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The Crosley Monster - An Indiana Bigfoot?

Posted by: Craig Woolheater on November 7th, 2006

Cryptomundo reader BendyWVa sent us the following newspaper article.

Crosley Monster, myth or real?

Oct. 31, 2006
09:37
By: Bryce Mayer
North Vernon Plain Dealer and the North Vernon Sun, Indiana

Bigfoot is alive and well in the Crosley State Fish & Wildlife Area.

This is no Halloween hoax according to four Jennings County teenage boys who say they saw what could be the legendary Crosley Monster last summer.

I have heard stories about the Crosley Monster, all my life and, like most everyone else, scoffed at them in disbelief. Sometimes called the Crosley Creature, the monster is supposed to be half-animal half-human according to local folklore.

So when I got a telephone call from one of the boys’ mothers a couple of months ago telling me about the recent alleged sighting, I was skeptical to say the least.

But I thought, “Hey, this might make a good story to use near Halloween.” I wrote down some of her information and her telephone number with the intent of digging into the story at Halloween time, when people enjoy a good scary story.

When I started talking to people and investigating for this column, I realized this is not your average Halloween tale. In fact, I may have gotten more than I bargained for.

One evening last July, Corey Mullikin, Terry Snyder, Clint Maschino and Robbie Evans went by foot to the Harsin Pond in Crosley for a night of fishing and camping.

Around 11 p.m., the Crosley Monster made his, or her, appearance.

Crosley Monster

Corey Mullikin points to the spot where he first saw what could be the Crosley Monster.

“We heard some strange noises and tree branches snapping behind us,” said Snyder who was fishing with the other three from the dam.

“I didn’t know what it was, and at first thought it might be a deer,” Mullikin said. “The animal was right at the tree line but still behind the trees.”

Then they saw a pair of yellow-orange glowing eyes, reflecting the light of their lantern. The creature was at least seven feet tall, Mullikin estimated, and he was on two legs.

Snyder said didn’t get a good look at it, except for its eyes and the large shadow it cast.

“I saw his shadow from our lantern and it was huge,” Snyder said. “You could see from the shadow he had a bunch of hair, too. He looked filthy.”

The monster made no noise of his own, except for the considerable shaking of tree limbs and brush as he moved. The boys had seen enough and took off running, crossing Ind. 7 and sprinting down Grayford Road. According to Mullikin, the creature gave chase.

“He ran through the cornfield next to Grayford Road as we ran down the road. I could hear him knocking down corn stalks behind us and to the side,” Mullikin said.

As he and his friends ran, Mullikin said he heard a pair of dogs barking and knew from their sound that they were a neighbor’s pets.

“There were two big German shepherds and they were barking like crazy,” he said. “Then all of a sudden we heard one of the dogs yelp and they stopped barking.”

Wildlife educator says Bigfoot could be real

Far fetched? Maybe, but maybe not according to Larry Battson. A nationally-known wildlife educator from Putnam County, Battson says he has no reason to believe that the four teens are making up their story.

Battson gave a lecture on the Bigfoot phenomenon at Columbus that Mullikin attended shortly after his first encounter with the Crosley Monster. Mullikin heard tapes of the sounds made by alleged Sasquatch animals and talked with Battson after his talk.

Then a few weeks later, Mullikin had a second encounter with the Crosley Monster.

This time he was out by himself squirrel hunting late on evening on the other side of Ind. 7 from Harsin Pond, though not far at all from his first encounter.

“I heard a screaming sound just like the one I heard at Mr. Battson’s presentation,” Mullikin said.

When he turned toward the noise, Mullikin got a good look — too good of a look. What he saw frightened him to his core.

“He was big and covered in black fur,” Mullikin said. “I started running.”

The animal again chased Mullikin.

“He was running on all fours, but he was still huge, and ran in like a circle around me as I ran through the woods,” Mullikin said.

The young hunter ran backwards for three miles so he could keep his eye on the creature.

“I didn’t want to turn my back to him,” he explained.

Mullikin had a 12-guage shotgun with him, but his natural instinct was to flee.

“I kept thinking to myself, ‘Run, you idiot. Get away from him,’” Mullikin said.

Now Mullikin says he never returns to that particular area, which is one of his favorite squirrel hunting spots, by himself.

Mullikin reported his second encounter to Battson a few days later, but no one else.

“I knew if I called the police or other authorities, they wouldn’t believe me,” Mullikin. “But Mr. Battson did.”

Conservation officer, Crosley manager doubtful

Indiana Department of Natural Resources’ Conservation Officer Bill Beville says he often hears talk of the Crosley Monster, along with panther and rattlesnake sightings in Jennings County.

“I have seen no factual evidence of any of those in my 16 years as a conservation officer,” he said. “I would never disparage anyone, but I don’t put a lot of stock in those stories. I think the guys make it up to get their girlfriends to snuggle up to them in their car.”

Crosley manager Larry Allsop said he has received numerous reports of the Crosley Monster in his nearly 34 years there, as many as a dozen annually, but doubts there are any Bigfoot creatures there because no evidence has ever been found.

“With all the deer, rabbit, squirrel and turkey hunters who come to Crosley, we should have had some valid evidence if there really was such an animal here,” he said.

Allsop even recalled when a local man confessed to a Crosley Monster hoax in the late 1950s.

“Why would eyewitnesses bring ridicule upon themselves?” asked Battson, who told Mullikin to call him immediately if he saw the animal again and he would try to travel to Crosley to try to collect evidence.

Battson says he has never seen a Bigfoot animal in person, but he has looked at plenty of evidence throughout Indiana and the U.S. He also has heard countless stories similar to Mullikin’s.

“These animals leave lots of signs such as footprints and broken branches. I’ve seen the big footprints. I’ve seen thick branches nine feet up in a tree that have been twisted in different directions, unlike the damage a tornado leaves,” Battson said.

Battson believes
there could be thousands of the Sasquatch in North America. Sightings have been reported in every state except Rhode Island and Hawaii. They are apparently most numerous in the northwest.

Bigfoot animals are common in Asia, too. Battson said when he worked with Jim Fowler, the host of the old TV show “Wild Kingdom,” his interest in Bigfoot was piqued.

“Jim told me about going to Russia to film the brown bear there, and all the guides wanted to talk about was Bigfoot and how the sightings were very similar to the reports in North America,” he said. “A lot of mainstream scientists believe Bigfoot may exist, including Jane Goodall.”

But why has no Bigfoot body been found and only a couple movies ever recorded of the alleged animal, not nearly enough proof to claim that Sasquatch exist?

“They are nocturnal, quite elusive and rare,” Battson answered. “I’m not sure that a Bigfoot body has never been recovered. I talked to a former sheriff in eastern Ohio who believes one was hit by a semi truck there. Everyone involved was told to keep it quiet or else.”

Why hasn’t a hunter or someone else in the woods ever reported a dead Bigfoot?

“These animals are smart enough that they don’t leave their dead around,” Battson said. “When you think about it, there are millions of wild animals in the wood. How often do you see a dead animal in the woods? Hardly ever. Buzzards and other scavengers take care of them pretty quickly. Mother Nature has a way to clean things up like that.”

Authorities also may cover up evidence because of the chilling affect it might have on the tourism business if the existence of a Bigfoot species is proven.

Battson has been involved in interviewing countless Bigfoot witnesses and examining evidence for 30 years. He knows of many other sightings reported in Jennings County, too.

“From what I’ve seen and been told, there is definitely something to this,” he said. “Either this is one of the greatest hoaxes ever known, or one of the most interesting animals ever known.”

Teen: ‘It freaked all of us out’

Snyder, who is 16, said he had heard about the Crosley Monster before, but never gave those stories much credence until his close call. Now he is a believer.

“What I heard and saw that night was plenty weird,” he said. “We got more than a little scared. It freaked out all of us.”

Now 17, Mullikin said when he was 8 years old a great uncle told him of seeing the Crosley Monster from his parked car, that it shook his car after he turned on the lights and spotted “a big thing of black fur.”

The Crosley Monster tales I’ve heard are like that, usually involving teens parking at night in one of the hundreds of isolated locations in Crosley’s 4,228 acres, then catching a glimpse of a strange, large animal that scares them nearly to death.

The stories from Mullikin and his friends are a bit different because the witnesses were actually outside on foot when they allegedly saw and heard the creature.

“Most people don’t believe me,” Mullikin said.

He is thoroughly convinced the Crosley Monster is still out there somewhere, whether others believe him or not.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 7th, 2006 at 12:17 am and is filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Cryptozoology, Eyewitness Accounts, Folklore, Sasquatch, Swamp Monsters. You can follow responses via our RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.

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9 Responses to “The Crosley Monster - An Indiana Bigfoot?”

bill green responds: November 7th, 2006 at 3:18 am
Hey Craig, this is definitely a very interesting article about Indiana sasquatch creatures.
BigfootBeliever71 responds: November 7th, 2006 at 8:12 am
An interesting story, but when someone returns to an area, not once but two to three times and sees this creature, you would think one would grab a camera. The fact that he didn’t upon consecutive returns makes me think this story is half true. I think they did see something, then who knows after that?

When I was young growing up in South Florida (Hollywood), I spotted a manatee that was in a brackish warm water canal behind my dad’s dental office. I told people and no one believed me, and every time I went there, it was there. I finally grabbed my mom’s camera (unbeknownst to her) and took pics of it to prove to people that there was indeed a manatee behind his office. This young man should do the same.
raisinsofwrath responds: November 7th, 2006 at 11:39 am
It chased him on “all fours”?

Since when does BF run on all fours?

The first encounter sounded pretty legitimate as I have read many stories of BF running parallel to humans. Although I don’t know why they do this.
S.B.R.U. responds: November 7th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Sounds interesting! My research team has done some work with Larry Battson and we know, he will look into a sighting before he goes and blows it off as a hoax. Good to hear of IN getting some action from bigfoot also!
Tyler Vance
S.B.R.U.
CRH responds: November 7th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Battson’s story about Jim Fowler from ‘Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom’ was very interesting…is he still around? Wonder if he’d be willing to corroborate the Russian angle (In college we used to do Marlin Perkins impersonations: “My assistant Jim will now try to distract the grizzly bear…Jim? Where’s Jim? Wait Jim! The bear’s that way!” Jim always seemed to get the raw end of the wildlife wrangling stick.).
indybfhntr responds: November 7th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
I really dont doubt this story as Crosley is not too far from the Mascakatuck Federal Wildlife Preserve. As there has been a couple sighting reports come out of there. But I wasn’t there, so I can’t really say. I’m not far from Jennings County, just two counties away. Every time I drive through that area I keep expecting to see something to cross the road one of these days.
Rillo777 responds: November 7th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
I live a couple of counties north of Jennings and I can tell you that I have collected newspaper and internet reports from all over Indiana. These have been occurring for decades. It’s sad that Indiana is often overlooked by most Bigfoot hunters but maybe that is good for the creature. In regards to the question about finding bodies, I’ve wondered that, too. Hunters are often finding human remains in woods and it begs the question of why something as big as b.f. wouldn’t also be found. Is it possible b.f. is intelligent and social enough to bury its dead? But then if they’re that intelligent then why not stay hidden from people? Maybe they are as curious about us as we are about them? On the other hand, we also need to be careful that we don’t project our own way of thinking on them…humanize them so to speak. They most likely think entirely differently from they way we do if they are self-aware at all. So many questions and no good answers. But above all we need to remember that b.f might develop different behavious in different locales including types of locomotion, food, etc.
joppa responds: November 8th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Note to self - don’t go fishing in Harsin Pond. I think that some sort of migration of these creatures takes place and many of these encounters involve a creature passing through. The sightings are short lived, clustered around a few days and then bam, nothing.
Terry W. Colvin responds: July 29th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
While in Vietnam either in 1971 or 1972, my Aunt Betty mentioned a “strange” bear that knocked down fences and upset picnickers somewhere in south central Indiana. My aunt lived in Petersburg, Pike County. I thought this was an isolated Bigfoot-type report from Indiana but another poster here (Rillo777) says he/she has collected many similar reports.

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