Borillas
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 16th, 2007
Last year, I reported here of the Bigfoot-type reports called “Cohomo.” Does a child’s old 1960s’ notebooks have clues that relate to those sightings of the 1970s? Or was there just a cultural sense in the air that imaginations and reality merged in the Midwest of a few decades ago?
Michael Isenberg, a musician living in Hollywood, California, has made claims in emails to Cryptomundo that he created, in 1965, a story that may have influenced the reports of “Cohomo,” also called the “Cole Hollow Monster,” reported in 1972, in Pekin, Illinois. Here’s what Isenberg writes:
It began in the mid 60’s, all of us kids in the neighborhood were into the huge resurgence in the popularity of monster movies. Famous Monsters of Filmland was every monster fans favorite magazine and all of those classic Universal monsters and Samuel Z. Arkoff sci-fi films were introduced to us through a local late night horror broadcast on CBS affiliate channel 31 called Nightmare with it’s legendary host ( and the all time KING of horror hosts ) Milton Budd, a genuinely terrifying guy when the lights went out.
Famous Monster of Filmland spawned a number of offshoot magazines including a scary comic magazine called Creepy, with it’s ‘host’ Uncle Creepy. I had read a story in issue number 4 called ‘The Damned Thing!’ by Archie Goodwin and Gray Morrow, from a story by Ambrose Bierce. The story was about a creature much like what we would refer to as a “Bigfoot” that could only sometimes be seen. If I remember correctly, it had a sort of camouflage like a chameleon, but when it changed from it’s visible color to another color, the other color was one the human eye could not see. So it had the ability to become invisible. With that ability, the monster could roam undetected.
The beast I created began in that neighborhood in Pekin, Illinois in 1965 in the forest that existed behind the house on Coolidge street.
The story is true. Every bit of it will remain in my autobiography, backed up by many eyewitness accounts. And if I’m successful at seeing my book become a movie, the public will judge whether or not I’m telling the truth.
Back in Pekin, Illinois and nationally, I’ve had every bit as much newspaper coverage as any celebrity could hope for. On a national level I’ve appeared in many magazines, newspapers (The Pekin Daily Times has referred to me as a genuine living legend because of my musical career) and hard cover books. The latest being Phil Doubet’s ‘My Pryor Year – A 333 Soul Anthology’ where he has a chapter on me.
The story, as I said, stands as the truth. And many in Pekin, Illinois know it’s the truth.
The beast was my creation. I had all kinds of people believing in it, scared to go out into the woods. No one dressed up in any costume to scare anyone in that area (Pekin, Illinois) ever. That would have been a foolish mistake and could easily have been disproved (I had that figured out as a 12 year old).
It would also have been easy for any hunter to figure out in a heartbeat. I come from a family of hunters, plus my dad was a city inspector, I knew full well what kind of scrutiny any hoax would be under, and how easily certain things could be debunked. But you cannot debunk a beast that everyone claims to see but cannot find, with no hair evidence, no costume (that would have been ridiculous considering what was available at the time to make one, even Hollywood couldn’t have made anything plausible then. Ever see King Kong Verses Godzilla?). Michael Isenberg
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Magilla Gorilla (more at Wikipedia) might have fueled some young imaginations during the 60’s.
Borrilla Borrilla Cohoma, nice fantasy.
hey loren, this is a very informative new article about borillas or sasquatch. i like the drawings of the creature seen. good evening bill green 🙂
Female’s footprint is the same as that of the creature from Forbidden Planet.
Boxes in my parents’ basement had stuff like that. If I had dropped dead in the ‘eighties, there were drawings to give people suspicion I had witnessed things. Went home long ago and trashed the crap so it wouldn’t add confusion to witnesses’ accounts. There was no clever-fake dump at which to file them then, but with the internet there now exists a venue for intentional fakes, a place where hoaxers demonstrate their ability to confound and confuse others. Entice that creative element here instead of You Tube by offering a prize that will satisfy their talented ego, and save us from watching phoney footage under another banner of “Is it Real?”, followed by the cloned body of comment.
I live about 1/2 hour from Pekin but have never heard of this “legend”, nor the musician that created it. I have to say that I also have all kinds of notebook paper with drawings I made of monsters while in school (no legends to my credit, though).
Good eye, Tobar!
Loren, what makes me squeamish about this account is the drawings themselves.
If I understand him aright, Michael Isenberg says he created his character Borilla in the mid ‘Sixties, which is also when, (he seems to imply), he made the drawings shown.
And the drawings do – to me, at least – show all the hallmarks of a kid heavily under the influence of Marvel Comics, circa that period.
Borilla’s outsized body topped off with a teen-weeny head is very reminiscent of Jack Kirby’s artwork, particularly the menagerie of monsters he drew for such titles as the likes of ‘Strange Tales’, etc., back then.
The bum note, though – for me, at least – is Borilla’s chest and abdominal muscles in the first drawing.
To the best of my knowledge, in the ‘Sixties, Marvel – and of course DC, etc. – had to operate within the exceedingly tight ‘morality oriented’ restrictions imposed on them by the Comic Code, hence, if you look at comic art from those days, such things as abdominal muscles are only lightly suggested, and nipples, particularly large ones, were completely out.
It was only with the advent of the ‘Seventies, and Bruce Lee’s Kung Fu movies, (with their endless scenes of him flashing those iconic abdominals of his, etc.), that Marvel and co. really went to town on the musculature.
If that happens to be correct, then it’d suggest Michael’s drawings were really made in the ‘Seventies.
Well, that, or he was ahead of his time where nipples and abdominals’re concerned – which is perfectly possible.
Hulk SMASH. Seriously, though, the article and top notebook page attributes quite a few “paranormal” abilities to it such as glowing and invisibility. Any orb capabilities there I wonder? 🙂 Interesting story.
This is a fine demonstration on how to start a local legend and add flavor to the culture. I wonder how much of the bigfoot legend was inspired by Ambrose Bierce.
Cool pictures…. never smoked that much pot myself… but nice pictures…
Those are drawings of Bumble, the abominable snowman from Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.