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The Fouke Monster: A look at how the media recorded the reports of the 1971 alleged sighting
of a large creature in rural Miller County, Ark.
It was not a monster story by
any measure.
It didn't even make Page One of the local newspaper.
Yet 30 years later, the tale spawned from
that first bit of basic news reporting is still alive and growing. From its humble beginnings, the Fouke Monster developed
a life of its own.
Jim Powell, now building manager at the Bi-State Justice Building, wrote the first story when he
was a reporter for the Texarkana Gazette and the Texarkana Daily News in 1971. The Monday, May 3 headline read: "Hairy 'monster'
hunted in Fouke sector." Here is the text from the original story:
By JIM POWELL/Staff Writer
June 24, 2001
Miller
County Sheriff's Department officers said early today a search of the area where a mysterious creature was spotted near Fouke
early Sunday failed to reveal a clue.
"Members of my department searched the area but didn't find a thing. I don't
know what it could have been," Sheriff Leslie Greer said.
Bobby Ford, 25, of Rt. 1, Box 220, Texarkana, Ark, who lives
approximately 10 miles south of Texarkana on U.S. Highway 71, said the unidentified creature attacked him at his home shortly
before midnight Saturday.
Ford was treated at St. Michael Hospital for minor scratches and mild shock and released.
"After
the thing grabbed me and I broke free, I was moving so fast I didn't stop to open the door. I just ran through it," Ford said.
The
"creature" was described by Ford as being about seven feet tall and about three feet wide across the chest. "At first I thought
it was a bear but it runs upright and moves real fast," he said.
Ford, his brother Don, and Charles Taylor saw the
creature several times shortly after midnight and shot at it seven times with a shotgun.
"It first started Wednesday
when our wives heard something walking around on the porch. Then Friday night about midnight the thing tried to break into
the house again.
"Last night it tried to get in again," Don Ford said.
Elizabeth Ford said she was sleeping
in the front room of the frame house when, "I saw the curtain moving on the front window and a hand sticking through the window.
At first I thought it was a bear's paw but it didn't look like that. It had heavy hair all over it and it had claws. I could
see its eyes. They looked like coals of fire ... real red," she said. "It didn't make any noise. Except you could hear it
breathing."
Ford said they spotted the creature in back of the house with the aid of a flashlight. "We shot several
times at it then and then called Ernest Walraven, constable of Fouke. He brought us another shotgun and a stronger light.
We waited on the porch and then saw the thing closer to the house. We shot again and thought we saw it fall. Bobby, Charles
and myself started walking to where we saw it fall," he said.
About that time, according to Don Ford, they heard the
women in the house screaming and Bobby went back.
"I was walking the rungs of a ladder to get up on the porch when
the thing grabbed me. I felt a hairy arm come over my shoulder and the next thing I knew we were on the ground. The only thing
I could think about was to get out of there. The thing was breathing real hard and his eyes were about the size of a half
dollar and real red.
"I finally broke away and ran around the house and through the front door. I don't know where
he went," Bobby Ford said.
"We heard Bobby shouting and by the time we got there everything was over. We didn't see
a thing," Don Ford said.
Everyone at the house said they saw the creature moving in the fields close to the house.
All said it cold move fast.
Walraven said he was called to the scene about 12:35 a.m. (Sunday, May 2) and searched
the area without finding anything. "I looked through the surrounding fields and woods for about an hour. Then, I gave them
my shotgun and light. A short time later they called back and told me they had shot at it again. I went back and stayed until
5 a.m."
Walraven said several years ago resident of the Jonesville Community near Fouke reported seeing a "hairy monster"
in the area.
"Several persons saw the thing and shot at it, some from close range. They said nothing seemed to stop
it. They described it as being about seven feet tall and looking just like a naked man covered with brown hair," Walraven
said.
All that remaining Sunday morning at the Ford house was several strange tracks-that appeared to be left by something
with three toes-and several scratch marks on the front porch that appeared to have been made by something with three claws.
Several
pieces of tin nailed around the bottom of the house had been ripped away and another window had been damaged by the creature,
according to Ford.
"We plan to stay here tonight and see if we can get the thing if it returns," Don Ford said.
"I'm
not staying her anymore unless they kill that thing, Patricia Ford said.
As for Bobby Ford, he said, "I've had it here.
I'm going back to Ashdown."
The next day, the Texarkana Daily News and the Texarkana Gazette both published the
same follow-up story indicating sentiment was shifting away from the monster theory and towards another, less abominable,
wild thing. The Gazette played the short story on its front page. Its headline read: "Fouke fields combed in search of monster."
The
Daily News played the story inside. Its headline read: "Monster may be mountain lion."
The story itself contained the
first published reference to the Fouke Monster.
The text reads, in part:
"We think now it might have been a
big cat, like a mountain lion or puma," Don Ford said Monday while sitting on his porch watching people wander through his
fields looking for a trace of the "Fouke Monster."
After a few paragraphs of background information, a few more
new bits of information emerge:
The people said they had been living in the house for five days and had heard something
around the house on Wednesday and Friday nights. "It is always around midnight every time," Mrs. Ford said.
The family
said about 100 persons had been to the house Monday looking under the porch and in the fields. "I work nights and haven't
been able to get any sleep today," Don Ford said.
Less than three weeks later, reporter Powell was working another
sighting. The headline in the Monday, May 24 edition of the Daily News read: "Monster is spotted by Texarkana group."
The
Fouke 'monster' has been seen again, the first sentence began. It continued outlining the sighting of a large hairy creature
about midnight Saturday crossing the highway about two miles south of Fouke. What follows are the eyewitness accounts excerpted
from the story:
Mr. and Mrs. D.C. Woods Jr., and Mrs. R. H. Sedgass all of Texarkana, who were returning from Shreveport
said the creature crossed the highway in front of their automobile.
"It was hunched over and running upright. It had
long dark hair and looked real large. It didn't look too tall, but I guess that's because it was bent over. It was swinging
its arms kind of like a monkey does.
"I though my eyes were playing tricks on me but there it was. My husband turned
to me after it crossed the road and asked me if I saw it too," Mrs. Wilma Woods said.
Mrs. Woods said when the creature
started across the highway, "we were just awed.
"It was just unbelievable what we saw. I had been reading about the
thing but thought it was just a hoax. Now I know it's true. It wasn't a bear," she said.
Woods said when he first noticed
the creature he thought he was going to hit it.
"It was really moving fast across the highway ... faster than a man.
I though we were going to hit it. The thing didn't act like it even noticed us. It didn't look at the car.
"I looked
like a giant monkey in a way. It had dark long hair and I would guess it would weigh well over 200 pounds," he said.
Mrs.
Sedgass, who was riding in the back seat of the Woods automobile said, "I heard them say they saw the thing and glanced up.
All I saw was a large shadow as it entered the woods to our right. I don't know what it was, but it was something big. Some
people don't think there is anything to it (the monster) but I do."
Other stories were written in the ensuing days,
yet the big monkey speculation never completely died. In a Wednesday, June 16, 1971, story written by Texarkana Gazette staff
writer Barry Powell under the headline "He's been sighted again: Monster -a monkey's uncle," this theory raised its ape-like
head again.
FOUKE, Ark.-The more skeptical persons in the Fouke area have dismissed the Fouke Monster as "so much
monkey business."
They may be closer to the truth than they realize.
Miller County Sheriff Leslie Greer said
a sighting Tuesday of a creature on a gravel road two miles south of Fouke has led officers to believe the creature is a member
of the ape family-maybe even a "monkey's uncle."
Sheriff Greer said he believes the creature sighted Tuesday is the
same creature that has been seen several times in the Fouke area since the first monster incident May 1.
Sheriff Greer
said Al Williams and A. L. Tipton, both residents of the rural community, spotted the creature as it "slouched" across the
road in front of the car early Tuesday.
Greer said the two men told officers they were close enough to see that the
creature was either a small ape or a large monkey. "It appeared to be about three or four feet tall as it crouched over and
walked across the road," Tipton told officers.
Williams and Tipton were traveling a gravel road about one-fourth of
a mile from the soybean field where officers investigated the discovery of strange animal tracks in the field.
Sheriff
Greer said he believes the creature spotted Tuesday morning fits the various general descriptions of creatures spotted in
the Fouke area since the creature allegedly attacked a resident May 1.
Since that sighting, residents of the Fouke
area have been reporting "strange noises" and several have seen creatures and described them as being "seven feet tall, with
hair all over and real red eyes."
Sightings of the creature have been reported in the Southwest area of Texarkana,
mostly in wooded areas on Oats street. Tracts of a strange animal were reported found in a vacant part of the fertilizer plant
near the intersection of Oats Street and Dudley Avenue.
Sheriff Greer said he and several deputies, along with several
residents of the area of Fouke where the creature was spotted Tuesday, attempted to set dogs on the trail of the creature.
"The
dogs refused to follow the trail," Willie Smith of Fouke, said Tuesday.
Smith, owner of the soybean field where tracks
were found Monday, said the dogs could not follow the trail because "It was too hot and the woods are too dry to hold a scent."
Sheriff
Greer said another attempt to locate the creature and capture it will be made "if the weather cools off and it rains." Greer
said the dogs would be able to follow the trail of the creature if the ground holds some moisture so that the scent of the
trail can be followed.
"Evidently the creature is harmless, unless cornered," Sheriff Greer said. "We certainly don't
want anyone to shoot the creature, since it does appear to be harmless. We'll try and track it again, and probably shoot it
with a tranquilizer gun to capture it."
The sheriff said he feels certain the creature would remain in that area of
the county.
The Tuesday sighting of the creature was the second sighting of an ape-like creature in the area since
the tracks were found Monday. Sheriff Greer said several women and children who had traveled to the area to look at the prints
in the soybean field reported seeing he ape-like creature on Monday.
"I feel like this creature that was seen Tuesday
is the same creature that has been reported seen in this area since early May," Sheriff Greer said.
Believe what
you want, but the sightings of this creature have never stopped in this region. There were even a few reported last year,
to various organizations that track these type of sightings.
Yet none of them has ever captured the imagination that
the first few experiences with the Fouke Monster did.
If you have tales or theories to tell about the Fouke monster,
please send them to us. We'd like to publish your thought on the whole deal on this, the 30th anniversary of the famous sighting.
Mail them to: Fouke Monster c/o Texarkana Gazette, 315 Pine St., Texarkana, Texas. Or by e-mail to lminor@texarkanagazette.com.
http://texarkanagazette.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2001/June/24-193-feature01.txt
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