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 6th,
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 5th, 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
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Accessed December 22, 2020.
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Accessed December 22, 2020.
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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.
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December 26, 2020.
