Southwest Arkansas Monster
Hello Sir - My brother and his wife had a shocking event on May 5th, 2011 when they were driving home to Genoa, Arkansas from a visit with his in-laws in Texarkana. He was driving east bound on Tennessee Rd (County Rd. 16) at around 7:30 pm and had just gone by Mosely Rd. when a creature suddenly jumped out of the trees and brush, crossed the road and blended into the thick woods. It was headed in the direction of Old Bitty Lake.
They both had a decent look at it and say it was about 6 foot tall and very stout with huge legs and feet. It was covered with very long reddish-brown hair that had dirt and debris stuck to it. When they stopped the car to look into the direction it went into the woods they got a whiff of a horrific stench (the windows were open).
I had heard the tales of the 'Fouke Monster' since I was a young girl but never bought into the hype. We actually lived near the Mercer Bayou at one point and talked to several people who verified the stories. My brother doesn't dare identity himself since he feels that it may cause problems but he felt there was a need for a warning.
I do believe him because he has never lied to me and is a very trustworthy, hard-working man. He is also a very experienced outdoorsman and knows the swamps and backwoods of southwest Arkansas liked the back of his hand. But this has left him shaken, to the point where he was at a loss for words when talking to me. That is VERY unlike him.
That's about all he had to say. Can you tell me of other sightings in the area? Respectfully, Dorothy
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| The area where the supposed encounter took place |
NOTE: I've read many accounts about Arkansas swamp monsters over the years...none much different that this account. The area where this sighting supposedly occurred is only 10-15 miles north from the area of the 'Fouke Monster' incident...but I am still very wary. I'll keep my radar up, but I have serious doubts even though the witness seemed honest and forthcoming. Has anyone heard of other sightings in this part of Arkansas that my corroborate this report? Lon
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The Trail
To whom it may concern,
I am writing this to you in order to add it to your many varied collections of the paranormal and oddity phenomena reported daily.
I am a 29 year old male from Pennsylvania and I have read through several stories on your site.
I thought I would share with you and your readers one of the many strange things I have personally experienced, and like other people I would like to know if they too had this type to experience; in September 2008 my best friend Ciera (pronounced Sierra) and I went to a park named Hocking Hills in Ohio for a day retreat from our busy lives. She and I had decided on this at random when we first got together early in the morning just after sunrise; it was a nice warm late summer day and we'd just decided to make a full day drive and hike out of it. Hocking Hills is well known for it's several walking trails, a cave or two, and several water falls and running water / creek areas. The day was very warm, sunny, hardly a cloud over head, and very nice.
We started a walk at random and found that one of the trails had been washed out so we had to take another path which forced us to cross a road; on the other side was a tall fire look out ranger's station which doubled as a Fire Tower. We had seen a lot of people out walking with us that day and a few hiker/backpackers had passed us by on their treks up until that point. We played with our phones a bit on the way to show each other some pictures we took a few days before on a different outing and noted it was roughly after 12-noon when we came out of the woods and walked across the road; it was then that we noticed there was caution tape all over the fire tower, there was a pungent smell in the air which we could not identify, the windows on top of the tower appeared to be taped up, grimy, and there were flies all over the area. We walked past it, commenting how odd it was, and continued down a seemingly new trail we hadn't seen on a previous walk in the area. The trail took us past the fire tower and then cut into the woodlands; as we walked into the forest we took notice that no one seemed to be around. In fact not only did we feel isolated from others but we felt very chilled without explanation. That day had been very warm as we both wore very cool clothing and when we entered the forest it began to feel very cool, much cooler than we expected and we both were shivering as we felt the temperature drop.
As we continued down the way my friend pointed out that it was getting darker than either of us should have expected or seemed to be - we looked around and there were nothing but trees on all sides, there should have been a forest edge somewhere as the area wasn't really that big but aside from some hills and tall pine trees there wasn't a real 'ending' to the woods like we expected as the area tends to be narrow and normally you can see the edges. She took out her phone to use her GPS because she instinctively felt lost but her battery was nearly gone, I took mine out and it had no signal, the battery was also near dead, and showed "EE:EE" for the time (meaning it couldn't update as it was a older style flip-phone with camera and when set to auto-adjust would contact the mobile phone network every 15 min).
It was only then as the light grew dimmer as we continued on our way that I noticed it was very silent suddenly. Our foot steps echoed, the leaves, grass, twigs, and our breathing just echoed. Ciera got spooked and I did too, she mentioned it was very out of ordinary. I agreed but I couldn't shake this sense of foreboding that something was amiss. I tried to rationalize it but I really, honestly, couldn't figure any of it out at all.
We continued forwards going down a small hill on trail and back up when it got darker. The world seemed to have gone from shadowy to near twilight darkness. My friend grabbed my arm and started freaking out about how weird it got - then the air grew chillier, and had a feeling of something wrong. We both took off running looking for an exit, for some odd reason we never thought to turn around at all as we ran we could hear our steps echo off the area as things just felt like they grew more gloomy.
Then ahead of us down a small hill and back up the other side we could see two large bushes on either side of the trail like a gate. We made a mad dash for the bushes and just as we pushed through the plants something odd happened - we were nearly blinded by light as sound and warmth returned all at once. It was like stepping outside of a cold, empty, and dark building to a warm busy street. We stood at the edge of a place known as Old Mans Cave which has a large water fall and a u-shaped cliff where you can look down into where the water and people gather. We turned around and the bushes were the same but the area was different, brighter, not silent for sure, and warm. In fact our skin was cold to touch which just reinforced the facts. We took out our phones and the time had finally updated, it was now 4pm. The normal trail would only have taken an hour to walk fully so it was a loss of three full hours!
Logic attempted to set in and we decided the trail we came up must have just appeared creepy because there may have been clouds over head or a storm blew by but when we went back between the bushes there was no trail. Nothing looked like it had a few seconds ago. Ciera walked around the bushes twice and it was the same bright sunny day with no darkness and no trail. We waited, it was blue sky over head and we could see the edges of the forest and other people. The trail had simply vanished as it we had never walked it.
On returning past the trail where the fire tower was located, we noticed it was normal looking and there was a blond haired young lady with her hair in a pony tail climbing the steps, the windows were not taped and very clean, and no pungent smell. We don't know what it was, but it certainly was creepy. Of course I jokingly told her later that day over dinner we had entered the faerie realms by mistake and were lucky to get away, she didn't find that funny of course but either way we felt we should share this with you and if anyone out there has had a similar experience perhaps they can provide insight.
Thanks again,
- Danny
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The Northfield Pigman
Legends and tales of pig people have been around for centuries. Most of the older stories come from the United Kingdom, but America has had it's share. One of these stories revolves around the alleged 'Pigman of Northfield, Vermont.' It's a local yarn that has been repeated since the early 1950's...but interesting nonetheless. I've included someone's personal account that made the rounds on the internet a few years ago:
My family lived in Vermont for a number of years, in a small town called Northfield, south of Montpelier.
There's a local legend in Northfield, of a thing known as the Pigman. The story has multiple versions, as most do, but there are some parts that are always the same. Back in 1951, the night before Halloween, this 17-year old kid named Sam Harris went out on his own with a basket of eggs to cause some mischief. Nobody knows exactly what happened to him, just that he never came home and was never found.
Years later, some high school kids were out drinking behind the school one night during a dance when this 'thing' came walking out of the woods on two human legs. It was naked, covered in white hair, and was wearing a hollowed-out pig's head like some grotesque mask.
Naturally, the kids tore out of there and went and told people. Word spread, and some farmer admitted he'd seen a figure matching that description digging through his garbage one night. Some pigs had also gone missing recently. More sightings were made of "The Pigman", as it became known, but many times the claims were just kids wanting to get attention.
Now, whether this thing is Sam Harris or this thing ate Sam Harris, nobody in town knows for sure. But what they do know is that it isn't afraid of people, and it really likes to eat meat.
There's a place just outside of Northfield known as The Devil's Washbowl, with a river and waterfalls and a number of caves. After more sightings of the Pigman were made out by The Washbowl, some people went investigating and found that one cave in particular was littered with animal bones, some of which were pig. It got around that they'd found the lair of the Pigman, and it became popular for teens to go out to the Devil's Washbowl at night and try to catch a sight of him.
My sister and a couple of her friends went out to The Devil's Washbowl their senior year. They took sleeping bags and flashlights and all the gear you'd take to go camping. I wasn't there to give a first-hand account of what transpired, I was only 8 at the time. I can only tell you what was told to me.
There were six or eight of them, depending on who you ask, all couples. They picked a number of caves, one for each pair. My sister and her boyfriend were in their cave. She was rolling out their sleeping bags and he was trying to start a fire when they heard some shouts and then screaming from one of the other caves.
When they got there, the girl was curled up in a ball in the farthest corner of the cave, and her boyfriend was nowhere to be found. She told them that the Pigman had come trudging into their cave, completely undaunted by their presence. The guy had started shouting at it, both to drive it away and to get the others' attention.
The Pigman casually picked up a large rock and struck the guy in the side of the head with it, knocking him unconscious. It picked him up, slung him over its shoulder and shambled out of the cave just moments before the rest arrived. Nobody had seen it exit the cave, nor seen signs of it at all. They did find the rock lying on the cave floor with blood on it, and bare footprints in some soft creek mud outside.
The girls all drove into town and went straight to the police. The remaining boys, whether it was two or three of them, grabbed flashlights and makeshift weapons and scoured the woods around the area. The footprints disappeared at the edge of the road, and they lost the trail there.
Search parties were set up. Police and K9 units and a big coordinated effort including several other adjoining townships' police forces. A couple days later, some articles of the guy's clothes were found by a search dog. They had been left torn and scattered in an abandoned farmhouse a town over.
The missing teen's photo was put up in the area, and one guy came forward. He said the other night, he'd awakened to the sound of someone lurking outside his house. He checked out his kitchen window and there was someone rummaging through the trashcan by his garage. The person was only wearing a faded and ripped pair of jeans. When the man hit the porch light, the intruder had looked up, and it had looked just like the kid in the photo.
The only difference was that his body was covered with white hair and his eyes looked kind of hollow.
NOTE: I was told that the locals occasionally catch a glimpse of the Pigman...though, I don't believe anyone has turned up missing lately. Lon
Hiding in the Mirror: The Quest for Alternate Realities, from Plato to String Theory (by way of Alicein Wonderland, Einstein, and The Twilight Zone)
The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos (Vintage)
The Vermont Monster Guide
Weird New England: Your Guide to New England's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets
Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos
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