The Enfield Monster
Throughout 1973, residents in and near the communities of Murphysboro, Mt. Vernon and Edwardsville reported sightings of a monster. Locals gave the creature a number of colorful monikers, depending on where it was seen. The Big Muddy Monster. The Murphysboro Monster. The Pumphouse Monster. Perhaps today it’s best known by the name it was given earlier that year, in April, when it was reported down the road in Enfield, Illinois...
Merriam-Webster defines folklore as traditional customs, tales, sayings, dances, or art forms preserved among a people. Also an often unsupported notion, story, or saying that is widely circulated.
The currently accepted popular definition of folklore includes everything from the email-forwarding chains of the new millennium to meme-sharing of today, but if you ask most people what they consider folklore, it’s old stories, many times spooky, often told as a cautionary tale or with a moral lesson attached.
Don’t believe it?
Ask yourself, and answer honestly.
Somewhere nearby, just down the road near that place you used to hang out… is there a story about a White Lady? It probably takes place in a rural area, with an attached story of tragedy, most likely. It’s common folklore, and despite what your Aunt Tammy told you, it did not happen in the next town over.
How about a creature? A lake monster, or maybe a Bigfoot-like anthropoid?
Of course, folklore doesn’t have to be a monster or a ghost, it can be a campfire tale about a lovers lane killer or the well-known tales of Paul Bunyan.
Regardless of where you are as you listen to this, there is some folklore just around the corner from you. It surrounds all of us.
And It doesn’t fade easily, because it captivates. Folklore is sticky.
We don’t always know the truth about where a particular bit of folklore starts, but we don’t have to. Time will tell, and the truth is, good stories have legs.
And if it’s a good story you want, well, get comfortable. Maybe even turn out the lights, light some candles, and let me tell you about the night parents kept their kids home from trick-or-treating because of monsters in Illinois.
1973 was the year the Miami Dolphins completed the only perfect season in NFL history, the war in Vietnam ended, and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was released. Denim and knits were big fashion statements. The hippie look was very ‘in.’ And in Illinois, monsters were in the news.
Really.
Over a span of about 6 months, residents of Illinois, in and near the communities of Murphysboro, Mt Vernon and Edwardsville reported sightings of a monster. Locals dubbed the creature a number of colorful monikers, depending on where it was seen. The Big Muddy Monster. The Murphysboro Monster. The Pumphouse Monster. Perhaps today it’s best known by the name it was given earlier that year, in April, when it was reported down the road in Enfield, Illinois — The Enfield Monster.
Note: Not to be confused with the Enfield Horror which is the case the movie The Conjuring 2 was based on. The Enfield Horror story is also interesting, but that’s a different story for a different day.
Enfield, Illinois was a tiny town of about 750 residents in 1973. On the night of April 25th, 1973, Henry McDaniel reported he had just come home from a meeting when he heard something scratching at his front door.
McDaniel went to the door and saw what he initially thought was a bear.
“It was trying to get in the house,” McDaniel said.
He ran to his bedroom to retrieve a flashlight and pistol and when he returned, he saw the creature in his yard.
“It had three legs on it,” McDaniel said, “a short body, two little short arms, and two pink eyes as big as flashlights. It stood four-and-a-half to five feet tall and was grayish colored.”
McDaniel said he fired four shots at it. He told Dennis Montgomery from the Associated Press “When I fired that first shot, I know I hit it.” McDaniel claimed it hissed like a wildcat and covered 50 feet in three jumps then disappeared into some brush along the railroad tracks behind his home.
McDaniel called the authorities and a responding trooper from the State police, James Masser, said McDaniel appeared rational and sober.
McDaniel later told a reporter “If they do find it, they will find more than one and they won't be from this planet, I can tell you that.”
The men investigated and found no sign of the monster but McDaniel told the Mt. Vernon Register they found tracks in the soft ground outside his home. McDaniel described them as looking like a dog’s footprint except with 6 toes.
A creature with three legs and six toes on each foot? Let’s retreat to science for a moment. The only three-legged animal that you have a chance of running into is usually a dog that heroically survived a battle with either cancer or a car. There are no known three-legged animals. Also, every land vertebrate we know of has 5 toes, max, unless it’s some kind of aberrant mutation or something.
The Register story, published two days after McDaniel’s sighting, makes mention of one other thing, without much context:
McDaniel said he was sure it wasn’t a dog and was positive it wasn’t a kangaroo because, he said, he once had a pet kangaroo while he was serving with the Army in Australia.
When you read the contemporaneous press coverage of Henry McDaniel’s account, there is a subtle but ever-present literary smirk apparent in many of the stories — in a town as small as Enfield, everybody knew Henry and his credibility was dubious. And if Henry McDaniel’s account of the monster was the first, your skepticism would be understandable. The townsfolk were.
The waitress at the Ecko Cafe and Motel told a reporter “I hate to dispute somebody’s word on that, but I doubt it.”
On May 6th, McDaniel called radio station WWKI and reported he had seen the monster again, in the dark of early morning, silhouetted against the sky as it negotiated a nearby railroad trestle. That night, WWKI News Director Rick Rainbow went to Enfield accompanied by a radio station client, a man named Ed Phillips. According to Henry McDaniel, Phillips was also an avid big game hunter and brought a veritable arsenal of tranquilizer guns and other specialized weapons.
The men were reportedly in town for two days and claimed to have seen the creature in an abandoned building near McDaniel’s house. Rainbow even claimed to have captured a recording of the creature’s wail, but on May 8th, things came to a head.
On a report of gunshots, White County Sheriff's deputies arrested 5 men, all from out-of-town, all under the age of 20. Initially the men were reported to be in town to hunt the monster.
Two of the men said they saw a gray, hairy creature streaking into the underbrush and that it moved faster than a man. Four of them fired at it and two of them claimed they hit it.
White County Deputy Sheriff Jim Clark said “Nothing I know of is in season now, especially monsters. Anybody we know of out hunting monsters, especially with guns, will be put in jail. We’re afraid they’ll kill somebody.”
Rick Rainbow’s monster hunt radio stunt quickly came to an end after the arrests and the Sheriff's department later played-down the “monster hunt” arrests as just some good ole boys having a good time with a few too many barley pops.
By May 16th of 1973, a man named Alan Yorkshire of Elyria, OH wrote a letter to the newspaper in Enfield. The problem… there was no newspaper in Enfield. So City Treasurer Myrtis Fields opened the letter and reported the contents back to the police.
Yorkshire believed the Enfield monster was his kangaroo, Macey, who had either escaped or been stolen. He offered a $500 reward for the animal’s return and announced plans to visit the city to search for the animal, but we were unable to find anything further on whether he ever found the animal.
About six weeks later and 70 miles to the southwest, Randy Needham and Judy Johnson were about to have a terrifying encounter at the Lindell Street boat ramp in Murphysboro. It was June 25th, 1973.
According a City of Murphysboro police report 19-year-old Randy Needham arrived in-person at the Murphysboro Police Department with a wild story to tell. Needham said he and his girlfriend, Judy Johnson, had been parked by the boat ramp when Randy saw an unknown creature north of the Big Muddy River.
Officers Nash and Lindsey responded to the scene and Randy Needham and Judy Johnson met them there. While there, the youths explained what they had experienced. Quoting from the report:
Complainant was parked on the south side of the parking area next to the woods. Complainant heard a loud screaming sound in the wooded area and observed a large creature approximately 7 feet tall. The creature appeared to have light colored hair, matted with mud. The creature appeared to be walking on two legs and was proceeding toward his car. The creature continued the screaming, changing tones and proceeding toward the car. Complainant then left the area and came to MPD.
When questioned further, Judy Johnson admitted that she heard the monster’s cry but did not see it since she was inside the car and it was very dark outside. However both Judy and Randy agreed that no human would be able to make a howl as loud as the one they had heard.
Needham and the Officers investigated near the riverbank and found 12-inch tracks in the mud from feet that had sunk 3-to-4 inches into the muck, sometimes three feet apart.
The investigating officers left the scene to get boots which would allow them to investigate more thoroughly and returned with Deputy Sheriff Scott and Randy Needham. They found more tracks, and while Officer Lindsey returned to his squad car to get a camera to photograph the tracks, Scott, Patrolman Nash and Needham bent over to examine a track in the mud.
Just then, an ear-splitting scream pierced the night air.
Again quoting from the report:
While officers and complainant were bent over some of the tracks inspecting them, a loud shrill scream came from the wooded area to the southeast near the river and seemed to be approximately 100 yards away. Needham immediately stated that that was the creature.
Officer Nash would later say “I was leaning over when there was the most incredible shriek I’ve ever heard. It was in those bushes. That was no bobcat or screech owl and we hightailed it out of there.”
From the report:
Officer Nash, Deputy Scott and Needham retreated out of the wooded area and back to the squad car and advised Officer Lindsey what had occurred and requested Sgt. Tincher to come to the scene to photograph the tracks.
The next night, June 26, 1973, 4 year old Christian Baril had been chasing fireflies in the back yard when he came running inside. “Daddy, Daddy, there’s a big ghost out back.” Christian’s parents didn’t think anything of it and brushed it off.
Ten minutes later at the Ray family’s neighboring property, Cheryl Ray and her boyfriend Randy Creath would have an encounter. From a City of Murphysboro Police Report:
“Upon arrival officers were met by Cheryl A. Ray and Randy E. Creath, which gave them the following account of what had occurred. Randy and Cheryl were sitting on the patio talking when they observed something moving around a patch of small trees in the field behind 37 Westwood Lane. Both Randy and Cheryl watched and observed a large creature walk out of the patch of trees near the edge of the yard and then turn around and walk back into the field. The creature was described as 7 to 8 feet tall, weighing 300 to 350 pounds, pale dirty white or cream colored, and standing on two feet. Creath stated that he walked toward it and he got approximately 30 to 40 feet from it. Creath also stated that it had a musky odor to it.”
The police report goes on to detail how a private tracker dog, a 90-pound German shepherd named Reb, was brought in to track the creature, and the dog followed the monster’s scent, hesitating to sniff the surroundings whenever it detected a black slime that the creature left behind.
Reb tracked the scent to an abandoned barn. The dog’s handler called Officer Nash to the scene because the dog would not enter the barn, which was very unusual. The dog was trained to search buildings and had never been known to refuse to enter a building.
The handler pushed the dog inside the barn door and the dog ran right back out.
Eventually officers searched the barn themselves and nothing was found, but it was a very strange event.
On July 2nd in Mount Vernon, Illinois, northeast of Murphysboro and northwest of Enfield, 6 teenagers and a 24-year-old man reported seeing “The Pumphouse Monster” in the wooded-areas around Casey Fork Creek.
Two of the teenagers were on Tolle Road when they saw the creature step out of the brush and into the road. It was described as about six feet two inches tall with beady eyes and a flat nose. From the chest up, the creature was bald, but it’s lower body was covered with hair. The boys said it scared them to death, and their dog, too.
Sightings of creatures and monsters continued around Illinois all summer and Burt Miller, owner of the Miller Carnival, reported on July 7th, 1973 that several of his carnival workers had seen a monster.
The workers reported twice finding an ape-like creature standing near the carnival’s ponies, which were tied up in a grassy area behind the carnival trucks. The creature appeared to be interested in the ponies, and each time they spotted the creature, a worker would run to get the boss only to find the monster gone when they returned. Miller said he had initially been reluctant to report the sightings for fear it would keep people away from the carnival.
Sightings continued into the fall and the Winona Daily News reported on November 8th, 1973:
It is a creature that has brought a real kind of Halloween to Murphysboro’s 10,000 citizens and although the hobgoblin is so far benevolent, no one here is taking any chances. Many have armed themselves and a good number of God-fearing families decided to curtail traditional trick or treating rounds.
They canceled trick-or-treating in Murphysboro because of a monster. Hmm... There’s a first time for everything.
The eyewitness accounts from the early Murphysboro encounters have left many to question whether the reports are even related to the Enfield Monster, since the Murphysboro sightings seem to be more of a Bigfoot-type humanoid than a three-legged kangaroo monster.
And maybe that’s the point.
Whatever was happening around Illinois in 1973, it was happening a lot, over a wide area, and each person had their own unique experience. Some saw an anthropoid Bigfoot-like ape or primate. Some saw a giant three-legged monster that others labeled an escaped kangaroo. And the Pumphouse Monster sounds a lot like a giant rat.
The description of the creature is not what people’s accounts have in common.
The description of people is what the creature accounts have in common.
Beyond 1973, sightings of the monsters of central and southern Illinois continued on occasion, including a well-publicized sighting by Ricky Kells, David Taylor and Russell Ward on June 19th, 1976.
And just a few years later, Western Illinois University published a study on social contagion as it relates to the Enfield Monster Case — social contagion being the currently accepted terminology for what we used to pejoratively refer to as mass hysteria.
Social Contagion is an assumption that “under certain conditions, widespread masses of people rapidly and unanimously adopt patterns of behavior that are intense, unwitting and non-rational.”
Social contagion or “mass hysteria” is interesting because it’s a conclusion that frequently forces eyewitnesses to choose between insisting their hard-to-believe account is true or admitting they’ve been swept up in nonsensical hysteria. Just like a rube taken in a street corner pigeon drop, nobody wants to admit they’ve been fooled, or even worse, caught up in the hijinks to the degree that they not only witnessed events but are now participating in the reports.
If you witnessed a UFO in the sky last night, and you were certain you saw a UFO, would you readily admit you were wrong when the sighting is plausibly explained today?
What if you already told all your friends what you saw?
What if a person slightly exaggerated what they saw? Would that person then be less-likely to admit the truth, because admitting the truth would expose their fibbery?
These are questions we have to ask when we’re gauging the truthfulness and motivation of reports like the Enfield, Big Muddy, Murphysboro and Pumphouse Monsters.
And this wouldn’t be a fully honest account if we didn’t mention that this isn’t the first time a town in central Illinois has been swept up in mass hysteria. 30 years earlier, just up the road, a “Mad Gasser” terrorized the tiny town of Mattoon, Illinois.
He would allegedly sneak up to the window and shoot poison gas into women’s bedrooms while they slept. No credible evidence of an actual gasser was ever found, and it was an instance experts branded mass hysteria, or social contagion in today’s parlance.
Depending on which account you’re talking about, a number of exotic pets could account for any of the sightings that are legitimate. The idea that a kangaroo could look like a monster with three legs when it’s sitting in the dark with its tail in the tripod position is totally plausible. And if the sightings of the Murphysboro Monster are accurate in describing an ape-like creature, that could also be someone’s escaped exotic pet or animal from a roadside zoo or animal attraction.
Based on the research for this episode, one particular scenario seems likely.
Two days after Henry McDaniel’s first sighting of the monster, he told a newspaper reporter that he was sure it wasn’t a kangaroo because he used to have one as a pet when he served in the Army in Australia.
This would seem to be a startling admission for two reasons.
First, it would seem to be an unsolicited denial. Henry McDaniel seemed to be saying “No, it’s not a kangaroo” before anybody was saying it was a kangaroo. Whenever somebody denies doing something you haven’t accused them of, it should immediately raise a red flag.
Second, Henry was openly admitting he had a fascination with kangaroos.
Even so, not enough evidence to indict the memory of Henry McDaniel, right?
On July 28, 1973 the Moline Dispatch published another interview with Henry McDaniel, nearly three months after his initial report, and this time he offered more detail on his former pet kangaroo.
He reiterated his description of the creature he saw and continued to insist it was not a kangaroo when he said “I used to have one as a pet myself until I sold it to this fella that had an animal show.”
This, again, is revealing talk, because McDaniel is admitting he has some familiarity with the business of live animals and roadside zoos, etc...
Let’s engage in some hypothetical thinking here.
Henry McDaniel, an eccentric who apparently loved kangaroos and once had one as a pet, ahem, came into the possession of a kangaroo that once belonged to an animal attraction run by Alan Yorkshire in Elyria, Ohio.
Could he have stolen it? Possibly. Could he have unwittingly purchased the animal from another person who stole it? That’s a possibility, too.
Continuing the hypothetical, McDaniel, a disabled veteran, loved having the kangaroo around for a couple days but quickly discovered he would not be able to care for it or keep it hidden.
Maybe it escaped from him or maybe he turned it loose on purpose, but either way, he called the authorities for an altruistic purpose — to make sure the animal was taken care of.
He called the authorities reporting a “monster” (because it gets attention) thinking they would show up, discover it was a kangaroo, capture the animal and send it to a zoo somewhere to live out its days in comfort. But it didn’t happen.
Instead, a whole generation of urban legends were spawned when other sightings followed — folklore that’s lasted 50 years so far.
There’s no evidence to support any of this conjecture, it’s just a hypothetical. Henry McDaniel was never accused of anything more than being an eccentric. However, he would be far from the first person to abandon an animal he could no longer care for.
In that scenario the question of what exactly stalked Illinois in 1973 is something of a hybrid explanation between social contagion and the unknown. Most lend credence to the later sightings of a monster while discounting the original reports from McDaniel. And it’s quite possible that Henry’s reports were bunk and some of the later reports were actual sightings of an animal that was misidentified.
On the McDaniel and WWKI Enfield reports, Western Illinois’ University’s study concluded:
“In this area of Southern Illinois, it is not unreasonable to assume Mr. M or the radio news team had actually seen an animal. People we interviewed framed the recent events in these terms. Their accounts admitted the possibility that large dogs, calves, bears, deer, and wildcats had been sighted. Some frames suggested that an exotic pet, such as an ape or a kangaroo, was the catalyst for the monster reports. Finally, some people tactfully suggested that Mr. M. had a notoriously overactive imagination and had probably been shooting at shadows. In any event, we interviewed only one person who agreed with Mr. M's claim that he had indeed seen ‘a monster from outer space.’"
It would be easy to disregard the entire Enfield Monster summer of 1973 as baloney based on the lack of credibility of the first report, but there are a couple sticky facts.
What did Randy Needham, Officer Nash and Deputy Scott hear bellow at them on the night of June 25th? That was real, whatever it was, and had nothing to do with Henry McDaniel.
Also, remember earlier when I said “if Henry McDaniel’s account of the monster was the first, your skepticism would be understandable?”
Would you be surprised to find out it wasn’t the first?
In July of 1972, just on the other side of St. Louis, not even three hours away by car, residents of Pike County were on the lookout all summer for an ape-like creature that had been spotted in the area. One person reported it picked up the rear of his car by the bumper. Another eyewitness claimed to see the creature crossing the highway with either a dog or a sheep in its mouth.
There’s no question that people did, and still do, see things in the heartland, for any number of reasons, but considering the age of the mystery and the simple curiosity of the question, it’s quite likely that an explanation of the monsters in Illinois, unanswered since 1973, might remain forever Unresolved.
Episode Information
Episode Information
Research and writing by Troy Larson
Hosting and production by Micheal Whelan
Published on March 13th, 2022
Music Credits
Original music created by Micheal Whelan through Amper Music
Theme music created and composed by Ailsa Traves
Sources and other reading
● A Critical Examination of the Social Contagion Image of Collective Behavior: The Case of the Enfield Monster by David L. Miller, Kenneth J. Mietus and Richard A. Mathers
● A “Monster” at Enfield - Mt Vernon Register News, April 27, 1973
● Arrest 5 at Enfield; Monsters “Not in Season” - Mt Vernon Register News, May 9, 1973
● Big Muddy Monster - Murphysboro.com
● City of Murphysboro Police Department - Complaint/Offense Report, Case 73-2547, June 26, 1973
● City of Murphysboro Police Department - Complaint/Offense Report, Case 73-2566, June 26, 1973
● City of Murphysboro Police Department - Complaint/Offense Report, Case 73-2745, July 7, 1973
● City of Murphysboro Police Department - Complaint/Offense Report, Case 62908, June 19, 1976
● Enfield Monster — a Pet Kangaroo? - Mt Vernon Register News, May 16, 1973
● Folklore - Wikipedia
● Folklore of the United States - Wikipedia
● Folks Don’t Believe in Henry’s Critter - Moline Daily Dispatch, July 28, 1973
● Former City Man Believes in Monsters - Decatur Herald, May 15, 1973
● Henry’s Grey-Haired Critter Puts Village in a Dither - The Lima News, August 26, 1973
● Mt. V. Teenagers Say There Is “Monster” at Pumphouse? - Mt Vernon Register News, June 29, 1973
● On the Square: A Star is Born - Journal Gazette, May 30, 1973
● Outdoors with Art Reid - Southern Illinoisan, May 2, 1973
● Pike Countians on the Lookout for a Monster - Springfield News Leader, July 19, 1972
● Sees “Monster” - Mt Vernon Register News, Jul 2, 1973
● Smelly Creature Irks Town - Winona Daily News, November 8th, 1973
● The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter, 1978)
● Townsfolk Stay Skeptical About Illinois Monster - Indianapolis Star, July 22, 1973