THE BEAST OF BOGGY CREEK: The True Story of the Fouke Monster (30 page)

As we move into the 1980s there are still some very impressive sightings, such as the one by Terry Sutton, but these are all limited to the Jonesville area or farther south in Mercer Bayou. Likewise in the early 1990s, two of the best sightings on record—where an unexplainable creature was seen by multiple witnesses—are confined to areas strictly on the outskirts of Fouke along Highway 71 or near the McKinney Bayou.

As farmland and other development continued around the immediate Fouke area, Jonesville stayed relatively remote. It is, therefore, not surprising that sightings in the later part of the 1990s were still being reported by Jonesville residents. The fact that no encounters closer to Fouke are on record, only strengthens the theory that the creature had permanently retreated to more remote areas to the south or southwest.

Three well-documented sightings by hunters are on record for the year 2000. In each case, the encounters took place near the Sulphur River south of Jonesville, as if to underscore the creature’s slow progression southward to avoid the expansion of humanity. Following these sightings, survey and construction began for the Highway 549 project. During this time a few incidents were reported in the same area, but they seem to drop off dramatically as major construction got underway in 2002-2003.

As we approach the current era, even more clearing and development has taken place along the routes of Highway 549, State Highway 247 (Blackman Ferry Road) and other places, further reducing the chances that any such creature in his right mind would venture too far out of the dark reaches of Mercer Bayou or the bottomlands of the Sulphur River. I spoke to lifelong Jonesville resident Bob Sleeper during my research and he affirmed the slow evolution of landscape in the area. “As I boy, I used to walk all over this land from the Sulphur River to Texarkana,” he told me. “I could disappear in there for weeks and never come across any other people. But now it’s been cleared out so much, it’s not the same.”

Sleeper admitted that he has never seen the creature himself but agrees that sightings in the area would naturally be reduced as the land is cleared and the Texarkana metropolitan area expands. What was once an endless horizon of timber and swampland is slowly succumbing to the jaws of civilization. The land still has the power to hold secrets, but those secrets must be buried deeper into the recesses of shadow if they are to survive. Boggy Creek still holds Fouke in the grasp of its watery tendrils, but its namesake creature may well have abandoned his once favorite route.

Trouble with Three Toes

It has been notoriously difficult to obtain hard evidence of the Sasquatch. As anyone who has watched one of the many television documentaries on the subject over the years well knows, all we have to show for the 50+ years of study on this phenomenon is a handful of grainy videos, an assortment of dubious photos, a few batches of inconclusive hair samples, and a warehouse full of footprint casts that vary widely in shape and size. These items, along with the eyewitness accounts, are the clues we have as to what the creature might be. Without a body there can never be any positive DNA samples, hair comparisons, or any other firm scientific proof that higher primates may exist on the North American continent. This lack of hard evidence certainly does not rule out the possibility of its existence, but it does little to conclusively solve the mystery, and oftentimes it raises more questions than it answers.

People often ask: “why doesn’t anyone ever find a body?” or “how come nobody can get a clear picture?” as if the lack of these items somehow disproves the case. But you might just as well ask “when’s the last time you ran across a dead bear in the road?” Probably never, even though bears are a very prominent species in North America. Likewise, when an unexpected animal accidentally presents itself for a few scant seconds, who has time to focus the camera for a glamour shot before it moves back into the trees? It’s natural to ask these questions, but in the end they don’t lead us any closer to an answer.

It seems that for all the questions and scholarly conjecture, there is also the matter of just how a person wishes to view the data. A different perspective can be applied to almost any scenario when solid scientific proof is not there to provide an iron-clad answer. If someone believes in the possibility of Sasquatch-type creatures, then they might see details in a photo that support that view. If they don’t wish to embrace this concept, then they can just as easily see the photo in a totally different light. This is the way the human brain works.

The same goes for the countless footprints that have been found and attributed to an undocumented species of animal that, by all indications, has evolved to have a foot similar to that of man. The casts made from these footprints offer some of the best circumstantial evidence in support of Sasquatch, especially if we accept that some contain actual dermal ridge details (i.e., fingerprint lines), but still they cannot offer the ultimate answer to the question until there is a known sample with which to make a comparison.

In the case of the Fouke Monster, we do not have any videos or photos, blurry or otherwise. Nor do we have any definitive hair samples. The only somewhat solid evidence that the monster has possibly left behind has been the imprint of its foot. But like the Sasquatch phenomenon as a whole, these do not solve the mystery, and in fact, only throw more questions in the ring due to the unique properties of the Fouke Monster tracks.

The trouble with most of the prominent Fouke Monster tracks is that they show the creature as having three toes. While there have been some “Bigfoot” tracks found elsewhere across the United States that possess this three-toed configuration and even a four-toed configuration, in general, the Sasquatch is theorized to have five toes, which would be typical of any other higher primate, whether extinct or living in the world today. If the Fouke Monster is presumed to be one of these animals, and it does indeed have three toes, this may suggest that it is some species separate from any proposed population of Sasquatch creatures that may exist in the countryside. Understandably, this is something of a problem when trying to simplify the case for the Fouke Monster, since it implies that the creature might not even be a logical evolution of a primate—albeit a yet-to-be-discovered one—and makes it that much harder to believe there just might be something to all these sightings. John Green does a good job of expressing this problem in his book,
Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us
:

Most show five toes, but about 20 percent of reports describe either four toes or three toes. Probably the proportion with less than five toes is not actually that great. The number of toes often is not mentioned in a footprint report, and it seems likely that when prints show three or four toes that would usually be remarked on, while five toes would be taken for granted.

If there were just five-toed tracks and three-toed tracks and each type was of consistent shape, I would accept that as a clear indication of two different species. Since there are four-toed tracks as well, and the three-toes kind are very inconsistent in shape, I don’t think such a conclusion would help much.

The foremost set of tracks attributed to the Fouke Monster were those found in Willie Smith’s bean field on June 13, 1971. The footprints were measured to be 13.5 inches long by 4.5 inches wide and had a maximum distance of 57 inches between them. There was also the impression of some kind of digit several inches back from the big toe, but this was faint and at no time did it make a solid impression in the soft soil. The tracks definitely gave the impression of a large bipedal animal, which was puzzling to start with, but what made them even more mysterious is that the animal only had three main toes.

Some people who saw the tracks in person had doubts as to their authenticity. “I noticed that it stepped over the plants,” reporter Jim Powell recalled. To him, it seemed a bit too convenient that the animal would have avoided stepping on any of the soybean plants. Even scientists weighed in on the debate. In an article appearing five days after the first report, in the June 17 edition of the
Texarkana Gazette
, archaeologist Frank Schambach from Southern State College in Magnolia, Arkansas, voiced his suspicions. “There is a 99 percent chance the tracks are a hoax,” he stated for the record. Since the monster had been described thus far as some type of ape, he was quick to point out to the Fouke Monster fanbase, that: “All primates have five toes. This in my opinion would rule out any type of monkey or ape.”

Some were not so quick to jump to conclusions either way, however. Rick Roberts noted the long stride measurements and the sheer number of tracks. “It would have been really hard to fake those,” he told me, remembering his first impression when he saw the tracks in person as teenager. The game warden, Carl Gaylon, who examined the tracks at the time, could not make a definite ruling either, only that he had never seen tracks like that before. Constable Walraven, who was dubious about the monster at first, seemed swayed by the new evidence.

Smokey Crabtree weighed on the matter by telling the
Texarkana Gazette
that “the tracks found in the area in 1963 looked like the same print.” This evidence also matched observations made at the Ford house six weeks earlier. According to the news report, “All that remained Sunday morning at the Ford house was several strange tracks—that appeared to be left by something with three toes…”

Another set of tracks thought to belong to the Fouke Monster was found by Orville Scoggins on November 25, 1973, after he witnessed a strange hairy animal walking on two legs across his field. These measured 5.5 inches in diameter and were 40 inches apart. Admittedly, it doesn’t appear that these tracks were made by the same culprit who made the 13.5 inch tracks, but Constable Walraven was quoted as saying: “These are the same tracks that were found the first time the monster was sighted,” indicating a connection.

Another vintage track cast is owned by Tom Zorn, who grew up in Fouke and has spent much of his life researching the Fouke Monster himself. The track casting was made in 1973 by Doris L. Brown, although I do not know the circumstances behind its discovery. It measures roughly 15 inches in length and 6.5 inches wide at the ball. The cast is extremely rough and does not show a very clear indication of the toe count one way or another.

More recently, people have reported finding tracks of the five-toed sort. These are obviously more in line with Sasquatch standards, but this only seems to confuse matters even more since they were not found in conjunction with any creature sighting, nor do they conform to the prominent belief that the Fouke creature has
three
toes.

The best of these five-toed samples—and the only specimen I have personally examined—was cast by Doyle Holmes in November 2004. The track, which represents the imprint of a left foot, measures 15 inches long by 8.5 inches wide at the toes and 5.5 inches wide at the ball. The photo here (and rather poor casting quality) does not do it justice, but upon examining it in person, it clearly has five distinct toe impressions. It also appears to have some kind of growth or bunion protruding from under the largest toe, which was consistent with all tracks found in the area.

Whatever or whoever created the tracks was not spotted at the time, but the circumstances surrounding their discovery suggest that they were not likely to be a hoax nor the impressions of any known animal in the area. I interviewed Mr. Holmes at length and also spoke to his son, Nathan, who initially spotted the tracks, and found them to be straightforward and sincere about their story. Holmes (mentioned previously in conjunction with the Giles “ape attack” of 1974), is a lifetime resident of Doddridge. He grew up hearing stories of the Fouke Monster and still lives in the area south of Mercer Bayou where he and his son often hunt and fish.

The discovery of the tracks took place a day or two after Thanksgiving in 2004. Holmes and his son were making the best of the holiday and decided to head up to what the locals call “Carter Lake” to hunt wild hogs. The swampy area can be extremely uncomfortable during the hot months, so a brisk hunt in the waning days of November is regarded as a welcome getaway.

As was their ritual, the father and son picked out some guns, lashed their canoe to the bed of their pickup, and drove the short distance up County Road 35 toward Carter Lake. When they reached the point where the road dead-ends into the swampy waters of Mercer Bayou, they parked the truck and traded their wheels for paddles.

Doyle and Nathan made their way down the water-gorged flatland, which meanders through a colony of standing cypress and an endless blanket of moss. About halfway to Carter Lake, the duo parked the canoe at the edge of the water between two old cypress trees and got out to look for signs of hogs. A short time later they came up on a large group of hogs and began to follow them along the bank near the water. As Nathan was looking for traces of hog tracks, trying to determine which way they had gone, he noticed a strange set of footprints leading out of the water toward a berry patch nearby. The tracks registered clearly in the moist soil, numbering about ten total, before they disappeared into vegetation. Hog tracks were one thing, but these looked very peculiar, so Nathan called his father over for a second opinion. Doyle inspected the tracks and was shocked at the size. They appeared human, with five toes, but they were much larger and had an oddly shaped foot.