MORE COUGAR TALES (AND MUSINGS ON SPECIES MEMORY)

It never rains but it pours. I have had a long dry spell of no new information coming in from the Cryptozoology Illinois Project. However, very recently I have acquired a bit more information to contribute. It came very unexpectedly in the form of my monthly subscription to Outdoor Life (outdoorlife.com). I came across an article in this month’s issue on Midwestern Cougars. A recent Chicago Illinois cougar was killed by police in the suburbs. The article mentions a rapid expansion of cougars across the Midwest in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota , Oklahoma, Arkansas and stranded populations of sightings all over the Louisiana Purchase, Illinois having only a few sightings recorded.

However, I feel that in the short time I have been working for the CFZ I have uncovered many more credible reports that never made it to official record. Also, in such circumstances, I feel that reports that did not make it to official record are possibly more credible because it shows that the eyewitness is not seeking fame for their sighting. According to the sightings map there is a very dense accumulation of Big Cat evidence in Missouri.

However, the article calls the range of the western U.S. the traditional range, which I take to mean the modern traditional range because until their alleged extermination on the east side of the Mississippi River, stories of Appalachian Mountain cougars were very common. So, there was an eastern U.S. range of the mountain lion. There is a dot of note on the map in southern Illinois in the region occupied by (you guessed it) the Shawnee National Forest.

So, even though the article focuses more on the expansion of the western mountain lion, as seen in the recent jaguar incidents, it is not uncommon for big cats to roam vast distances and not to be cut off by rivers. So, as the great plains and Midwest population grows, it is only a matter of time before they are crossing the Mississippi again. However, it is my belief that the mountain lions are, as I have said repeatedly, a relic population that may have occasionally been visited by members of the western mountain lion.

I was also contacted by an eyewitness who was a relation to a young man who is a recent addition to the CFZ. This sighting is about 2 years old. The man’s grandmother encountered a normal tan mountain lion while she was on a morning walk. It was watching her from the brush and, luckily for her, once she saw it, it lost interest in her and took off into the brush. I would guess that the big cat was around 100 yards away from her, which is no great distance for a big cat to cover if it had wanted to. So, this grandmother headed back to her house and was very rattled. She also told me of a sighting two miles away of a black mountain lion near a rural family farm. She said that the farmer heard something outside and went to have a look at what it was and saw this huge black cat pulling one of his hunting dogs up a treat. However, when he went in to get his gun the cat had gone, leaving the dead dog up in the crotch of the treat.

However, I mentioned the possibility of black leopards having escaped from circuses, or exotic pets released into the wild, possibly breeding with a relic population of mountain lions in the Southern part of Illinois’ more wooded areas. And as unlikely as this might be when compared with the relic population and lack of fresh genetics producing a black color to the cats. Dragging a kill into a tree is very much leopard behavior. And all of the tree kill caches that I have heard of have been black cats. So not to say that it could not be a trait of the Eastern Mountain lion because they had not been studied very much before they were to all appearances wiped out. So, I am unsure of this behavior’s roots, but it sounds very much like leopard behavior to me or even unknown unstudied mountain lion behavior. Therefore, it is unknown to me.

Even if the population of mountain lions east of the Mississippi river is displaced Black Hills cats, I think that it could be instinctive memory. Much like how elephants know where water is even if they have never been in a place before. Almost like human mythology or race memory of places and events and why we identify with our history. These animals could feel an instinct to reclaim their old home range. Not to get all New Age, but the idea of species memory in Forteana should not be a foreign concept, considering the other crazy theories put forth on a daily basis.

I am pleased to see, but not particularly shocked, that the jaguar is reclaiming its home range, as shown in a recent bloggo posting, and it is not particularly surprising that they are not seen very often. This is an intelligent animal and a predator designed to be able to keep out of sight as if invisible. Because it was hunted to the brink of extinction (not by sport hunters, but in the manner that the Tasmanian wolf was killed off) I believe that there could be a species memory of mankind and our destructive nature warning it to avoid humans. So I am not shocked at why the Northern Mexican jaguar is rarely seen and even more so rarely seen in the American South West. But because we cannot see an animal does not mean that it is not there, it could simply mean that we are out classed by the animal and it is one step ahead of us on the track of mystery animals.

So, it is not much, but it is the best I have been able to come up with recently in this dry spell of freezing weather and high winds. So thank you for reading and I will attempt to post more often as my schooling schedule allows. It almost feels as though my bloggo should be sponsored by Folgers coffee and Marlboro cigarettes. So that’s all for now from Cryptid Illinois.

Hunting=Conservation

This particular blog posting is not so much about cryptozoology as it is an expression of a view point and I hope that you will at least read with an open mind and respect my expression of this view.

I am a hunter and for right or wrong, I have had a gun in my hand from the time I was 12 and I have been trying my best to live the American dream but I have been out in the forest from as far back as I can remember. I am a conservationist but those who have read my past writings will know by now that I am an avid hunter.

I feel no shame at all in saying that I do hunt for sport, among other reasons to hunt, but yes I hunt for sport and I see no problem with it when it is ethically done. Though my hunting for sport may be distasteful to some I am not going to discuss it because I do not force others to take my view. Right now I would just like to bring forth a common sense view point that might clear up some hostilities.

The first, conservationists were hunters, sport hunters. It would be a total copout for me to say, they only cared about conservation, because they didnt: they wanted something left to shoot.

But hunting does promote conservation.

In the late 1970s Kenya outlawed all hunting, making all hunting in Kenya after that point Poaching. When the animals had no monetary value and the natives had no choice but to poach for food, the game of Kenya was utterly slaughtered senselessly. The great hunting writer and conservationist Robert Ruark once wrote “that when you take away the way a man makes his living you had better give him something of value to replace it with.” Which means that you cannot take away the lifestyle of the hunting and gathering tribes and give them a plow and expect all to go smoothly.

I am not saying that they do not have the potential to be successful I hold great respect for the wonders of Tribal Africa. What I am saying is when the people no longer had a reason to protect and conserve their native wildlife it opened the door almost totally to mass black market poaching and senseless Killing of African game.

The idea that Hunting, or harvesting an animal from a population can somehow protect the others of that population may sound to some totally ludicrous. It is not so. Please allow me to explain.

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  Allowing a legally and strictly controlled harvest of a small quota of animals of a population at a designated fee provides revenue for the purchase of more land for the population to grow on.


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  The Jobs created by the controlled harvest of an animal provides jobs to those who might otherwise poach for a living or turn to other perhaps similarly sinister crimes against the world.


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  When a sport hunter harvests an animal that he has not only paid to hunt with no guarantee of achieving his trophy, he also provides a ready source of meat for the locals, and nothing is wasted.


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  The hunter him or herself might not use what is taken, but the locals do! The bone is ground into fertilizer, the meat is eaten and as I said already the other parts of the Safari provide paying work for the locals.


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  A Hunter should and most due attempt to take their animal in the most humane and fair chase way that they can, and equally importantly they strive to only take animals past their breeding maturity when they are no longer contributing to the gene pool. I know personally several professional Hunters currently working in Africa and some of them are also based in America.

Sport hunting however distasteful it may appear to some, is actually not the enemy of the natural world. The Enemy of the Natural world is actually militant poachers and corporate Deforestation! Which are two things that NO hunter agrees with!

I have already mentioned Kenya, however I would also like to put forth a case study of South Africa where sport hunting, and hunting in general is legal but strictly controlled. In the country of South Africa the large and small animals are thriving because of hunter’s dollars and proper management. The White Rhino can be legally harvested at an extremely high fee with no actual guarantee of a harvest , and the white Rhino Population is not only stable but is growing because the money generated by the extremely controlled - and please let me stress again and again the harvest is extremely strictly - harvest, that provides habitat for not only the rhino but other animals who would also share that habitat.

The controlled harvest of game by sport hunters helps contribute to conservation in South Africa, Tanzania, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In Namibia there has been an extremely controlled harvest of the lately endangered black rhino in very recent years, with a drawing, which means a hunter buys a chance and there is not only no guarantee that the animal would be harvested but there is also no guarantee that the sportsman will even be chosen for the hunt, and the revenue generated has been used to buy more habitat and contribute to more conservation efforts.

By extremely controlled in this usage I mean no more than 3 black rhino per year or less as determined by conservation officials.

Sport hunting when done correctly and ethically under legal sanction contributes to the conservation of the natural world because it provides not only a primal experience of human past as well as the knowledge that you are contributing to the active conservation of renewable natural recourses.

Now! Do not take away from this that I think sport hunting is the end all answer, I do not think this. I do not believe that we should delist critically endangered species such as the tiger. There is a difference between Conservation and Preservation, and a species must be preserved before it can be conserved.

The purpose of this article has been to explain my view which I have done to my best ability, and in truth SCI (Safari Club International), is one of the largest conservation organizations in the world. So before you totally condemn the sport hunter, understand that in their own way, they are making a contribution to the same cause.

I have written on this topic because it is one that I have had to constantly explain, and I find that very few people outside of the sporting community understand how hunting contributes to conservation. I wanted to express my view in an area that might not be friendly to the idea, but the more people can be helped to understand the more people can work together. So I hope you have read this article with an open mind, and that I will not be ostracized by the CFZ, but I do not try and force my way of life on anyone and I ask that they also respect my view in turn.

I am currently low on sightings and reports of unknown animals in Illinois and that is why this writing finds its way onto the page. But I will continue on the track of mystery animals in Illinois and around the world with the mindset of not only a Naturalist but a conservationist and a hunter. So thank you for reading and I hope the next time I write I will have something more cryptozoologically oriented.

TALES FROM ANOTHER HUNTER'S MEAL

I had the lovely opportunity to enjoy another hunterʼs meal, and as expected I came away with some fresh stories of mystery beasts from the woods of Illinois. I managed to get some information on mountain lions and wolves in Illinois, and more supportive testimony on the potential for large carnivores to exist out of sight and undetected for lifetimes.

Shortly after I entered the room I spotted a high-school friend, who - after I questioned him - gave me some interesting information. Kyle was able to tell me about not only of a mountain lion sighting but also a possible readily-available source of food for the animals. Kyle told me that he was traveling east on Illinois Route 116 late at night, and he witnessed a big cat what appeared to be a tan-coloured cougar at the side of the road. It was dragging a road-killed deer, and as he passed the mountain lion, he saw it move quickly away from the road with its food and drag the carcass across the ditch and into the woods. This brings forth the idea that in addition to plenty of land and live game, the population of large mysterious predators could easily find a food source provided by the highways with road-kill.

The next person I interviewed was a friend of my Father. His name was Dennis, and he is a farmer in the area as well as being a local deer hunter. Dennis told me of how about 15 years ago he had been hunting during shotgun season and saw a black mountain lion crossing the game trail about 50 yards down the trail from him. Dennis couldnʼt remember exactly when he saw it and unfortunately I cannot remember what part of the locality that he saw it. But he also told me about sheep that had been killed in a very particular way and partly eaten. These sheep had been killed about 25 years ago. Unfortunately the locality is still somewhat sketchy. I do not mean to taunt my readers with false hope, but Dennis did think he could possibly help provide the CFZ with credible pictures of a Mountain lion from my area.

His son had also seen one of these big cats while hunting. The case gradually becomes more obvious but the chase does not feel like it gets any closer.

In my area of Illinois it seems to be common wood lore that Mountain lions inhabit the state and every one I asked had 1 of 3 answers. "NO your crazy", "Yes I have seen them", or "No I have not seem them but I have heard of them all my life".

When I asked Dennis about the Shawnee Forest theory, he told me that he went to school down by there for college in his younger days, and up until as recently as 30 years ago, the Shawnee forest was totally impenetrable totally full of swamps and bottoms and glens with thick brush and tall trees. Dennis also told me about another interesting bit of information that Farrell hogs and Farrell Horses that live in the trees and bogs. So in addition to the already plentiful game there is still another food source. Dennis told me with as deep and as thick as the Shawnee forest is he sees no reason why the isolated relic population theory would not stand. He also believes that there could very well be a population of the recently rediscovered black bear.

Later that night, I spoke with another witness but his name escapes me at the moment, and he told me about seeing a pair of mountain lions while in his deer stand. And how he too could tell me where to look. He knew someone who might be able to produce credible trail camera photos. The man confided to me that he was looking for somebody to talk to because he had talked to the Illinois DNR and they told him to keep his mouth shut. The man also told me that he believed the Shawnee population theory as well. He also believed that near Henry, Illinois there was a surviving pack of great lakes wolves.

So I managed to come up with some interesting stories from the hunterʼs meal but the strange stories of uncanny carnivores seem to be common wood lore for most country folk. As I am relating interesting stories I have some more stories.

After making a post to a hunting group, no-one had any knowledge of mountain lions, but bobcats seem to be coming out of the wood work literally here with local raccoon hunters in Illinois constantly running them up trees or catching them in traps. As I have said before, the bobcats in Illinois started out as shady deer camp stories told by hunters enjoying a beer after a long day, but now they appear to have not only taken a foothold in Illinois but that they are a thriving population.

I also got a very interesting response to a video that I posted on youtube about my involvement with the CFZ. The young man Cory told me about how he was about 13 he was on an ATV on his familyʼs land near their timber when he ran something tan move out of the field toward the woodline and he thought it was a deer because of its size but then he saw the tail and knew it was a cougar when it stopped at the edge of the field about 50 feet in front of him, and he could clearly see it was a cougar. He says he turned around and rode away making sure it did not follow him away from the place. Orchardville was the place of this sighting. Cory also told me that everyone in his family had seen the cats black and tan big cats, and he may be able to get a hold of trail camera pictures of the face of a cougar. I will be reviewing any pictures with a fine tooth comb to insure their authenticity.

With what I know about predator biology and animal behavior some of these sightings could be the same animal because the Puma has a large range and could easily cover 20 miles in one day. So the actual population density is very uncertain.

Some other interesting stories to come out of my recent research also include more support for the sasquatch population that could survive in the swamps and trees of the Shawnee forest. Another cryptid that could exist in the Shawnee is escaped or released captive large snakes along with possible populations of American Alligator that may have come up the Mississippi river and survived the temperatures by hibernation in the bogs and wetland of the Shawnee forest. I have heard stories of hunting dogs being dragged under water by alligators. Though I do not have proof of the stories I would not be surprised. Also I have heard rumors of a 'gator body that was found in the swamp.

I will continue on the track of mystery Animals in Illinois. And I will attempt to track down more witnesses, and possibly verify these trail camera Photos. I must admit I have encountered quit a few very apocryphal stories in my research but I do my best to sort out the truth or what I judge as the truth. I Hope that yet again my meager research has in some small way helped the CFZ and I will continue to do my best.

BIG BIRDS AND FLYING CRYPTIDS

Illinois is no stranger to the cryptids of the sky as well as those that dwell in the woods and prairies that I have already reported on. I have no personal experiences, and have not been able to interview anyone who has first person knowledge of the massive winged cryptids of Illinois, but I was able to track down some stories from the Mysterious Illinois book written by Troy Taylor.

I almost feel that I am not doing my job properly, because I am merely recounting sightings and interviews made by other people and I cannot verify any measure of credibility on these stories other than the discretion of the writer whose material I am providing commentary on. But it is the best I can do for now. So I hope my readers will accept another commentary on cryptid Illinois found in a published work.

I have just recently started college again after the Christmas break, and it has been a bit of an adjustment again as I have been off school for over a month and a half. But I am still making time for my work with the CFZ.

One of the more famous flying cryptids of Illinois folklore are the piasa birds of the Alton Bluffs along the Mississippi river. The French explorer Pere Marquette in 1683 discovered Illiniwek artwork cut and painted into the bluff at Alton, Illinois where it overlooks the place where the Mississippi River and the Illinois River meet. These huge works of art depicted fierce looking creatures with four feet, wings, the faces and teeth of lions, and tails that looked like a cross between a fish and a snake with deer antlers atop the heads. This Native American art description sounds more like it would fit into a Greek or Roman fresco from Mediterranean Mythology, but it appeared at the meeting place of two great rivers in America.

The word “Piasa” bird, means “Devourer of men” in Illiniwek. However , I must admit that because these cliffs have been mined for stone long before the advent of modern technology and photography, the original works of art have been lost forever. Only reproductions of the creature paintings exist today that are based on descriptions taken from the journals of early explorers in the region. But, there is a story of these terrifying creatures carrying off humans from an Illiniwek tribe, until a chief had a dream vision of how to kill them by shooting them under the wings with arrows where the feathers seemed the thinnest. He offered himself as bait and held onto a root when the piasa came to take him away, and as it flapped its wings the others from the hunting party drew and shot their bows into the creature. The poison-coated heads went deep and the creature fell dead from the cliffs into the river below.

I must admit that, like a lot of Illinois folklore, the piasa birds are very apocryphal. Yet an explorer was shown a cavern in the bluff face before it was mined, where human bones lay feet deep on the floor and it appeared to be lived in at one time by huge birds. However , due to the loss of the site because of mining we will never know if this truly was the den place of the great creature slain by Chief Owatago of the Illiniwek tribe.

I believe that the bluff paintings of the ancient times are much like the paintings of today. The artist was attempting to get across a meaning of how fierce a foe it was that chief Owatago faced with his hunting party. But the picture might not be meant to show the animal as it would have looked in reality.

However , I have two theories for what may have caused the piasa bird legend. One of them being that it could have been a relic oral memory of huge birds that stalked the native tribes from above during the last Ice Age. Or some of the large Ice Age birds of prey still existed in the United States up until very recent times, or even until present day out of sight above the earth, and in the cliffs and bluffs along the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. For more on the piasa birds check out Mysterious Illinois for the full story and account of the monument.

Also, I have came across some interesting and fairly recent attacks on humans by the great Illinois thunderbirds. I do not think it is entirely impossible that large Ice Age birds could have survived until recent times. However, if they still survive and have not recently gone extinct due to loss of habitat, the many cliffs along the Mississippi River would make ideal places for the large birds to live, nest and hunt. The bald eagle has recently made its stunning comeback in Illinois - what if other huge unknown eagles could still survive; it’s unlikely but not totally impossible.

The earliest official report of a thunderbird attack was made in Tippah County, Missouri just over the Mississippi river from Illinois in 1868. A child was taken from a schoolyard by, what the teacher described as, a massive eagle. The child was eight years old and assuredly not a light meal or a light carry for a modern bird. As a side note, the debate of whether or not modern, or even Ice Age, birds of prey could carry off a full sized human being reminds me of the Monty Python sketch about the swallows and the coconuts. But to return to the story. As the child was carried away the teacher and the other students cried out and alarmed the bird. More than likely rocks that had been thrown at it connected, but all things as they were, the eagle dropped the ill-fated boy and he fell to his death. However, the injuries sustained from the bird’s talons and beak would surely have killed him if the fall did not.

Bernard Heuvelmans, in the past, had remarked that “no modern bird could carry anything larger than a lamb”. However, I have no evidence to my knowledge that Heuvelmans ever said that an Ice Age bird could not carry more weight with its superior wingspan and muscular body. So I just plain do not know. Also, I am as open to possibilities as the next cryptozoologist, but we must keep in mind that when a bird is in the air, it is very hard - and damn near impossible - to correctly estimate its height in the sky, or its wingspan correctly, because there is no frame of reference. However, when it is near the ground such as in a thunderbird attack, and it is carrying - say - a child of known size, that bird will look pretty darn big next to that child close to the ground.

In the year 1948, the thunderbirds returned to Alton, Illinois and sightings began to come in a few times a month. However, no attacks were reported from these sightings. And, unfortunately, without an attack where the bird is carrying something of known size, the sizes given by witnesses cannot be verified to be correct without, at the very least, an object of known size in the background.

In Logan County, Illinois in 1977 in Lawndale, two giant birds attacked 3 young boys playing in the back yard of one of their houses. The attack was fast and almost could be said to be coordinated; because the boys were separated by the massive birds, before one was chosen for abduction and, as the adults came to see what was going on when they heard the children yelling, and the sound of screaming and flapping from the birds. One of the boys was caught up in the talons of the one of the birds and was lifted a full 3 feet above the grass and carried in the air for more than thirty five feet. The young boy managed to save himself as the bird flapped higher by striking the bird in the head when it leaned down to peck at his face to subdue him, causing it to drop him, and continue on its way with a scream. The boy was traumatized and the family was ridiculed by papers and experts of the time.

Over the course of 1977 the huge birds would be sighted in Pekin, Bloomington, Tremont, and also in rural Mclean County. Many of the huge birds would be seen looming from telephone poles or in trees alongside Illinois roads, and there was no explanation that anybody could come up with as to from where the hell these mystery birds came from , and why did they appear to be migrating around the state following alongside the Illinois River.

Near Delevan, Illinois in 1977 a thunderbird was seen to snatch a sixty pound hog from a pasture and fly with it to a telephone pole, where it proceeded to enjoy a leisurely meal leaving the body in the ditch.

Yet after the panic of 1977 and 1978 died down there was a much less steady, and much more staggered, list of reports of the thunderbird, with a report as recently as 2003. But, it is not totally impossible that large Ice Age relic birds could have survived along the Mississippi cliffs and bluffs until very recent history, but what are they, and where are they now, and why did they appear and disappear?

I do not have these answers. But , mostly cryptozoology leaves you more questions than answers and a few statements as well. So , I hope you have enjoyed this instalment of the cryptid Illinois project using some references from the Troy Taylor book Mysterious Illinois. There are more stories of thunderbirds in the pages of the book, but I wanted to give a small summary of the reported thunderbirds in recent Illinois history. I will continue on the track of mystery animals in Illinois as best I can, and write as regularly as possible but with college starting up again, I will have a fresh pool of possible witnesses, but yet, perhaps, less time to write.

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.

Hunter’s Meal Interview Report

I had the pleasure of attending a hunter’s meal this last weekend and strangely enough it proved to be a well of Cryptozoological information, where I enjoyed American wild game, a few beers and fine fellowship with outdoorsmen of all ages. Shockingly it proved to be a good venue for me to begin questioning these people about their knowledge of Illinois’ cryptid creatures. Obviously I began the questioning early in the night before the whiskey started to flow.

The first man I interviewed was named Erick Reddigger, and the interview went very well I explained to him like all the other people that I interviewed that I was working for a zoology group interested in reports of large out of place carnivores and other strange animals in Illinois. I did say it was the Center for Fortean Zoology but to save too much explanation of our mission statement, I just saved time and just called us a zoology group.

Erick proved to be a well of information, and though I delved deep, I am sure the well has not run dry, and he told me he would let me know if anything new developed. He told me of growing up in the same area that I also have grown up in but as none of my readers will know where it is I won’t bother with naming the location. But it would be easy to find, and it’s a real location but its outside of Washburn, Illinois.

Erick told me of how when he was growing up some times he would hear a mountain lion scream in the middle of the night outside his childhood home in the woods. The scream would be not too far off, and he also found tracks. When I questioned him on the tracks, he smiled at me, and assured me that no they did not have claws in the pugmarks and that it was the size of his hand.

Erick told me also of having seen a mountain lion while deer hunting in the past two years. However, luckily for him this mountain lion passed him by, and did not stalk him like other hunters. But he told me of a threatening feeling that he got, as most witnesses seem to feel. Erick also enlightened me about how while he was running raccoons with dogs, he also found himself running bobcats up trees. But as a conservationist he always called his dogs off, and let the bobcats be on their way. But it was a fear of his that some night he would run a mountain lion up a tree and have to deal with that. He told me he would keep in touch, and that he would be willing to talk to the CFZ if and when they came to Illinois and that he would also help them as best he could and give them leave to investigate his property.

The next man I spoke with told me of also seeing a mountain lion while deer hunting, and said that it was about 100 yards from his tree, and that it was crossing an open field. However he had a laser range finder with him that is a useful tool hunters have so they can know how far away the game is. So that’s how he knows that it was about 100 yards. (I can’t say exactly 100 yards, however, because there is a plus or minus of 1.5 yards on most range finders but it gives a good ballpark idea). But he also looked at it through his shotgun scope and could clearly see its size. When I asked him, he asked me how could anybody mistake a mountain lion when it has a thick low sweeping tail?

I cannot at the moment remember this man’s name or the exact location of this sighting, but he is easy enough to find, and when the time comes I would be able to procure that information as well.

Another hunter I interviewed was an elderly man who was also a veritable well of information. This man’s name was Lynn Reddigger a relative of Erick’s who lived on Pleasant View Road, north west of Washburn. Lynn told me of five mountain lions, two of them being black. All of them within the past two years. One of the black mountain lions was seen by his son-in-law, who was also deer hunting but with archery tackle, and he was so well camouflaged that the cat passed within 15 yards of his stand and it did not look up at him, and it continued along the trail following the scent of a deer. The man then remembered that the beast could climb, and so he quickly got out of his tree-stand in case it came back to find him with only archery tackle. This Mountain lion in question that Lynn’s son-in-law saw was black.

Lynn also told me about what he has seen himself. The first Mountain lion was a plain tan one that he saw crossing his property skirting the tree line. He believes that this cat may have a den nearby but he was unsure. Lynn also said that he saw a black Mountain lion cross the road in front of him one night and appear from one side of the road, only to disappear into the corn of the other side. I know the area and I am not at all surprised.

One of Lynn’s friends overheard my interview with him and interjected that he had also seen a pair of wolves crossing a horse pasture not far from the place that the mountain lion crossed the road. I am not at all shocked about that, because that stretch of timber owned by my grandmother’s relative is substantial and could support large predators easily. So I will try to be in contact with the farmer that owns the pasture, to check with him if he had ever seen anything for his part, but his horses are very rugged mustangs and could easily take care of themselves.
Lynn also told me - as an afterthought that he had seen a black bear in the area about 8 years ago while he was plowing a field at night.

In his own words, “I was plowing this fella’s field for him because I used to make a little money on the side, and I saw something moving out in the darkness behind me and so when I got to the end of the field and turned around I hit this thing with the headlights, and I thought who the hell’s cow is out in this field, but when I got closer and saw it better it was a bear eating grubs that had gotten turned up by the cultivator. And the bear stood up on its back legs and then I know what it was and he was a big old boy, and I had never seen one that size outside of Canada. He was big and black and had a white belly for some reason, and as I got closer to him he dropped back down on all fours and run off toward the trees again. And that was about 8 years ago.”

Lastly Lynn told me of how his wife had seen a pair of tan coloured mountain lions cross the road in front of her as she drove a winding country road south of Lacon, Illinois.

Now that is a very impressive list of sightings out of one man, and when I asked him if he had seen the paper, he said “what paper?” And so I know he didn’t know about the bear that had recently been sighted in Buda. He seemed to be a very good witness and said that he would be in contact with me if anything new developed, and that he would also be in touch with the CFZ if and when they came to Illinois and would definitely work with them and open his property to an investigation.

My next man that I talked to was not an eye witness but knew of a man (who he said would not have lied) who saw a large black mountain lion while deer hunting in the 2007 shotgun season. Todd was the man I talked to, and he told me that his friend had seen the black mountain lion walk along a log about 50 yards away. I do not have many details about this sighting, but I will be trying to contact the man who saw the big cat. And Todd told me that he would also send anyone with stories to me to tell them and if anything new developed he would be in touch and also would more than likely help the CFZ expedition if he could. Todd told me that it was totally fascinating to him that they would be possibly investigating around here.

Todd also believed that it would not have been impossible that a relic population of mountain lions could have existed In Illinois. In addition Todd told me of seeing bobcat while hunting, and what he believes to be a fisher cat, which is not a cat at all, but a large mustelid.

One other local man that I talked with Scott told me he had not seen one himself but had heard of many mountain lions recently in the northern part of the state of Illinois along I-80. But there was a sighting in the past that he told me of as well, that dates back to about 15 years ago near Larose Illinois, which is one of the places that I hunt deer when they are in season. But Scott said that more than likely that big cat was now lying in front of some hunter’s fire. But that he would spread the word about the investigation as well and be in touch of anything developed.
All the hunters that I interviewed even if they had not seen them, or heard anything to report, told me about the fact that they believed the mountain lions were here and that there was possibly a pack of wolves living within the quad county area, as in Woodford, Tazewell, Marshal, and Peoria counties.

So the night was very productive and as I write this I am nursing a bit of a hangover. Luckily for me, my father drove me that night, and the local hunters were very helpful and planned to be even more helpful. I did not however take any video testimony but I will be checking back with them to be in touch, and also check their story at a later date to ensure that it did not change in the retelling.

This hunter’s meal proved to be an inexhaustible fount of information of cryptozoological interest, and proves that as I have always said that outdoorsmen and their woodcraft is a plentiful but rarely tapped source of intelligence for cryptozoloogy. I uncovered more reports of the black mountain lions, more reports of a possible breeding pair of gray wolf in the area, and another black bear and many bobcats.

I will also add as a caution do not go looking for trouble or it might find you first, I know those readers outside of the USA might not be able to enjoy the same method of self preservation as I can, (for at least the time being), with the right to bear arms. But keep in mind that these are large carnivores and we are lower than them on the food chain and would easily make a meal. The disquieting facts that I have uncovered about mountain lions stalking hunters silently like the predators they are should ring as a warning that these animals are and could prove to be very dangerous.

As a Guide to the expedition I would be totally remiss if I did not think about the safety of all parties in the cryptid hunting party. So if you do go looking for something please beware that it might just find you, and then no one else would ever find you, So be careful out there and use whatever battery would be legal in your region at your own discursion.

Most of the sightings are very current and all of them sound to me at least to be credible. As a side note the United States Federal Government is attempting to delist the gray wolf from those endangered species list, which would allow for state jurisdiction of the management of the large carnivores. So in the words of Jon Downes “Cryptozoology calls and we must obey over the hills and far away” however this is just outside my door. I will continue as always on the track of the mystery carnivores as well as other Illinois cryptids.