SASQUATCH AND OTHERS

So, the question on my readers’ minds might be, "so when is he going to start talking about cryptozoology and undiscovered species, instead of relic populations and possible displaced beasts that are beginning a breeding population?" Well your answer is right here. As I currently have no new news of large unknown carnivores in Illinois, I will be discussing the shadier side of Illinois’ woods and prairies. I am currently reporting on the Sasquatch sightings in Illinois. I personally and professionally believe in the Sasquatch, but I do not think that they would be incredibly common here.

The Shawnee National forest is a huge patch of woods filled with game hills and valleys, on the south end of Illinois. It could easily hide any number of strange creatures - some natural and some darker and supernatural - but as always, I attempt to keep my commentary secular. But the Shawnee is not the only place that large hairy humanoids are seen.

Ironically enough, on the topic of the mystery primates and witnesses, I am actually personally acquainted with Peter Byrne the ex-tiger hunter turned naturalist, and as I am both a hunter and an amateur naturalist I found him to be an admirable and pleasant man.

I am currently using information that I found in the Troy Taylor book Mysterious Illinois. However, as always, some reports will be credible and some will be apocryphal so as I am writing on reports already reported, yet again I cannot say I know anything for sure. But I will do my best.

Firstly, I must address one thing in particular although professionally, as I have said, I attempt to keep my views secular and un-supernatural as I can. Personally, I believe that the beast called the Wendigo, the Windigo, and the Sasquatch are not one and the same. The Wendigo is a monster created by acts of cannibalism and if these sins are un-repented and the acts continue, the person will eventually become a monster with human intelligence and diabolic cunning, with an unquenchable hunger.

The Windigo is not exactly the same and some have wondered why it is spelt differently. The difference is that the Wendigo is a monster, but the Windigo is the evil spirit or tortured soul of a person who commits acts of cannibalism without repentance, but dies before they are totally transformed into a monster,. The Windigo is doomed to possess and waylay those who it might find in the lonely wastes of forgotten timberland and continue the curse by , once taking over the person’s faculties, committing acts of cannibalism through them in an attempt to doom them to the same fate and never-ending hunger.

All of that said, professionally I must remain secular and the CFZ does not endorse as Jon Downes calls “Hocus Pocus”. So to avoid bringing religion into the debate I will go no further with the description of the Wendigo and the Windigo or their stories. But the reason that I have even mentioned them is because the Wendigo legends have often been interpreted to exclusively mean Sasquatch. You may disagree with me, but I do not believe that this is the case. And as aforementioned, I do not believe them to be the same creature.

The Sasquatch is natural if undiscovered, and the Wendigo is a sinister figure with bad intentions that haunts the winter campfires of the north woods of America.

Now that I have covered that, I can resume my expository. The earliest officially reported sighting of a Sasquatch in Illinois dates back to 1883 in Centreville, and it was made by the wife of a respected doctor. The Sasquatch resembled a nude man with wild features and was very hairy. I do not have an exact measurement on its height and, in truth, at the time of the sighting it was called a “wild man” by the paper because most of the great apes had not been discovered by westerners. The wild man was seen by Mrs. Saltenberger while she was driving her carriage down the road past an orchard when she was attacked by it. She struck it with her whip and the horses panicked, picking up speed along the road and the wild man kept pace with the carriage and was able to jump on the back and hold on for a few moments, but soon dropped off and ran back into the trees along the side of the road. The doctor and some other young men went looking for the wild man but it was never seen again.

The report from Centreville was the first official report, but it was not, by far, the first story told of the Sasquatch in the Midwest.

A report of a more docile Sasquatch was made by another woman in 1912 outside of Effingham, Illinois. It was seen near a small creek, and it was not just one, but what appeared to be a family of Sasquatch that would play in the water by the family farm. But this report was not taken seriously until the earlier report was discovered by the woman’s family.

Other reports of Sasquatch outside of Alton, Illinois appeared in 1925 and in 1929. What was said to be an upright walking huge gorilla was sighted in the woods outside of Elizabeth, Illinois.
For a while, no other reports came to light that made public record until 1941 when a hunter was stalked by an upright huge baboon-like creature in the woods near Mount Vernon, Illinois. The hunter was actually attacked and struck the beast with the butt of his rifle and fired shots trying to discourage it, and apparently he must have missed because no blood was found, and the beast ran away and disappeared into the thick forest.

When sightings of the Sasquatch continued into the next year, hunters numbering 1,500 attempted to exterminate the beast, but it was never found. It would stalk them and seemed to delight in screaming at them like a devilish wild cat with its tail in a wine press, and several of the hunters’ dogs were killed in a strange manner during the hunt. But no body ever surfaced, and no actual trace was found afterward. This story is rather apocryphal like the others. But, there is no doubt that if these beasts do exist, which I believe they do , they could prove to be dangerous even if they are not malevolent by nature.

From 1940 to 1960 large footprints began to surface in southern Illinois without explanation near Indian Creek. Keep in mind that this is well before the Paterson footage was taken and the Sasquatch had not achieved the fame it enjoyed after the international hype caused by the footage.

However , later in 1962 a grayish upright beast was sighted by two fishermen near Decatur Illinois.

Oddly enough, another strange beast with Sasquatch-like qualities came to light in Centreville, Illinois yet again. Little has been recorded in public record about the later Centreville woods sightings because it was deemed as backwoods nonsense. Yet these sightings continued into the late 1980s.

The sightings of Sasquatch seem to be mostly based in the southern end of Illinois, not extremely far from the Shawnee forest that I mentioned earlier in this article.

Oddly enough, a Sasquatch was sighted on a notorious lovers’ lane near Decatur, Illinois in late 1965. The place was called Montezuma Hill. The witnesses’ passions where cut short when a man-like hulking beast approached the car and spoiled the fun, terrifying the lovesick teenagers. Their screams soon aroused the attention of the police who knew the reputation of Montezuma Hill and had been in the area. The teens commented about how they could smell the beast even though the windows all had been rolled up. No report of the height of this Sasquatch was made.
Yet another sighting, on still another lovers’ lane in Illinois, was made in 1968 by two more teenagers who found their passion ruined by a monstrous black hairy beast that walked upright and had a round face and wicked looking eyes set in its ape-like face. They estimated its height to be around 10feet because of the height of the tall grass that it loomed over as it tossed dirt and rocks at the car. This sighting was in Chittyville, Illinois. The police that investigated this sighting noted the mashed down grass, and that the local dogs had been reported to be barking and disturbing the peace.

I do not wish to be lewd, but I believe that Sasquatch sightings are prolific on lovers’ lanes because of the amount of pheromones that are released by the human body during romance.
A sinister encounter with an Illinois Sasquatch occurred later in 1968. Three boys in Fulton County found their friend lying beside the road knocked out cold, and when they went to investigate they also found themselves attacked by a large hairy upright beast. They managed to get back to the truck with their friend dragging one of their number, who had also been injured, and they drove away quickly fearing for their lives.

In the early 1970s, the farmer city monster came to light and even a local policemen reported a sighting.

Bloomington, Illinois also had a rash of Sasquatch sightings during the 1970s as well.
And, in 1972, along Colehollow Road in Pekin, the cohomo monster was seen, and this strange beast left three-toed tracks. I do not mean to discount any sightings, but must admit I find some of these sightings I report from the book to be very apocryphal.

More sightings of large hairy beasts persisted in 1973 in Decatur and in 1973 Edwardsville had Sasquatch sightings. The Murphysboro Mud-monster also appeared in 1973 and it was believed to be a Sasquatch.

The rash of Sasquatch sightings I am retelling I think might be a bit of mass hysteria caused by the Paterson footage, but as I have said I do not want to discount these sightings in any way because I did not interview these witnesses. And because they appear in the book I believe that Troy Taylor surely did his fact checking. There is more, but I wanted to stop for a few moments to interject this commentary and explain again, in case I forgot to say above, that I will be attempting to be in contact with Troy as soon as I can. The 1970s proved to be an epidemic of Sasquatch sightings in the Shawnee forest itself. And sightings all over Illinois have persisted on staggered occasions up until 2005.

I have attempted to give a very brief summary of Sasquatch encounters in Illinois forests and rural areas, yet I have no idea of the credibility of these sightings and, personally, I have not known any Sasquatch witnesses. I do not think it is impossible that isolated populations of the Sasquatch could exist in Illinois, but as I said much earlier in the article I do not believe that Sasquatch are very numerous in Illinois.

Though I said I would not report on the supernatural or the Wendigo anymore, as I have written this article, I have recalled something that I heard a year or two ago from a friend. This sighting is what I believe to be the Wendigo because it was hairless and beastly and upright and she said it was about 7 feet tall. She drove past it in the ditch on the country road and stopped to see what it was. When it stood up she screamed and drove away, but the beast kept pace with her car as she drove the forest lined road as it screamed at her in the winter night. She said she could see it had claws and it did not give up the chase , but it swung into the trees and followed the terrified girl screaming as it went covering the distance quickly. The chase finally ended when she left the trees and came onto open territory where she could get up sufficient speed until she reached a well lit residential area. Her last sighting of the beast was of it standing atop a street light at the edge of the residential area.

This sighting was on a winter night, and though I know that the Blackwood work, the Wendigo, is fiction I could not help but think as I heard it, that the Wendigo in the story could climb trees and swung through the branches at great speed and its victims feet would always be torn by the wicked branches. Everything in this sighting screams at me in an eerie way that it was a creature like the beast from the Blackwood story, and all the other Wendigo lore I have ever heard around the campfire.

It is very eerie how your mind draws connections between what you thought was fiction and what a witness tells you to be the fact of their sighting. She had never even heard of the Wendigo, and did not believe in Sasquatch , but did not think that what she saw looked at all like a bigfoot. It was all but hairless she said and had a bit of a snout like face and gray skin, and it reminded her of the black Spiderman. So I do not know. She is the only Wendigo witness I have ever come across but I believe her. It is hard when you are in the snowy woods alone in their desolate wastes not to get a bit paranoid with campfire lies floating around your head.

So now, I can return to my normal secular commentary again to conclude this article for the CFZ. But as always I will be continuing on the track of unknown animals in Illinois. I do not think that an expedition in search of Sasquatch in the state of Illinois would be a very successful venture because though they might not have much habitat left, if they are indeed here, they are experts in eluding verification and classification. I apologize if this article seems a bit dull, but it is more of a short history than the exciting article that I would like it to be, but I promise there will be more to come on Illinois Cryptozoology in the near future, as I attempt to track down my large mystery carnivore witnesses. But as it is winter still in Illinois, I doubt I will have any recent local reports of large mystery reptiles or exotic reptiles until things warm up again. But as I always say, I am doing my best.