63: The Enfield Horror
Kathryn (00:10)
Now I'm gonna make it awkward.
Gina (00:14)
Yeah, you have to do the intro today.
Kathryn (00:16)
I know.
Every time you do it, I'm like, it's fine. Just do X, Y, You're doing great. It's so easy. It's fine. And now I'm like.
Gina (00:21)
You'll be, it's so easy.
Mm-hmm. And you get the feeling in your gut. I don't know why I always feel like I'm public speaking.
Kathryn (00:30)
Yeah.
Yeah, that, yes. Yeah.
Gina (00:35)
Yeah.
Kathryn (00:39)
I do, I do get that feeling.
All right, okay, I just gotta do it. Hello everyone Welcome, you're listening to ice cream you scream where your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories mysteries and paranormal perplexities My name is Kathryn
Gina (00:56)
I'm Gina.
Kathryn (00:57)
And for the month of January, we are telling stories that have to do with cryptids while we eat sherbert. I have rainbow sherbert. I don't think we ever explicitly said what type of sherbert we were eating. All right, what are you eating?
Gina (01:10)
I don't think we did.
⁓ Rain, nope, not rainbow.
Kathryn (01:14)
Stop copying me!
Gina (01:19)
Raspberry, raspberry, sure.
Kathryn (01:20)
Raspberry,
that's right. Okay, I think you did say that last time. Anyway, you can have whatever flavor you want if you want to join us in the eating of the sherbert. Friendly reminder that we do post tons of behind the scenes stuff regularly on Patreon, so join us over there if you're just itching for additional content throughout the month. If that's not in the budget, if you are succeeding in your yearly goals of spending less, like I am not, ⁓ another way you can support us.
Gina (01:45)
Ha
Kathryn (01:50)
⁓ is just by leaving us a review or rating wherever you listen to us. As a thank you, we will send you a sticker if you send us a screenshot of the review along with your mailing address. That is an important part. We have had people email us saying they left us a review and have not sent us their address. So please remember to send us your address so that we can mail you your sticker. you do that, go ahead and grab a spoon and let's dig in.
Gina (02:17)
Hell yeah.
Kathryn I can't help but notice your voice sounds extra clear and sultry today. Are you doing something different with your voice perhaps?
Kathryn (02:25)
⁓
That's so funny, I was going to say the same thing about you. Yes, I have a very expensive solution. Shout out to our Patreon members. actually have a new microphone. What about you? What are you doing?
Gina (02:43)
my god, I have a new microphone too. That's wild. It's almost like we planned this and texted each other, panicking with excitement when we hit the order buttons.
Kathryn (02:47)
my God.
Yes, that was nerve-racking and mildly financially traumatizing, but in the way that it is okay because we sound great. Hopefully, hopefully you guys can notice a difference. We have had some audio issues recently, so we decided to upgrade our mics. ⁓ So hopefully moving forward we sound a little bit better. If we don't, sorry, please don't be mean about it. We're doing our best. ⁓
Gina (02:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, we're trying.
Kathryn (03:22)
⁓
yeah. So I'm very excited. I hope we sound better.
Gina (03:29)
think we probably do. I think that's the end of that story.
Kathryn (03:32)
I think so too.
Yeah. What else have you got for me?
Gina (03:40)
I have a podcast recommendation for you.
Kathryn (03:42)
Ooh, I love those.
Gina (03:44)
Yeah, so it's called Dead it is from Elizabeth and Andy from the podcast Nobody's Listening Right and it also has Monica Padman on it from Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard. And it's kind of, I don't want to tell you too much about it because it is one of those podcasts where you have to go in knowing not a whole lot in order to get the full impact.
Kathryn (03:48)
time.
Ooh.
Gina (04:07)
but it's a limited series. think, I wanna say it's only eight episodes. It's like between eight and 10. And it's about two people, Andy and Elizabeth. It's a true story. They had a podcast and something scary happened with a listener.
Kathryn (04:07)
Okay.
Okay.
Gina (04:25)
I have been binging this thing like crazy. I think I started it a day and a half ago and I'm already almost done with it. I can't stop listening to it. I will give you a warning, the first few episodes are a little tiny bit victim blamey, but they grow past that. like keep, that part is gonna bug you I think if you listen to it, but keep listening because they address it and dig into like the why they were feeling that way in things.
Kathryn (04:42)
time.
Gina (04:54)
Highly recommend. Yes.
Kathryn (04:54)
Ooh, that's good. Thank you for
saying that because you know damn well I would have dropped it. You know that, yeah. Okay, that's good to know. that's good to know because I've been, I go in spurts. Remember when we first started this podcast? This is gonna sound like an aside, but it will make sense in a second. One of my biggest things that I was nervous about starting this podcast is because I was like,
Gina (04:59)
Yeah, no, I know. Yeah, that's why I said it.
Kathryn (05:18)
people who listen to podcasts already have the podcast they listen to. And you were like, you understand that people listen to more than one podcast, right? And I was like, what? Because I typically don't. Like once I find a podcast that makes me happy, I'm like, what else is there? Nothing else matters. And Gina was like, girl, what? Like people listen to several podcasts. Like there is space for a new one. And I was like, what? Okay, weird. But.
Gina (05:21)
Mmm.
You
Mm-hmm.
You
Kathryn (05:47)
I still go in spurts. Sometimes I just have my one podcast that I listen to and other times I get so like, give me more, like I need another one, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm in one of those right now and I've listened to all the ones that I, like I'm caught up with all my go-tos. So I'm looking for new ones right now. So this is perfect timing. Okay.
Gina (05:58)
Mmm.
Yeah. Listen to this because it
draws you in and it keeps you there. It is very riveting. So highly recommend. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. Because did you see we got a comment on Spotify earlier this week about... Perfect. Yeah. Sweet. So we'll put a link to that in the show notes too.
Kathryn (06:15)
Okay, good.
Mm-hmm.
I did, I updated those show nights. Yeah, updated a little bit, yes.
I'm so sorry.
Gina (06:32)
Today's going well.
Kathryn (06:33)
Yes
Gina (06:36)
Yes, everything's fine.
Kathryn (06:38)
I just had one of those feelings of like, like my boss was checking in on me and I had to like tell her, no, don't be offended. I've never told you this because I know you would be upset, but I very much think of you as my-
Gina (06:54)
Hey, don't!
Kathryn (06:55)
because
it's because that's who I am. I need a boss. I've said this since I was little. I could never be a boss because I need a boss. Like the whole reason I'm doing this is because I could never do like my own entrepreneurial thing. Cause I need somebody to tell me what to do. And I've never told you this. Nah, I mean you can, but I'm going to keep thinking this way. I'm so sorry. I knew that that would bug you, but I very much like how should...
Gina (07:11)
Let's reframe it. Not a boss, a partner.
I'm not your boss.
Don't like.
Kathryn (07:26)
I don't know, like you can reframe it any way you want. In my brain, I'm like, I guess the reframe would be like.
I literally have nothing. That's just the way my brain works. I need someone to like hold me. I guess, yeah, I guess. I guess. Partners equals. Even, okay, even when we were making, I don't remember what's that thing called, ⁓ the like official business-y thing. When we had to create our own, in my brain, I was like not happy with our first round of titles because they were too equal.
Gina (07:40)
Co-hosts. Partners. Equals.
⁓ the operating agreement thing.
Kathryn (08:05)
I like, I gotta be a little lower. I'm sorry.
Gina (08:08)
Wait, wait, can I?
For the listeners, I wanna share what those titles were because they were not serious. Hold on, I'm gonna pull this thing up. Give me a second.
Kathryn (08:17)
they were serious. They were absolutely
serious.
Okay, what were they?
Gina (08:26)
Chief Harbinger of Chaos. ⁓ CMMO, which is Chief Mistress, no Chief Mischief Mayhem and Misconduct Officer. ⁓ my favorite, CFO, which was Chief Fuckery Officer. President of Spite.
Kathryn (08:27)
God.
That one was for you.
Gina (08:50)
Director Emeritus of Dramatic sighs. That's a very good one.
Kathryn (08:54)
I like that one.
Because in my head, it was like, your title needed to be like president and mine could be director. So it's like, that's a little bit. I also think just to be fair, just to be totally 100 percent honest with myself, I do think it's a level of responsibility situation. If I'm equal, that means I'm like equally guilty if something goes wrong. There is a cop out element to it.
Gina (09:20)
okay.
Kathryn (09:22)
It's not fully just
Gina (09:23)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (09:24)
me being, well that does make me a little bitch, but like, I just like someone.
Gina (09:29)
make you
a little bit.
Kathryn (09:32)
Thank you. I just like someone telling me. I don't like being the one to decide what to do. I need someone to like, tell me what to do, you know?
Gina (09:43)
Okay. Okay.
Kathryn (09:47)
Anyway, I'm sorry, this one in a totally different direction. Like, in summary, that podcast sounds great. I don't know how we got here. I'm so sorry. I think that was me.
Gina (09:54)
I forgot that's what we were talking about.
Kathryn (10:01)
Anyway...
Gina (10:01)
Anyway.
Do
you have any news, anything you wanna share before I regale you with a tale? Do you have a story for me?
Kathryn (10:07)
thought you were gonna say, you have a story? I was like, no, did I mess up that
bad? This is why I need a
⁓ I don't really have any news, but I do have something I want to tell you real quick that I think I've told you, but maybe I haven't and in case I haven't. ⁓ PSA, the fresh sugar lip treatment tastes exactly like ⁓ Dr. Pepper lip smackers.
Gina (10:20)
Okay.
Oh my god. I haven't thought about lip smackers.
Kathryn (10:37)
Did I tell you
that? Okay, this is the stuff I bought for the reception. And it took me a while to realize, I was like, God, this tastes so good. Like this tastes familiar. You know, was like nostalgic, but I couldn't figure out what it was. And I realized what it was. And so I just had to tell you, it's fantastic.
Gina (10:47)
huh.
gosh,
okay, where did you get it from?
Kathryn (11:02)
Sephora. Yeah, it's just the fresh brand. So you can get it straight from their website. I got it because my lips get really, really horribly dry in the winter, but I wanted a color for the reception, but they were really badly chapped. So I got this and it worked really well. it's like just a gentle color, but it's a balm too. It's like really hydrating, but smells exactly like the Lip Smackers.
Gina (11:04)
for him. Okay, sweet.
Mine too.
Mm-hmm.
Hey, I need to get more, because I have,
what is it? The Clinique Black Cherry thing that was all over like TikTok and Instagram a long time ago. I still have that, but it's not good for hydrating lips. And same as you, this time of year, I get horrible, like my lips get so chapped, it's aggressive. And so I need something like, okay,
Kathryn (11:34)
Ooh.
Yeah.
Anyway, that's all I have.
Gina (11:47)
Thank you.
It was very good. I enjoyed it. ⁓
Kathryn (11:52)
You're welcome.
Do you perhaps have a story for me?
Gina (11:59)
I guess so. I guess I have 10 pages of notes I can tell you about. So last week we spent some time up in Wisconsin with our friend the Hodag I think I said that right. And this week I'm going to take us just a little bit south to our mutual home state of Illinois for some cryptid talk. Yes. ⁓
Kathryn (12:04)
I s'pose.
The Hoi Day egg.
Okay, I didn't
know this.
Gina (12:29)
I didn't either. in case you just breezed right past the title of the episode, this is about something called the Enfield Horror. And I assumed that it was a take on like the Enfield poltergeist in the UK, but it's not.
Kathryn (12:41)
Me
too. Okay. Sorry to immediately interrupt, but I saw the topic or I'm sorry. Yeah. I saw the topic for today and there was a part of me that was like, does she think we're doing poltergeist? Like what? Because it says Enfield horror. My brain went to Enfield house. So yeah. Okay. Thanks for, cause I thought it took place over there. I didn't know this was like a hometown here. Here? Sorry.
Gina (12:57)
That's what I thought too.
I so too, because like when I was researching
like, yeah, because when I was like researching different types of cryptids to talk about that I might want to do an episode for, this one kept popping up and I was like, okay, well maybe there are some people who think it wasn't a poltergeist and they think it was an actual animal or something, but then I got into it and no, turns out there's a place in Illinois, Southeast Illinois called Enfield.
Kathryn (13:12)
I'm just, no, I'm just gonna stop talking.
Mmm.
Gina (13:33)
which in 1973 was the location of some very strange sightings. And it all started on the night of April 25th, 1973, when a veteran and antique dealer named Henry McDaniel was returning home from a night out with his And at around 9.30 PM, they came home to their two children who were absolutely terrified. Their kids told them,
that while they were gone, something had been trying to get into the house. And they said they had heard scratchings. It started with scratching sounds at the front door. And then after a while, scratching moved to an air conditioning unit in one of their windows. So already scary as hell, because air conditioning units and windows are like freaky in their own way. So Henry and his wife.
Kathryn (14:10)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Gina (14:26)
were a little bit taken aback by this, but it wasn't otherworldly to them. Like there are, there is wildlife in that area. It could have been a really weird fox. It could have been a coyote. There are occasionally black bear sightings down there. So like it's unusual for a wild animal to try and get into someone's house, but.
It could have been, like if it was a sick animal or it had rabies or was just acting out of character or it was scared of something. Like they didn't think it was something otherworldly. But Henry's first encounter with what is now called the Enfield Horror or also the Enfield Monster came later that night when he, just like his kids, heard a scratching sound at the front door. So he poked his head outside just to see what it was because he was very brave.
Kathryn (14:55)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (15:19)
and he saw this big dark silhouette outside that he thought at first, okay, that kind of looks like it might be a bear. So he slammed his door shut, he grabbed his pistol and his flashlight, and he went outside to do a little bit more investigating, see if he could scare this thing off. But when he got outside, he saw something very strange indeed. In between two rose bushes about 12 feet away from him,
there was a creature that he had never seen before. He would later describe it by saying, quote, it had three legs on it, a short body, two little short arms, and two pink eyes as big as flashlights. It stood 4 and 1 feet tall and was grayish colored. And he would later add that it looked, quote, almost like a human body.
Yeah, creepy. So Henry, like same as us, like thoroughly freaked out by this, still looking right at this thing. And of course his mind goes to the safety of his family in his he fired four shots at this creature. But according to him, he hit it on the very first try. The thing was the bullet didn't seem to have any impact on this creature.
whatsoever. It was like completely unfazed by being shot. Instead, the thing looked at him, hissed in a way that was almost like a wild cat hissing at someone. And then it started hopping away across the yard towards a nearby railroad. it wasn't like, like hopping is probably too gentle of a word. It was like leaping, like taking big jumping bounds across this yard. According to Henry, it covered 50 feet.
in just three jumps, which is about 15 meters.
Kathryn (17:12)
Huh!
Gina (17:13)
Henry watched this thing leave in disbelief because like what the hell was that that I just saw? And he called the police to basically say, I think I just saw a fucking monster from space. Somebody please come help. Like what is going on? And he did say specifically that it was like a monster from space. He specified space.
And since then, it's been used as a way of discrediting Henry. So I did want to call out the fact that it's a weird thing to say. However, I do understand it. Because when you're faced with something that you've never seen before in your life and you're trying to communicate how much this thing scares you, I don't think it's that weird to be like, I saw an alien from space. know? Glad that we're on the same page, as always.
Kathryn (17:57)
Yeah, for sure.
Gina (18:04)
So the cops drove out to talk to Henry and to see if they could find anything that this creature left behind. And they didn't find a whole lot, but they did find its tracks. And the tracks made it kind of obvious that whatever it was, it was walking on three legs. But the weird thing was two of the tracks were about four inches wide, and the third track was noticeably smaller.
That in and of itself isn't super weird, like especially in animal prints. ⁓ Like it's normal for the front and the back legs to be different sizes or to make different impressions in the ground. But it was weird because it didn't seem like it was missing or compensating for a fourth leg. I will say, like this is my interpretation of the reports, but it didn't seem like anyone was saying.
it looks like it could have been a four-legged animal that was missing one of its legs or was hurt on one of its legs, so was walking with only three. It seemed like whatever this thing was, it was built to only walk on three legs. Now I know about you. Yeah, I don't know any animals that naturally only have three legs.
Kathryn (19:10)
Ooh, that's weird.
Gina (19:18)
most unsettling, to me at least, was the fact that the police did find a series of scratches on the siding of the house. So it's not like it was a tree branch brushing up against the side of the house or like a bush in the wind that was making those sounds. Something, some kind of creature was outside scratching at Henry's house while his kids were in there.
which to me gives me goosebumps because I think emotionally there's a big difference between knowing that something is trying to get in versus seeing evidence of it trying to get in. So that to me was like the, my God, like imagine going outside and there's scratch marks on the side of your house. Gross.
Kathryn (19:57)
That's one of the creepiest things me about camping. Because my brain does that. What if I come out of the tent in the morning and see something, not a thing, but evidence of a thing. Because without that evidence, like you were saying, you could just say, maybe I was hearing something, maybe I was seeing things.
Gina (20:05)
Yeah, fair.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kathryn (20:25)
whatever, you can make excuses, but if you see something there, you can't lie to yourself anymore.
Gina (20:32)
Yeah, and especially when you have kids in the house, that's just so, so scary. So the police naturally, like they kept looking around, kept looking for more evidence of what this thing was and where it had gone. And to do that, they started talking to Henry's neighbors to see, OK, has anyone else had an encounter with this thing? And it turns out that someone had. There was a 10-year-old boy named Greg Garrett.
Kathryn (20:34)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Gina (20:58)
who said that about 30 minutes before Henry's encounter, Greg had been playing outside when all of the sudden this huge, weirdly shaped creature came out of the trees by his house and attacked him. So according to Greg, this creature, which he described pretty much the same way that Henry did, but with the addition of it having slimy gray skin, which is gross, know, agreed.
Kathryn (21:26)
Hate that.
Gina (21:27)
Yeah, yeah, super nasty. He said that it had started clawing at him and in doing so stepped on his foot and tore up his tennis shoes with the claws on its feet. So luckily, Greg was able to get away without being seriously injured. But when the police checked the area around his house, they didn't really find anything. There were no, and there was no evidence of tracks this time. There weren't any scratches on the side of the house.
The only real evidence were Greg's shoes, which had been torn up a little bit. Other than that, no one else in the area had seen this thing. So these were the only two reports that we had about this Enfield horror or monster or whatever you want to call it at this point. However, it hit the news really, really fast, mainly because Enfield was and still is now this very small.
Like it covers geographically just over one square mile of space and back in the 1970s its population was just under 800 people. So news travels fast. And this was expedited by Henry who told everyone he could about what he had seen. He told his family obviously, he told his neighbors about it, he told his friends.
And it wound up making its way into the local papers where we first started seeing it get called the Enfield Monster or the Enfield Horror very early on. And the two names were kind of used in tandem. It wasn't like they started saying Enfield Monster and then moved to Enfield Horror. was like both were being thrown around at pretty much the same time. And I do want to talk about the terminology here for a sec because
the way that the press spoke about this thing had a very, had a lot to do with what happens next and why the
people reacted the way that they did. Because instead of labeling it as a wild animal or something like that, they explicitly called it a monster. And so people reacted accordingly. So in the days that followed, and as more and more people were surrounded with and relaying this story to each other, the residents of Enfield and the surrounding area just became absolutely petrified.
Like you think there's a monster hanging out in the woods by your house, you're going to be really scared of it. So they became really vigilant. People were on edge. got more protective of their homes. They weren't letting their kids out at night. And because of the volume of press coverage that this was getting, we also started to see out-of-towners start to flock to Enfield with the express purpose of trying to see this monster for themselves.
And this is also when we start to hear about more reported sightings. Or at least what might have been sightings. These don't really have the evidence behind them that Henry's initial encounter did, but they are things that were getting thrown around. So people being like, ⁓ I think I might've seen it at the park, or my God, I saw it in my backyard at midnight last night, or I saw it here, I saw it there. And...
Again, the jury is out on how many of these were actual sightings versus just fear responses to thinking something was out there. Because as the fear of this thing grew, it did start to become really difficult to tell which of these were actual sightings and which of these were people being so afraid that they thought they saw something that maybe they didn't.
it's completely possible that people were seeing whatever this was, but it also could have been a fox or a black bear or a coyote or even just like a dog or even just like a person that's doing weird shit out in the middle of the night. Your mind sees the things that it's afraid But then Henry himself saw it a second time. On May 6th, 1973, so about a week and a half after the initial sighting,
Henry was woken up at around 3 AM by the sound of neighborhood dogs just going berserk, like barking, howling, just making a general ruckus. So he got out of bed to look out the window, like, what the hell is up with these dogs? And just outside his house by the railway tracks, he saw the same creature he had seen a week and a half earlier. So Henry, who again astounds me with his bravery, went outside.
to get a closer look at this thing. That's so brave.
Kathryn (26:07)
Man, you keep saying brave. I've got a different word in my head.
I think it's fucking dumb. Why would you go outside if there was a weird alien animal out there?
Gina (26:15)
my gosh.
And this time he didn't bring his gun.
Kathryn (26:20)
Pfft.
Good for him. I love that for him.
Gina (26:24)
Which there are are layers to that there's a yeah, there are layers to that It's not super
clear why he left his gun indoors this time. I
Kathryn (26:33)
is Rue coming? No... Rue! ⁓ I saw a little fuzz.
Gina (26:34)
Can you see her or can you hear her?
Kathryn (26:41)
Hey, baby girl.
Gina (26:42)
You wanna be on the podcast?
Kathryn (26:45)
Aww, she's so cute!
I'm trying not to react too strongly because Cinnamon's finally settled and if she hears me loving someone else she gets real mad. I think that was her first podcast appearance.
Gina (26:55)
I'm gonna put her outside real quick. I think,
I don't think she's ever been on the pod before. Hello, aw.
Kathryn (27:01)
I don't think so either.
She usually avoids us.
Gina (27:05)
Okay, where was I? yes, the second sighting. Okay, so we don't know why he left his gun inside. That's the moral of the story. No idea. I would assume that it's because the railway tracks that this thing was hanging out near, they must've been far enough away from his house that he didn't feel like he was in immediate danger. But also, based on what Henry said, it didn't seem like this thing was doing anything threatening. The way he described it, it was like it was just leisurely hopping around the railroad tracks.
Kathryn (27:08)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Gina (27:34)
Like it wasn't really sniffing around, it wasn't doing anything scary, like it really was just hanging out, so he left it be, So he stood there for a while and he watched it, and then eventually it just kind of hopped off into the night. And this got Henry talking even more to all of the people he could find.
Once again, he told everybody that he could about this, and he also started calling into radio stations to tell his story. Specifically, he called the station WWKI in Indiana to tell them about this latest And this coverage led to even more people descending on Enfield to see what all the fuss was about, to the point where the town started to get pretty overrun
it got dangerous because a lot of these were groups of guys who brought booze and guns and were gonna try hunting this thing.
Kathryn (28:29)
Okay.
Gina (28:31)
Mm-hmm. There's a... That's very rough. And there's a quote from the local sheriff at the time, a guy named Roy Prashard saying, Those kids were out there shooting at anything that moved. Ever since this creature business got started, we've had people milling around here with their guns and drinking. And if I don't put a stop to it, somebody's going to get killed.
Kathryn (28:32)
rough.
I hate that. That sucks.
Gina (28:59)
Yeah,
yeah, yeah, that sucks. I will tell you right now, nobody winds up getting hurt. Nobody gets killed. Everyone's fine. Yeah, so a little bit, a little bit of an exhale, but still like annoyed. Yeah, yeah. So the sheriff wisely told Henry to stop running his mouth about this thing or else he was gonna be forced to incarcerate him. And like, do, I do get it. I get it.
Kathryn (29:04)
Okay, okay. I was braising myself. Okay, yeah. Right, that's still shitty.
I mean,
I do get it. That's also small town vibes. Like everyone knows everyone. That's like when you see those movies or shows where they're like, Hey Hank, how's it going? Like, cause Hank's like just in the drunk tank. he always, you know what I mean? Like everyone knows the sheriff, everyone. Yeah. Like, so that, that makes sense. It's not an uncommon thing for that type of thing.
Gina (29:31)
Damn.
Yeah.
No, like when it gets to the point where there is already a dangerous situation, but people's reaction to it is making it more dangerous, you gotta do what you gotta do. Like I'm all for sharing information with the public, like democratize information, I get it, but in situations like this, when it becomes dangerous to do so, yeah, that's fair. Yeah, 100%. But getting these monster hunters to leave Enfield wasn't necessarily easy to do.
Kathryn (29:59)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it is all relative. Yeah.
Gina (30:19)
So a lot of them stuck around and from this we did wind up getting reports of additional sightings. So two hunters reported seeing a huge gray monkey-like creature moving so fast through the underbrush that they couldn't even shoot at it. A few others claimed that they had managed to shoot the creature, but that just like Henry said, the bullets had no impact on it.
But most notably, on the very same day that Henry gave that radio interview on WWKI, the station's director came out to try and find the animal. And his name was Rick Rainbow.
Kathryn (30:58)
No it wasn't. That's fantastic.
Gina (31:00)
It's, Rick Rainbow.
I know, no notes. Agreed, so Rick Rainbow came and with him he brought three of his friends, including a big game hunter named Ed Phillips, who brought quite an array of weapons with him, including some tranquilizer guns. So there was kind of this air of
Kathryn (31:05)
Pristine. I love it.
Gina (31:26)
we're either going to capture this thing or we're going to kill this thing. And we are prepared to do both. Which is very big game hunter energy and not something we have time to, yeah, like, my fucking God, not great vibes, that's all I'll say. Do do do. So these four guys are out looking for this thing. And apparently they did manage to find it close to an abandoned house near Henry's property. According to them, it was about five and a half feet tall.
Kathryn (31:36)
Yeah. Yeah.
Gina (31:54)
or one and a half meters. I think I might have been forgetting to do some conversions, but that's okay. They also said it was gray and kind of like stooped over at the back, like kind of hunchback of Notre Dame-ish a little bit. And they also said that it was running through the woods at an unnatural speed, like faster than any animal should have been able to move. And these were all experienced hunters. So in theory, I guess they know how fast animals move. I don't know.
I don't really know how that works. I'm not a hunter if anyone can't tell.
Kathryn (32:25)
Yeah, no, mean,
yeah, especially they have to track them and stuff so they know their like movement patterns and stuff.
Gina (32:33)
Totally, yeah. How does this work?
Kathryn (32:34)
icecreamuscremepot at jmall.com. No, that's,
yeah, that's true. You would know.
Gina (32:43)
it was moving too fast to shoot at, and so they weren't really able to do much of anything at all. They didn't really manage to shoot it. They didn't tranquilize it. They didn't get it. But Mr. Rainbow claimed that they were able to record the creature's shriek as it ran away. They're, mm-hmm, yeah, apparently, because it had, was described as having like a very banshee-like.
Kathryn (32:46)
Mm-hmm.
The fuck?
Gina (33:07)
sound that it made. Like Shriek is probably too strong of a word because it makes it sound like fear driven, but it does sound like this is just the sound that it made whenever people heard it. It was always like a screech. Yeah. There is no evidence of this recording actually existing. I was not able to find the audio file online. I have not found anyone who has been able to find this file, but allegedly it exists.
Kathryn (33:17)
Like a screech. Yeah. Hmm.
Okay.
Ugh.
man, I thought you were about to whip out a recording. Okay. That's okay.
Gina (33:35)
I know. I'm sorry. No, I don't have one.
But neither does anyone else. And I think maybe Rick Rainbow doesn't either, if it makes you feel any better. And this, again, fueled this fire of panic that by this point was fully erupting across Enfield. More people set out to look for this thing. More people were doing so.
Kathryn (33:41)
True.
Gina (33:58)
in a really unsafe way, like kind of treating it as a boys weekend rather than something that was actually dangerous. And this culminated on May 8th, so just a couple of days after Rick Rainbow went out to try and find it, when the police were called out to handle reports of gunfire. And when they got there, police found the culprits to be five young men from out of town who were, quote, drinking and raising hell.
Kathryn (34:25)
Jesus.
Gina (34:26)
The men were
arrested, thankfully, and they were ultimately charged for hunting violations, but that was pretty much the end of the sightings of the Enfield horror, at least in 1973 and matching the description that Henry originally gave. This is where the trail kind of ends.
Kathryn (34:46)
You
Gina (34:50)
But by this point, it had really captured people's imaginations, both in the area but also across the country. And so people kept investigating this. They kept looking into it, including a cryptozoologist named Lauren Coleman, who told the press, and I thought this was interesting, quote, I traveled to Enfield, interviewed the witnesses, looked at the siding of the house the Enfield monster had damaged.
heard some strange screeching band she like sounds and walked away bewildered.
Kathryn (35:22)
interesting.
Gina (35:23)
And that's kind of something we hear repeated over and over again about the Enfield monster, the Enfield horror, is nobody can really explain, even people who devote their life to studying crazy things like this. There is no real explanation for what it could have been. did, ⁓ Lauren Coleman, the cryptozoologist, he wound up co-authoring an article that discusses this situation a little bit with a guy named Jerome Clark. And I do want to tell you the name of the article because it's fantastic.
It's called Swamp Slobs Invade Illinois.
Kathryn (35:53)
Okay, tell me.
my god. Woo. Okay.
Gina (36:04)
Yeah.
It was published in July 1974 in Fate Magazine. You can find it online. It's a good read. I recommend it. But in the article, it doesn't just explore the Enfield Horror slash Enfield Monster. It goes into wider detail into an actual cryptid called a swamp slob, which is apparently a real thing. I didn't either.
Kathryn (36:27)
Okay, I didn't know that. thought we were just being
real mean. Okay.
Gina (36:33)
Aw, poor Enfield monster. But yeah, swamp slobs are basically...
Kathryn (36:35)
No, I thought they I thought he was calling
the people coming to hunt. I thought he was calling them swamp slabs. I was like, my God, where were they from? I thought it was like, I don't know, maybe like I am not saying this, but I thought he was saying I thought like a lot of them were from like swampy areas, and that was like what he was caught like. Yeah, that's what I thought it meant. OK. OK.
Gina (36:42)
Henry?
⁓ That's hilarious.
the swamp people are invading Illinois. No, it's about an actual cryptid. And a swamp slob
apparently is, it's kind of like this big, hairy, smelly thing. Like picture Bigfoot, but really smelly, like aggressively smelly. And that's what a swamp slob is.
Kathryn (37:16)
Okay,
it's throwing me off because I already imagined Bigfoot doesn't smell great. So now I'm like, my imagination is stretching real hard.
Gina (37:22)
Agreed.
But it's
like how Bigfoot is characterized by like Bigfoot, this is Big Stink. Like the main, it's identifiable feature, yeah, the MO is smelling really bad. Whereas I'm sure Bigfoot also doesn't smell like flowers, but it's not his thing.
Kathryn (37:32)
Okay, that's the MO. Yeah.
Okay.
I imagine Bigfoot,
yeah, I imagine he smells just like a horse barn. You know what mean? Like that's what I imagine. Not that I sit around thinking about Bigfoot smelling certain ways, but like that's what I would imagine. I would imagine he would smell like some type of barn animal or something. So a swamp swab would smell swampy. I don't know.
Gina (37:47)
Yeah, yeah.
Mm.
Yeah.
It was described as smelling
like a sewer.
Kathryn (38:12)
That's the worst. That's the worst smell. That's the worst of all of them. Ugh. Ew. Okay. Okay.
Gina (38:14)
Your face. That is the worst one. Yeah. So very, very like bad
smell. Not good. And what is fascinating about swamp slobs alongside their horrendous odor is that there was, there did seem to be an increase in swamp slob sightings just after the Enfield sightings, specifically in a location that was about 70 miles or 113 kilometers away from Enfield.
Kathryn (38:24)
Okay.
Hmm.
Gina (38:43)
in a place called Murphysboro. So first, when I read that, I was kinda like, mm, it could have been a mass hysteria thing. Like, people are reporting this cryptid in one spot, so of course there's an uptick in reported cryptid sightings. Like, in the area, that makes sense to me. But then I also thought, like, hey, this could have been the same creature. Like, maybe it just moved from Enfield to Murphysboro. However, based on the description of this thing, it really doesn't sound like it was.
So in Murfreesboro, the creature that people reported seeing was described as being around seven feet tall, so already a lot bigger than the thing people saw in Enfield. But it was also reported as being white, not gray. And also it was said to be covered in fur, whereas the thing in Enfield wasn't ever really described as having hair, just having gray skin that may or may not be slimy. But most notably, the thing in Murfreesboro,
Kathryn (39:30)
Mm.
Gina (39:41)
had two legs and it did not travel via hop. So it does not sound like these were the same creature. So ultimately, whatever this thing was in Enfield is seen for the most part as its own thing, its own standalone cryptid, separate from the other ones who maybe stalked the area or continue to stalk the area. So let's get into some theories because there are some compelling ones. Some people think that this is just a classic cryptid like put
Kathryn (39:50)
Yeah.
Gina (40:10)
Enfield horror up there with Dog Man, Mothman, Bigfoot, all of them. Others think that it was a runaway kangaroo.
Kathryn (40:20)
Okay, that's what I was imagining this whole time. I'm imagining a gray kangaroo in my head.
Gina (40:23)
Yeah.
Yes, okay, yeah, so of the possible explanations, this one is the most popular one. Like this is the one that I saw talked about by far the most online. And I really do understand the argument because a big part of the whole Enfield horror description goes back to what Henry saw as it having three legs. Because kangaroos, they obviously have that big tail and they sometimes use it as almost a third leg. Like they can balance on it while they're kicking stuff, it's kinda scary.
But also in terms of the creature's behavior, kangaroos are also known to be very territorial and aggressive if you're seen as encroaching on their space. So for example, if a kangaroo thought that a 10-year-old boy named Greg Garrett was in its territory, it would mess that kid up a little bit. also have those little short arms, like people described, and they can also be gray in color. Now what this doesn't account for
Kathryn (41:13)
⁓ yeah.
Gina (41:23)
is the slimy skin that Greg Garrett reported. But that could have been down to disease. It could even have just been like animal slobber that in the dark, Greg thought was slime because the attack happened at night. But this theory gets even more compelling when you find out that on May 16th, 1973, so the same year as all the sightings in Enfield, there was a guy from Ohio
who heard about what was happening, this scary Enfield monster, and he reached out to the police to say that it might be his pet kangaroo Macy, who had either been lost or stolen about a year earlier.
Kathryn (42:05)
⁓ Macy! ⁓
Gina (42:08)
Yeah, yeah. And just like geographically to explain a little bit, yes, where he was from in Ohio is very far away from where Enfield is in southeastern Illinois, but it would take a human being about seven days to walk that distance. So it's entirely feasible that a kangaroo could do it in probably less that time, let alone a year. Like it would totally track. Yeah, easily.
Kathryn (42:29)
for sure. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Gina (42:34)
There are some holes in this theory because Henry, first and foremost, Henry was not a fan of this theory at all. He was insistent that it could not be a kangaroo because while he was in the military, he had spent time serving in Australia where he says he had a pet kangaroo. So it's a, would know a kangaroo if I saw one type thing.
Kathryn (42:58)
⁓ weird, okay. I mean...
Gina (43:01)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (43:06)
I I don't know if that's necessarily true.
Then again, I've never had a pet kangaroo, so I'm not an expert.
Gina (43:10)
Uh-huh.
Me neither, and I don't know how I feel about Henry's...
Kathryn (43:22)
So let's talk about that. I've been waiting patiently, but since you bring it up, how do we feel about Henry's
Gina (43:29)
So I will say, it's worth noting that when he first made this report to the police and they came to check it out and they found the scratches on the house and stuff, one of the police officers did go on record saying that Henry seemed to be both rational and sober. So that's something.
Kathryn (43:36)
Mm-hmm.
Okay,
I do care a little more about the sober part of that.
⁓ I don't know this man well enough to have an opinion, but I just feel like I don't love the whole like Don't love an absolute mindset, you know this but like it cannot be this because I saw it with my own eyes like well
Gina (44:05)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (44:11)
good for you, you know? Like... Yeah, that's my... I don't know. But...
Gina (44:12)
Yeah.
A lot of people
are extremely skeptical about Henry's side of the story.
Kathryn (44:21)
Yeah.
Yeah. And I'm not saying it wasn't a slimy monster. just don't love I get a here's my thing. Like maybe it's counterintuitive, but I almost get a little more suspicious when people double down and are like, no, it was this. was that blah, blah, blah. So I'm like, believe that you saw this and I'm not like discrediting that at all. But I think like seeing it in the dark from like not close up.
Gina (44:37)
Mmm.
Kathryn (44:48)
and also being 100 % sure of what it looked like, I get a little skeptical if they're super sure because I'm like, you have to fill in some gaps when you see these things, you know? And like, I do think if it really was a monster, which again, I'm not saying it's not, could have been like a kangaroo-like monster. I almost feel like if you're so adamant that you're gonna like fight for what you saw and leave no room for maybe it could have been something else or look
Gina (44:56)
Yeah.
Kathryn (45:18)
a little different. I almost get a little like, why are you so sure? you so sure because you're the one that made it up? You know, like that's where my brain goes. Like that's kind of what my I don't know. I don't know if that's wrong or not.
Gina (45:25)
Mmm.
Yeah. Well, it's interesting
because, no, I don't think that that's wrong because the vast majority of people who were interviewed, well, everyone who was interviewed who like reported to see this thing, pretty much admitted like it could have been something else. Like maybe what I was seeing wasn't a monster. It could have been a runaway kangaroo or I guess it could have been, you know, a sick black bear or something like that. Henry is really the only one that was adamant about what he saw, which causes a lot of people
Kathryn (45:45)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Gina (45:59)
to not really believe him because he leaves so little room for interpretation of his account. But even outside of Henry's opinion on the kangaroo situation, are a couple of harder facts that we can turn to as well to poke the holes in that theory. So first one is that when kangaroos leave tracks behind, they leave claw marks in the ground. And the tracks that the police found didn't have any claw marks in them.
Kathryn (46:01)
Yeah.
Mm.
Gina (46:25)
Which like fine, maybe if this kangaroo was someone's pet, they had it declawed, which would be absolutely awful, but maybe they did. But even then, the tracks the cops found had six toe pads. Kangaroos only have five.
Kathryn (46:39)
Ooh,
that's interesting. Okay.
Gina (46:43)
Yeah, yep. So
while kangaroo is the most popular theory, there are definitely still some unanswered questions there. An alternative theory is that this was actually another cryptid called the Mount Vernon creature. So basically back, yes. Have you heard of the Mount Vernon creature before? I had never heard of it.
Kathryn (46:49)
Mm-hmm.
Cool.
I've
heard this name, but I don't know anything about it. Like I've seen it on like lists of cryptids and like that type of thing, but I'm not like familiar with it.
Gina (47:06)
⁓
Okay, I will give you a little rundown on it. So the Mount Vernon creature, was this thing where back in the 1940s, there were reports of this leaping creature that looked kind of like a baboon, and it was able to jump anywhere between 20 to 40 feet in a single go, or six to 12 meters. So pretty similar to the Enfield Horror situation. And these sightings took place in, as the name suggests, a place called Mount Vernon.
which is less than 40 miles or 64 kilometers away from Enfield. So some people think that this is what the Enfield monster was and it had just migrated away or its children or whatever had migrated away from Enfield. I do think, or not from Enfield, from Mount Vernon to Enfield. I think it's a little bit weird personally because the sightings of the Mount Vernon creature were the 1940s.
and then we wait all the way until the 1970s for something kind of a little bit similar to happen again. I think it's a bit of a stretch, completely possible, but I don't find it to be the most compelling theory out there. I think it's more likely to be a kangaroo than it is the Mount Vernon creature, in my opinion.
Kathryn (48:25)
It could also be a baby, a Mount Vernon baby. You know I love a cryptid family. Yeah. Like the Mount Vernon's kid like graduated and wanted to be off on his own. Moved over to Enfield. Started a new life.
Gina (48:27)
It could be a baby. That would be cute. Yeah, that is cute.
I'm moving to Enfield, Dad. You can't
stop me. That was your dream. Yeah, so that is a possibility. kind of, people didn't put that one together right away. took a while for people to, because the 1940s is a long time ago, even by the 1970s standards. So it took a while for people to kind of put the pieces together of that one. It's a more recent kind of connection that we've made, but it is.
Kathryn (48:48)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Gina (49:08)
It's possible. It could have been. And then, of course, there are the group of people who think that this whole thing was one big misunderstanding. Those people tend to think that Henry was confused when he was trying to identify the creature because it was late at night, it was dark, and he was scared, and the human mind is prone to do all sorts of weird stuff under those circumstances. And they also think that because
Kathryn (49:09)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (49:37)
Henry was so fervent about communicating his story to people, it riled everyone up to the point where it turned into the perfect storm for groupthink, basically. Like one person is afraid that they might have seen something weird. And so a few more people get afraid. And then before you know it, everyone thinks that there's a monster in their backyard. They think that it was like textbook case of herd mindset or group mentality or whatever you want to call it.
And this explanation does have a little bit of scholarly weight behind it as well. in 1978, after about five years after the initial sighting of the Enfield monster, Western Illinois University published a case study. Hey, Western, nice. Well, they published a case study or alma mater, basically chalking the whole thing up to social contagion.
Kathryn (50:19)
That's where I went to school. Sorry. Yeah.
Gina (50:30)
is the thing where if enough people around you are doing, feeling, or believing something, you are very likely to follow suit and start doing, feeling, or believing those things too. And it sounds like
Well, yeah, obviously, are social animals. Of course, we want to follow the group. But social contagion is a little bit more intense than all of that. I'm going to give you an example of it real quick. There are tons of examples throughout history. But one example that really illustrates the power of social contagion was in 1962 when there was this thing called the June bug epidemic.
where dozens of people at a textile factory started reporting the same concerning physical symptoms. So things like a rash, nausea, numbness in their hands and feet. And they all thought they must be suffering from the same thing. Specifically, they thought that a bug, like a literal bug, had gotten into the factory and was biting people and causing them to fall ill. But when physicians and researchers looked into it,
They found that there was actually no evidence that this was happening. it turned out that one person had gotten sick. They just so happened to have a bug bite on their body, and everyone else got so scared of it happening to them that they subconsciously caused their bodies to develop the same symptoms. So social contagion is more than just following the herd. It is something so powerful that it can cause
Kathryn (51:47)
Mm.
Gina (52:06)
hence physical changes within your body. That's what we're dealing with here. And the researchers at Western said that this phenomenon was to blame for the sightings and the hunting and the panic about the Enfield monster. There's a quote from the case study that I'll share with you. It is paraphrased because it was pretty long and a little bit stuffy for this lovely podcast, but it essentially said, quote,
Kathryn (52:11)
Hmm.
Gina (52:34)
In this area of Illinois, it's not crazy to think that Henry just saw an animal. The people we interviewed admitted it could have been something like a bear or a wildcat or even an escaped kangaroo. Lots of people think that Henry just has an overactive imagination. In any case, we only interviewed one person who agreed with Henry's claim that he had seen a monster from outer space.
So like that quote suggested, they spoke to a lot of people who were involved with this before publishing the case study. And one of those people was Greg Garrett, the 10-year-old boy who was attacked. And Greg told them that he had made the whole thing up.
Kathryn (53:18)
Really? Interesting. Okay.
Gina (53:20)
Yes. Yep, he said
that his alleged encounter was quote, a hoax to tease Mr. ⁓ which was Henry, and have fun with an out of town newsman.
Kathryn (53:33)
Gregory
Gina (53:34)
I know, young man.
Well, I do I do want to say because we could believe Greg He would have been around 15 was he when he was interviewed for this case study and that is around the age where every experience you've ever had becomes horribly embarrassing so he might have just been trying to Like sweep it under a rug, but if we do believe him
Kathryn (53:57)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (53:59)
then that means the only person with an evidence-backed encounter was Henry McDaniel. And the only evidence were animal tracks and scratches on a house, which kind of could have been almost anything, which makes a lot of people view the Enfield monster as way more likely to be a misunderstanding than an actual creature.
Kathryn (54:05)
Yeah.
Yeah, interesting.
Gina (54:21)
But in the world of cryptids, I know, I know, yeah, I know.
Kathryn (54:21)
I'm annoyed with Greg. I'm annoyed because
yes, 15 is an age where you want to be like, oh no, I didn't do that. That didn't happen. It's also an age where dumb high school boys will lie about shit to be funny.
Gina (54:39)
Yes, agreed, agreed. And also it's when like fear of authority is still a big, like, I mean, guess it still is a thing when you're an adult, but when you're 15, that's when, between the ages of 10 to 15, I feel like consequences are more real than they are when you become a little bit older. Or like being quote, in trouble, I should clarify, not consequences, the feeling like you're gonna get in trouble if you don't tell the truth about something.
Kathryn (54:41)
That's annoying.
⁓
Yeah, that might depend on the 15 year old. I was alarmingly not afraid of consequences at 15. But I mean, it depends. Yeah, I was gonna say, don't disagree. I see what you're saying. It depends on the kid, I think. I don't know. It doesn't matter. I'm just disappointed in you, Greg, for something. I don't know what.
Gina (55:08)
I don't know. That's true, yeah.
Yeah, my mom is listening to this right now laughing her head off.
Hehehehe
Yeah, yeah, that's fair. But yes.
I'm disappointed in him too.
regardless, in the world of cryptids, like the whole, oh, maybe it's real, maybe it's not real. That's nothing new. Like, that is why they are cryptids. It's par for the course with this sort of thing. And yet, sightings of the Enfield monster continue to this day. In fact, I found one from 2022, if you want to hear it. I can read it to you. It's pretty short. OK. So this comes from.
Kathryn (55:54)
Ooh, I do, I do.
Gina (56:00)
Zach Sterick of the Southern Illinois Monster Hunters on May 17th, 2022. I know, I didn't know that was a thing either. It's great.
Kathryn (56:06)
Okay. It's amazing
the things that exist.
Gina (56:11)
yeah, completely agree. He said, quote, folks, after tonight, I can stand before you and tell you this, the Enfield monster is not dead. It is very much alive and well in White County, Illinois.
was on my way home after bow fishing for gar, I don't know if that's a typo or a type of fish, I'm sorry. Gar, okay, gar fish, up along the Wabash River, upstate Southern Illinois. And I had just come through Enfield tonight at about 8.45 to 9.00 May 17th, 2022.
Kathryn (56:33)
I think it is this type of fish. I could be wrong. Yeah.
Gina (56:48)
I was coming up on the Route 45 and Route 14 intersection south of Enfield, and as I was slowing down to make the stop at the four-way stop, I caught a flash of something out of the right side of my windshield. And what I saw next was something that I had only read about and heard stories about for the past 17 years. Up out of the ditch came a creature that's back would have measured level with the hood of my 03 Ford Ranger. ⁓
which everyone knows. That's relatable. It was gray in color, like elephant skin. It was completely hairless and had its arms tucked up like a raptor would in Jurassic Park movies. Sort of a reptilian head with a long snout. And it was running up on two feet that had that third leg drawn up like a tail. It cleared a two lane blacktop in about five to six strides and was back off the opposite side of the road.
Kathryn (57:19)
Cool.
Gina (57:48)
and it was gone. I can say to you now, after tonight, the Enfield monster is as real as you and me, and this thing is alive and well in Southern Illinois. And that's the story. That's all I've got. That's the Enfield monster.
Kathryn (58:01)
This is fantastic.
I can't believe I've never heard of this. I used to live in Southern Illinois. I was closer to St. Louis though, so maybe this is a Southeastern thing. Either way, I'm torn because I kind of do believe that there is a weird gray kangaroo lake monster out there. Part of the reason, you were speaking, a memory unlocked for me about hearing this story one about a period of time where like,
Gina (58:07)
I had never heard of it either.
Kathryn (58:32)
across the country there were several kangaroo-like sightings and it feels very unlikely that a bunch of pet kangaroos just randomly got loose around the same time. But I'm wondering, but my head is not in cryptid mode. My head is straight up in alien mode for this one personally. Like 100%. Yeah.
Gina (58:37)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, I love that because my head's not really in cryptid mode either. And
I find it difficult to pinpoint why. I just don't buy this one in the way that I do Dog Man or Moth Man.
Kathryn (59:09)
Yeah.
It feels like an alien to me personally. ⁓ Honestly. Yeah.
Gina (59:13)
It feels more alien, yeah.
Yeah, and then if you see the, ⁓ like the pictures people have tried to draw of what it was reported to look like, it does look very alien-y.
Kathryn (59:23)
Mm-hmm.
It sounds alien-y to me. Especially the slimy gray skin. I feel like that's a way that... I mean, anytime anything's gray, I'm like alien.
Gina (59:29)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
The greys, yeah. Yeah.
Kathryn (59:42)
Yeah, exactly. Damn.
Gina (59:46)
Yeah.
Kathryn (59:47)
That's fascinating. I can't believe I didn't know the details of this story. I'm wondering if this is one that I've heard about before and just didn't know.
Gina (59:55)
Mmm, like not in so many words. Yeah. Well, it's also a strange one because there's there is a shockingly high number of cryptids in southern Illinois and this one relies so heavily on the story of one specific person that I get why it's not as big as like a Loch Ness monster or something.
Kathryn (1:00:10)
Yeah.
Yeah. I also, as a graduate of Western Illinois University, the research kind of like, I'm kind of discrediting that whole part, like, because that's not like, I also did research while I was at Western Illinois University and like, there's nothing stuffy about that place. ⁓ Literally, their founding findings have me a little like, all right, well.
Gina (1:00:21)
Yeah
Kathryn (1:00:45)
Let me like show me your research because no offense to these researchers, but I was there. I'll just put it that way. Yeah, I'm choosing aliens. I'm voting aliens for this one personally. Cool. OK, cool. All right. Case closed. Problem solved. What's next?
Gina (1:00:57)
Okay, I'm on board, yeah, aliens.
Sweet, done.
Do you have something for me?
Kathryn (1:01:09)
I do, kind of. I have a lovely email. I have a couple things. Let me get myself organized. So in the spirit of cryptid month, I wanted to join what? That's not the word I meant to say. I just wanna be part of something. ⁓
Gina (1:01:14)
Yay! Okay.
What?
Kathryn (1:01:34)
Okay, so I wanted to throw back to our Mothman episode because we got some fun emails, slash a fun email with some follow-up fun emails from one of our listeners, Lauren, who had been to Point Pleasant prior to our listening to our Mothman episode. And
not gonna read the first email because it's just complimenting us and I feel bad being like, my God, this person had great things to say. But she, yeah, I wrote it in my diary. I transcribed it in my journal. ⁓ But she sent us some fun pictures, so I will include those in the YouTube and we can post them on social. ⁓
Gina (1:02:05)
read that alone later.
Kathryn (1:02:19)
But she said that there is a Chief Cornstock monument that she visited while down there, which I wish I had known when we did the episode when I was looking into the episode because Yes, the episode was about Mothman, but I think there was so much we could have gone deeper into about Chief Cornstock and I didn't know there was a monument for him. So I appreciate Yeah, I appreciate you letting us know about that Lauren because I feel like
Gina (1:02:25)
No.
Mm.
That's awesome.
Kathryn (1:02:50)
That's a nice monument to have. We don't always hear about nice monuments in West Virginia, so I'm happy that one exists. ⁓ So we were chatting, and she offered to stick our stickers down there in Point Pleasant, and she did. So we are down in Point Pleasant, West Virginia now with Mothman, thanks to Lauren. So friendly reminder, if you leave us a review.
Gina (1:02:52)
Yeah, agreed.
Yep.
Kathryn (1:03:18)
Maybe we'll send you a few stickers so you can keep them for yourself and share them with Mothman. ⁓ So yeah, she sent us a follow-up because she said in her first email they had a second trip planned to go back to Point Pleasant in December. So they went and like I said, she took our sticker and stuck us around. she said, me just read the, I'll read this one to you.
She says the trip to Point Pleasant was great. There was a ton of synchronicities from the moment we booked the trip up until the time we returned. So like right off the bat, like you got to email us about that because I'm dying to know what that is. We didn't get a chance to visit.
Gina (1:03:55)
Love it.
Kathryn (1:04:00)
Chief Cornstalker do a ton of investigating while we were there, but we did go to the TNT domes and stopped by the Mothman statue. Picks below and we'll insert them. ⁓ The last two pictures with the open doors and the quote, I believe are, taken at the TNT domes. I hope you enjoy. ⁓ I don't remember if you discussed this and I wish I would have thought to get a picture of the storefront while I was actually at Point Pleasant, but there is a cryptid themed ice cream shop right by the statue.
Gina (1:04:29)
WHA-
Kathryn (1:04:30)
Yep, and it's called What's the Scoop? And then she shared a link. We'll share a link and the photos of them in the show notes. yeah, I already did. It's so cute. yeah, she didn't send us a picture of it, but we can share what she did get. So yeah, so thank you to Lauren. Huge shout out to Lauren. Our sticker is now...
Gina (1:04:40)
I'm Googling that right now.
my gosh.
Kathryn (1:04:58)
down near the Mothman statue. So we really appreciate that. And yeah, thank you for sharing all the photos. We'll put as much as we can in the video. She sent a lot. So yeah, I just wanted to share that because that was our first trip we took with someone as a podcast. yeah, thank you for thinking of us and thank you for sending those pictures.
Gina (1:05:15)
Makes me so happy. Thank you so much, Lauren.
And we have to go to that ice cream shop together. Top priority.
Kathryn (1:05:23)
I know, I know, I'm like secretly
planning a Mothman trip now.
Gina (1:05:27)
my gosh, yes. West Virginia.
Kathryn (1:05:29)
Yeah.
Cool. Well, that's all we have. This was definitely a cryptid heavy episode. ⁓ If you have ever been anywhere cool or have experienced anything or just want to let us know what's going on with you, send us your story at iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com
Gina (1:05:38)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (1:05:52)
and until then, keep it cool.
Gina (1:05:54)
Keep it creepy.
