such thing as fake news, and the trust in the media must have been outstanding.

Literally got the whole neighborhood out searching for this incredibly strange creature.

Throughout the weeks of searching for the Grafton Monster, a few other individuals claimed to have witnessed the creature themselves.

It wasn’t uncommon for townsfolk to hear random gunshots in the night, leaving neighbors in their homes wondering if the monster had finally been captured or killed.

This kind of forced the local newspaper to write an article titled, “Teenage Monster Hunting Latest Activity on Grafton Scene.”

Here is an excerpt of an article from The Grafton Sentinel from June 19, 1964:

“Grafton’s alleged “monster,” reportedly the personification of the active imaginations of a number of teenagers, couldn’t have shown up in the Riverside Drive area if it wanted to on Thursday night; too many teenagers and adults were roaming that section of the city.

At approximately 10 p.m., it was reported that cars were almost bumper-to-bumper along the river drive and a large number of cars were pulled off the road to permit joining in the area’s most popular event in recent years, “monster hunting.”

Some 20 reports from persons allegedly seeing the “monster” have been quoted since Tuesday night when the “creature without a discernible head” was reported near the city rock quarry.

Wednesday night, about 30 teenagers engaged in a “monster hunt,” but by Thursday night, the number of teenagers had doubled, and a number of adults joined in the action.”

So, the town was kind of falling into a bit of hysteria. And just in case anyone out there is thinking or wondering about this, this is taking place 2 years before the Mothman sightings, and Grafton is about 2 1/2 hours East of Point Pleasant.

Grafton is dipping into chaos; the police are going around trying to calm down and contain crowds; meanwhile – Robert is traveling around Grifton and interviewing folks who have claimed to see the monster.

Gotta line up stories and try and get as much information as you can, right?

What was astonishing and very validating to Robert was that many of the eyewitness testimonies matched up with Robert’s own experience.

They all claimed the creature was 8 to 10 feet tall, with very broad shoulders and slick hairless white-ish/grey skin.

And, the strangest detail – if that is possible – is the head being kind of tucked away in the body or just completely non-existent.

Here is a quote from one witness who spoke to Robert:

“I had seen the creature called ‘The Grafton Monster’ several times when I was a young man, and it is very real.

My first encounter was with my father, who was cutting wood. We finished loading the truck, and our two dogs started barking.

We stood there and listened; something was walking, and we were getting closer. My Dad told me to get the gun from the cab (He carried a double barrel 10 gauge with 00 buckshot).

Whatever it was had picked up its pace and continued toward us. All we knew for sure was it was big and wasn’t scared of us, the dogs, or the chainsaws.

It stopped about 50-55 yards from us in the trees and went quiet. My Dad pulled both hammers back and stood in front of me, telling me to be ready.

The next thing that happened I’ll never forget. It stepped out, looked at us, took 3 strides in our direction, turned, and walked back into the tree line.

That was my first sighting of the beast, and I’ll never forget it. My 2nd encounter was about 2 months later at night, fishing alone. I spotted him on the opposite bank, and I got the hell out of the area.”

Due to the frenzy of people searching and the somewhat official testimonies that were coming out, the Grafton Police decided to do their own investigation.

They ended up finding no evidence that would support a claim that this Grafton Monster existed.

Their conclusion was that everyone was getting a little overexcited and letting their overactive imaginations run wild – which led to pranks and people trying to trick other folks into believing in the nonsense.

Then, they tried to spin it as a misidentification, claiming the original sightings were actually a homeless man pushing a handcart that was piled high with boxes.

While this did put a bit of a damper on the city-wide search for the creature, this did not sway Robert.

He was steadfast in what he had seen and was determined to collect more information and try to understand what this monster actually was.

Robert reached out to a UFO researcher named Gray Barker. Which… is actually kind of a dope name.

He told Barker about his experience and what he had heard firsthand from other witnesses, hoping the expert could shed some light on the creepy encounter.

Barker listened intently to Robert and agreed to come out and inspect the area himself.

Barker came to the conclusion that Robert was, in fact, telling the truth.

Not only that, but he had discovered witnesses from before even Robert and that many of the encounters with this creature were also accompanied by UFO phenomena.

Barker detailed one such testimony:

“I saw the monster near the river early in the morning. It saw me and instantly froze. It did not move.

I was fishing at the time, so I left all my gear there and started to run away.

As I ran and turned, I saw that it, too, turned away and started running off.

As I got near my truck and began opening the door, I heard a whooshing sound and a bright light above the tree line. I drove off and got my gear two days later.”

Barker was absolutely convinced that this entity and UFOs were somehow linked. It’s not quite going far enough to say the Grafton Monster was extraterrestrial, but there were certainly dots being connected.

However, as time passed, things took a little bit of a strange turn.

For a short period of time, Barker became focused on writing up an article all about the Grafton Monster and accompanying UFO details, and Robert continued trying to better understand his experience.

But, almost simultaneously, both endeavors came to a halt.

Barker inexplicably gave up on the article and never published anything on the Grafton Monster.

Meanwhile, Robert would later recant his original report and experience, claiming that he must have been mistaken and that there was truly never a Grafton Monster.

This is one of those underlying creepy moments that actually hit me harder than the Grafton Monster sighting.

It makes you wonder if they were convinced to drop the subject.

It makes you think like Men in Black type of stuff or some type of experience that we’ll never know about that puts pressure on them to forget the whole thing.

Now, let’s look at some encounters others have had with this cryptid.

Grafton Monster Encounter

Mountain Monsters Video Encounter

Apparently, about 10 years ago, on the show Mountain Monsters, they played a clip from a Cattle farmer.

It shows cows running away and a tall entity in the distance, hunched over and quickly fleeing to the right.

Of course, it’s grainy as all get out, but I’ll post it on our social media on the day this episode drops so you’ll let us know what you think.

From Geo Thermal _ 47

This took place in late summer and early Fall 2017. I’m open to ideas on what it could be. Maybe I’m wrong. I really have no idea.

Anyway, I was visiting an old college friend. We went to Marshall back in 12 to 16. Then he went back to his home near Grafton, and I went back to my home in Lancaster, Kentucky.

We wanted to start a tradition of catching up and hiking or camping once a year after college, especially before we started sitting down and having families and all that.

So, the plan was to meet up near his place in Grafton and do some hiking.

The highway was riddled with car accidents and constant stop-and-go, so I arrived later than expected.

I was supposed to get there around 3 pm, but it was more like 6:30.

Still, we decided to go on a hike and then get some dinner.

We decided to go on a trail by Tygart Lake. It was beautiful scenery, and we quickly jumped back into old jokes from college and stuff like that.

It was already a pretty cloudy day, and before we knew it, the sun was setting when we were a little more than halfway through the hike. It was a loop, so there was no point turning around or anything like that.

The first thing I remember was seeing a really strange light in the sky.

Mind you, we couldn’t see any stars. It wasn’t a clear sky or anything.

This means that this light must have been at the cloud level, I assume. We thought maybe it was a low plane, but we couldn’t see an actual aircraft.

Just the light.

It whooshed by pretty fast, but nothing that alarmed us. The speed wasn’t crazy, just the actual design or style of this random light.

But then things got really strange.

During the hike, we didn’t see or hear anyone, probably because we had started the loop so late.

But, after this light passed, what was already a pretty quiet hike became silent.

Like, every step on the ground was booming silent.

No wind, no animals, no insects.

That immediately caught our attention.

For about 2 minutes, we just stood around, looking and kind of taking it all in.

He asked me if he felt that. I asked him what he meant, and he pointed to his ear.

Then I felt it, too. Or, rather, heard it. It was a low hum.

I thought it was an insect, but when I turned around to locate the sound, I couldn’t.

I couldn’t identify where it was coming from. I realized it was all around.

It wasn’t right, left, up, or anywhere; it was just ‘there’ if it makes sense.

For a moment, it grew in volume but then slowly diminished to a small hum.

At this point, we were completely freaked out. We talked for a few minutes if we wanted to turn around or go back again – we were also losing daylight at this point.

We decided, based on how far we’d already hiked, that going forward would be best.

I shit you not; about 3 minutes later, we saw something on the edge of the treeline by the trail.

It was huge. By huge, I mean just absolutely massive, and we couldn’t even see all of it.

It looked like a massive light grey rock but with large, broad shoulders and a hunched stance.

We couldn’t see a head, but we also didn’t stick around much to examine it.

Against our previous decision, we decided to take the long way back by turning around and booking it.

Of course, at this point, it was no longer a leisurely walk or hike; we were full-on sprinting for as long as we could.

When we got back to our cars, we were hunched over, breathing heavily and terrified, but I do remember it was at that point that I noticed other sounds.

Crickets, frogs, cars speeding by in the distance.

The eerie silence was gone.

I have no idea what we witnessed. It matches some descriptions that I later heard about the Grafton Monster (who is also a big video game fan and was wild to see on Fallout).

I’m curious to know what you guys think and if anyone else out there had an experience like this.”

Is The Grafton Monster Real?

What do you think, Bizarros?

Is the Grafton Monster a deformed wild animal like a bear? 

Is it an alien or interdimensional being that is roaming the woods of West Virginia?

Let us know in the comments!