Indiana Varmint Anniversary
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on August 31st, 2006
As Loren wrote about here on Cryptomundo back in June, this month of August was a month of "Varmint" sightings in Indiana.
Today’s issue of the Palladium-Item published an article entitled Final Varmint Update! commemorating the anniversary of the last sighting on August 31, 1948.
As Loren also mentioned, there seems to be some confusion as to just what was being seen that August 58 years ago.
The article mentions Bigfoot, but from the descriptions of what was seen, it sounds like it was felines of some sort.
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
This seems to somewhat parallel the article on the ‘Injun Demons’. Vague old reports of something scary and furry, differing names used depending on region.
I used to work at the Greenville Daily Advocate in Darke County and Bigfoot country this is not. It’s flat and nearly devoid of any stretches of trees broader than a fencerow or some growth around a drainage ditch/creek. I could see cougars (or the like) hiding in the corn fields and attacking livestock though. Despite the lack of thick woods, it’s very rural country, all of it. But Bigfoot? Nah.
And, yeah, from the descriptions in the article, seems folks were seeing cats.
So does this mean that now “Bigfoot” isn’t just a generic catch-all phrase for any and all hairy bipeds but also for any and all cryptids?
Maybe Loren should revise and add to his post about cryptid vocabulary and make out some “crypto style guides” to issue to reporters.
okay, there were too many differing reports there. There must have been more than one thing running around. The dead pigs with their hearts and livers gone sounds like cougar, they love the hearts of animals, but some of the rest could have been anything, including someone dressed up and ready to do a big foot hoax of getting shot at.
There were a lot of big cat sightings in Indiana in the 40’s and 50’s. In fact, newspapers reported the finding of a creature in a barn in Hancock Co. that 3 vets and even a man from India who was familiar with panthers could not identify. What became of the “cub” I have not been able to find out. No one with the reported family name seems to remember it, but the details were in both the Greenfield and Anderson newspapers at that time.