THE MYSTERY OF THE FOUKE MONSTER 

Susan Webber Wright 

The Edelweiss 

May 9, 2025 

The Mystery of the Fouke Monster 

Scotland has the Loch Ness Monster, and the little town of Fouke, in Miller County, Arkansas, has the Fouke Monster, which bears a strong resemblance to what we now call a sasquatch or a bigfoot.  To many believers, the Fouke Monster is a reality, not a mystery.  But for those who have never encountered the monster, its existence remains a mystery or perhaps even a hoax. 

Fouke is a community in the Sulphur River bottoms a few miles southeast of Texarkana on Highway 71.   An incident in May, 1971 spurred the public interest in an alleged creature that Texarkana Gazette news reporter Jim Powell called  “The Fouke Monster,”  an appellation that continues to this day.   The incident involved three people who reported that on the night of May 2 they encountered a very large, aggressive, ape-like creature covered in hair.  Two of these individuals, brothers Bobby and Don Ford, reported that in a scuffle the monster had put its arm around Bobby’s neck and  that they had fired seven shots at it and were certain they had hit it. But there were no traces of blood.  Bobby, who was hospitalized and allegedly in shock following the attack, claimed that the creature was about 7 feet tall and had a chest that was three feet wide. The first person to have seen the creature that night was Bobby’s wife, Elizabeth, who saw its arm as it reached through a screened window in their house as she was lying on a couch.  Her screams had alerted the men, who were hunting near the house.  Jim Powel, the reporter, went to the scene the next day and saw strange-looking footprints behind the house, along with several saplings that someone or something had bent over, apparently as he, she, or it had headed into the nearby woods.  

The news spread quickly and gained national attention. The community was besieged with monster hunters and law enforcement were addled and perhaps overwhelmed with the number of outsiders.  The Miller County Sheriff, Leslie Greer, set a “no gun” policy because he thought that someone might be accidentally shot. A Little Rock station offered a bounty of $1,090 as monster hunters and their dogs filled the nearby woods.  Not many days later few other Fouke residents reported sightings of an ape-like creature, and more footprints were found in a farmer’s soybean field in straight row.  None of the farmer’s plants were damaged. 

About a month after the incident involving the Fords, an archaeologist from Southern State College in Magnolia concluded that there was a 99 percent chance that the footprints, both at the Ford house and at the soybean field, were man-made, as they had three toes, while apes have five toes.  He also pointed out that apes are not nocturnal, as was this alleged creature, and that apes are not indigenous to the area. 

Even though this incident brought fame to the Fouke Monster, it was not the first time a large, hairy creature was reported in the area.  According to the Memphis Enquirer such a creature was seen in 1851.  In 1955 a teenager claimed to have fired birdshot at a large hairy animal that was seemingly unaffected by the shots.  But an investigator determined that this animal was a bear.   Some residents say that there were sightings, not reported to authorities, in 1964 near Fouke in a place called Jonesville.  Sheriff Greer had heard about a monster in 1946, when a woman told him she had seen “some kind of animal go down in the field in a low, bushy place.  She said it looked kind of like a man, and walked like a man, but she didn’t think it was a man.”  The sheriff did not give this conversation much thought until 1971 after the alleged attack on the Fords.  

Monster sightings have continued to this day.   Will Lunsford, a Texarkana resident, reported some very frightening experiences in the river bottoms in 1977, when he was 17 years old and fishing alone. He describes the creature he saw as being similar to a gorilla, emitting a disgusting odor, and growling or roaring so loudly that the sound vibrated his clothes.  He has now had around 40 sightings and has written a book about his experiences and his research. He believes that there are several species of sasquatch. 

 Fouke has made the most of its monster, as it has a convenience store called the Monster Mart which includes a museum featuring plaster casts of big footprints, photographs of monster hunters and experts, and even stuffed likenesses of the monster. The Mart sells books, souvenirs, monster movies, and T-shirts.  The town holds an annual Fouke Monster Festival, the proceeds from which go to scholarships for local high school students. The festival has included wrestling matches, story times, and speakers from across the country.  The 2025 festival even included a speaker about another captivating local mystery, the Texarkana “phantom killer,” who has never been identified and who murdered several Texarkana residents in the 1940’s. 

THE MOVIES  

Movies about the monster abound, or so it seems.  The Legend of Boggy Creek, produced by Charles B. Pierce, was the first and most successful movie about the monster. According to Wikipedia, it was released in 1972 on a budget of $160,000 that was secured by a local trucking company.  It grossed more than $20 million and was one of the more financially successful films of the year. This movie is a documentary, or a “docudrama,” and some of the actors are actually the very people who have had encounters with the monster.   Reviews were generally favorable, not for the acting, but for the sense of foreboding in the eerily beautiful scenes of swamps where the monster lurks.  It was reported to be particularly popular at drive-in theatres. 

Other movies, apparently not very successful at the box office, include Return to Boggy Creek (1977), a purported sequel to the first movie which had no connection to Charles Pierce.  It was totally fiction.  Charles Pierce directed and acted in Boggy Creek II:  And the Legend Continues (1984), which received unfavorable reviews and which Pierce regretted making and said that it was his worst movie.  Another movie, not made by Pierce, was Boggy Creek :  The Legend is True  (2010).  This is a horror show about monsters that attack the characters.  Yet another movie was The Legacy of Boggy Creek (2011), which, like the original movie, is a docudrama featuring Fouke Monster encounters as well as encounters with such creatures elsewhere.  The most recent movie is The Boggy Creek Monster (2016), also a documentary about the search for the Fouke Monster and the history of encounters with it.  These movies are not the only ones that focus on the Fouke Monster or other such creatures, and they are mentioned here only to show a continued interest in this topic. 

BIGFOOT OR SASQUATCH 

The mystery of the Fouke monster has become interrelated to the question of the existence of a bipedal, ape-like or humanoid creature known as a bigfoot or sasquatch.  In this paper the terms “bigfoot” and “sasquatch” are synonymous, and the word “sasquatch” refers to both singular and plural. Other names for this type of creature include “skunk ape” in Florida, “booger man” and “grass man” in parts of the United States, and “yeti” or “abominable snowman” in the Himalayas.  Except for the allegation that the monster seen in 1971 had three, not five, toes, the Fouke monster generally has the characteristics of the bipedal, hairy, enormous ape-like creatures, reportedly seen in most parts of North America, if not the world.  In fact, Will Lunsford has said that footprints that he has seen have five toes, not three. 

Here is an unexhaustive list of characteristics reported by those who have experienced encounters with these creatures: 

• Their size is enormous:  heights range from 7 to 10 feet for adults, both male and female. Their weight is estimated to be in the hundreds of pounds. They seem to have no neck or a very thick one, and arms so long that they hang below the knees. Their bodies are very muscular and they exhibit extraordinary strength when they rapidly climb steep hills, uproot trees, and throw heavy rocks, for example. 

• Their footprints ordinarily have 5 toes and are similar to those of humans but are much longer and wider, although smaller footprints, presumably from young sasquatch, are reported. Tracks show footprints that are sometimes five feet apart, indicating the stride of a large, tall being. 

• They are covered in hair, except for their faces and, in some cases, their chests. The color of the hair is brown, reddish brown like an orangutan, black like a gorilla, or sometimes gray. Some observers have even said that reddish ones resemble orangutans. They are capable of extremely loud screams or roars that cause one’s body and clothing to vibrate. The vibrations are presumably from very low frequency sound waves like those emitted by other animals, including whales and elephants. These    vocalizations are not the only ones that a sasquatch can make, as it can mimic other animals, such as owls and coyotes, and can even whistle or tweet.  When sasquatch are together in close range of each other, they speak to each other in a sort of clicking and clacking gibberish unintelligible to humans, that some sasquatch researchers have called “samurai.”  Researchers in the field have been able to make audio recordings of these vocalizations 

• They also communicate by knocking a tree trunk with a big piece of wood.  Some people report that they will respond in kind when a person in their habitat makes a loud noise with a tree-trunk knock. 

• They sometimes uproot trees or snap off tree trunks or limbs with great strength.  They bend sapplings and make distinguishable structures from them and from branches. They create nests, where they presumably sleep. 

• To warn a human to leave their territory, they might throw small rocks, or even large ones, to send a message.  And to stop a human on a trail, they might leave an uprooted tree across the path. 

• They can make facial expressions such as baring their teeth or smiling. 

• Some are aggressive, as reported in Fouke.  But others seem only curious and are known to hide behind a tree to observe nearby humans. 

• If a person leaves a gift, such as an apple, for a sasquatch, the latter might leave a gift in return. 

• They are apparently omnivores, as they reportedly enjoy different types of foods and have been known to kill and eat livestock, deer, and fish.    

• They are active both day and night, although many of the scariest encounters take place at night. 

• They destroy or avoid trail cameras, so there are not many trail camera photos of them. 

• Other creatures will become still and silent when they sense the presence of a nearby sasquatch. Dogs that sense their presence and are fearful and cower. 

THE EVIDENCE 

Evidence of the existence of these creatures lies mostly in eyewitness accounts, photographs, audio recordings, and discovery of large footprints.  There are at least 13 podcast series featuring people who say they have seen or heard these creatures and there are several television series featuring people who are hunting them. There are plenty of books and research organizations on the subject, including the aforementioned account by Will Lunsford and a 2024 book by J. Robert Swain, entitled Arkansas Bigfoot, that focuses on sightings in Arkansas by county. Facebook has sites featuring photos and videos of images said to be sasquatch, and there are numerous websites featuring photos, videos, and stories about these creatures.    Many Native American tribes have believed in their existence for generations, as have peoples in other parts of the world. Until around the middle of the twentieth century, reported sightings in North America were most numerous in the Pacific Northwest regions of the United States and nearby Canada.  But today sightings are nearly everywhere in the United States where there are expansive forests or swamps, areas rich in food sources and uninhabited by humans.

One source wrote in 2018 that interest in sasquatch was at an all-time high. In 2021 officials in Oklahoma offered a $2.1 million bounty for a sasquatch. Despite the fact that there have been over 10,000 reported sightings in the past fifty or so years, the photos and videos are not convincing to skeptics, especially now that photoshopping and artificial intelligence are widely available. No one has ever found a corpse or skeleton of a sasquatch that was not later shown to be a hoax, and DNA samples of hair found on fences or vegetation, for example, have been inconclusive as to origin or have been found to be from animals, including deer, cows, and bears.  At least one scientist has pointed out that without DNA from a known sasquatch, it is nearly impossible to determine whether a particular hair sample is from one.  

There is one bit of moderately clear film footage, known as the Patterson-Gimlin film, taken by Roger Patterson in October 1967 as he and Bob Gimlin were looking for sasquatch in the mountains of northern California. Friends had told the two of footprints found near a place called Willow Creek, and the two took their horses, provisions, and a camera to investigate. They saw and managed to film a hairy creature, with pendulous breasts, as she walked brusquely, on two feet, away from them and out of their sight.  She looked very much like the muscular, humanoid creature that others have described. Unlike photos of fake creatures with long hair that covers their bodies, she had a hairy body but the hair did not hide well-defined muscles, particularly in the calves and back.  But even this film may be fake, as an acquaintance of Patterson and Gimlin claimed years later. 

 Many say that they did not believe in sasquatch until they actually encountered one.  And some, including Will Lunsford, claim that even those who have seen these creatures do not admit to it because they fear they will be ridiculed by others, so it is possible that some who have observed sasquatch remain silent about their experiences. 

Skeptics point out that a sasquatch sighting might actually be the sighting of a bear, as bears can stand on their hind feet, are quite hairy, and can emit a very foul odor. But plenty of observers have proclaimed their certainty that what they saw was not a bear but a creature that resembled a man or an ape. More than one armed hunter has claimed that he hesitated to shoot a sasquatch because the creature so closely resembled a human. 

THE EXPERTS 

Jane Goodall, recognized as the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, indicated her belief in sasquatch on  NPR’s Talk of the Nation on September 27, 2002, when she said she believed the accounts of Native Americans who told her they had seen and heard sasquatch.  She confirmed her belief, at least in the possibility of the existence of sasquatch, in a 2012 interview with the Huffington Post.  

Probably the most credible scientific case for the existence of sasquatch is from a professor of Anthropology and Anatomy at Idaho State University, Jeff Meldrum, who has studied the subject for decades and focuses on footprints, as his academic specialty has been the origins and evolution of bipedal hominins, i.e., humans and ancestors of humans that walk or walked on two, not four, feet.  In 2006 he published Sasquatch:  Legend Meets Science in which he presents his reasons for believing in the existence of sasquatch.  He has examined hundreds of plaster casts of footprints taken from wilderness areas that resemble human footprints but are much larger and wider. Based on his knowledge of bipedal locomotion and anatomy, as well as his study of the evolution of bipedalism in humans, he has concluded that sasquatch made some of the prints he has examined.  He does not deny that there are plenty of fake prints purporting to be those of sasquatch, but he claims that ridges and lines in the genuine footprints, as well as their depth and shape, indicate that they were made by a living creature.  He has ruled out confusion of sasquatch prints with those of bears, as he has closely examined prints made by large bears, whose feet are not shaped like and do not bend the same way as human or humanoid feet. He has also examined actual footprints purportedly made by sasquatch and has even had close encounters with a creature, supposedly a sasquatch, that entered his campground at night and opened a backpack without ripping it.  Some food items from the backpack were selectively taken, while others were left, a sasquatch behavior that others have similarly experienced. 

Meldrum does not stop with the scientific examination of footprints to make his case for the existence of these creatures.   For example, he points out that new species of animals are still being discovered by scientists, and that the studied behavior of primates is similar to the reported behavior of sasquatch.  He has faith that the Patterson-Gimlin film is not a hoax and argues that the movements of the creature (named Patty) are scientifically distinguishable from the movements of a human in a gorilla suit.  His book includes photographs and illustrations to support his conclusions. 

Meldrum also points to reliable evidence of the existence in Asia of a huge ape, Gigantopithicus, extinct for thousands of years, that was ten feet tall and weighed almost six hundred pounds.   He suggests, as have others, that it could be an ancestor of the Yeti that purportedly lives in the Himalayas and that could have reached North America over the land bridge that once connected to Siberia.  Some experts dismiss this possibility and say that this ancient ape likely was not bipedal and its DNA shows that it is more closely related to orangutans than to humans, chimpanzees, or bonobos, the primates most closely related to humans. 

  Despite Meldrum’s education, experience, and publications, he has only a few followers in academia. He reports that he has faced hostility at his university and had trouble attaining tenure because of his research and conclusions on sasquatch. Some professors in his field have disputed his methods and conclusions, and some have even claimed that his approach is pseudoscience, but he remains the most respected scientific authority among those who believe in sasquatch. He now writing another book on sasquatch. 

WHY BELIEVE IN BIGFOOT OR SASQUATCH? 

This question has no simple answers, and to believers the answer is simple:  they have seen such a creature, believe someone else who has seen one, believe the scientific evidence developed by experts such as Meldrum,  or find the photos, videos, audio recordings, and footprint evidence to be sufficient. But among our population, the believers are only a small percentage, estimated to be around 11% to 15%.  After all, the aforementioned fact that no one has produced a body, skeleton, or even a tooth of a sasquatch weighs against its existence. 

Considering the questionable evidence that can be easily fabricated or misinterpreted, why are there so many individuals who actually believe that sasquatch exist?   Here is a list of possible explanations: 

• It is scientifically possible that a huge, ape-like creature could survive in forests and swamps, where there is an ample food supply. 

• The human brain can make up explanations for things it cannot immediately interpret, and eyewitness accounts are frequently inaccurate. 

• Some people just want to believe in them. As one skeptic explained, “Man’s need to fantasize is a vestigial remnant of his past.” This might be the best explanation. Many cultures over the ages have believe in monsters of one type or another. 

It is safe to conclude that the bigfoot or sasquatch is a cryptid, or a creature whose existence cannot be proved, and that the study of sasquatch falls into the category of cryptozoology, which is the study of animals that are not recognized by mainstream science. Cryptozoology is recognized more as a hobby or subculture as opposed to a profession or recognized academic pursuit, Dr. Meldrum notwithstanding. Other examples of cryptids are the Loch Ness Monster, werewolves, and El Chupacabra (a four-legged creature in Latin American cultures that sucks blood from animals, particularly goats). 

Monsters are woven into the folklore of many communities in many cultures, and monsters do not need to exist in order to live forever in human beliefs.  So it goes with the Fouke Monster, a mysterious creature that will likely live on.  After all, it is difficult if not impossible to prove that the Fouke Monster doesn’t exist.  The evidence might be easily fabricated and weak, but, to quote another, “the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.”