Wisconsin Bigfoot’s Bad Hair Day

Former newspaper reporter and current Wisconsin cryptozoological author Linda Godfrey was able to get the late 2005 sighting of Matt Wakeley in her new book, Hunting the American Werewolf, published in March 2006. But it wasn’t until recently that she was able to sit down with the eyewitness and turn his description into a forensically-correct drawing. Here is the result:

Wakely’s sighting took place near White Pigeon Road and Highway B, in southeastern Walworth County, Wisconsin, last fall. But as the author of the successful 2003 book, The Beast of Bray Road, Godfrey writes: “I’d like to make it very clear that this is NOT the creature known as the Manwolf or the Beast of Bray Road.”

This creature is also different from the witness sketches by Judy Wallerman and David Pagliaroni, who both drew very classic Bigfoot with the usual “cape” of fur touching the shoulders, not wild-haired like the above creature (which Matt estimated at 7 feet tall). It does resemble Coleman and Huyghe’s The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide’s Erectus Hominid, I think, except for what Matt calls the “80s big hairdo.”

I see another hint of a different type, however. Since the only example of the Erectus Hominid in North America is what I consider an “accidental,” the pug-nosed, shorter-armed, stocky, out-of-place Minnesota Iceman being displayed in the upper Midwest in the 1960s, I would suggest something else. This thin Wisconsin creature may have more in common with a juvenile Marked Hominid (or eastern Bigfoot or Windigo, a probable geographical subspecies). Good descriptions of Momo-types (an adult Marked Hominid) have been reported, for instance, from Missouri, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Looking in the new 2006 edition of my book, The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates, compare Linda’s drawing with the drawing of the “Pennsylvania Creature,” shown on page 47. I would say Wakely’s bad hair beast could be a match with a younger version of the Pennsylvania Creature. There’s even a hint of a bad hair day with that 1970s’ hairy hominid.

The Marked Hominids are frequently seen in the upper Midwest. There’s the classic case, for example, of the Cobalt, Ontario, sightings (pages 48-49) that took place in 1906, 1923, 1946, and 1970. Even its specific name gives a hint of the attention the Cobalt witnesses gave to the head hair on that special Bigfoot. The locals at first called it “Yellow Top,” and then in the 1970s, “Old Yellow Top,” because of its yellow-colored mane.

Are the hair stylists for Bigfoot-types in Wisconsin deciding to take a whole new trendy leap? Clearly, a focus on head hair seems to be obvious in the region. And, at least, in human eyes, it may be going from the tinted-look to the really wild side!

Loren Coleman 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.

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