Way back in the mid seventies a wild-eyed boy who loved monster movies had the living daylights scared out of him by a trailer for a movie that he saw on television. That advertisement was for a movie entitled The Legend of Boggy Creek which as many of you know was a low-budget flick about a monster that was allegedly running around rural Arkansas terrorizing people. The clip may have been only about 30 seconds long but it packed a truly creepy vibe and a blood curdling howl at the end that sent this kid hurdling over the living room couch looking for a place to hide.
Here is a clip from The Legend of Boggy Creek in case you were either born too late or simply never saw the movie:
Obviously I was too young at the time to see the movie but the memory of it stuck in the back of mind until sometime when I was a teenager I caught it as a Saturday afternoon movie. Well I have to admit that it scared the crap out of me again. I have seen a ton of monster/horror movies in my time and none of them had an effect on me like this movie did.
I would take the time to talk more in depth about the movie and the story behind it but I don't want to eat up all of this post going into detail. I urge you to take the time to read my prior article about it at:
The Legend Of Boggy Creek (1972)(Charles B. Pierce)
What the Legend of Boggy Creek spawned in me was both a fear and fascination with a creature that most people know by the name of Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Over the passing decades I was drawn to newspaper stories, magazine articles, television reports, documentaries and movies about the subject. Eventually I would end up writing several well received articles about the monster for my various blogs and websites.
Through all of this my experience watching The Legend of Boggy Creek stayed with me. One day I promised myself that I would travel to Fouke, Arkansas where both the movie was shot and the encounters featured in it actually occurred.
About five years ago our family moved from California to central Louisiana and the town of Fouke and it's legendary monster were now just a three hour car ride away. As fate would have it, however, my pilgrimage to the sacred home of the Fouke Monster always seemed to get put on hold for one reason or another. Finally after all this time I was actually able to make the trip yesterday and it ended up being something that I will never forget.
The first stop for any monster hunter or movie enthusiast upon arrival in Fouke is the Monster Mart which is part convenience store, gift shop and Bigfoot museum. The place is of course a tourist trap and I certainly can't fault anyone for wanting to make a dollar or two off a local legend. It would be easy to simply dismiss a place like this but there is more than meets the eye to experience here.
The museum portion of the Monster Mart is campy as all get out. The are giant Fouke Monster statues and funny Bigfoot illustrations on the wall. There is even a giant head of a werewolf for some reason. It had all the trimmings of some sort of sideshow exhibit.
And you know darn well that I loved every bit of it.
Besides all of the camp there were some actual Fouke Monster related materials that were really very interesting. On the wall were tons of old newspaper clippings about sightings in the area along with actual physical evidence of the monster's existence like casts of footprints, photographs and the like. There were also several items related to The Legend of Boggy Creek movie like posters and other promotional material.
After soaking in as much of that as I could I managed to wander into the gift shop where I picked up a T-shirt, coffee mug and a book about the history of local sightings. I may be an amateur monster researcher and movie fanatic but on this day I was also a tourist by the way.
I started up a conversation with the woman behind the register who I found out was actually the cousin of Mary Beth Searcy who actually had a famous encounter with the Fouke Monster that has been featured in several books and was reenacted for The Legend of Boggy Creek movie. She told me about some interesting trivia that many fans don't know. Since Marry Beth's encounter happened in the 1960s when she was a teenager a younger local girl named Judy Haltom was cast to portray her in the movie. Mary Beth still made it into the movie playing her older sister.
Ms. Searcy went on to admit that she had lived in the area all her life and never saw or heard anything but the memory of what Marry Beth had experienced haunted her all her life. She also went on to tell me that her nephew had recently seen the creature while fishing at Boggy Creek and that he was very shaken up by the encounter.
I asked Ms. Searcy if she could direct me to any of the locations seen in the film and she alluded to fact that many of the locals didn't like tourists roaming around their property so she handed me a map of the area and sent me on my way.
Without any definite direction to take I headed out of town down what looked like a well traveled street in the direction of Boggy Creek. I was going simply on instinct, but after several miles of driving I found myself on the shore of the infamous waterway.
There wasn't a place to park adjacent to the creek so I found some level ground just up the road where I could leave the car, grabbed my camera and headed out.
As I walked towards Boggy Creek this line from the movie echoed in my head - "He always travels the creeks" - referring of course to the monster.
My first impression of Boggy Creek and the surrounding area was quite simple. It is absolutely as eerie and creepy as it looks in the movie. The place is definitely as advertised. The forest is dark and mysterious, the water is murky and there is a strange eerie calm.
Being a shutterbug I took several photos of the area so that I could document my experience and attempt to convey just how spooky a place Boggy Creek really is. After taking my photos I felt strangely compelled not to just simply head back to my car and venture back towards town but to stay and savor the experience a bit longer. I had after all wanted to come to this place for several years. I gave into my compulsion and walked around the area a bit. After about twenty minutes or so I felt satisfied enough and decided to start walking back.
That's when my experience got a little strange ...
I had just crossed over Boggy Creek when I heard three loud knocking sounds about 50 to 100 yards away behind me to my right. The sound was something like two blocks of wood being hit together.
That's when I stopped walking and froze.
Just as I was about to dismiss the sounds as a local resident hammering on something I heard three more knocking sounds from further away. Maybe 200 yards or so further in the same direction.
I started trying to rationalize things. I thought to myself - okay, your at Boggy Creek, the movie scared you as a kid it's obvious that your imagination is getting the better of you.
Then I heard the knocks again. First the closer ones followed a few seconds later by more further away.
I just stood there looking around for the source of the sounds. Nothing moved and I quickly realized that everything was strangely quiet. There were no bird or animal sounds anymore just silence. A very unnerving silence.
It was at that moment that I decided to get a move on back to my car. Once inside I started it up and oddly instead of heading back towards town I instinctively turned the car around and headed back towards Boggy Creek. I felt like I had to find out who or what was making those sounds.
I rolled down both my windows to see if I could hear anything and I drove super slow to try and spot anything or anyone who made the sounds. I heard nothing and saw nothing. I drove past a couple of homes nearby and I was hoping to see someone outside working on some sort of project as a possible explanation for what I had just heard, but there wasn't a soul around.
I finished off my trip by driving around town and taking a couple more photos of some locations around Fouke and then headed on to Texarkana.
On my drive home I couldn't get what I had experienced out of my mind. I had heard that Bigfoot-like creatures use knocking like sounds like to communicate with each other. Could that have been what I heard? I simply couldn't wrap my mind around the whole thing.
When I got back home I decided to do a little research and I discovered some rather fascinating facts. First off I decided to go online to see if I could find some recordings of some alleged Bigfoot related 'wood knocks' which weren't all that hard to find at all. After listening to a few of those I concluded that what I heard was indeed somewhat similar.
Then I decided to sit down with the copy of Lyle Blackburn's book Boggy Creek Casebook that I purchased at the Monster Mart and see if there had been any reports of such sounds in the area of Boggy Creek that I was in.
There weren't any reports of knocking noises but I kept seeing report after report of encounters of the Fouke Monster in the area of County Road 9 and Boggy Creek. That's when I went to Google Maps. I was surprised to learn that I was in that exact location earlier when I had my strange experience.
Holy cow! I had instinctively driven myself right into Sasquatch Central. According to the accounts that Blackburn had written about in his book the Fouke Monster had been seen in that area numerous times for decades. That location has had more Bigfoot sightings than anywhere else on Earth.
Now I could add my own experience to the list.
To be honest with you I can't say for sure that what I experienced had anything to do with the Fouke Monster or not. I never discovered the source of those sounds. There could easily be a perfectly rational explanation for them. That being said I still can't shake the feeling that I may have actually had an encounter with the creature (possibly creatures).
It just goes to prove that there is still some mysteries that we as a species still haven't figured out. Are there still living things out there to be discovered? Are there myths and legends that will someday through discovery transition into known facts. Sceptics always point to the lack of hard evidence to support such things, but there is enough good evidence out there to warrant a hard maybe.
Is the Fouke Monster real? I'm going to go with an open minded yes. Maybe he just wanted to let me know that he was there and somehow inspire me to keep holding on to the fascination and wonder that lived in the heart of that young boy that hid behind the sofa when I heard him scream on television.
Map:
Photos:
Check Out:
No comments:
Post a Comment