Last fall I had planned and then had taken the children in my school program on our annual "Looking for Bigfoot" field trip to a new location. This field trip was a bit different because I had found a park close to where there was a report of the 1954 Plum Creek Monster. In fact there are a couple of BFRO reports within 7-10 miles of this location. I had stumbled upon a video about the Plum Creek Monster while at the local library looking at urban legends and anything unusual in my county. I loved the video. Then I looked up the original article and others talking about the monster. I thought this was a good way to talk about some of the history of our county and about Bigfoot. Before the field trip day, I went in and explored the location a couple of times and then went down stream about 4 miles and found some old tracks coming out of Plum Creek!
On our "Looking for Bigfoot" field trip day, I had brought in a casting from Missouri. Also I had made a 8 ft tall Bigfoot silhouette and some outlines of a 19 inch and 17 inch prints to show the children the scale of Bigfoot and also a visual of the size of my prints. Then I showed them how hard it was to try to take a picture of anything that moves in the woods. That by the time you turn on the camera, put it to your face and focus, either the subject that was seen is gone or is blurry or in the shadows. I also talked about the Plum Creek Monster. Then we went to the creek location. I was hoping for us to find prints there but we did not see or hear anything. It turned out to be a wonderful cold day exploring the woods and creek while learning to whoop and look at structures.
I would like to talk a little about the Plum Creek Monster with you like I did with the children. You see the Denver News and I do not agree on this story. The newspaper called it a hoax and I do not. I think those ranch hands did see something. I will explain more.
Back in 1954, on one of the ranches on Plum Creek, some ranch hands had reportedly seen a black hairy creature with green glowing eyes that was about 8 feet tall waving a chicken. It Scared them. When the sheriff and others came to investigate there was 14 inch prints found with toes. Days later there was another report saying others had seen it too. Pretty soon there were many people going to the ranch looking for this creature. We are talking about a couple thousand people tramping through the ranch and surrounding area. This was in a rural county south of Denver. It was a big thing to happen in Douglas County. Then the under-sheriff reported in the newspaper that there was no monster and he knew who did it. He then said he talked with the person and told him not to do this again.
I can see where the Denver newspaper a few years ago called this a hoax because:
- The under-sheriff said it was a hoax.
- The person who wrote the Denver article saying it was a hoax had no knowledge or knew the history of Bigfoot.
Let me point out a couple of things that may indicate that this may have actually happened:
- This was before the Gimlin-Patterson Film (1967) or the hype from the big feet found at a logging location in northern California (1959).
- This was before Internet and common knowledge that we now have about Bigfoot. We are reading and hearing about this 1954 creature with our 2017 eyes/knowledge. There was no previous local knowledge of Bigfoot in Douglas County or the Denver area.
- 14 inch prints found with toes.
- It was the under-sheriff who made the announcement that it was a hoax and knew who did it. This was big news at the time and why would the under-sheriff and not the sheriff make this announcement? You would think the sheriff would have made the announcement since this was so sensational and really big news. It doesn't sound right. I am thinking that the sheriff did not want to get caught lying to the public just in case this creature came back.
- The creature had green glowing eyes.
Hmmm...
I think there was a Sasquatch raiding a rancher's chicken coop one night in 1954.
