Riverside It

 The Riverside It

By Cole Herrold

Many people want to see cryptids. I'm included in this camp how I'd love to see Mothman flying overhead, or while camping encounter, a sasquatch silently wander in the woods. The idea of encountering something unknown is what most of us in the field of Cryptozoology want to experience at least once in our lives. Yet, the thing most of us seem to forget is that there is a dark side to the world of Cryptozoology. Whether it be Nessie attacking early villagers in Loch Ness or Bigfoot carrying off women and children to eat in its dark abodes, this notion of aggressive animalistic cryptids has almost disappeared due to the pop media, tourism, and Amblin style films that paint these creatures as cute, cuddly, friendly, and shy critters that are just trying to make their way in the world. This is unrealistic for many who have had an encounter with a cryptid can seem like a waking nightmare. This is one such case.

On a dark rainy night on November 8^th, 1958, in Riverside, California, Charles Wetzel was driving home in his 1952 Buick and listening to K.F.I. Los Angeles on the radio. While crossing North Main Street where the Santa Ana River is located, he proceeded to in a wise way to slow his speed to avoid a potential accident, for there was an area of the road that had a habit due to its construction to result in the river flooding the road. As approaching this area, he noticed that his radio began to receive only static. Obviously frustrated at the lack of tunes or simply missing his favorite radio host, Wetzel continued to change and go from station to station to find that every station is flooded with static. Glancing up, Wetzel noticed what he thought was a sign, but as his eyes adjusted to his surroundings, he realized how wrong he was. There illuminated by his Buick’s headlights was something that has never been seen before.

A creature that stood six feet tall was wadding in the overflow of the banks, standing there just obscured by shadows as it slowly began to move in a strange gait. The car approached the unnatural abomination, and at that moment, the creature turned and glared inward at the occupant. The creature Wetzel saw had a largemouth that protruded out of the face; its rounded head bore no features like ears or a nose but instead had two deep-set glowing yellow eyes. The creature was as tall as a man in its stance with incredibly long arms with large, clawed hands. The legs of the creature stuck out from the side of its waist as opposed to the bottom like a person giving it almost a crab-like stance and appearance. When it walked, it appeared not to use its knees as though they were there only to help balance the strange anomaly. Its body was covered in scales that were leaf-like in pattern and humanoid in form. As the creature stared into the Buick, a swift motion from the creature's arm sent shivers up the startled motorist's back as the creature proceeded to claw at the windshield. Its long claws screeching and scratching at the glass. The beast let out hideous gurgling sounds while continuing its assault on the machine.

Wetzel reached throughout the cacophony of screeches, gurgles, and rain to his glove box, where he kept a .22 high standard pistol. He felt the cool metal in his hand, his eyes never leaving the site of the monstrous beast still wreaking havoc on his car. His finger wrapped around the trigger, yet at that moment, he thought if he shoots the glass, the barrier between him and his enigmatic aggressor would be severed, resulting in a more physical confrontation which may result in the end of his life. Wetzel's mind changed gears, and returning to the wheel, pushed his foot down on the gas. The startled creature still continued its assault as it was knocked down to the street pavement. The creature, as Wetzel would later describe, "Screamed like a Fucker" as the heavy automobile ran the unknown entity over. The creature under the vehicle continued its din under the car, screaming and gurgling while scratching at the oil pan under the car, almost as though it was trying to hold on to the moving vehicle. Wetzel left the creature in the road and continued to drive on, not stopping until he reached the police station. The police took notice of the damage done to the vehicle, and later on, tests of the undercarriage noticed that the "grease had been scrubbed off" by something.

Bloodhounds were later sent to go and search for the creature that had created such a problem for this Riverside resident. Yet arriving at the site, they could find no trace of the monster that should have been a bloody mess on the side of the road. Wetzel never saw the creature again, and I'm sure never traveled that section of road ever again.

This account of what has been dubbed as the Riverside Bridge Monster, Riverside It, and the Riverside Brain Tickler, the latter which according to The Weird U.S. Website's article "The Riverside Bridge Monster” received this name because of a free paper that retold the tale, is one of the most frightful and aggressive cryptid encounters on the books. It’s a situation no one wants to be in. This account has been written extensively by Loren Coleman in his necessary Fortean research tome Mysterious America. Coleman describes the bare bones of the case as well as material brought up in his interview with Wetzel some years later.

This creature is by far one of not only the most aggressive but bizarre beasts reported from a cryptozoological standpoint. There is nothing that officially matches it, not even when looking at other cryptids. Lizardmen appear more reptilian and do not have the kind of protruding beak seen in this case. The same goes for frogmen, armless aquatic humanoids, and just about every other obvious suspects in the cryptid ark. Everything about it seems wrong; the way it moves, the size of it, and the description of its face and scales make it one of the most enduring mysteries I've ever read.

The appearance of the creature zoologically speaking matches no known animal, not even from a fossil standpoint. Some features like a protruding mouth could be something beak-like, which is similar to what some dinosaurs did display, like an Oviraptor but to say that this is a surviving dinosaur is even more ridiculous. This animal displays features that appear both reptilian, mammal, and bird-like, but most of its features can be lumped into a reptile or reptilian style. Yet again, nothing that we know of matches. So where can we go from here?

In most of my articles, I can come up with a list of potential possibilities that range from the most mundane, like a native species, to something more exotic like a surviving relict. Yet, with this case, even the idea of saying it was somebody perpetrating a hoax is extremely unlikely. The damage done to the car and the damage specifically tested by police under the car show that something was hit by Wetzel and did attack his car. If it were a person hoaxing it, that person would be severely injured or dead, and I'm sure the newspapers would have recounted the individual's "prank," and this would no longer be the mystery that it is. If Wetzel had done the damage to the car himself, it raises the question as to why for no sane person would deliberately damage their own vehicle for the chance of some publicity. The idea of Wetzel doing this damage is on the point of it being just ludicrous, and if you go down that route, it can easily turn conspiratorial.

The most plausible option, it seems, is that this is a new undiscovered species. As bizarre as that concept might seem with a creature like this, there are no mundane answers that don't come off sounding ridiculous or so far out in right field that it's not even worth discussing. With cases like bigfoot and lake monsters, there are countless reports of multiple individuals. With this creature, there is only one official sighting, no evidence of a breeding population at all, so it's hard not to view this creature as a single entity. Viewing it in that terms, we should have some physical evidence, some road smear for its existence. While with most cases of vehicular accidents on animals, the poor creatures usually do not survive. The Riverside It clearly should be lying near the bank or floating in the water if it even was able to move slightly. Yet a body was never found. There are some evidence and reports that the creature managed to survive or that another member(s)of this species is still seen residing in and along the Santa Ana River.

The first of these cases occurred the night after the events between Charles Wetzel and the beast. The first being that almost another vehicular accident with these beasts occurred as a couple driving down a similar stretch of road watched as a large dark form ran across the road. While the form is not described as anything more substantial, this encounter because of timing is deeply connected to the Riverside It because of the timeframe and location of the beast.

An interesting find connected to this case comes from a strange source, the A.P.R.O. Bulletin. The A.P.R.O. or Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization is an organization whose primary focus is on U.F.O. s and extraterrestrial oriented research. When doing research for another topic, I came across an interesting article in a book by Coral E. Lorenzen that collected a good majority of the issues from 1958-1959. In the November 1958 issue of the Bulletin, an article entitled "Monster," the article is about the Charles Wetzel case. The article says that there were around twenty-eight calls to the sheriff in regard to the monster. This itself is ambiguous whether it's journalists, concerned neighbors, or as in the cases of most monster flaps, other eyewitnesses. The way the article is written; however, it seems to be implying the latter. These accounts, to my knowledge, have been uncollected, and I'm sure that there are tons of encounters that went unreported, as is the case with most cryptid encounters. While the police reports on other sightings have yet to be either released or accounted there were other encounters that occurred along and near the Santa Ana River and appear to be of a similar creature.

In the ever-invaluable book The Inhumanoids: Real Encounters with Beings That Can’t Exist! by Barton M. Nunnelly, he describes the Wetzel encounter and goes on to describe three separate occasions of creatures similar in appearance. This first sighting which occurred several years after the initial Riverside encounter occurred near the town of Corona. This account has been referred to as the Lemon Grove incident as this was the general area where a lot of these sightings took place. These sightings took place approximately 10 miles from Riverside but occurred during the 60s and 70s, approximately 5 to 15 years after Wetzel’s infamous encounter.

Dave Wilson and Tom McKelvy were out driving on a full moon in Dave's truck one night when they decided to head up to the Lemon Grove area. Driving the old dirt roads, they were encapsulated in the serenity of the darkness around them when one of the duo noticed some movement in the tree line. Wondering about their mysterious observation, they proceeded to go and put their truck in park. Sitting in the darkness, they proceeded in lifting and turning on a large flashlight and scanned the forest's darkness for what has captured their attention. When there about 75ft in front of them, they saw a form. The form was a creature standing 9ft tall and covered in shaggy gray hair. The creature bore a round head described in shape, not unlike that which Wetzel reported. The creature's round head was attached to the shoulders as no neck was visible. Its round head was filled with a pair of bulging eyes, front teeth that pointed outwards, and a nose that looked pushed in. The creature's arms were insanely long, and its hands were tipped in long claws. The two men stared at this unholy abomination for what seemed like an eternity when the creature began to move in an odd fashion; it seemed to lurch as it moved before letting out a long metallic-sounding screech. The men's eyes widened, for this was a call to war; the creature began to charge the stopped truck. Dave and Tom knowing their encounter most likely was going to turn deadly, proceeded in putting the truck in reverse and, like a bat out of hell, spun the truck around and drove 70 yards away from the monstrous beast. The two men breathed a sigh of relief as they believed they were in the clear, but it had not. Looking in the rearview mirror, one of the men could see their monstrous assailant still charging, and by the time the men were pulling away once again, the creature had begun to stretch its disproportionate arm into the tailgate of the pickup truck as though it was trying to grab it. Luckily before any connection could be made, the men sped off, leaving their strange antagonist behind in the Lemon Groves.

The next day the men returned to the scene and there discovered a large track with three long-clawed toes. The print was eighteen inches long and seven inches across. The men proceeded to go to the police with their encounter, but the officers, after hearing their encounter and seeing the print, believed that this sighting was the work of some prankster. About a year later, however, Dave and another friend, while driving in the same area, saw the same creature south of Chase Drive in the Lemon Groves. While seeing it a second time, he noticed the area smelled of a horrendous smell like that of a dead animal.

These accounts are often included in books on bigfoot. Yet this creature seems to be a composite of the creature seen by Charles Wetzel, and interestingly, a lot of the features like the round head, hair, long arms, seem to bear a resemblance to some types of bigfoot like creatures like Momo the Missouri monster. This creature, while slightly mammalian, behaves and has features that are extremely similar to what was reported by Wetzel and I feel should be included as part of this case. Could it be that the leaf-like scales reported by Wetzel was actually wet muddy fur that had dried, giving it that scale-like pattern? This idea has been proposed for other reptilian creatures, most notably the Honey Island Swamp Monster and the Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp. I personally don't feel this to be the case seeing as the creature was literally on top and underneath Wetzel's car, and he got an excellent look at it, seeing as this creature was only feet away from his face. Clearly, in a situation like that, someone can tell the difference between a lizard-like monstrosity and something apish.

While this is all the written accounts of a creature similar in appearance to the Riverside It in California, while researching the account, I came across the website Weird California and its article “Wetzel's Riverside Monster” while the article itself poses nothing new in regard to information. Upon reaching the bottom of the page, I found an anonymous commentator who claimed to of known others who had encountered similar beasts. While it can easily be dismissed by skeptics due to the anonymous nature, the simple fact of it being a comment, and not as worthy in regard of evidence as opposed to the researchers who spent time interviewing Wetzel and writing about the case for the sake of completion I decided to include it in the article.

This is the account in its entirety: “I know some people that live at the Wetzel River, currently known and called The Riverbottom, that has seen that creature and saw two more of those creature. A total amount of three creatures which they seen those creatures hovering over the River water and watching the people and as soon as the people go closer to it they run off into the bushes. In addition to the story, those creatures still exist and still is unknown what it could be. They come out at night. Many people who live there has seen it and tried to stab it with a long spear but it got away. Also there are demon entities who also come out at night. They have powerful forces that they imprint their face onto the side of the tent. Some people who believe in Jesus Christ will tell those entities to leave them alone. They only come to the weak minded people who don't have faith and believe in Jesus Christ. His name protects us people who have belief and faith in him. He is the one who can and will save us. Be aware if you go take a trip to the River Bottom. Be safe.”

This account, if accurate, offers an interesting patina for a case that is deeply rooted in Cryptozoology. In contrast, I take a lot of the spiritual aspects of this particular creature with more than a grain of salt. Personally, I would say an entire bag of salt. I do find it interesting that there is a consistent amount of supposed accounts that occur along the Santa Ana River. Could it be that these creatures use this river to travel from a different locale or as a major site for spawning if they are instead of reptilians more akin to fish in origin and behavior?

A fish humanoid is something that has occurred from time to time. The Thetis Lake Monster, for example, is a creature described as a semiaquatic fish or lizard-like creature. Now this creature seen in the 70s in Vancouver Island is described as much more ornate in the face and head than what is reported in the Riverside It case. There was a case that occurred in Breckinridge, Kentucky, that also featured a fish-type humanoid that ran into the side of the witnesses' house. How similar or different these animals would be to already known fish is something yet to be determined. Yet there is the possibility that these animals retained through the millions of years of their evolution some of their habits such as migration. This idea seems even more plausible with a species that is bipedal. This feature would help these creatures to travel from one lake, pond, river, bayou, etc. this could explain why we have one-time encounters or encounters of the creatures several years or decades down the line while other areas have reports of the same or similar creatures. A study to try to determine a pattern has at least to my knowledge not been explored.

Following this idea of a migratory aquatic species, there is one account of a creature bearing an intermediate resemblance to what was seen by Wetzel. The same year as Wetzel's encounter, there was an encounter of a similar beast in San Luis Valley in New Mexico. Priscilla Garduno Wolf and two other friends encountered a strange figure which came out and stood outside her house for several nights near her home. The figure stood by a ditch which was full of water. The dogs around her property had become upset about this creature. This continued for several nights, but the creature was gone by the day. Now on one occasion, the group of friends had decided to go and use this aquatic path to cool off from the hot summer sun. While traveling, they noticed a dark figure standing in the tree line. As the girls passed this silent creature and proceeded to walk a decent distant past it, they never looked away from the shadowy form. Without warning, the figure picked up speed, plunged into the water, and began to swim at a fast pace towards the young girls. They could make out its blurred form as it swam menacingly in this irrigation canal. The girls realizing the potential danger they were in, ran out of the water and did not stop until they got home. The next day they returned to the location where their semiaquatic admirer had been, and they found three-toed lizard-like tracks. that was the end of her horrific account with what she called the Lizard Man.

While I thoroughly believe that in this case, what we are seeing is a rare aquatic humanoid or reptilian humanoid of some kind, there are several alternative ideas that push this creature into more fringe topics. I mentioned the supposed demonic nature of these creatures in the account written by the anonymous commentator. While I sincerely do not support this idea and believe it to be one of the least likely, it is one that does, for the sake of argument, need to be brought up. The idea of reptilian creatures being devils or demonic forces is something that is continuously mentioned by many who are of an entirely religion-oriented mind. While these creatures are unknown, and it is tempting to jump on the supernatural bandwagon for things that we do not understand, it is also important to mention that some of these individuals claim that dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals were created by the devil to trick mankind, which is truly nonsensical.  As a man with a mind more towards science than supernatural, I bury these claims to be on the par of almost impossible. In my mind, there is a more scientific understanding of these creatures.

Another hypothesis is that these creatures are, in fact, from another dimension or, as John Keel would call them, an Ultraterrestrial. For those who don't know what an Ultraterrestrial is, it is an organism made up of energy or some other form of matter that can appear and change into different things for a variety of different purposes; some claim these creatures feed off our energies like fear, depression, etc. whereas others seem to simply be tricksters not unlike the various spirits, and gods seen around the world but most famously known in Native American lore. These creatures have been described to take a variety of supposed forms and are the singular explanation to every kind of phenomenon from bigfoot, U.F.O.s, ghosts, and even religious figures for those who follow this school of thought. It is worthy of note that during Charles Wetzel's encounter before he saw the creature, he reported that his radio received nothing but static on every radio station. This is something Keel had noted with a variety of these Ultraterrestrial encounters, and this kind of event occurred during sightings of the Mothman during the 66'-67' flap. This phenomenon has also been reported in connection with those that have supposedly encountered portals into other worlds or dimensions.

My standpoint on this is that this is too extreme of an answer for the data that is given in the account, and it requires no thoroughly complex thought or critical thinking to really come to this conclusion. Now that’s not to say that there may be something to some cases where this is the most likely answer, but there needs to be a hierarchy of thought when it comes to these topics. When researching any topic, I always try to eliminate the mundane answers first; if nothing mundane makes sense, I go into the field of Cryptozoology, followed by Ufology, then spectral research and the world of multidimensional entities and Ultraterrestrials, this is then followed by demonology and what some would call divine. The range goes from most likely and most testable or hypothetical to least likely and least testable. The case of the Riverside It is unique because it is mostly a biological case, but it has some features that could enter on some of the fringier sides.

The Riverside It case, however, seems to not fit nicely into any of the fringier topics. For those dedicated to these studies, many of which I do find worth, like Ufology and spectral research, I feel would agree for the most part that this particular case seems to indicate something that is of a more biological standpoint, especially with Wetzel's encounter. There were no U.F.O.s reported during the account, so the idea of this creature being some kind of extraterrestrial is extremely unlikely. The creature clearly had some physicality to it, especially with the reaction to being hit by the car, so clearly, it is not a demonic or ghostly entity. So that really leaves one main plausible option.

 This creature, while often viewed as a singular entity, is something that appears to be some kind of reptilian hominid or icthyohominid creature that, due to convergent evolution or parallel evolution, developed bipedal features. While there is nothing in the fossil evidence to support the development of such a feature or creature, we do know that many species like dinosaurs and birds walk bipedally, and reptiles like the Basilisk lizard run bipedally. So, the existence of something other than a man doing so is not out of the ordinary.

With this particular case, we are left with way more questions than answers. There is no cut and dry answer while I feel this creature is a flesh and blood organism that possibly travels or migrates to other watery holes for some as yet unknown reason and timeframe. It is still a hypothesis that requires much more study and testing. Yet while there is so much uncertainty to the origins of this particular beast, there is one thing that is perfectly clear. The creature had upset the life of one particular man that rainy night and, in doing so, certainly changed his viewpoint of the world. How does one prepare for an encounter with the unknown? it is something that many want, but few realize the possible repercussions of such an encounter. In Charles Wetzel's case, the overall end was of a traumatic encounter that, when interviewed, was so ingrained in his memory that even the most minute detail was saved. I have great sympathy for those who have encountered the unknown and have problems coping with it, for it is something that can totally change not only their perception but their lives.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Reptile

Location: Riverside, California

Sighted: November 8, 1958

Works Cited

Bishop, Greg, Joe Oesterle, and Mike Marinacci. Weird California: Your Travel Guide to California’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. Sterling. 2006.

Coleman, Loren. Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation’s Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures. Paraview Pocket Books. 2007

Guttilla, Peter. The Bigfoot Files. Timeless Voyager Press. 2017.

Lorenzen, Coral E. “Monster”. The A.P.R.O. Bulletin. November 1958. Saucerian Publishing. 2020.

Nunnelly, Barton M. The Inhumanoids: Real Encounters with Beings that Can’t Exist!. Triangulum. 2017.

“Riverside Bridge Monster”. Weird U.S. http://www.weirdus.com/states/california/bizarre_beasts/riverside_bridge_monster/index.php?fbclid=IwAR0YNI5ZLYUs1Z6buTGkaPVUbrzmCEm2NCb45HaZk39f6GNCcZx_Vhb7ry0. Accessed December 15^th, 2020.

“California Screaming? Dark Tales And Legends From Otherwise Sunny California” Me Time For The Mind.  https://www.metimeforthemind.com/california-screaming-dark-tales-and-legends-from-otherwise-sunny-california.html?fbclid=IwAR1U2WkbvOAgtyHekprHYBDrg9rfkbYL6VUZK7pKtLb6jMa0VqHt5RoCA_0. Accessed December 15^th, 2020.

“Wetzel's Riverside Monster” Weird California. http://www.weirdca.com/location.php?location=119. Accessed December 16^th, 2020

Grafton Monster

 The Grafton Monster

By Cole Herrold

West Virginia has always been like a second home to me. As a boy, my father had taken me hiking and camping in the hallowed hollows of the state. Growing up, this love of the state grew even more as I had read about Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster, which even to this day, are some of my favorite mysteries. I have visited the state periodically, and truly it lives up to the possibly overhyped quote of almost heaven. With that said, aside from Pennsylvania, I would say my second specialty is with the cryptid encounters in West Virginia. West Virginia is truly a bizarre area for Cryptohistorians and Cryptozoologists, from the white monstrosities that are the Sheepsquatch and White Thing to the flying fiend, which has become the poster child of the state, Mothman; the state has an incredible cryptid biodiversity that is truly amazing to study.

In all the years of my research, however, there are a big three when discussing the odd phenomenon of the state. Mothman being number one, the Flatwoods Monster, which is number two, and an extremely obscure creature known only to a few made its way to the number three slot. This particular creature has been hidden amongst the other big hitters of the state yet is just as bizarre and equally worth the hype that the others have reached. This particular creature is a bipedal beast, which is not out of the norm seeing as bigfoot sightings are common in the state, but the feature that makes this creature even more interesting than bigfoot, in this case, is the creature's supposed lack of a head. This creature, of course, is the infamous Grafton Monster.

The Grafton Monster is a pseudo classic that only recently has been gaining the notoriety which it deserves. This case first came to my attention in my early days of research while reading Loren Coleman’s Mothman and Other Curious Encounters. While a short account, it was extremely interesting, and I would have to wait at least another decade till I could get more information on this headless hoodlum. Yet, I was not alone. This case itself was buried after the original encounters in the files of Gray Barker, a well-known paranormal investigator who was an important figure in a ton of strange accounts of West Virginia, including but not limited to The Flatwoods Monster, the Vegetable Man, Men in Black, and the infamous Mothman. It would not be until 1995 when famous Cryptozoologist Mark A. Hall would come across the case and begin to bring the headless horror to the public sight.

Grafton is a quaint town that is located in Taylor County. This town was a boomtown at one point in its history and named after John Grafton, who was a civil engineer that laid the route of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad in 1852. Grafton, because of this, was a hub for all of those utilizing the newly formed railroad tracks. it was because of this form of transportation that much of Grafton's history occurred.  On top of this, Grafton was a major coal-mining town, but as with the railroad, the lack of use has caused the prosperity of them to diminished. Another famous aspect of the history of Grafton is that it can be placed as the origin point for Mother's Day when one Anna M. Jarvis began the tradition as a celebration for her mother at her church on May 12, 1907, which in the following year was extended to all Mothers.

Grafton is located near a major waterway called the Tygart River. This river is connected to both the Monongahela River and the Ohio River in a bunch of alternative waterways, which, interestingly enough, are hotbeds for other strange phenomena. It was in the woods near this riverway that a strange beast was seen.

The Grafton Monster, also known as the Headless Horror of Grafton, the Beast of Grafton, and the Beast of Riverside Drive, was a strange anomaly whose mystery began one bright cool night on June 16^th, 1964. It was on this night that Grafton Sentinel writer Robert Cockrell was leaving the Sentinel, which was located on Latrobe Street. The author getting in his car, proceeded to get out of his parking spot and proceeding to leave the comforting warmth of the streetlight to the dark treelined section of what is Riverside Drive. While the drive was certainly tiring, Cockrell was happy and enjoying his time as he was driving home. He knew the roads well and was driving around 50mph since he knew the curves and bends and could adjust his speed as needed. As he was rounding a bend, he began to slow down. It was around 11 pm when his headlights were illuminating the darkness in front of him. It was at that moment he noticed something to the side of the road. Thinking it was a boulder, he looked over since no boulder had been in that location before. Yet there, as his eyes adjusted to the form, he realized what was there was certainly nothing of geological origins.

To his awe and horror, he saw a colossal creature standing on the side of the road. It stood motionless, yet he could tell that this creature was alive. Whether this from slight movements or the impression of breathing is unknown. He looked up at this behemoth, noting that it towered over his car to a height of around 7-9ft tall and approximately four feet wide. Its white skin was a hairless slick oily color that seemed to shine brightly in the light. Yet, as his eyes scanned up, he noticed the most disconcerting element of this creature simply that it bore no head or noticeable facial features. It was at that moment curiosity turned to panic as fear overtook him. As he continued to look out of his window, he still stepped on the gas even further with only one thought on his mind to get the hell out of there. Speeding down the road like a bat out of hell, he finally managed to get home and continued to run to his front door slamming the door behind him and bolting it as though he expected to still be pursued by the beast.

He waited in the silence of his house for thirty minutes to an hour, determining what to do. His mind raced for what to do. The academic and journalistic integrity side of his mind eventually took over, however, and he decided that this was too good of a story to pass up. Yet being wise, he decided it would only be a fool's errand to go alone, so he proceeded to get ahold of his friends Jerry Mourse and Jim Mouser. The trio, in turn, returned to the site where Cockrell had encountered the strange anomaly. Returning to the spot, the beast was gone, but in its place was tramped down grass where some large, heavy figuring had either laid down or stood. The group, however, went and traversed down to the Riverbend looking for any evidence of the mysterious beast. As the group traveled, they saw no footprints or trails made by anything similar to what Cockrell had seen, yet as they search, there was a sudden break in silence. A loud low whistle was heard throughout the area. The group had a sudden feeling of being watched as though this anonymous admirer was not too far away, yet they could see nothing as the night progressed. A feeling of unease crept in, and the group decided to return home.

The next day Cockrell had arrived at work and was questioning whether or not he should pursue this matter further. It was in this mental anguish that his journalistic zeal once more took the wheel, and he entered his editor’s office describing the encounter and his desire to write an article on this unknown slick seal skinned beast. Cockrell had previously tried to regale the police with his encounter, but the skeptical force did not take his encounter seriously and did not investigate further at that time. This was a portion of the reason he felt an article needed to be written. The editor was hesitant to do so but eventually gave him the go-ahead to do so. Yet before his article could be published, full out monster-mania had hit the quiet town of Grafton. Jerry and Jim had managed to leak the events of the previous night to several fellow citizens, and the story of the creature spread like wildfire.

That night anywhere between 30-100 teenagers and adults alike armed with flashlights and grabbed weapons that included but were not limited to: pitchforks, mallets, tire irons, hammers, garden hoes, crowbars, hatchets, pistols, knives, baseball bats, hunting rifles, at least one 12gauge shotgun, and very likely even more heavy-duty artillery. It was a true sight to behold some were people aiming to protect the town and their families, others simply wanted a stuffed monster for the rec room, some simply wanted to, and young bucks brought their significant others to seem macho all headed into the woods and quarries near where Cockrell had seen the creature. Cockrell headed down, hearing about the commotion and the ruckus, and proceeded to take notes of all of the events of the evening.

While down taking note of all that occurred, Cockrell would encounter some 20 people who claimed that while out had seen the white whistler at one point in the evening. The beast was seen by the river and stone quarry as it lumbered around. Cockrell would interview each of the witnesses independently and would verify that all the witnesses' accounts matched his in almost every way. Unfortunately, any further details on these accounts are unavailable. After the events of the night ended, Cockrell typed away to meet the deadline taking in all of his notes to make what is his magnum opus on the events surrounding this strange entity. Yet this would not come to fruition in its stead was a heavily edited version which painted the events of the past couple nights as a cynical degrading sham.

The article was dubbed “Teen-Age Monster Hunting Parties Lates Activity On Grafton Scene” which was released in the Grafton Sentinel on June 18th, 1964. Here is the article in its entirety.

“Want to go “monster” hunting?

If so just join the roving bands of teenagers who are apparently convinced that a “monster” exists and is roving in the section of Riverside drive near the city stone quarry.

Wednesday night several bands of teenagers armed with flashlights, mallets, crowbars and the like, were reported searching the Riverside drive area.

The description of the alleged Grafton “monster” sounds suspiciously like that of the recent reports of a “monster” in Michigan, except that Grafton’s seems to be a bit bigger in every respect.

One teenager said that the youths on Wednesday night were searching for a creature “nine feet tall and about four feet wide.” He said it is agreed that the creature is white, has no discernible head and emits a weird whistling sound.

So far as could be ascertained today, area law enforcement authorities have taken no official notice of the reports of the Riverside drive “monster.”

Several teenagers, none of them identified by name, have reportedly “seen the monster” and given fairly tallying reports of its appearance.

The tale is even embellished with the theory that the creature was first sighted in the Morgantown area and arrived in the Riverside area via the Monongahela and Tygart rivers.

One youth suggested that it might be an escaped Polar bear, but offered no suggestions as to where such an animal could have escaped.”

Much to Cockrell's anger, the article had been edited to be such a joking event as opposed to the serious nature in which the creature he felt should be studied. Yet this article did not stop the countless folks who had caught wind of the beast, and on the night the article was released, almost double the amount of people showed up, weapons in hand, to search the Tygart river for the beast. After the initial night, the "monster hunt" caught the attention not only of the local Grafton Police Department but also of the Taylor County Sherriff's Department and the West Virginia State Police. The departments had begun to make a search of the area to see if there was anything to the reports made of the mysterious beast, but before a true official search could be done, monster hunters and monster enthusiasts proceeded to park alongside the drive and cause traffic all along Riverside Drive. This traumatic traffic stopped the dutiful officers from doing their assigned to task of verifying the existence of the beast to being mere traffic enforcers, leaving only those searching for the beast to make any real headway.

Much like the first night, several more reports of the mysterious beast were noted by Cockrell, who had become the Mary Hyre and John Keel of the Grafton Monster case taking each count down in his notebook, which is probably one of the most important cryptozoological resources that need to be found. After the fact, he returned to his desk and typed out another article on the events of the days. Yet much like the previous article, he had written his editor butchered it, and the result was a terribly cynical and, to some extent, downright malicious article that paints the events as a downright ridiculous joke. This article came to culmination in the following one "Monster” Result Of Spring Fever, Wild Imagination” which was released in The Grafton Sentinel on June 19th, 1964. Here it is in its entirety.

“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 pm, 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 in recent years "monster" hunting.

Some 20 reports from persons allegedly seeing the “monster” have been quoted since Tuesday night when the “all white, creature without a discernible head,” was reported seen 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.”

A combination of spring fever, lack of area recreation facilities, and recent publicity give a Michigan town which claims to have a “monster” which followed people are believed to have laid the basis for the wildly imaginative story about a Grafton “monster.”

A routine check by The Sentinel showed that the “monster” may have resulted from the fact that an individual pushing a handcart loaded high with boxes, walked along Riverside drive on Tuesday night. In the half-light of late evening, this person and the loaded handcart apparently took on a weird shape for persons having just read the story of the Michigan “monster.”

“It’s fairly certain that “monsters” don’t go around pushing handcarts loaded with boxes.”

This article clearly was aimed against Cockrell when describing the answer to the mystery, which is truly an absurd answer to what was seen. The monster mentioned in the article was a creature called the Dewey Lake Monster, a semiaquatic bear-like or bigfoot like beast seen in Michigan and reported a few weeks before Cockrell’s sighting. With that said, though, the hysteria seemed to die down as though the people in the town as well were insulted by this assumption of the beast, yet instead of continuing the search for the beast, they seemed to pack it up and return to their "normal" lives. Yet for Cockrell, he continued his research compiling countless cases of creatures that seemed to be similar to what he believed he saw. Yet as far as sightings in the area, nothing on the books has been recorded since that infamous monster hunt.

It was shortly after these events that Cockrell proceeded to get ahold of Fortean researcher Gray Barker. Gray Barker was a West Virginia oriented paranormal investigator who lived at this particular time in Clarksburg and upon conversing with Cockrell for some time decided to meet him face to face. Barker was interested in the story and had planned to write an article on the creature for a UFO magazine. As the two conversed, Cockrell asked Barker what he thought the creature was. Barker, who was an expert in the extraterrestrial phenomenon, had the following notes on the phenomenon which was written in a letter to Cockrell and in the unpublished draft of his intended article:

“The most interesting facet of your report, to me, was the whistling sound heard from the direction of the river. I have a theory, which although it isn’t generally accepted, is still interesting to me. When rocket ships from the U.S. reach an inhabited planet, or one which has some sort of reasonably breathable atmosphere, we will at first deposit experimental animals (probably monkeys) on the surface of the planet before getting out ourselves. These specimens will then be carefully retrieved and thoroughly examined to note effects of the alien environment on them. If space people are visiting us now, they might be doing the very same thing. Thus the whistling sound, if one fits in with this theory, could well be the sound of the “flying saucer” retrieving its specimen-in this case the weird looking monster.”

“We will want to know how the effects of an alien atmosphere will have upon them, whether there are any harmful radiations our instruments have not picked up; what the reactions of the alien residents will be if they have by chance sight [sic] the animal-and probably, more important, the effect of the local planetary viruses and bacteria to which earth fauna has not had an opportunity to adapt.”

“We would by [t]hat time have a very efficient system of retrieving the experimental animals, and if we wanted our observance to be made in secret, would excertise [sic] all caution to make sure the animal was not captured. Are saucerians dropping experimental animals or “monsters” among us[?] To this reporter this is just as likely as is the present suspected visitations by otherplanetarians.”

 While Barker's research into this phenomenon fell away and was buried for many years, Cockrell had continued collecting data on creatures that he felt could be the same or related to the one that he saw. He found a sighting from Morgantown that occurred before his own and discovered that a good majority of several other accounts were around waterways. This leads Cockrell to believe that this strange beast or beasts use the waterways to travel around.

Cockrell would get into contact with several people who supposedly had seen the same creature as he did. One such witness had not just one but two sightings when he was a young adult. He and his father had the first encounter with the creature while out chopping wood for their home. They had just finished and were placing their treasured lumber into the back of their trucks when all of a sudden, their dogs began to bark and act distressed. The two stood dead silent and listened. There in the stillness of the woods was a heavy pounding on the ground of something coming towards them. His father, being prepared for anything, told his son to grab his double-barreled 10 gauge, which was located in the back of the truck. As the boy reached into the cab, they noticed that the as of yet unseen form had quickened its pace. The two waited for their strange assailant to come into view, thinking all the while that this creature did not find them intimidating in the slightest. It was at that moment they saw the creature as it broke through the trees. It stood 50-55 yards away from the startled father and son and remained quiet. His father preparing for the worse, had already pulled both hammers back on the weapon and had told his son to be ready. Yet the creature, either realizing the danger it was in or simply did not realize that there was anyone there, stepped forward a bit and proceeded to look at both the militarized father and son. It stepped forward another three steps and then turned and walked back through the tree line away from what certainly would have been a violent confrontation for it.

His second encounter would occur in a much less dramatic fashion as while fishing one morning along the Missouri River. He spotted the unknown creature on the opposite bank from where he was fishing. The strange creature noticing him as well, proceeded to stand absolutely dead still as it watched him from the shoreline. The man, either suffering a flashback from his previous encounter with the beast or simply out of the logical unease of such a creature, proceeded to drop everything and run out of there as fast as he could. He ran to his parked truck and looked behind me to see if this strange creature had attempted to pursue him. As he looked, he saw the strange creature running towards the woods, and just as the beast entered the dense foliage, he heard a loud whooshing sound and saw a large bright light rising above the trees and flying away into the wild blue yonder. The man reeling in from this cavalcade of insanity was terrified of the events that occurred and, in doing so, did not return to the location to pick up his gear for another two days.

This case is interesting because of the fact that this creature looked at the eyewitnesses. This would, in fact, indicate that the Grafton Monster does, in fact, have a face and head. This first encounter to me seems to indicate more of a sasquatch encounter than what was seen by Cockrell, but the lack of a physical description in the first and ostensibly more esoteric second encounter makes even determining if it is a bigfoot type creature difficult. It is worthy of note that the second sighting is often lumped in with Momo, the Missouri monster seeing as during that time there was a joint conversion between sasquatch-like creatures and UFOs. To me, though, these accounts seem totally unrelated to the creature seen by Cockrell.

One case that is often included in connection to the Grafton Monster but really seems to be of something else entirely was reported in 1952. This case, interestingly enough, however, was also connected to the Flatwoods Monster as the sighting took place only a few weeks after the luminous monstrosity was seen. The account was written by journalist Thomas I. Stafford for the September 21^st issue of Register from Beckley. The article discussed a Mrs. Earl Hutchinson from Skelton in Raleigh County encountering what she described as a large white shining or shiny washtub type figure hovering in the sky. Leaving her house, she noticed the peculiar figure and originally believed it to be a man with a parachute but then it proceeded to move erratically swinging back and forth and jumping up and down as it hovered in the air. Mrs. Hutchinson interpreted this strange form to be none other than the Flatwoods Monster which had gained world fame after the sighting broke in Braxton County on September 12^th of that same year.

While this case is interesting in its relation to the Flatwoods Monster and Grafton Monster, this case really seems to have nothing to do with either. The Flatwoods Monster was described as a bright Red, silver, and Green colored creature with glowing portal eyes, an ace of spade-shaped head, and a cyborg-esque appearance. The creature hovered above the ground and released a mist and oily substance that had a chemical reaction to the witnesses. There were other sightings of a similar creature around the time of the sighting, but the creature seemed to of removed much of its metallic covering. In these other sightings, the creature still hovered above the ground, but this hovering was not at the same height as the object seen weeks later.

Cockrell included this case as part of his connection to the beast he had seen, but why specifically is anyone's guess. Most researchers who have written about the Grafton Monster point that the reason this case is included with the Grafton Monster though is because of the color and sheen of the object seen by Mrs. Hutchinson. The description of a washtub is similar enough to the boulder or fridge type build of the beast, so in this way, it is not unreasonable to sort of connect the two. Yet, for me personally, this case seems to be indicative of either a UFO report or a flying humanoid case since the witness did seem to think that at one point, it was a humanoid type form. The reason I don't believe this case to be related to the Grafton Monster is that with Cockrell's report and the impressions we can get from those that reported the creature during the monster hunt that this creature is either semiaquatic or terrestrial in nature and bears no real implication to something that can fly.

This case is one where it is really a one-time sighting type creature while there are other accounts of things that have been included in its lore. They seem to, in truth, bear no real resemblance to the white monstrosity seen by Cockrell. Yet as with most cryptid encounters, this leaves us with more questions than answers, and with this case in particular, what the beast even could be for no known animal aside of something like a worm exists without a noticeable head.

The skeptical answers that the Grafton Sentinel proposed are downright insulting. The idea of someone pushing a stack of boxes on a cart or pushing a refrigerator down Riverside Drive at the late hour that the creature was seen is just stupid. There's no real way to rationalize how this would be a plausible answer. Unless Cockrell was drunk, tired, or suggestive to an overactive imagination, there's no way he could have misinterpreted a fridge or boxes as a hulking living beast. It is important to be skeptical and to try to rule out all the mundane answers before one can even entertain the esoteric, but such an explanation, in reality, makes no sense. If this were a woman with a refrigerator on a dolly, it would take her assumedly a lot longer to get to her destination, and Cockrell and his friends would have reseen her when returning to the location to look for evidence. Also, there should if this was some cart or dolly be some tracks from the wheels of it since the sighting was not on the paved road but in the mud and grass along the side of the road. The only evidence they found was a heavily trodden area where he had seen the creature.

While the cart/fridge woman hypothesis is clearly ridiculous, some alternative ideas proposed by a town member may be slightly more plausible. An escaped polar bear or even a native albino bear could very much be a good possibility of what was seen in Grafton. Polar bears can reach heights up to seven feet tall, which is around the same height as the Grafton Monster. Black bears are about the same height when standing upright. Could it be that an albino black bear or escaped polar bear be the culprit of the Grafton Monster? While it's possible, this idea is unlikely. For one thing, bears have a neck and head, which is topped with big ears. This is in total contrast to the features or lack thereof of the Grafton Monster. Now, if Cockrell had seen one from the back, then maybe it could be perceived as a headless, faceless giant, but even then, you would think there would be some impression as he slowed and looked at the creature that it was facing the opposite direction. Not to mention if this was the escaped polar bear route, how and why did this creature make its way to the small town of Grafton. It just seems unfeasible.

In an earlier article, I had discussed a series of sightings of what appeared to be albino giant ground sloths seen in Sherman, New York. These creatures would lumber out of swampy areas and gallivant around households in the area. These creatures could be what is seen here if seen from behind or if the head is tucked in or facing the opposite direction while the body is facing frontwards. Obviously, the main problem with this hypothesis is that ground sloths supposedly went extinct around 10,000 years ago. Another problem with this case is that the ground sloths seen in Sherman were anywhere between 12-18 ft tall and long, which dwarfs the Grafton Monster. However, if the creature seen in Grafton is a juvenile or young adult, there is also the possibility that it could simply be this kind of creature. While this is a possibility, it is unlikely for the reasons also listed for the fact that ground sloths do not have the slick seal-like skin reported in the Grafton case but big furry bodies, something that clearly is different than what was reported unless, of course, it's a ground sloth with mange.

Another possibility is actually that the Grafton Monster is, in fact, a misidentified cryptid. West Virginia is, in fact, home to several white unknown creatures that are supposed to haunt the woods, hills, and hollows of the state. These creatures are the Sheepsquatch and White Things. These particular beasts are about the size of the Grafton Monster. If not a little shorter, they are adorned with horns, claws, fangs, possum like tails and can walk bipedally or quadrupedally. These creatures, while probably different species, are reported countless times in West Virginia's history but most frequently in the 90s. These creatures could pass as a headless beast if seen from behind, but again as with other hypotheses, I stated it would seem unlikely that Cockrell would not have noted that the figure's features were contorted in that way. Also, none of the extreme features like horns or a possum-like tail were described on the Grafton Monster, and again these other white enigmas are covered in shaggy hair, which is much different from the slick skin seen on the Grafton Monster.

There are many who thoroughly believe that the Grafton Monster is a kind of bigfoot. Bigfoot is often described as having no neck, and this could attribute to Cockrell describing a headless form seeing as the head actually seems more connected to the body and less extended. There, of course, is also the idea that a sasquatch seen from behind could give the appearance of a faceless fiend. Another element that could lend credence to this claim is color. There are several reports of white or albino bigfoots, the most famous being the Murphysboro Mud Monster, which had white fur which was caked with mud. Another aspect is the reported whistling, which is something bigfoot has been reported to do reports of juvenile bigfoot in general and creatures known as the Albatwitch have been constantly reported to release whistling sounds some indirect observance.  A white bigfoot may very well be what was seen, yet once more, it is unlikely, seeing as with the skin and the fact that reversed limbs would clearly have been something more noted than what Cockrell had described.

The undiscovered species angle seems to me to be the most plausible answer to this mystery. Just what kind of creature it would be is a mystery. I get the impression that the Grafton Monster is a mammal or amphibian. The skin that it is reported to have, as well as the fact that many of the reports claimed the creature was seen near the Tygart River, seem to indicate that this creature is semiaquatic. The Grafton Monster, though, is a true mystery. There is nothing truly like it that has ever been recorded. The creature's reported headlessness is something that in simple organisms like worms seems to be plausible, but in something as complex in structure as what the creature is supposed to be, it seems unlikely. With that said, there are some reasons why it may appear not to have a head or facial features. It could be that the creature was facing the other way, which is something I've addressed in other hypotheses. It could be that the head was tucked in or the neck stretched around the shoulders in a way that it seemed to be a headless beast. Another possibility is that the creature could have facial features, but they could be extremely small, which may seem implausible but not impossible. There is an interesting similarity between this beast and small entities known as the Nightcrawlers. These creatures are seen in wooded areas, swamps, and watery locals and are described as having extremely long legs and a small torso or head on top. They are also a whitish color, and most of the time, facial features are indiscernible. Could it be that the Grafton Monster and these creatures are either examples of sexual dimorphism or age cycles? I mentioned that the Grafton Monster if it is indeed semiaquatic, would have to be either a mammal or an amphibian. If this creature is, in fact, an amphibian, it could stand to reason that like most frogs, newts, and salamanders. These creatures could, in fact, have a metamorphosis, which could show the nightcrawlers as the tadpole or larval stage and the Grafton Monster as a full-grown adult. While certainly, this is conjecture based on trying to fit these creatures into the natural world, we do know that other animals do go through cycles like that, so why would it be so out of the ordinary for a macro-organism to do something similar?

While earth biology is my go-to for attempting to explain the variety of cryptid beasts that have been reported to dwell in the untrekked locations of the world, some like Gray Barker have suggested that our planet is in fact either a test site or a dumping site where extraterrestrial beings have proceeded to either leave behind species from their homeworld or drop off temporarily species to test the environment to see if it would be suitable for their purposes. While comparing their ideologies to ours as humans, it would make sense, but at the same point, one would have to assume that if extraterrestrials are, in fact, smarter than us that they would have a much more structured way to test our planet than just haphazardly to release a variety of strange and unusual beasts. This theory, however, is extremely interesting and could explain why many of these cases are one and dones as one sighting of something strange occurs, and then the creature is never seen again.

The final possibility is that this beast could either be an interdimensional being or Ultraterrestrial. While these options seem unfathomable, there are some who have argued that this creature zipped in and out of dimensions either intentionally or unintentionally. Some of their evidence for this is the fact that there were no footprints or other signs of movement from the creature aside from the area that was tramped down. As though this creature materialized in that spot and later dematerialized. Another thing they point out is the whistling sound. Much like Barker, who believed such sounds were connected to UFOs, there are those who believe that these creatures, when shifting dimensions, made a similar sound. While in physics, the idea of parallel universes and earths is argued strongly, especially when looking at string theory, it is still something that we do not know much about. So, to assume that this creature, which would have to be intelligent enough to materialize and dematerialize is, in fact, from another dimension, is a far stretch.

Whatever the origin or reason for the creature, it is an enduring mystery, and it is starting to leave its mark. The town of Grafton today remains much unchanged since the time of the sighting. It still remains a quiet sleepy town that focuses on its own business and attempts to simply survive the struggle that most small towns go through. In an effort to increase tourism, the town has begun to embrace its monster. The Grafton Monster recently has made an appearance in the Bethesda game Fallout 76, which takes place in a post-apocalyptic West Virginia. The creature, alongside other Cryptozoological, Ufological, and folkloric creatures, are set free to attack players in the hills and hollows that were originally theirs.

The creature also appeared in an extremely cringey series known as Mountain Monsters. The show is extremely inaccurate in much of its depictions of monsters like the Mothman and features a set of backwoods type investigators who search the hills and hollows of the Appalachian mountains for cryptid creatures. The show, while showing some interesting material, is often shown to be more drama than a documentary, and many suspect scenes seem to indicate hoaxing. The show's episode on the Grafton Monster made the creature out to be a kind of carnivorous bigfoot like creature whose head was tucked into its chest. I would not recommend it for a research tool except for the purposes of discussing the pop culture associated with the creature.

 In response to the popularity of the creature, the town of Grafton created a sign that was placed right at the spot where the beast was seen on Riverside Drive. The beautiful monument to a mysterious beast, of course, was short lived as a student at West Virginia University proceeded to take the sign and hang it on his dorm room wall. Eventually, the perpetrator was caught, and the sign was returned, yet it was slightly damaged by being folded assumedly to fit in the car. It was thanks to online funding that a new sign was soon made and replaced in the spot where the old one hung.

Grafton, other than the sign, has one other major spot where monster enthusiasts and cryptozoologists can travel to pick up info on the beast and enjoy a nice warm beverage. The local shop Espresso Yourself Coffee House has since become the unofficial headquarters for the beast. The shop has become a go-to shop for anyone out looking for info and merch on the creature and is frequented by many locals who are interested in the legend.

The Grafton Sentinel, the paper that was so ingrained in the story of the Grafton Monster, is no longer located on Latrobe Street. In fact, the paper is now known as the Mountain Statesman and seems to be as well changing its past against the monster as it covers many of the upcoming developments to the towns growing love of its monster. I’m sure Cockrell would be proud to see it come around.

Grafton, though while slowly beginning to garner attention with its most placid resident, has not reached the same kind of obsession as Flatwoods or Point Pleasant. Possibly in the future, the town will reach the same kind of Monster-mania that the others did, and in some ways, I'd love to see that take root there. It is important for towns to embrace their legends. Legends make life more interesting and increase attention to their corner of the world. Yet we must not forget that with every legend, there is a grain of truth, and real people were involved in this case. Yet while the monster had been growing in sightings in pop culture, the creature was seen by Cockrell, though and the countless other unnamed witnesses those two nights has never officially been seen again, or at least nothing exactly matching its description has. And so, ends and begins the story of the headless horror the Grafton Monster.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal

Location: Grafton, West Virginia

Sighted: June 16, 1964

Works Cited

Coleman, Loren, Mothman and Other Curious Encounters. Paraview Press. 2002

Dudding, George. The Grafton Monster. GSD Publishing. 2019.

Fauster, Ted. “Meet the top five monsters from the West Virginia hills”. West Virginia Explorer. April 3, 2014. https://wvexplorer.com/2014/04/03/five-west-virginia-monsters-0005/5/. Accessed December 17, 2020

Flohr, Michaela. “Grafton’s newest attraction will hopefully draw tourists to town”. Mountain Statesman. November 13, 2018. https://mountainstatesman.com/article/graftons-newest-attraction-will-hopefully-draw-tourists-to-town. Accessed December 17, 2020.

Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. Monsters of West Virginia: Mysterious Creatures in the Mountain State. Stackpole Books. 2012.

McCoy, Kurt. “The Grafton Monster”. West Virginia Ghosts. August 11, 2017. https://www.wvghosts.com/blog/the-grafton-monster/. Accessed December 17, 2020.

Nguyen, Andrew. “Finding Folklore in West Virginia - The Grafton Monster”. Adventure Motorcycle. October 23, 2018. https://adventuremotorcycle.com/rides/advmoto-folklore-west-virginia/the-grafton-monster. Accessed December 17, 2020.

Swancer, Brent. “The Bizarre Case of the Grafton Monster” December 3, 2020.  https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2020/12/the-bizarre-case-of-the-grafton-monster/. Accessed December 17, 2020.

“Grafton Monster Sighting”. https://www.theclio.com/entry/85659. Accessed December 18, 2020.

The Tuttle Bottoms Monster

 The Tuttle Bottoms Monster

By Cole Herrold

Cryptozoology is chock full of strange beasts, and even when you think you've heard it all, another beast is sure to come across your radar. It was 2019, and I had traversed to the Mecca of the Cryptozoology world and entered the Hallowed Halls of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. I had spent several hours in pure ecstasy examining the many exhibits that founder and hero Loren Coleman had put together. On the way out, I easily spent over two hundred dollars in the gift shop purchasing bigfoot recast prints, figurines, t-shirts, and of course, books. One book which I had the chance to purchase and to my excitement was signed was Chad Lewis, Noah Voss, and Kevin Lee Nelson's amazing book The Big Muddy Monster: Legends, Sightings, and Other Strange Encounters. Reading the book, I had, however, found a delightful chapter chocked to the gills in other creatures from the "Prairie State." It was in this relatively small section that I encountered an extremely bizarre beast that I had never hear of—the long-nosed beast known locally as the Tuttle Bottoms Monster.

This creature was something I had no memory of, and of course, I began trying to find some mention of it in all the Cryptozoology oriented books I owned. This creature is listed in only one other source, which is Chasing American Monsters by Jason Offutt but the section on this strange beast is even slimmer than what was listed in Lewis, Voss, and Nelson's Book. My quest for finding any information in printed format proved to be almost fruitless. It wasn't until I had searched the world wide web that a few unique websites, including a news station, had been caught in the spiderlike strings. Yet even still, accounts of this beast are exceptionally scant.

Harrisburg, Illinois, the main epicenter for this creature, is similar to a lot of other towns with a monster connected with it. A once-booming coal and railroad town, the current town has approximately 9,000 people, which is a sharp drop from the original population that was around during the heyday. An area near Harrisburg known as the Tuttle Bottoms is located near the Saline River, which is located in Saline County. The Saline River forks three times, and the middle fork is where the Tuttle Bottoms is located. The Tuttle Bottoms is a very flat area of land with darting areas of open farmland.  The area has a bridge, which is supposedly the troll-esque lair of the Tuttle Bottoms beast. Allegedly if one parks at this location long enough, the beast will begin to growl and make unearthly sounds from its lair. This, while reminiscent of a variety of other supernatural legends, more than likely, at least in the origin of the creature, have a grain of truth.

The first known report of what would become known as the Tuttle Bottoms Monster which alternatively has been dubbed the Mo Mo Monster (it is important to note that there is also two other figures with this name. one a hairy hominid reported from Louisiana, Missouri, and an internet urban legend figure based on a sculpture) occurred on August 6^th, 1963. While the exact details of the sighting of the beast are not known aside from the description, it is how the creature was chronicled that makes it interesting. It was at 11 pm when Sheriff James Thompson was driving around the area of the Tuttle Bottoms when his attention was drawn to movement coming from the woods. Pulling his car off to the side of the road and turning on his flashlight. His eye caught in the forested darkness was a young boy with a rifle. The boy stared up at the law officer and as the Sheriff wondering whether this could be a boy out poaching or possibly something more insidious like a man with a murderous mind. The Sheriff, though, decides to leave his speculations behind and ask this armed individual what he was up to at this hour of night so heavily armed when the boy looked up and cinematically replied, "There's a monster loose in the Bottoms!" The Sheriff, perplexed by this response, asked the boy to describe what this beast looked like, and the boy was placing his arms down, described in the following way. The creature was 8ft long and 4ft high. It could walk both bipedally and quadrupedally and curiously enough had a nose like an anteater. The Sheriff intrigued by this account, but no doubt skeptical of the boy's claim, decided to go and persuade the boy to go home and said that he would look into it. The boy returned to his truck, which was close by to where the Sheriff had pulled off. The boy placed his rifle in the back and began to drive away as the Sheriff watched the boy drive off into the darkness. Little did he know this would not be the end of his night.

As the Sheriff continued down the road, he was drawn to even more shapes moving in the darkness. Clearly perturbed by this, he pulled off to the side again, and once parked, he saw to his surprise not one, but a legion of individuals armed with shotguns, rifles, and other various weapons. The Sheriff looked at this mob in absolute surprise and approached the group. He asked the group what they were doing, and they all said in a clamor of voices that they were hunting a monster that was living in the Tuttle Bottoms. The Sheriff once more asked what this creature looked like, and the group all described it in the same way as the boy who he had encountered earlier. The Sheriff had once again dissuaded the individuals from stopping their pursuit and returning home. The individuals proceeded to go and return to their cars and drive off into the night. The Sheriff curious by their claims spent the rest of his shift driving the dark roads of the Tuttle Bottoms searching for the beast until 4:30 am when his shift finally came to a close, and he returned home with more questions than answers.

Unlike many Monster Hunts that would later occur, like that which took place in Grafton almost a year later. This occurrence happened before even the majority of both law enforcement, and newspaper accounts occurred. Usually, in monster hunt cases, the account comes out in the paper, and the reported area proceeded to become the area that becomes searched by the community and any who heard of this creature. From this, many tales and folkloric tropes would emerge about the creature making it difficult to figure the facts from the fiction in this case.

It was in this uproar and extracurricular attention to the Tuttle Bottoms that more legends and accounts would occur. The Tuttle Bottom Monster gained a reputation as one of many “Lovers Lane” type monsters. Similar to the Goatman or Orange Eyes of Ohio, this creature reportedly would come out of the woods poking around with its long snout and glare in cars or lumber around the cars as pubescent teens would enact the rituals of amore. As the teens would "make out," the beast would come lumbering around quite unconcerned or curious at what was going on inside the vehicles.

Another old trope was that people out driving late at night would see the large unknown animal cross the road as its eyes glowed or reflected the headlight of the car. This would be one of the most common ways to encounter this long-nosed mystery. Hunters would report seeing a similar creature while out searching for deer or other game. Strange tracks would be found around this time, many of which were believed to be connected to the beast.

This creature, however, unlike most cryptids, was rarely reported in any newspaper. The Tuttle Bottoms Monster, even from a research standpoint, is difficult to study because of the lack of written accounts. In 1999 Sheriff Gary Crabtree would report that their office had received almost 50 reports of some kind of strange creature dwelling in the Tuttle Bottoms. However, when Chad Lewis and his coauthors of the Big Muddy Monster went searching for these accounts in the local police station of Harrisburg, no accounts could be found. This implies that they either were never recorded or none of the files survived or remained. This, unfortunately, has left a major gap in the history of the creature resulting in newer information and those from dubious sources to be the only strain of context in reports of this beast.

The reports and written material we do have on the creature comes primarily from Brian DeNeal, whose journalistic integrity has been the only reason this creature has been documented at all. Brian DeNeal, who has written for the Harrisburg Register several times on this unknown beast, has been the only researcher who has managed to get several single sightings that have detailed a variety of features and elements that both enlighten and add to the mystery of the beast. Some of these accounts seem to be contradictory in some ways to each other, but they are interesting, to say the least.

One thing I noticed when researching this creature is that the Tuttle Bottoms Monster is either not alone or is a name used to describe a multitude of creatures. I noticed that this is a common occurrence. Many bigfoot researchers will include non-bigfoot like creatures in their files and say it's a bigfoot. When I went in search of the Jersey Devil in 2018 that was something else that I noticed is that the historical Jersey Devil, particularly with sighting in the early 1900s, was of a bunch of creatures, some thunderbird like, others bigfoot like, some dragon-like, and then others the chimeral beast which we now completely associated with the Devil. Even with Mothman, this kind of mixed inclusion can be seen as there are giant owl-like creatures, flying humanoids, and thunderbird like creatures that all have been described as the same creature.

There are at least four different kinds of creatures associated with the Tuttle Bottoms Monster name. The first and most common case being the long-nosed giant anteater like creature that many of the witnesses from the 60s and 70s described. This is one of not only the most interesting of the bunch by the bizarre appearance but also the one most likely to have a logical explanation as to why it is there and also what could be the most likely answer to the riddle for giant anteaters are a known species. Just one of this size and magnitude is not known.

I have argued that a variety of flying cryptids could be descended from Pteranodons or pterodactyls—even those of an esoteric nature like those seen fluttering around Lake Michigan currently. When researching the Jersey Devil, I came to that conclusion after listening to a variety of accounts that seemed incredibly credible and reading a ton of accounts that do, in fact, with a little hypothetical speculation do seem to be indicative of a descendent of a Pterodactyl or Pteranodon type creature. With the Tuttle Bottoms Monster, there is an account that always seems to be brought up in connection to the beast, and that is a potentially horrifying account that was seen by Bruce Cline in the 1960s.

It was on a bright sunny day that a young Bruce cline and his babysitter had decided to go and take a nice quiet drive through the Tuttle Bottoms. As the caregiver had begun to pass the bridge, a large form seemed to come from the Saline River. The winged figure began to chase the car and dive down in an attempt to attack the mechanical vehicle. Turmoil arose as the babysitter hit the gas and attempted to drive away from the avian anomaly. The beast missing its target continued to follow the wheeled device circling it until the car drove farther than their prehistoric pursuer cared to follow. The antediluvian aerial assassin returned to the forested realm it came, and the babysitter and her charge left the forested area.

In cryptozoology, chimera beasts are a common occurrence. In Vermont and Georgia, reports of a pigman can be heard. Throughout the United States and, in fact, the world, there are reports of werewolf or Dogman type creatures that are extremely aggressive. Even bigfoot is described as a half-man, half-ape type creature that lurks in the forests and untamed woodlands of the world. A more dubious type of creature mixed with folklore is the Goatman type creatures reported in Kentucky, Maryland, California, and Pennsylvania. Yet there are reports of something even more bizarre with reports of Catman like creatures. The most famous of these being the Wampus Cat, which was based on a legend of a Native American woman who, upon hearing forbidden knowledge, was changed into a half human half-cat creature. This legend is a part of the mystery big cat sightings and lumberjack folklore of the Appalachia mountains area. In Wicomico, Maryland, however, there was once an occurrence of a strange half man-half cat creature that dwelt in a dump and proceeded to attack a group of kids.

The Tuttle Bottoms Monster has one account that seems to indicate this kind of creature. This account appeared in the Harrisburg Register on November 5^th, 2010. The account was written by a woman from Eldorado, another city in Saline County, about her interactions with a creature she believes to be the Tuttle Bottoms Monster not once but on at least three occasions.

It was on a dark night the first time they encountered the beast. The witness and her two friends, as teens tend to do, would go and drive around the wooded areas of the Tuttle Bottoms. It was on one of those adventures that the menagerie of teens would encounter a strange beast. As the teens were honking the horn and flashing the lights of the car as they were driving over the infamous Tuttle Bottoms Bridge when as the teens crossed the bridge, the driver noticed that there was some shape now in the road behind them. The creature seemed to be lumbering around and slowly following the car, whether because it was annoyed by the ruckus of the teens in their car or curious at what was making the noise. The witnesses would see in the semi-lit darkness a towering human-like form. The witness's eyes widened, and they saw a figure that instantly made them think of the lycanthropic marauder from the 1940s, the Wolfman. They would go and note features about it; however, that would seem much less like a canine and something much more feline. It was in the illuminated darkness that they saw the beast. It was, in their estimate, 6ft tall on its two hind legs, and its ears were pointed upwards like a cat. The creature, interestingly, however, had a face like a man and did not have the large snout reported in other cases. The creature had hands with elongated fingers attached to extremely long arms. They would watch in understandable awe and possible terror as this unknown feline fiend ran off into the woods and proceeded to leap into the forest as it crossed the paved road on extremely long legs. The teens drove off as the creature rummaged into the foliaged lair that this creature called home. They would continue to see the beast’s blue eyes and hear loud noises coming from the woods.

These teens would later claim to of seen this beast on several other occasions. On one occasion, they saw the creature down in the water of a creek in the Tuttle Bottoms. They noticed several features about this creature as it can walk and run on both four legs and two legs, something interesting enough that has been reported in some Bigfoot cases and Dogman cases. The teens would also notice that the creature's eyes either shone naturally or by the aid of eyeshine, but unlike the classic yellowish hough of many animals, this creature had white glowing eyes with a bluish tint. The witnesses would eventually view the creature as a natural member of the native flora and fauna. Yet they still treated this particular beast with the utmost interest noting the creature was intelligent, extremely swift, and that based on other accounts that this creature could climb. It was in several other accounts where they could see a form in the tree with eyes too large to be from a bird and the same bluish-white color. The teens would believe that the creature was in a weird way connected or drawn to them as several of their friends would go to the area and never be seen, but they had multiple sightings of the beast. The sightings were so numerous that they even developed their own name for the beast calling it the Tuttle Bottoms Pussy, because of the creature’s cat-like appearance.

Many researchers seem to lump this particular creature in with Sasquatch type sightings, and while Illinois does have a rich history with Bigfoot-type creatures, the Tuttle Bottoms monster does not exactly match. That said, some of the reports of accounts described to Virgil Smith of Shadows of Shawnee indicate a primate type creature as opposed to an anteater like creature. It is possible that with most unknowns that several creatures are described as the same name because of the location in which they occur or because of connection to an area's legend. Aside from the Tuttle Bottoms Monster's anteater like snout or nose, in many ways, its height and hairy body, as well as its bipedal nature, seem to indicate a bigfoot-like creature. So possibly some accounts could be a misidentified sasquatch.

With all these creatures, several answers could be used to try to understand what people could be seeing, and most are common from misidentified birds and bears (in fact, in some cases, the monster is often described as bear-like) in the case of all the creatures. Yet the vast detail is given to the Catman, and anteater variety of cases seem to indicate some other type of creatures aside from the usual suspects. Yet of the four beasts, only three could possibly be the same creature, namely the Catman, anteater beast, and bigfoot. Since they are all hairy bipedal beasts and as in many cases with witnesses, there is always the possibility of embellishment to explain the slight differences of appearance, but this seems unlikely. For even if this is the case, there still seems to be three different creatures a giant anteater like beast, a pterosaur of some kind, and a bigfoot like creature.

There are several supposed answers to this creature’s origin. one of the most popular is the belief that a zoo located in Mt. Vernon released a bunch of its occupants, and the species began to either reproduce or be solely sighted, resulting in not only the Tuttle Bottoms Monster but a variety of other reportedly unknown beasts. This hypothesis led to the idea of a giant anteater escaping or being released and now residing in the Tuttle Bottoms. There are mixed reports about the authenticity of this zoo as some sources claim that the zoo either did not exist or did exist. Yet, I need to mention that even if a zoo did exist in Mt. Vernon that this answer is similar to the circus train; it is a common answer to these kinds of phenomena. True, there are authentic cases of animals from private collections or private zoos that have escaped, but still, the amount of reports of such occurrences is deeply rooted in folklore. It is interesting, though, to note that many who encounter this creature do note that this animal is not intimidated or afraid of people, something that many zoo or domesticated animals have developed.

Another interesting answer but something that also appears a ton in folklore is that the Government had created and subsequently released their creatures. A scientific experiment gone awry is something commonly described in many cryptid and folklore stories, specifically that of the Maryland Goatman. However, Virgil Smith of research group the Shadows of Shawnee, when searching for this creature, came across an ex-employee of the US. Department of Agriculture claimed that not only was there an investigation into the beast but that the Government released the creature for some unknown reason. This anonymous ex-employee also said that another creature known as the Massac County Creature had a similar origin. Yet finding out about this creature has proven to be impossible as the only hits on any sources are of bigfoot or primate-like creature and nothing like what was reported with the Tuttle Bottoms Monster.

If the Government did release the Tuttle Bottoms Monster into the Illinois wilderness, it raises more questions than answers. It almost seems careless that our Government would do such a thing unless there was some individual who felt sorry for the mutated beasts and released them into the wilderness to live out the rest of their lives in peace. Yet this is mere speculation.

Another possible answer to the Tuttle Bottoms Monster mystery is that this long-nosed creature might very well be a surviving prehistoric anteater type creature. Anteaters are related to both sloths and armadillos, and the largest surviving species is the giant anteater. These animals are all parts of the Xenarthra family. These animals are unique and had during the early and latter part of the Cenozoic era had become gigantic in many cases. The ever-wonderful giant ground sloths could reach the size of an elephant, and the Glyptodon was a giant armadillo with a club like tail. Interestingly enough, the anteater's ancestors are less recorded in the fossil record, the main members discovered being the Protamandua, yet these animals reached only a size of only three feet. These animals originally lived in Argentina and other countries of the Patagonia area. The animals, while interesting and similar to the long-nosed variety of Tuttle Bottoms Monster, do not match the size of the mysterious beast and would have to be an extremely descended species whose grand-ancestor made its way to the United States.

The aspect of folklore for the Tuttle Bottoms Monster is something that also cannot be ignored. The Tuttle Bottoms have been allegedly home to satanic cults and devil worshippers, as well as a slew of alleged murders, something that many areas allegedly home to monsters, have been reported to have. Areas like Point Pleasant and Elkhorn, for example, are other areas where supposed cults have been reported. Some have connected the mysterious creatures seen there to be the cause of these satanic sabbaticals, yet the aspect of Satanists and their supposed actions are themselves rooted in folklore. For very rarely is there any truth behind these tales. In years later, the Tuttle Bottoms Monster was used as a boogeyman figure by the people of Harrisburg and other areas of Saline County.

One possibility for this beast goes deep into the writings of John Keel. John Keel wrote of areas known as window areas where a variety of strange phenomena would be free to roam and romp. These window areas are believed to be, for lack of a better word, portals to another dimension. This could explain why so many strange creatures are seen and reported in this particular stretch of land. While I feel this not to be the case, it is a possibility that does need to be expressed.

Even with all these possibilities, however, there is still no answer to this mystery. It is a subject that I feel needs to be researched more thoroughly, and I would love to be apart of it. This creature is a unique case that, in many ways, is like the Grafton Monster, a tale that had a monster hunt that shook a town, had a bizarre appearance unlike anything seen beforehand, and yet remained extremely unknown until recently. It is fascinating that this case has been so obscure, especially with how bizarre this beast and its cohorts are. Yet until more research can be done or until more reports come to light, we are left with the few witnesses who have come forward and a ton of speculation, but who knows, maybe some days a strange beast will lumber out from under the Tuttle Bottom's Bridge, and we will, in fact, know the truth of this strange legend.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Multiple Described Two Mammals and one Flying Reptile most likely a Pterosaur

Location: Tuttle Bottoms, Saline County, Illinois

Sighted: August 6, 1963- Present Day

Works Cited

DeNeal, Brian. “An Incredible Tuttle Bottoms Monster Account”. Harrisburg Register November 5, 2010. https://www.dailyregister.com/article/20101105/blogs/701249540/. Accessed December 22, 2020.

Lewis, Chad, Noah Voss, and Kevin Lee Nelson. The Big Muddy Monsters: Legends, Sightings, & Other Strange Encounters. On the Road Publications. 2019.

Offutt, Jason. Chasing American Monsters. Llewellyn. 2019.

Swancer, Brent “Not Quite Bigfoot: The Strange Tale of the Tuttle Bottoms Monster”. Mysterious Universe. October 19, 2019. https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/10/not-quite-bigfoot-the-strange-tale-of-the-tuttle-bottoms-monster/. Accessed December 22, 2020.

Woolheater, Craig “The Tuttle Bottoms Monster of Illinois”. Cryptomundo. November 5, 2010. http://cryptomundo.com/bigfoot-report/tuttle-bottoms-monster/. Accessed December 22, 2020.

Blair, “The Tuttle Bottoms Monster”. Mysterious Heartland. https://mysteriousheartland.com/the-tuttle-bottoms/. Accessed December 22, 2020

rkcunningham “200 Years of Illinois: They Haunt By Night”. University of Illinois Press Blog. August 31, 2017.https://www.press.uillinois.edu/wordpress/200-years-of-illinois-they-haunt-by-night/. Accessed December 22, 2020.

pinkspectre. “Tuttle Bottoms Monster: North American Folklore”. Steemit. 2018. https://steemit.com/folklore/@pinkspectre/tuttle-bottoms-monster-north-american-folklore. Accessed December 22, 2020.

WoofDriver.” Tuttle Bottoms monster”. WereWoofs. https://www.werewoofs.com/monster-stories/tuttle-bottoms-monster/. Accessed December 22^, 2020.

“First Tuttle Bottoms Monster report?”. Harrisburg Register. August 6, 2013. https://www.dailyregister.com/article/20130806/blogs/701222924/. Accessed December 22, 2020.

“Monster hunting in southern Illinois at Alton, Murphysboro, Harrisburg, Enfield, Mt. Vernon and more … and why not Bigfoot while we’re at it?” The Wytchery A Gothic Curiosity Cabinet. https://www.gothichorrorstories.com/haunted-travels/ohio-river-valley/southern-illinois-hauntings-and-legends/the-creature-feature-rambles-across-southern-illinois-in-search-of-prehistoric-birds-beasts-and-why-not-bigfoot-while-were-at-it/. Accessed December 22, 2020.

“Protamandua” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. November 18, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protamandua. Accessed December 26, 2020.