June 4, 2006

The Fouke Monster

The Texarkana Gazette listed the Fouke Monster as one of the Top 100 things to love about Texarkana and the surrounding region.

To the Southeast of Texarkana, the little town of Fouke, Ark. is home to a very big legend, the Legend of the Boggy Creek Monster, aka the Fouke Monster.

People who claim to have seen it describe the creature as being close to 7 feet tall, with red eyes, black hair all over its body and a terrible stench that falls somewhere between that of a spewing skunk and a wet dog.

Though there were reported sightings as early as the 1940s, the legend of the Fouke Monster reached its heyday in the early 1970s.

A movie was shot about the monster in 1972 called “The Legend of Boggy Creek.” It spawned a sequel.

Regardless of what a person does or does not believe, the legend of the Fouke Monster has survived for more than 30 years. Is it because there is a grain of truth in the story?

There are memoirs of the monster all over the small town, from the hairy beast painted on the side wall of the “Monster Mart” to “the legend lives” T-shirts for sale inside. Or is it the monster silhouette that provides interested tourists the opportunity to stick their face in the hole and become, for a minute, the monster of Fouke?

The Legend of Boggy Creek was very influential on me as a teenager. It was one of my early influences that propelled my interest in Bigfoot. I have found this to be true for many people who have an interest in the subject, as well as for many of the people involved with Bigfoot research today.

Loren mentioned this in his book Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America.

What about the readers of Cryptomundo? Have you seen the Legend of Boggy Creek? Did it have an effect on you? 

Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Books, Cryptozoology, Eyewitness Accounts, Movie Monsters, Sasquatch, Swamp Monsters