The Fouke Monster AKA The Beast of Boggy Creek

Tall, hairy, nearly 300-pound absolute unit

Picture it: the frogs are croaking, the crickets are chirping, and the summer sun is just about to set in the Mercer Bayou, or what the locals call Boggy Creek. Ain’t nothing bitin’ tonight anyway. ‘Bout time I get to packing up, you say allowed to no one in particular...except there is someone. They’re crouched down by the brush within a rock’s throwin’ distance from you. And they are BIG. And they are covered in hair. You stand up slowly, craning your neck to get a better look and see this someone, someTHING washing their colossally large feet in the swamp’s murky waters. IS THAT…? It couldn’t be. That legend isn’t real. RIGHT?!

But that’s when it looks at you. And that’s when you, my friend, decide to run, leaving your tackle box and fishing pole behind. Because, NOPE. Not today. Not ever. No thank you.

The Sightings

As far back as 1834 many folks reported seeing a wild man skulking around the swamps of Fouke, Arkansas. But it wasn’t until the beast came knocking on (or should I say knocking down) the Ford family’s door that the cryptid gained real notoriety.

May 1, 1971, Bobby and Elizabeth Ford claim to have been terrorized by a tall, hairy, nearly 300-pound absolute unit—the creature we now refer to as the Fouke Monster, the Boggy Creek Monster, or The Beast of Boggy Creek.

The Fouke Monster: Gaston of the swamp? “Every last inch of me’s covered in hair!”

It all started earlier in the evening when Elizabeth claims the beast burst one giant hand through her screen window. RUDE. Terrified and feeling utterly helpless, Elizabeth thought she was a goner. Luckily her husband and his brother were just then returning home from a hunting trip. Already in full macho mode, they shot at the creature and chased it back into the swamp. Go on now, git! They weren’t sure if they had injured it, but they were confident it wouldn’t be coming back.

But, guess what? They were wrong.

Just after midnight, Bobby and the creature had another run in. This time the beast slammed Bobby to the ground like friggin’ Mick Foley. But, yet again, the beast got away unscathed. Poor Bobby though. He was a little worse for wear. He was taken to a hospital in Texarkana and treated for large gashes on his back and a bit of shock on account of being body slammed by a swamp ape.

No traces of blood were found at the home, but bizarre, behemoth three-toed footprints were spotted all around the property, prompting many locals to become full-on believers of the Fouke Monster tale.

Possible Explanations

There have been four movies about the Fouke Monster. But, most notably, there is the cult classic film from 1973 titled The Legend of Boggy Creek. I haven’t seen it. (I want to, but I haven’t. So, full disclosure there.) The movie is based on Bobby and Elizabeth’s encounter with the monster. It was a huge hit and brought in a TON of revenue for the area solidifying it as a cryptid destination for decades. Good for them. Genuinely, I mean that! Small towns deserve all the economic boosts they can get in this capitalist hellscape. But I do think that nearly every sighting since the release of the film is shrouded in a bit of skepticism for me, because…money.

There’s also A LOT of folks that just say “it’s a bear” and, honestly, I do think a whole hell of a lot of Bigfoot-adjacent sightings are just straight up bears. Seeing a bear in the wild can be very jarring. I saw a baby black bear in a field near my house last year and my father-in-law kept insisting it was a Bigfoot. He wasn’t even there. Cognitive bias is a helluva drug, y’all.

Video live drawing + narrated version of today’s post here:

For even more information about the Fouke Monster, check out my sources:

Trailer (1972 Original):

The music video:

Small Town Monsters (2023)

Atlas Obscura: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/boggy-creek-monster

There’s also a very funny episode of Last Podcast on the Left (the Kissel years), episode 421.

My doll didn’t turn out exactly as I had hoped. The pattern was off, so, as I had predicted, the last steps were not exactly smooth. Going to be working on a new pattern soon and testing out some other fiber art ideas in the mean time. Also considering chronicling that journey back into fiber arts on my YouTube. Would that be something y’all would watch? Lemme know!