The Abominable Chicken Man

by Craig Mullins

On the surface, Oklahoma doesn't seem to offer much to the casual Fortean. It's almost as if the paranormal has passed us by. Sure there are ghosts. There always are. All a good ghost needs is an old cemetery, run down building or a place where some sort of tragedy took place. Same goes for Bigfoot and UFOs. They're here, just as likely as they're anywhere else. But what about the strange? The weird? The truly bizarre that haunts other states. Where are the mysterious flying creatures, phantom prowlers and living dinosaurs? What does Oklahoma offer that is unusual and uniquely its own?

 

Believe it or not, it's here. It's all around, if you are willing to dig a little deeper to find it. If you do, you'll be rewarded with tales of Haunts and Howlers, Devil Monkeys and Deer Women. Things that hide in the shadows and the darkness of night. Things that only a few have seen, and even fewer believe in.

Then there's the classic tale of Oklahoma's paranormal rock star, the Abominable Chicken Man. Every state has one. One Cryptid that stands out among the rest. West Virginia has the Mothman and the Silver Bridge tragedy. Arkansas, the Fouke Monster and their native son, Smokey Crabtree. Oklahoma? Oklahoma has the Chicken Man from El Reno. But what was it? An ape? A man-like hominid? What raided those chicken coops in El Reno during the cold winter months of 1970, leaving behind a very distinct print as its calling card?

The story it seems, goes something like this.

 

In December of 1970, outside the small town of El Reno, Oklahoma, an unknown animal (possibly moving about on all fours) ripped the door off a farmer's chicken coop, presumably foraging for food. In doing so, the animal left behind a very distinct, very visible hand print. So distinct, that when presented with the evidence, Lawernce Curtis of the Oklahoma City Zoo told Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman that he was baffled by it, and that he thought the “thumb” of the print looked as though it was “deformed or injured.” Although uncertain of what kind, Curtis determined that the 7” x 5” handprint came from an unknown primate.

 

During the investigation, Loren Coleman found reports of a “chimpanzee” 16 miles from El Reno that one Howard Dreeson of Calmut, Oklahoma had been feeding bananas from 1967-1970. Dreeson had been feeding it in the hopes that he could capture it. He never did. Could Mr. Dreeson's chimpanzee be the one responsible for raiding those chicken coops, moving on once its food source dried up.

 

It was Mr. Coleman who later examined the “Chicken Man” photograph, and determined that the “handprint” wasn't a handprint at all. It was actually an anthropoid footprint, complete with slightly visible dermal ridges.

 

In the end, the attacks stopped just as mysteriously as they began, and the Oklahoma Chicken Man faded into Oklahoma history. It later reappeared in the works of Loren Coleman, Lyle Blackburn and W. Haden Blackman.

 

What was the Abominable Chicken Man? Bigfoot? An unknown ape, or could it have been an escaped chimpanzee trying to survive the sometimes harsh winters of Oklahoma? While we'll likely never know, we do have its “handprint” to remember it by, one of the best, most believable pieces of evidence in all of Cryptozoology.

Sources:

The Field Guide To North American Monsters (W. Haden Blackman, 1998)

Beyond Boggy Creek: In Search Of The Southern Sasquatch (Lyle Blackburn, 2017)

Mysterious America (Loren Coleman, 2001)

Artwork courtesy of, and copyright Andrew Ozkenel 2021.

Photo used under the Fair Use Doctrine of International Copyright Law (taken by Lawrence Curtis).