A Crash Course on the Bigfoot of Boggy Creek
Admittedly, I’m a crypto nut. My father bought me a hardcover book on monsters when I was a kid and I’ve been hooked ever since. I remember it had some green, muppet-y looking creature on the cover. I wonder where it went.
For folks my age (I was born around the time the Jets won the Super Bowl), there is a pivotal movie that hooked our fascination with Bigfoot. That film, a drive-in flick that took the country by storm, was The Legend of Boggy Creek. The movie was shot like a documentary and recalls the tale of the Fouke Monster and how it terrorized a town in Arkansas in 1971. Production was cheap, actual townies were used to re-enact events and the pacing was, well, ponderous at times.
With everything going against it, The Legend of Boggy Creek succeeded in terrifying audiences, first in theaters, then on home video, for years. Something about it felt so real, so plausible, that you can’t help being sucked in to the story.
Like most, I thought this was a brief Bigfoot flap that came and went. I was wrong. There is so much more to the story. Here’s everything you need to know about the Bigfoot sightings in and around the now legendary Fouke, Arkansas.
The sightings of a large, bipedal creature did’t begin in 1971. In fact, there are records of brushes with the hairy cryptid, both written and verbal, going back 100 years and continuing right up to the present day, Individuals, families, hunters and even police have all had strange encounters, especially around Highway 71 and the Sulphur River Bottoms.
What makes the Fouke Bigfoot different than other squatches in other locations? From all accounts, the Fouke Bigfoot is aggressive. In quite a few cases, it’s been very threatening towards humans. The Ford family house was attacked by a large, angry creature that tore off doors, broke through windows and grabbed people with intent to harm. This is very uncommon for Bigfoot sightings. The Fouke Bigfoot is not a happy camper and people have gone into shock after coming across it. It’s been known to charge at and even grab people with talon-tipped fingers.
As the town of Fouke has seen a decrease in forested land that makes a perfect hideout for the beasts, it’s been seen less there, but more so in neighboring towns less than 10 miles away that are still dense with trees and winding rivers. Are they migrating? It seems likely.
The creature is generally described as being between 6 and 8 feet tall, with glowing red eyes. On some night encounters, people have seen the eyes first, then the massive body emerging from the dark. Its face is tanned and very human-like.
I don’t think any Bigfoot has been shot at more times than the creatures living in Fouke. The odd thing is that many experienced hunters have had the creature in their sights and appear to have missed every time. Unless there’s a Bigfoot hospital somewhere that tends to their wounds, they’ve all escaped unscathed.
Now, I’m not saying everything that’s been reported is true. I’m just stating the facts. You can visit the town for yourself and see.
Before you go, you may want to bone up on the story and enjoy some of the fiction that’s grown up around it. I highly suggest the following:
- The Beast of Boggy Creek by Lyle Blackburn. From what I can tell, this is the definitive collection of all things Fouke Monster. Blackburn has done an excellent job collecting all of the lore and reports.
- Boggy Creek : The Legend is True by Eric S. Brown. Probably the #1 Bigfoot fiction writer today, Brown’s story will grab you by the throat.
- Smokey and the Fouke Monster by Smokey Crabtree. Smokey actually lived in Fouke and was very much in the thick of things. An interesting bird’s eye view of the phenomena.
And of course, grab a copy of the movie. I have Fouke on my list of places to visit. I’m sure local Bigfoot researchers go into the woods from time to time, searching for the elusive legend.
Which begs the question, if you know that the Fouke Bigfoot is aggressive, would you bring extra precautions on a hunt? Would knowing its temperment make you think twice before going out there?
The legend continues…
Monster Men Halloween Roundup & A New Logo!
Before I go intoMonster Men news, I did want to let you know that you can read a very fun interview with me at fellow writer J.C. Martin’s website. She’s the first person to wrangle some info out of me on the book I’m currently writing. She also has a contest to win a free copy of Forest of Shadows. I’m reciprocating with an interview with J.C. that will be posted on my blog this Saturday.
And now it’s drumroll time. Thanks to artist Jerry Mulcahy, we have a slew of Monster Men logos to choose from. This is the one we’re kicking things off with:
In the words of Cartman, Sweeeet. We have many more that we’ll be using in all sorts of cool ways.
And speaking of Monster Men, our post Halloween episode is now live. This is the one filled with pictures that you sent in to us and I can tell you, it’s pretty damn funny. Plus, you get to see the most amazing Halloween transformation ever captured on film. Check it out.
Freddie or Jason? Time to call the Monster Men
In episode 8, Jack and I tackle mankind’s greatest question, just in time for Halloween. Trick or treat!
Monster Men Halloween, Campfire Tales & More Ghoulish Fun
Another crazy week, but lots of good stuff to share. Aside from promoting Forest of Shadows like a door to door Bible salesman, I have been busy actually writing. I finished the first draft of a story for an anthology with Toys in the Attic as the theme. Going to start working on a couple of flash fiction pieces for another antho. Aaaaand, I’m ready to start the finishing touches on my first horror novel for kids. Ah, so many young minds to corrupt.
First up, I was interviewed on Jim Harold’s Campfire Tales podcast. It will be part of episode 87 where I talk about the phantom boy who may have come around to heal my ailing wife. 
Next is an interview awesome author Brian Moreland did with me on his great blog. While you’re at it, check out his book, Dead of Winter. Great, spooky reading.
And now for the fun stuff. The Monster Men Halloween episode is here! We talk about our ghosts from Halloweens past (specifically my embarrassing little drummer boy costume), and give you tips on what to read, watch and do to make the season the best ever. So, without further ado, I give you The Monster Men. And why the bucket hat, Hunter? It’s to honor the character Dale from The Walking Dead. New season starts tonight, so get to your TV as soon as you’re done watching The Monster Men! And then come back and like our brand spanking new Facebook fan page.
Lunch with a Chupacabra
Let me start by saying that I was having lunch at a beach/park in southern Connecticut, not a hotbed for all things chupacabra. However, the legendary “goat sucker” did roll around in the dirt by my bench. At first, I thought it was just a cat getting some sun. The more I looked, the more I felt it was a dog. Then it stood up, and I thought, is it a fox? I followed it around the park for 5 minutes, was at times just a few feet away, and I cannot tell you what the hell it was. In my opnion, it was a diseased dog or fox or some mutated cross breed. It looked very much like the way people describe a chupacabra and even had the same run/hop kind of gait.
It made me realize how easy it is to assign monster status to something that is probably more mundane than you can imagine. At least it made my lunch hour more interesting. I managed to take a couple of pics with my crappy blackberry. Here’s the best one. Hard to see what it really looked like. I feel bad for it, because it seemed like it needed a good meal and a home, no matter how bizarre and ugly.
Monster Men Podcast Debut!
I’ve recently partnered with fellow horror maven, Jack Campisi, to do a series of podcasts we like to call Monster Men. In each podcast, we’ll focus on a particular topic, from the state of zombies to paranormal TV, book and movie reviews and the latest horror news. Our first episode is Vampires Kinda Suck. We hope you agree…
Movie Review : Super 8
It took me a few weeks to haul my butt off the couch and see Super 8, despite the fact that the first time I saw the coming attractions, I decreed it THE MOVIE TO SEE for the official start of the summer. (On a side note, the actual must-see movie for me this year is Captain America. This from a guy who has Cap’s shield tattooed on his arm. ‘Nuff said) Why the delay? you might ask. Well, despite some decent critical reviews, I’d heard enough from my peers to make me think twice about spending my hard earned money. Even the folks in Twitter Land warned me against it. 
Well, twits and friends be damned. I came. I saw. I ate too much popcorn. I liked. I liked it alot, and here’s why. The movie is set in 1979 and centers around 5 boys and 1 girl, all around 12 and 13 years old. Well, that’s pretty much my age in 1979. The entire movie, for me, was a trip back to my childhood. There were the Famous Monsters models I used to put together! There’s the Keep on Truckin’ poster my friend had on his wall! Look at those awful clothes! And most of all, being a kid was damned near perfect and magical before Pac Man invaded. I kept watching and saying (softly and to myself), “That’s little me up there. Go kid, go!”
I’m not going to bore you with a breakdown of the movie. Plenty of other people and places have already beaten me to that punch. Suffice to say, the boys and girl, while shooting a zombie movie by the train tracks, witness the most horrific train derailment you’ll ever see. Something is released from the wreckage, a monster you don’t really see until the end (kudos to director J.J. Abrams on that one), the military takes over the town and it’s up to the kids to save it as well as themselves. I have to say, the cast of kids was the best since The Goonies. Abrams is a bright student of the Speilberg film school (who produced this) and he manages to touch on all the right pressure points. Yes, there are some gaps in logic and the end is less than satisfying. But I finally have a movie I can show to my kids and say, “Now THAT is exactly how I grew up. We only wished there was a monster wrecking the town. It would have given your old man a great excuse to unleash some of his stash of M-80s.”
Nothing beats a good old monster movie. There’s magic in Super 8 that has been sorely missed. Don’t you miss it, too.
Hunter Shea 