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The Fouke Monster
Special thanks to:
Gulf Coast BigFoot Research Organization
The two witnessed a large animal "Bearing the unmistakable likeness of humanity," pursuing the
cattle. This "Wildman" as he was called, resembled the accounts of Bigfoot we hear today, with long hair covering its body from head to foot. 13 inch long footprints were found later where the creature had been running.
A half hour later, after darkness had begun to fall on their property, his wife returned home to find her husband sitting in the yard with a gun and flashlight in hand. He had sat there waiting for his
wife to return, so he could see she got inside safely. Due to the darkness the man wasn't sure when the creature had gotten away. But I'm certain he'll never forget the blackened face that looked into
his own, and the eyes which seemed to hold no trace of white in them.
By: Robyn/ Staff Writer & Researcher
February 25, 2001
Growing up in Arkansas, it would almost seem inevitable for this story to pass through my pen and ultimately onto your computer screen. There's a legend among these hills, a story which has
transcended time and ages. It's a story about a monster, a Sasquatch, which invaded Fouke, Arkansas, a tiny town in the southwestern region of the state, back on the moonlit night of May 1, 1971.
When you live in these hills and hollers you hear all kinds of stories. Folks here love to get together and share a good tale. Some stories have been handed down from one generation to the next,
somehow growing taller each time they are told. However, for one young couple, the legend came alive. Bigfoot stepped through the realm of "Tall Tales" and into the plains of reality. What transpired
that spring night would forever change their lives and put the sleepy little town on the map.
Fouke, AR (Pronounced "FOWK"), is but a speck of a community. It's located just a few miles
southeast of Texarkana in Miller County. It has a population of just under 650 people...and that's probably counting a few coon dogs.(smile) It's not the kind of place you would expect a legend to be
born in, but for some of its residents, science fiction became science fact.
As the waters of Boggy Creek flowed gently into the sulphur river bottoms nearby, 'Mrs. Jean Ford'
lay resting on her living room couch. She noticed her curtain moving, and that's when she saw the first glimpse of the monster.
The creature, black and hairy, pushed its hand through the screen of the window beside her. 'Mrs. Ford' described it as resembling a bears paw, yet it wasn't a bear. "It had claws and I could see its
eyes. They looked like coals of fire...real red," she described.
'Jean Ford' began screaming which sent her husband, 'Bobby', flying into the living room. 'Mr. Ford'
got there just in time to catch a glimpse of what he described as a 6 foot tall creature walking away from the window.
25 year old 'Bobby', ran and got his rifle and apprehensively went outside to find what had frightened
his wife so. With his heart beating heavier and faster with each passing second, 'Mr. Ford' gripped his gun tighter and tighter.
From somewhere amongst the shadows that played upon his property, someone, or something lunged
at him. The next thing he knew his rifle was knocked from his hands and he had a stinging pain in his arm and side.
'Bobby' ran frantically back towards the house, not even stopping to open the screen door first. He
simply ran right through it. 'Mrs. Ford' said she'd "Never seen anyone so scared." He was "Raving like a madman."
'Mrs. Ford' was faced with an unsettling dilemma. She knew she had to seek help for her husband, but to do so would mean leaving the house and walking into the unknown. She couldn't stay either,
knowing the hairy beast could force its way into their house at any time. There was only one thing she could do. With all the courage she could muster, 'Jean Ford' took hold of her husband and led
him out to the car as quickly as she could.
They drove straight to the home of 'Constable Ernest Walraven'. It was obvious to him that 'Mr. &
Mrs. Ford' had experienced something that scared them beyond their wits. 'Jean' was trembling and 'Bobby'...Well, he was rambling on and on about this monster that attacked him.
'Officer Walraven' could make no sense of anything 'Bobby' was saying, but judging by the look of things, he immediately took the couple to the nearby Texarkana hospital. 'Bobby Ford' was treated
for symptoms of shock and his side and scratches were tended to.
'The Ford's', too frightened to return home, ended up spending the remainder of the night with
'Constable Walraven'. The next morning, at the break of dawn, 'Mr. & Mrs. Ford', with 'Officer Walraven beside them, returned to their home along side Boggy Creek. 'Bobby' proceeded to show
the officer where the attack had occurred, but the rains from the night before hampered any chances they may have had in finding anything.
'Jean and Bobby Ford' had only moved in to the house 5 days before the incident. It would be impossible for them to stay in a place where they lived in fear, this they agreed. So the couple
packed up everything they owned. They would never again spend another night in that house.
The attack on 'Bobby Ford' back in 1971, was only the beginning of what would soon become a
nation wide outbreak of Bigfoot sightings. Perhaps it's because one man had the courage to step forward with his story of 'monsters in the woods', putting aside any personal cares as to how the
deemed "normal" population would perceive him. It would light the way for the others who would step forward after him.
The Fouke Monster brought so much attention to the little town that in 1972 a movie was made
called "The Legend Of Boggy Creek." It was a film directed by 'Charles B. Pierce', a story based on the creature that inhabited the swamp lands of Fouke the year before. This horror/suspense film was
actually filmed there and many of the locals were used in its making. Although many facts were true, some things were purely fictional, created for dramatic purposes.
I was but a young girl when I first saw "The Legend Of Boggy Creek." It was a movie that forever stuck in my mind and left an impression, a fascination with the legendary creature I still have today.
Sightings of the Fouke Monster have been recorded since the 1940's. The earliest account I've been able to find of this creature was supposedly written by 'The Memphis Enquirer' on May 9, 1851. I
have been unable to prove its existence at this time, but in it, a man from Greene County was out hunting with a friend when they were stopped dead in their tracks by a heard of cows in "Apparent
alarm." They soon learned what had been frightening them so.
Since that famed night when 'Bobby Ford' was accosted by the creature, there have been many sightings of Bigfoot in and around the Fouke area. Three weeks after the 'Ford attack', a couple from
Texarkana was driving home when they saw a large hairy creature run across the road in front of them.
In 1977 a Miller County farmer went to check on his pigs and found more than he bargained for.
Several of the pigs lay dead before him, their bodies ripped and torn open. Up, over, and away from the pigs pen yet another pig was found, as if picked up and carried to the spot. It too was dead.
Ten miles south of Texarkana on September 17, 1997, a man was outside working on his car and tending to the lawn. At around 6 PM he had a strange and overpowering feeling that he was being
watched. He began looking around his property and that's when he noticed something moving in a nearby brush.
As he moved closer to the surrounding woods, the image of a 7 foot tall, dark brown bodied creature
stood before him. For a time the two forms stood motionless as they watched each other. Then he ran back to the house to retrieve his pistol. When he returned, the creature wasn't in sight. He
slowly made his way to the woods again and there, 200 feet away from him and 30 feet from where he'd first seen it, the creature sat on the ground.
This wouldn't be the only time a mysterious beast would visit their property. On an October evening,
the wife went to feed the pig which they'd housed in a secure pen with 4 foot tall sides. She'd only been back inside the house for a few minutes when their dogs began to bark. She ran outside to see
what they were barking at and that's when she found her pig missing from its pen, the door to it in just the shape she'd left it 5 minutes before...closed. The only way for it to have gotten out was for
someone to have reached over the 4 foot high sides and picked her up. Wanting to find their pig, she tried to get her dog to go and track it, but the dog refused to go any further than their barn.
Once there, the dog would "Start whining and run back toward the house with his tail between his legs."
The couple's 50 acres of land seem to be home to this legendary creature. There was a third
incident on the moonlit night of Feb. 2, 1999 while the couple sat watching for the wild hogs to pass by, from their second story window. The hogs often frequented their land and on this particular night
they had planned to shoot one.
As they watched, the silhouettes of the animals began to form in the distance and they could start
to hear them as they approached. Suddenly, a strange sounded invaded the air from the right and they listened as there came an answer directly behind the pigs. "It sounded like a whistle that
turned into a gibberish type noise. Then the hogs started to scream and run for the tree line. Then there was a blood curdling scream. I could tell by the sound that one of the hogs was being
slaughtered. It was followed by loud shriekish screams and howls with this gibberish sound mixed in. I have never heard anything quite like this before."
Whatever it was that got the wild pig that winter night, it made a lasting impression on the couple. "It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck," he said. For the next 5 minutes these heart
pounding sounds would continue, and at the same time they reported hearing every dog within a few miles of them "Going nuts."
Just as daylight broke, they went to the field to see what they could find. No trace of the butchered pig was found, only a 4 foot wide area of flattened land drenched in blood, the apparent table of
whatever had snatched the poor animal. Whatever it was, it's strength had to be tremendous, because the wild pigs that routinely crossed their land ranged in size from about 75 to 600 pounds. A
puddle of blood was all that remained to give evidence of a killing the night before. Since no body was ever found, it had to have been picked up and carried off to another location. If it had been
dragged, they would have surely seen the trail of blood leading away from the area.
In July of 1998 a group of people claimed to have seen Bigfoot 5 miles south of town, walking along a dry creek bed.
That same month, on the eleventh, a woman in the Jonesville area, near Fouke, was baby-sitting her sisters kids. Around 9 AM, while the heat wasn't too unbearable, she took the kids for a walk down
the road, to an area where some timber had recently been cut down and cleared away. As they reached the clear cut area and were proceeding to walk towards the back of it, something caught the woman's eye.
Standing there just off to the right edge of the woods, was what the woman described as a 6 1/2 foot tall, brown colored creature. It just stood there watching them, as if it were curious. She
quickly made up an excuse and calmly told the kids they needed to head back before it got much hotter. She didn't want them alarmed by what lay ahead. "It was the longest walk I have ever had
to take," she said. "I was scared to death and was so afraid that thing was going to come after us, but it never did."
As recently as December 1, 1998, The Fouke Monster was continuing to make headlines in the
'Arkansas Democrat-Gazette'. The locals have never stopped seeing "something" in the woods and swamps that inhabit Miller County.
'USATODAY' has ranked this small community among the ten great places for monster encounters. But Fouke isn't the only town to have witnessed the beast, there have been many counties in
Arkansas that have reported seeing a Bigfoot-like creature. Among them are the counties of Baxter, Clark, Drew, Greene, Saline, Searcy, Sevier, Stone, and Union.
In 1977 a man squirrel hunting along the Saline River had the sensation he was being watched from the woods that enveloped him. He had seen some pigs in the area but knew it wasn't them. There
came a time once he ventured further into some thicker terrain, that something began following him. It would step when he's step, stop when he stopped, and mimic his movements. Although he never
saw it, he could feel it was there. It made him feel uneasy so he decided to head back to his vehicle.
Once he passed the main thicket, the footsteps ceased. The very next time he went hunting the
same thing happened. He hasn't gone back since.
The saddest of all stories happened to a Greene County man on June 17, 1989. He went looking for
his dog "Skipper," whom he'd heard whimpering in the woods. He climbed a hill that overlooked a meadow, the location of his dogs cries. He found Skipper, strung across the shoulders of a tall hairy
creature weighing around 550 pounds and walking on two legs. For this man, nobody could convince him that what took and killed his dog was "Just a bear."
With every sighting of Bigfoot, certain element seem to coincide with one another. The creature is often seen at night, usually in and around heavily wooded areas and swamps, it usually has a smell
associated with it that witnesses have described as being the cross between the odor of a skunk and wet dog. Descriptions of the beast often refer to it as having red or glowing eyes with no
apparent white in them. It's often "felt" before it's seen and has a tendency to stare right at you without the apparent threat of having to hurry away. Lastly, it's more often associated with the
killings and disappearances of pigs, dogs, rabbits, & the occasional deer or cow.
For some reason, pigs tend to be the most pursued prey for this elusive creature. Very often pigs go
missing or have been slaughtered wherever the threat of Bigfoot lies.
So, Is Bigfoot real? There are many who will scoff at the very idea of such a creature. After all,
there is no conclusive proof to its existence. Not once has a Bigfoot been caught or trapped. People can easily dismiss the footprints that have been found as a hoax, claim the "supposed" videos of
them as "just a man in a monkey suit." But for those who have come face to face with a Sasquatch, for them there is no denying its reality.
It is so easy to say you can't believe in what you don't see, yet we survive each day on an invisible, life sustaining thing called "air." We can't "see" the wind, but this invisible force has the capability of
destroying entire towns in a matter of minutes.
Even today there are thousands of acres of yet to be explored country on our planet. Who's to say what lives among its terrain?
I'm not saying that Bigfoot exists, nor do I deny the possibility it does. What I am saying is that a closed mind works both ways. It will shut out the things you wish, but it also keeps many potential
truths out. If we closed our eyes and never explored the world around us, then the new type of animal discovered on October 13, 2000, by a group of Danish scientists, would never have been discovered.
These little freshwater organisms named "Limnognathia Maerski" were discovered living, feeding, and reproducing among the icy waters of a Greenland well. They seem to share some similarities with
certain seawater life-forms, yet don't fit the mold of any known animal family. It has a distinctive set of highly complex jaws which work well to scrape its food off the mossy growths that cling to Arctic wells.
So if, as recently as October of 2000, a new form of life was found, then what hidden truths might 2001 have in store for us? Only time will unveil the answers. In the meantime, the next time you
hear an eerie howl like scream in the woods, just remember those little life-forms in the Arctic. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction!
Robyn/ Staff Writer & Researcher
*I want to extend my personal gratitude and thanks to Bobby Hamilton, Director and Founder of the
Information gathered from: www.gcbro.com www.eonline.com www.usatoday.com
www.discovery.com/news/earthalert/001009/index/fish_index.html Newspaper: Arkansas Democrat 10/25/81 Newspaper: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 12/1/98 and excerpts from the book "Monsters Of
North America" by Elwood D. Baumann