THE BEAST OF BOGGY CREEK: The True Story of the Fouke Monster (31 page)

Strange track discovered in 2004 by Doyle and Nathan Holmes.
(Photo by the author)

The tracks were fairly fresh, so they followed them into the berry patch until they could no longer be seen. No other traces of their maker could be found—perhaps fortunately!—but still they were somewhat spooked by the discovery.

Without a way to cast the track, Doyle decided to mark the spot and return later. They headed out, wondering just what kind of animal had made the tracks. Inevitably, the Fouke Monster came to mind. Two days later, Holmes returned with cement, intent on preserving the tracks. Unfortunately many of them had begun to erode, and the best track had been partially stepped on a by a hog, but still he was able to get one good sample.

A rather spooky incident that occurred about seven months prior is relevant here. It took place around April of 2004, as Holmes was fishing in the same area. About one hour after sunrise he heard some movement and splashing on the nearby bank. Figuring it might have been a large hog, he peered into the trees trying to get a glimpse of it. Shortly afterward something came into view, but it definitely wasn’t a four-legged hog. The thing, whatever it was, walked on two legs. Holmes could not get a clear visual of its upper body, due to the overhanging canopies of cypress, but he was able to see the figure from about the thigh down to the calf. There was no doubt it was a bipedal creature, but in the shadows, Holmes could not completely rule out that it was not a man in a pair of fishing waders. However, Holmes had been out on the water since before daylight and had not seen any signs of other people, not even a boat parked on the edge of the water. This was notable since the area was not accessible by any means other than by boat. He was miles from the road where the water began and could not imagine how another human could have been walking on the bank so far out, unless of course they lived in the swamp. Holmes had been coming here for years and was not aware of any resident in the area.

On one occasion, I had Doyle take me out to the area where he had seen the mysterious walker and where the tracks had been found. It was evident that the area would have been hardly accessible by a person on foot. To boot, the waters are filled with huge alligators that glided along near our canoe as if keeping an eye on us.

So in the end, what are we to make of all these troublesome tracks? Does the creature have three toes, five toes, or could these footprints be nothing more than misidentifications or hoaxes?

The trackway found in Willie Smith’s bean field during the peak of Fouke Monster activity is the most dramatic example of “hard” evidence, but also perhaps, the most dubious. In a 1986 interview with the
Texarkana Gazette
, Fouke Mayor Virgil Roberts expressed his personal doubts about the tracks. “I feel like somebody walked out there with stilts on. I think they were trying to get attention. Maybe they thought they could make a little money on it,” he told reporters. He went on to add: “I suspect there were several involved. I won’t call their names because some people have passed on.”

Although there is no proof of a hoax—even Mayor Roberts admits that no one has ever come forward to claim responsibility—it just might be that the tracks were man-made. Willie Smith himself seemed to be just the type of guy who could turn the Fouke Monster into a cash cow, if he only had a bit more sensational proof—or perhaps a track casting to sell at his service station! Smith and his family had several unverified run-ins with the monster, including an instance where he shot at the creature fifteen times but missed, so it seems very convenient that the mysterious creature just happened to leave his best set of prints right in Smith’s freshly plowed field. It is also ironic that the creature did not damage any of the precious crop, although to be fair, Smith was leasing the land to Mr. Kennedy, so technically the crop was not his own. However, it is puzzling that if Smith did create them, why did he not make them more ape-like? He himself theorized that the monster was merely an escaped primate. Did he not know that apes have five toes? Or did he not care and simply base his design on the “evidence” found out the Ford house, which mentioned the curious three-toed tracks?

These questions are impossible to answer without further input from Smith, who is long deceased, or by further examination of the castings. Unfortunately, the original castings were destroyed when the Boggy Creek Café caught fire in the late 1970s. Copies are extremely hard to come by, if they even exist at all, and as a result I was unable to track one down.

If all the three-toed tracks are thrown out of court as hoaxes or mistakes, it might be easier to imagine the Fouke Monster as a natural primate, be it a Sasquatch or merely a bipedal orangutan or gorilla who has escaped the confines of a private owner. I spoke to wildlife biologist and university professor, Alton Higgins, who agreed: “In my opinion, no three-toed track has anything to do with the Sasquatch or any undocumented primate.”

Alternately, we could theorize that because of a limited population, the three-toed foot represents some type of congenital deformation caused by inbreeding. An animal like this would surely have a limited population and, as such, a little cousin kissing might be necessary. However, this type of manifestation usually results in a more deformed looking foot all around, which is not the case here. The tracks found in the bean field show the foot to be fairly uniform except for the fact that it has three toes.

To be sure, I spoke to Dr. Jeff Meldrum, an Associate Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology at Idaho State University and the leading authority on Sasquatch track analysis. His conclusion was simple: “I have never seen a credible three-toed track.”

Modern Trail of Mythic Creatures

Cryptid research was not a very sophisticated activity back during the Fouke Monster frenzy. The locals did a commendable job of pursuing their mystery beast in the 1970s, but certainly the technology available to assist them was limited. For example, at the time the three-toed tracks were discovered, investigators called in one of the local women who had some crafting experience to pour Plaster of Paris into the depressions to make a mold. Investigators nowadays, whether law enforcement or amateur cryptozoologists, would come equipped with buckets of Hydrocal or other mixes of quality cement in order to cast the tracks. These substances are much more adept at picking up fine details such as skin folds, scars, or dermal ridge impressions. The soil (substrate) would also be analyzed for its density or other properties. Digital photos would be taken of the area and motion-sensitive cameras would be installed to capture an image of the perpetrator, should he return to the scene of the crime. With all the activity said to be going on, the Fouke area would have been a modern-day cryptozoologist’s dream.

For those not familiar with the subject of
cryptozoology
, it is defined as the “study of hidden animals.” Alleged hidden animals such as the Fouke Monster, Bigfoot, Chupacabra, lake monsters, and sea serpents fall into this category and are referred to as
cryptids
. Cryptozoology also includes creatures of the less monstrous sort, including the legendary black panther (whose existence is highly debated), giant salamanders, massive feral hogs, out-of-place kangaroos, and many more. It also encompasses a range of species once thought to be extinct or extirpated (i.e., killed off), which have been rediscovered or are believed to be still living. This category includes the Tasmanian tiger, dodo bird, giant moa, and the famous coelacanth, a 360-million year old fish hauled in by a fisherman off the coast of South Africa in 1938, much to the astonishment of scientists.

Other animals that would have once been categorized as cryptids include the giant panda and mountain gorilla. These are now familiar animals, but at one time they were thought to be figments of some overactive imaginations. Ironically, the mountain gorilla was initially described as a “man-like ape,” much like the Fouke Monster, by the German explorer Captain von Beringe. These amazing primates were unknown until 1902 when he finally shot one near modern-day Rwanda and brought it back to Europe.

Today, with all the documentaries, books, and television shows, cryptozoology is much more widely known than it was back in the early Fouke Monster days. The locals didn’t view the Fouke Monster as “cryptozoology,” but as “something strange that their neighbor saw.” It was more matter-of-fact than it was sensational.

Modern-day cryptozoologists employ other advanced equipment in their search for cryptids, including special low-light video cameras, night-vision goggles, thermal imaging devices, digital recorders, and portable “call-blasting” units. Call-blasting is the technique of broadcasting sounds such as primate howls, injured animal calls, alleged Sasquatch vocals, or even the sound of laughing children in an effort to illicit a response from an unknown animal. This is not unlike the technique Smokey Crabtree was using to entice the monster with a wounded rabbit call back in the 1960s. Modern call-blasting utilizes highly amplified audio to broadcast the sound over great distances. Whether this technique will help lure an undocumented animal from the shadows is uncertain, but there is no doubt that the forests echo with some very strange noises at night, some not so easy to identify.

Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy investigator Jerry Hestand, who has a deep appreciation for the Fouke Monster phenomenon, told me once of an interesting experience he and some other researchers had while call-blasting south of Fouke. They were in the area of Thornton Wells, near where the coonhunter had his frightening encounter in the winter of 2000. The researchers were split up into several teams, one of them stationed at a higher point, which rose from the swampy floor of Thornton Wells. As the chilly night settled in, they began to blast sounds of “Bigfoot howls” every half hour or so into the surrounding darkness. After several rounds, something suddenly echoed the very same sound from deep in the bayou. It was so similar to the pre-recorded howl that some of the team thought another call-blast was being played without their knowledge. But this was not the case. They played the call again and the unseen animal responded, this time closer to the stakeout area. In fact, the animal seemed to be getting closer and closer.

As they continued to play the calls, one of the team members, who was parked near a small bridge, heard something large moving through the cypress trees around him, breaking limbs and splashing in the water. Much to his horror, a rock came hurling from the black reaches of the swamp and hit the side of his truck. By now, the man was nearly petrified. Hestand tried to spotlight the culprit, but nothing could be seen. The ruckus continued for awhile longer before the night finally went silent.

Oddly enough, while Hestand and I were conducting some interviews for this book in Fouke, a local hunter by the name of John Attaway mentioned that he had once heard animal howls, which reminded him of a howler monkey, in the same area. He did not have any prior knowledge of Hestand’s experience at Thornton Wells. Not only that, but he and a friend were driving one evening right over the same little bridge in Thornton Wells where the ruckus had occurred. The men were moving very slowly, with the windows down, when they noticed a pungent odor. “It was so bad, I thought something was dead,” Attaway told us. “Like somebody had killed a deer or walked off the road and dumped some hog guts or something.” After smelling the stench, Attaway continued down the road for a short distance until he reached a boat ramp where he turned around. By the time they returned to the bridge, a mere two minutes later, the smell was completely gone. It was as if the source of the reeking odor had simply gotten up and walked off, which is pretty difficult to do if you happen to be a dead animal! Curious, the men plugged in a powerful spotlight and looked into the surrounding trees. They didn’t see anything, so Attaway grabbed his gun and jumped out of the truck. He searched the area on foot, but could find no animals, dead or alive. Fearless as I know Attaway to be, it was probably fortunate that the animal had moved on. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have lived one more smelly day, Fouke Monster or otherwise.

Was it mere coincidence that Attaway experienced something unexplainable in the very same spot that Jerry Hestand and his associates had?

In 2009, Hestand and other members of the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy made a significant contribution to the “Swamp Stalker” episode of
MonsterQuest,
which focused primarily on the legend of the Fouke Monster. Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman provided historical background on the infamous creature, and the episode reenacted the more recent encounter by Stacy Hudson, which I mentioned previously. It also documented the efforts of two teams, comprised largely of TBRC investigators, working to solve the enduring mystery of the “Swamp Stalker” in the Arkansas-Louisiana-Oklahoma-Texas region.