Illinois is a US state that is located in the Midwestern and Great Lakes regions of the United States and it is bordered with the US states of Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky and Indiana, the state also has a coast along Lake Michigan, one of the North American Great Lakes and of which has the coast facing the US state of Michigan. The capital of Illinois is Springfield and the largest city is Chicago.
The vast majority of Illinois is covered by the central plains which is divided into the Driftless plains, Great Lakes Plains and Till Plains. The Great Lakes Plain found along the Michigan Lake is low and mostly flat with some hills. The Driftless Plain is in the northwest of the state and has the highest elevations and there are also valleys. The Till Plains includes much fertile soil for crops which has enabled the state to have agriculture be a large part of its economy.
South of the Central Plains can be found the Shawnee Hills and also includes high elevations as well as valleys, rivers and woodland. The southern tip of Illinois is the Gulf Coastal Plain, between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, it includes hilly and flat areas.
Illinois has a highly diversified economy that includes many contributing sectors such as agriculture, with it being one of the top corn and soybean producing states and Chicago is a global center for food manufacturing and meat processing, other manufacturing sectors also contribute much to the economy. The services sector is also a growing part of the economy such as financial trading, higher education, medicine among others and the state continues to see much investment interest.
So that’s Illinois for you but let’s move away from all that normality and go into the stranger realms of the state to see what it has among the paranormal and the unexplained. Illinois actually looks to have quite a few tales on cryptid encounters and so we shall be jumping right into it by starting with the Enfield Horror… and for more in a different place called Enfield in the United Kingdom, check out my post about the Enfield Poltergeist.
In April 1973 on one particular day, the town of Illinois was seemingly visited by quite the abomination and something that also appeared to be rather aggressive as well. It was dubbed the Enfield Horror or the Enfield Monster and upon its first apparent encounter where it allegedly attacked a young boy in his backyard it would go on to create quite a fright in the town as more encounters and reports came about of a strange creature that seemed to be perhaps alien, some kind of cryptid or even possibly a demon.
The reports and encounters were also spread by the local media, creating a greater stir and perhaps also some mass hysteria.
Greg Garret, the boy who claimed to have been attacked by the creature described it as being small, having three legs, grey slimy skin, short claws as well as red eyes. The creature apparently stamped on the poor boy’s shoes, tearing them up with its claws before the boy then ran away to tell his parents of the terrifying ordeal, the parents though were unable to find any trace of such a creature upon heading outside to look around.
The creature had apparently not finished its rampage though as about a half hour later Henry McDaniel had just returned home along with his wife to find their children in a most unpleasant state of distress and upon further enquiry the children revealed that some creature they were unable to describe was trying to break into the house, firstly through the front door, but when that proved futile it then attempted to break in through the air conditioning unit that was attached to the window.
At some point soon after this information the occupants of the house heard a scratching at the front door of their home. Naturally Henry McDaniel was reluctant to believe what was surely just a tale of child’s imagination and concluding it was more likely to be a stray cat he went and opened the door only to be faced with something quite unbelievable indeed, describing what he saw as a monstrosity with pink eyes.
The description given was largely similar to Garret’s, apart from the inclusion of two small arms protruding from its breast area as well as the eyes being described as pink rather than red.
Clearly being scared of whatever this thing was, McDaniel quickly shut the door and fetched a flashlight and pistol. He then opened the door and taking no chances fired immediately at the creature, causing it to make a hissing noise and then hop away, covering quite a distance in three vast leaps, McDaniel also claimed that some of his shots had hit the creature but seemed to have not had much of an effect.
Authorities would later arrive at the house to investigate and although they did not find the creature, they did document strange scratches on the front door as well as unidentified prints that appeared to have six toe-pads and also seemed to indicate the creature having three legs.
McDaniel also claimed to see the creature two-weeks later from his front door as it moved down a nearby railway track and other residents of Enfield had also claimed sightings of the creature as well.
Some skeptics have claimed that the creature could have been an escaped animal such as a kangaroo or ape.
Next up is another rather strange creature called the Tuttle Bottoms Monster. The folklore of the creature has become quite a legend among residents of Saline County where the creature is said to inhabit swampy areas near to Harrisburg and along the Saline River, known as Tuttle Bottoms.
The creature is described as having a large ape-like body but a head that has a long snout similar to that of an anteater. There are conflicting reports over whether it is bipedal or if it is a four-legged creature. The creature is said to be 8ft in length and/or height.
One interesting trait of the creature in sightings is that it appears to not be afraid of humans but will instead continue going on with its business rather than running away and the creature is also not reported as aggressive but rather passive or indifferent to observers.
An August 6th, 1963 article apparently in the Daily Register newspaper is said to have been the first report related to the Tuttle Bottoms creature which described how the then Saline County sheriff James L. Thompson came across a youth armed with a rifle who talked of a strange creature in Tuttle Bottoms that he said was 8ft long and 4ft high and had a snout like an anteater. The young man was made to leave the area and soon thereafter the sheriff came across a group of young men in the area armed with shotguns and other weapons who were also claiming to look for the monster, the sheriff dispersed them from the area and told them to go home.
Next up is yet another cryptid, this one known as the Farmer City Monster or also the Salt Creek Monster. It is perhaps a lot more obscure than the previous two creatures. It was first sighted by a group of teens who were out camping on private land and was reported by the Bloomington Pantagraph.
The teens noticed an uncanny shape moving just at the edge of the campfire among tall grass that surrounded the area, slightly illuminated by the firelight. The startled teens turned on the headlights of a car they had with them to get a better look, which allowed the teens a slight moment to make a description, revealing a man-like figure but with greyish-white fur and standing at about 6ft in height, the creature, seemingly spooked, dashed off shortly after the light from the headlights hit it.
The teens, also understandably terrified, decided to bolt it out of the area as well, leaving their tent behind and one of the teens who also had a broken ankle even left his crutches behind. A police officer who investigated the area claimed to hear something rush through the tall grass but didn’t catch a glimpse of what it was, at this point the tent was still standing.
Later that same morning the tent was found torn to shreds.
Numerous other sightings were also claimed by people in the area as well and a common description was it staring at the witnesses with glowing eyes from among the tall grass, but no one was seemingly able to get a proper look at whatever the creature was.
Now we shall go on to a Thunderbird encounter, as you may know, Thunderbirds are gigantic oversized birds that some people claim to exist and such giant birds also originate from Native American folklore where they are believed to have great power and ability. Reported sightings of such giant birds are not so uncommon with numerous sightings having been documented, although no reliable visual evidence has ever really been captured.
And here I have another such encounter from Illinois and also quite a terrifying one for those involved. The alleged incident took place during the later hours of the 25th July 1977 in the village of Lawndale, Logan County. The incident took place shortly after having finished dinner and the mother, Ruth Lowe, was in the kitchen cleaning up while her kids were outside playing.
Suddenly she heard a scream of fear emanate from the garden, from her 10-year-old son Marlon. Upon heading outside to see what was happening, Ruth claimed to witness two huge birds flying in close formation chasing the terrified Marlon around the garden while pecking and clawing at him.
Ruth went on the defensive against the birds in an attempt to save her son and soon following this, one of the birds swooped in closer and dug its claws into the boy’s shirt and then shockingly lifted him up off the ground quite high into the air but luckily, perhaps due to Ruth Lowe’s determination to battle the big birds, the bird dropped the boy to the ground.
The incident would be reported to the police who only seemed to find it amusing and didn’t take it seriously and local media attention around the incident led to the Lowe family receiving ridicule and even some abuse, mocking them over the whole affair.
Well I shall leave it there as I don’t want to make these blogs too long, blogposts aren’t meant to be super long, but Illinois does have a lot more mysterious stuff to offer, a surprising amount of it actually, so I may well revisit the state in the future.
Next up will be the strange and the unexplained of the US state of Indiana.
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