On the evening of April 15, 1973, Enfield, Illinois, resident
Henry McDaniel heard a scratching noise outside his door he
thought might be a bear. He opened it to find a hideous creature
he described as having "... three legs on it, a short body, two
little, short arms coming out of its breast area, and two pink
eyes as big as flashlights. It stood four and a half feet tall
and was grayish colored. It was trying to get into the house."
McDaniel grabbed his pistol and a flashlight and fired four shots
at the beast, which was only 12 feet away, sure that he had hit
it with the first shot. The bullets had no effect on the beast,
as it made a hissing sound at McDaniel "much like a wildcat's"
before bounding 50 to 75 feet towards a brush-lined railroad
embankment in just three leaps. A neighbor of McDaniel's,
ten-year-old Greg Garrett, claimed that 30 minutes before this
encounter, the same creature had accosted him in his backyard,
stepping on his sneakers and ripping them to shreds before the
boy ran inside terrified. However, as a team of sociologists from
Western Illinois University interviewed witnesses and townsfolk,
Greg and his parents would later tell them they had concocted the
story to tease their eccentric neighbor McDaniel and put one over
on an out-of-town newsman. McDaniel would spot the same or
similar creature again on May 6, around 3:00 a.m., casually
ambling down the railroad track. After McDaniel reported his
second sighting to WWKI radio, the media, thrill-seekers, and the
sociologists mentioned above all came to Enfield to investigate,
including the radio station's News Director, Rick Rainbow.
Rainbow and three associates had their own run-in with a monster
near McDaniel's place. Also joining the investigation was noted
cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, along with famed WGN radio host
Richard Crowe. Both experienced men would hear what Coleman
described as "the most ungodly, piercing shriek you can imagine."
Whatever this being or beings were, it became known as "The
Enfield Horror" or "The Enfield Monster." It would be easy enough
to pass off this tale as the fanciful yarn of a crackpot and some
eager cryptid hunters who were the only ones in town to claim a
brush with the beast, but were these Enfield monster sightings an
isolated event? According to Coleman, in his later book,
Bigfoot!: The True Story of Apes in America, there was a flap of
different monster sightings in the Midwest before, during, and
years after Enfield, yielding colorful names like "Momo" and "The
Big Muddy Monster." Considering all these accounts that don't
sound like the suggested kangaroos, bears, dogs, calves, deer, or
escaped apes, could McDaniel have been right when he said, "If
they do find it, they will find more than one, and they won't be
from this planet, I can tell you that."
Visit our webpage for this episode for a lot more
information!
Kommentare (0)
Melde dich an, um einen Kommentar zu schreiben.