Giant Sloth in Ohio River Valley?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on November 30th, 2007
Boonville, Ind., Aug. 18. [1937] - (U.P.) - A stranger who declined to identify himself strolled into the newspaper office here today and declared that the weird, mysterious beast whose screams and prowlings have terrified residents of the Ohio river valley is simply a giant sloth.
The man said he and his uncle were returning home from Mexico two years ago with the sloth, which they had captured on a game hunting expedition. He said they lost it near Evansville and never had found a trace of it since. He was uncertain if it was two-toed or three-toed, but averred that sloths came in both varieties.
When a sloth is hungry and frightened, he said, it will give vent to blood-curdling shrieks and yells such as terrified river valley residents have reported they have heard intermittently since Friday night [August 13].
At that time Mrs. Ralph Duff reported she caught a fleeting glimpse of the animal and said it looked like an ape.
Posses, according to reports here, are searching the river bottoms cautiously in the hope of tracking the beast to its lair.
River folk said today that they had seen an empty circus truck in the vicinity, and assumed that animal experts are endeavoring to capture the alleged monster also.“Sloth Scares the Boonville Natives,” Hammond Times, Hammond, Indiana, Wednesday, August 18, 1937.
Ah, the ole circus truck hanging around the edges of the story, humm? It seems those stories about the circus people wanting to capture one of these mystery creatures to add to their collections are almost as common as those in which the same creatures are escaping from wrecked circus trains!
It is intriguing to find the tension between the “giant ground sloth” theory versus the “great ape” hypothesis we see being played out in the Amazon during the last few years was experienced in Indiana in the 1930s.
Sloths in Mexico???!!
I mean, I know we mexicans have the bad rep. of being lazy (completely untrue I might add, well… except for our politicians that is), but that is just TOO MUCH!
In a way, even the original claim amounted to an escaped exotic pet story, the difference being that they claimed to have captured something supposedly extinct for thousands of years.
What an interesting little article. Since the Giant Sloth is an extinct species, then the one he claimed to have captured in Mexico is a cryptid. Then he brought that cryptid to the States, where he lost it so we basically have here is an escaped, exotic, cryptid. That sort of blows my mind, a cryptid from one place that is transferred to another one far from home to become a cryptid there. To me, that would be sort of like, say, a Tasmanian tiger somehow finding its way to Hawaii. Whoa.
Lost and alone in Indiana!
No wonder it was screaming.
wasn’t there some research a few years ago indicating that certain species of giant ground sloths may have survived on Cuba and Hispanola until the 1500s? i could possibly see a few surviving down in south america, but making it all the way up to mexico undetected seems like quite a stretch.
Great historical cryptid story.
Mystery_Man, you took the words right out of my mouth.
Gooles- If you read the article carefully, you’ll see that the sloth didn’t “make it’s way” up from Mexico undetected. It was captured on a game hunting expedition and then escaped when it was brought to the States.
Did anyone notice it all started on Friday the thirteenth. Eerie!
Evansville, Indiana is my hometown. The latest date for extinction of the ground sloth is maybe 5,000 years ago based on remains found on one or more islands in the Caribbean. The stroller sounds like a tall tale teller, I mean, transporting such a large animal would attract notice.
This report does not reference a giant ground sloth at all. Instead, it mentions a “giant sloth”. Because the article says it is unknown whether the sloth in question was a two-toed or three-toed sloth, it seems clear that what is being discussed is a sloth, not an allegedly extinct ground sloth (which would remind one more of a bear than an ape).