Hoboken Monkey Man
By
Cole Herrold
There are tons of cases out there that are extremely
bizarre and seem to be either straight out lies or cases of mass hysteria. The
case of the Hoboken Monkey Man is one such case. It's a case that appeared several
times online and only in a few book and magazine sources and has been said by
many to be a case that has absolutely no merit in the annals of actual
cryptozoological study. However, upon closer inspection of this case, there are
some particularly bizarre encounters that did make their way into some sources
that seem to indicate that there were some kernels of truth to an outright hoax.
Hoboken was in a state of panic in October of 1982.
School children were terrified by the whispers of their classmates. Those
whispers were not only of the malevolent mirror spirit Bloody Mary or the
deranged lunatics Cropsy and Hookman but a new boogeyman-like entity that
seemed to of popped out of nowhere to terrorize the schools and streets of
Hoboken. They would describe the horrendous actions of this figure known as
Monkey Man, whose appearance was that of a mixture of the two in varying
gruesome details. The creature was said to of lurked in the school hallways
during the day and night and would leave the confines of the school grounds
only to attack children on their way home from class. Rumors would go even
further and into a more violent path as the creature was reported to of been
seen throwing students out of the school’s windows and that the creature even
allegedly killed a teacher.
The hysteria and panic swept through the halls and
homes of Hoboken for two weeks before finally, word reached the Hoboken Police
Department and the Public Safety Council. The officers and Council proceeded in
going from home to home and to the schools attempting to find anyone who had
claimed to of seen the creature or to see if there were any missing persons who
could have perished at the paw of the Monkey Man. They scoured the streets at
night, searching for anyone who bore the description of the person or creature
said to be terrorizing the city. As the weeks and nights crept on, their
inquires eventually came to a dead end. No members of any of the schools'
faculties were missing, and no children in the area were reported missing
either. As they talked to most of the students, they discovered that none had
officially claimed to of seen the creature, and most said that they heard it
from a friend who knew someone who claimed to of encountered the beast. The
police and Public Safety Department irritated for they realized that this was
some sort of urban legend gone out of hand, eventually came out with the
following statement "There is no Monkey Man. No students or children
missing. We went looking for him, he wasn't even in the streets. How do you
stop a rumor that's growing like wildfire?”.
While this statement seems to be true for most of the
rumors surrounding the creature, especially those in an urban surrounding like
the schools. However, over the years, some potentially real sightings did take
place; some cases seem to be in the same vein as Bigfoot sightings, and some
are bizarre Fortean cases that seem to be similar to other nontypical animal
phenomena. The earliest account comes from an individual named Jack D. Jack
would describe an encounter he and his girlfriend would encounter one year
before the mass hysteria outbreak in 82'. Jack and his girlfriend were out
driving their car on Sinatra Drive; during that time, it was River Road. Jack,
while staring out at the darkened road, noticed something moving in through the
trees. The dark form soon stopped in one particularly large one, and as he
looked through the windshield, he noticed it was something eerily bizarre. Jack
pulled off to the side of the road, surprising his girlfriend as she did not
yet see the arboreal abomination. Jack, still looking through the window,
pointed up to the tree and there, dangling from a hefty branch, was the
creature staring right back at them. The creature was monkey-like and proceeded
to grunt and make all sorts of awful noises at the parked pedestrians. Jack,
not following better judgement, proceeded to leave his car and girlfriend to
get a closer look at this bizarre beast. As he got closer, he noticed that
while it was monkey-like, it had eerily more human qualities as its hair was
long and matted with what appeared to be more of a neanderthal like face. The
creatures' arms were long and seemed to sway as it hung from the branch. The
creature's body was covered in hair, but this was obscured by what appeared to
be animal skins that were fashioned as a kind of clothing. Jack was shocked at
this entity but not too shocked to be quiet, for Jack then proceeded to
threateningly yell at the creature. The creature seemed to take offense and
grunted right back at Jack. Jack backed away slowly and watched as the creature
brachiated through the trees until it got to the deeper sections of the woods,
ultimately disappearing into the darkness.
While Jack would never see the creature ever again, it
would not be the last time this kind of primate Monkey Man would be seen. Two
park rangers who worked for the Atlantic County Park in Route 50 while driving
down the road noticed a strange figure moving across the road. The figure was
an "anthropoid, ape-like" creature and seemed to be walking upright.
Neither ranger reported their sighting at the time because it was "so
strange and bizarre". This creature would reportedly have other sightings
in the area, and much like the rumors of the creature in Hoboken was said to
live in a building most of the time. The building was an old tin cow barn that
was on the Belcoville Munitions Plant. During this flap of sightings, it was
claimed that "no animals would go near the old barn and that the floor of
the cow barn and the cowbarn itself were always clean". This adds a new patina to a case already
bizarre for this, if not just some homeless individual who was mistaken for the
entity, implies that the monkey man is a clean freak and not a creature that
wallows in filth. However, sightings in the area today are no longer reported.
While the animal skin wearing monkey man and the nude
version are bizarre enough, encounters with an even more sophisticated Monkey
Man would arise and this time leaving the woods and returning back to the city.
These are some of the even weirder Monkey Man cases, and the first shows he
might have an occupation. A woman named Evelyn would recall her encounter with
the Monkey Man when she was 10 in the book Weird NJ. Evelyn was in her
bedroom reading; it was late, and she was trying to get the last couple pages
of her book in before finally conking out for the night. As she was flipping
and scanning the pages of her book, she suddenly had a bizarre feeling that she
couldn't shake as she continued to focus in on the page. That feeling resonated
to the point that eventually, she felt that she had to put down her book and
investigate. She looked up and felt inclined to look out the window that faced
another apartment. She peered into the apartment, and there appeared to be a
man sweeping in a janitor's outfit. She continued to stare at the figure she
felt uneased by him, but she couldn't place it, that is, until he turned
around. There as she watched, what she assumed was just heavy sideburns, and a
beard was actually a monkey-faced man. This proved too much for Evelyn, and she
ran out of the room and jumped on her father's bed to wake him up. Her father,
exhausted and irritated, followed Evelyn to her room, and the two peered out
the window into the next apartment complex, but to her surprise and her
father's further irritation, there was nothing there.
While this creature seemed to be hard at work, this
does not seem to always be the case as sometimes it is reported to be either
off for the day or on vacation. The next clothed creature account came from
Mary A., whose children would report to encounter the creature as well as know
where the creature lives. Mary and her children, when they first moved to 9th
St in Bayonne, noticed how bizarre their street was; the street at the end of
the block drops off into Newark Bay; this goes into a dead-end that was covered
in No Trespassing Signs and fenced in areas. There in this drop off was the Old
PT Boat Factory, and that is where the neighbors and ultimately her children
would go on to tell her the Monkey Man lives. The rumors around town were that
the Monkey Man was abandoned by his parents as a kid and now lives in the Old
Boat Factory to this day; he is said to run around the wooded paths and trails along
Newark Bay. She laughed at the accounts and dismissed them as pure urban
legends, that is until her kids would claim to see him not once but twice. The
first time her kids would encounter the Monkey Man, he was walking an old trail
not too far off from their home. Her kid would describe him as having long
brown hair on his arms and a monkey-like face, but he bizarrely wore a ragged
green shirt and pants. The kids ran away from the figure to tell their mom, who
saw the seriousness in their faces, realized that they had seen something. Then
not too later, her younger son would also see the Monkey Man on the same trail
that his siblings had. This time the Monkey Man was wearing the same ragged
shirt that the siblings had seen him wear, and he was not alone, for he had a
dog walking alongside him.
While detailed sightings of the Monkey Man seem to of
faded away, there are rumors still to this day that the Monkey Man can be seen
in Hoboken's Washington Street. These accounts are very different and are
reminiscent of another phenomenon that occurred in 2001. This phenomenon was
the Monkey Man of Delhi, India; it was an extremely famous case when it
occurred and has many parallels to the Hoboken case. Both cases are believed to
of been caused by mass hysteria as well as the sightings started out as being
urban encounters of essentially bigfoot like creatures that then turned into
encounters of bizarre suited humanoid cases. The accounts also both had alleged
violence and death associated with them.
When breaking down this case, the 1982 Hoboken
sightings seem to definitely be a case of mass hysteria. However, the sighting
of a creature in 1981 definitely seems to be of some actual encounter. The
creature is definitely a hominid of some variety. There is a possibility it
could be some Tarzan enthusiast who had incredible gymnastic abilities, but
this does seem to be unlikely. The creature appears to be some kind of hairy
hominid, possibly a tree swinging sasquatch. While bigfoot are not exactly
known for a tree lifestyle, there have been a few cases of young bigfoot
swinging in the trees or an adult standing on some heftier branches. The animal
pelts seen in this case is not exactly unheard of either in the history of
bigfoot. Accounts of clothing or pelt wearing bigfoot are rare and appear more
often in tales of native tribes, but they do occur, so it's possible that is
what was reported.
As for the clothing wearing accounts, part of me
automatically wants to say this is kids misidentifying some overly hairy
individual while out working or some person with a birth defect of some kind.
However, what if what they were reporting was actually something else? What
could it be? Could it be some escaped mutant like the infamous Melonheads or
the cabaret of cryptids said to of escaped from circuses or government labs? It
seems very unlikely, but there are countless sightings of such entities. Could it
be that these individuals might have Hypertrichosis, a disorder that causes
extreme hair growth? This is more possible but also unlikely as this disorder
as only 50 official cases have ever been reported.
While this case seems to be a mixture of mass hysteria
and some possibly legitimate accounts. It is so uninvestigated, even with the
police involvement, that getting more specifics are frustrating. There are
plenty of bizarre flaps out there and plenty of cases that seem way too
impossible to have anything real to them, but as with most legends, myths, and
mass hysteria, there is some kernel of truth to it; the question with this case
is how much is fact, how much is fiction, and how much went unaccounted for or
reported? We perhaps will never truly know.
Quick Facts:
Species/Potential Species: Hominid or Hoax
Location: Hoboken, New Jersey
Sighted: 1981-1982/ unspecified latter accounts
Works Cited:
Monsters of New Jersey: Mysterious Creatures in the
Garden State By Loren Coleman and Bruce G. Hallenbeck
Weird N.J. By Mark Scuerman and Mark Moran
Lois, Mary “Is the Monkey Man Real?”. Finding
Myself in Hoboken. August 30, 2008. http://myselfinhoboken.blogspot.com/2008/08/is-monkey-man-real.html.
Accessed July 11, 2021.
Alana Biggers, M.D., MPH “Hypertrichosis (Werewolf
Syndrome)” Healthline. August 28, 2018 https://www.healthline.com/health/hypertrichosis#causes.
Accessed July 16, 2021.
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