Familiar: No
Spirit Animal: No
Spirit Guide: No
Totem: No
Mythical: No
Supernatural: No
Cryptid: Yes
Urban Legend: Yes
Creepypasta: No
South Texas has el Chupacabras, the Hill Country has La Llorona, and East Texas has the wild man of the Big Thicket and the loup-garou. But perhaps none of these created more excitement than the Lake Worth Monster stirred up in the summer of 1969. Something strange, people said, was roaming the woods northwest of town on the shores of Lake Worth.
Something monstrous is lurking among the singing cicadas and rustling reeds on the shoreline of the West Fork of the Trinity River. In Texan folklore, the Lake Worth Monster is a legendary satyr-like creature said to inhabit Lake Worth at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge, just outside Fort Worth that terrorized the people of the city in July of 1969. All the purported monster sightings took place in the vicinity of Greer Island and although it was called an island, it could be reached by car on a muddy dirt track, and its relative isolation made it a popular hangout for local teenagers.
The Lake Worth Monster lives on the shores of the West Fork of the Trinity River. It can swim, climb trees, and eats fish and chickens. It is seven feet tall and has inhuman strength. Some reports say it has horns sprouting from its head, giving the monster the moniker of Goatman. Also known as the goatman of the lake, in a nod to Scotland’s Nessie — the Loch Worth Monster, and the island monster, the creature is often described as a “part-man, part-goat” with scales and long clawed fingers, towering seven feet tall, and weighing 350 pounds. Hairy, horned and covered in scales, the beast was reportedly seen running across a cliff. Some described it as having a single horn in the middle of its head as well as long-necked, flop-eared, slope-shouldered, pot-bellied, covered in white hair or scaly.
Lake Worth, just west of Dallas and just east of Fort Worth. In the middle of the lake is a landmass known as Greer Island, where the monster was alleged to have roamed. The creature has also become known as “Fort Worth’s answer to Bigfoot.” Even today, stories of the monster, also known as “Goatman,” can be heard around campfires in North Texas. Researchers have made documentaries and written books. Lakewood Brewing Co. even decided to pay respect with a limited-release Goatman beer.
The summer of 1969 was hot and humid in Tarrant County. Back then, the area near Greer Island wasn’t gated off like it is now. Teenagers would go down Shoreline Road around the lake to be alone and enjoy the freedom of summer nights. On July 9, a group of three couples was parked by a clearing. Around midnight, a beast leapt onto their car from the trees above. The monster tried to grab one woman, but they sped off before it could take her away, the witnesses said. These couples were the first to do so and, soon on, it became a phenomenon. A story about the uproar appeared in the Star-Telegram in July 1969, and WFAA followed up with a report the next day.
“Just about the time man, in all his wisdom, decides that he has this world and everything in it all figured out, along comes something he can’t explain,” WFAA reporter Jerry Taff relayed from the scene, his tone wavering between tongue-in-cheek and grave concern.
Reporter Jim Marrs followed up on the story and wrote an article, which made front-page news. The headline was, “Fishy Man-Goat Terrifies Couples Parked at Lake Worth.” The couples described it as goat-and man-like with fur and scales. Reports circulated of sheep being ripped to pieces, of cattle and dogs killed and mutilated
Sightings by local citizens in July 1969 led to the belief that a mysterious creature lived in Lake Worth. According to Sallie Ann Clarke’s book The Lake Worth Monster of Greer Island, Fort Worth, Texas, the monster jumped on the hood of a man’s car. Jim Stephens, claimed the monster, “real big and human like with burn scars all over its face arms and chest,” jumped on the hood of his Mustang one night, hanging on until Stephens crashed into a tree. The car was supposedly damaged by the Lake Worth Monster after it jumped out of a tree. He reported that he and two other men were out on the island looking for the creature.
When the creature landed on the hood, the man said that he swerved his car wildly about the road, and the monster did not let go until the man crashed into a nearby tree. As proof, he had a foot-and-a-half-long scar on it. The police finally decided to investigate, yet yielded no answers. Jim Stephens, reported that he himself was 6’4’’ and the creature was easily much taller than him. Stephens claimed the monster was at least 7-feet tall, maybe taller. Only one day after the incident, reports came in of a creature hurling a tire from a bluff at bystanders.
“We’ve had reports about this thing for about two months,” a police dispatcher told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “but we’ve always laughed them off as pranks.” But an 18-inch gash in the car’s side and the terrified nature of the witnesses led police to open a full investigation. It appeared in the newspapers the next day, and the area was immediately caught in monster-fever.
Truckloads of men with guns headed toward Greer Island to hunt the thing. Spectators came out in droves to try to catch a glimpse of it. Reporters swarmed in, and police tried to keep the peace.
Rick Pratt, director of the Greer Island Nature Center at the time, remembers folks coming out with wine, whiskey, and beer to have a good time and hunt for the creature.
“Here was a Sasquatch, our very own,” Pratt said. “It was a party, what the hell, let’s go.”
On the night of July 10, a few dozen people were at a clearing known for dumping near the lake when the monster made another appearance. It appeared on a cliff, looked angry, and threw a tire 500 feet. Everyone, including a group of sheriff’s deputies, ran away in fear. One witness said the monster gave off a “pitiful cry, like something was hurting him.”
In October of 1969, a man named Allen Plaster snapped a grainy picture of the Lake Worth Monster, which is the only photographic evidence of what appeared to be a beast or creature walking through high grass. The picture shows a large, white body. The image was then given to Sallie Ann Clarke. Newspapers published the photograph and locals began driving out to the lake at night to get a look at it. Allen Plaster of Fort Worth, then owner of the House of Allen women’s wear shop, said he was driving west on Shoreline Drive with a Weatherford couple at 1:35 a.m. when they saw the wooly Fur Monster stand up across the road.
The rumors were enough for police to fear that a mob of rifle-toting citizens would try to take the matters into their own hands. Local police investigated the claims, but found no evidence of the monster in the Lake Worth and Greer Island area.
Photograph by Allen Plaster. The only record we have is a blurry Nov. 19, 1969, Polaroid of a giant, white furball described by one online critic as “some sort of monstrous Bichon Frise.”
Stories and sightings of the creature had been common for a few years, attracting many young thrill seekers and skeptics. According to one reporter, the Goatman legend was spread via summer camp stories, where camp counselors told children to “listen carefully… and you’ll hear his cry on clear nights like tonight”.
Five people claimed they saw the monster break the limb of an oak tree. Clarke’s book had a picture for that, showing a thick limb snapped like a toothpick.
Cryptozoologist-blogger Craig Woolheater said he believes the Lake Worth monster is an “undiscovered, uncatalogued primate species that walks on two legs”.
Since 2009 (the 40th anniversary of the sightings), the Nature Center, which sits on more than 3,000 acres of woods and prairie along the lake, has fun with it, holding a “Lake Worth Monster Bash” every four years each October. In 2019, the Fort Worth Water Department’s H2OMG Podcast released a four part audio series on the legend of the Lake Worth Monster.
“The stories are enduring. The lore is enduring,” said Michelle Villafranca, a natural resource specialist at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge.
Villafranca organizes a Lake Worth Monster Bash at the nature center in October to celebrate the monster (this year’s bash is scheduled for Oct. Along with being in charge of land management at the park, she’s become the go-to collector of all things monstrous.
On the windowsill of her office is an empty bottle of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale. She has a book written about the Lake Worth Monster filed on her bookshelf right next to her field guides of local mammals.
“We have alligator sighting report forms; we don’t have any Goatman sighting forms. Maybe we should start,” Villafranca said. “After all, he is North Central Texas fauna.”
A Fort Worth woman, Sallie Ann Clarke, self-published a book based on newspaper accounts, interviews and personal experience. Some 30 years later Robert Hornsby, a New York artist who grew up in Fort Worth, put on an exhibition of pictures and sculptures based on the Lake Worth Monster mania. As references he used newspaper accounts and pictures of a Goat-Man statue sculpted by an Azle man and sold in a local gift shop during the uproar. Hornsby invited local art students to contribute their own works depicting the monster, and a new generation made the legend its own. One wrote a poem that said, “He creeps at night through brush and tree / Or scraggly grass to peek at me.”
Craig Woolheater was 9 that summer. He was fascinated with monsters, dinosaurs and UFOs. He clipped out the newspaper stories about the Lake Worth Monster scare and kept them in a scrapbook.
Years later, while driving through Louisiana, he saw something unexplainable. In his headlights, he said, he saw the gray body of a huge primate on two legs. He became a believer and started the Texas Bigfoot Research Center in 1999 to study and educate people about the elusive creature.
Today he lives in Mansfield and is a full-time cryptozoology blogger. He believes the Lake Worth Monster was a real creature, like ones that have been spotted all over the country, stopping in the area because of its viable habitat.
“I personally think it’s an undiscovered, uncatalogued primate species that walks on two legs,” he said.
Explanations
The “creature” hurling a tire was found out to a man. “Vinzens”, as he was called, admitted in 2009 that he was involved with the tire-throwing. He claims that he was rolling a tire along with some friends that hit a bump and went into the air, eventually landing very close to the bystanders.
KDFW, a Fox-owned television station in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, did a lengthy report in November of 1999 about the Lake Worth Monster. It interviewed some of those who saw it, such as Reporter Jim Marrs and Sallie Ann Clarke. The report announced that some high school students admitted to the police that they had pranked people by dressing up in a gorilla suit and parading around the lake in 1969.
The boy confessed that one evening he and his brother put on a little show for people parked in a gravel pit on Greer Island. The area was home to a former junkyard and had also been a gravel pit at one time. There was a cliff wall about 30 feet high around the gravel pit, at the base of a hill. The Lake Worth Monster and his accomplice jumped around on top of the hill waving their arms, then rolled a tire and wheel from the junkyard down the incline. It flew off the cliff and landed near where the cars were parked. The total distance traveled was less than 500 feet, and the tire was not thrown, but that didn’t stop the press from reporting it.
In a later interview, Allen Plaster commented on the photo, described as a man-sized “white furball”, that he took while driving past the Nature Center in 1969. He thinks he himself was mistaken about what he saw all of those years ago. According to Plaster, he thinks that what he witnessed was a hoax and he was most likely the victim of someone playing a prank, saying, “whatever it was, it wanted to be seen”.
Since reports of the monster ceased when school resumed, many suspected the incidents were pranks carried out by high school students. In 2005, a reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram received an anonymous letter from someone claiming to be one of three high school classmates who, in the summer of 1969, “decided to go out to Lake Worth and scare people” using a tinfoil mask. In 2009, Fort Worth, Texas magazine published a report about an unidentified man who said that he had been a perpetrator of the tire-throwing incident.
My conclusion on the matter:
It is hard to tell if the goatman is real or not based on all these many different accounts. These incidents happened over many years and had many witnesses. Some witness descriptions matched while others did not. Some incidents were inhuman and others not so much. Breaking it down is not as helpful as one would think. Looking at the evidence does not clear the muddy waters any better.
I feel that the first 3 couples that witnessed the monster, one of which was grabbed by it, even startled, would be able to tell if it was a costume or not. Costumes were not that great of quality back in ’69. 6 people looking at something and not one of them thought it was a costume. Even if it you assume it is a costume, the couples all described it as having fur and scales. While costumes today can be anything you want, back in ’69, this was not the case and that would have been a very unique thing to see, let alone think up doing and carry out. The thing not only grabbed one woman but made an 18 inch gash in the vehicle which would have been unheard of from a human doing so without a weapon. Most people enjoy pranking but don’t usually go so far as to cause expensive damage to property.
Another person reported the creature landing on the roof of his car and didn’t let go until he crashed into a tree. Most humans cannot gracefully land on a car without making a sound that gives them away as human, nor can we hold onto a moving car (in a costume no less) and walk away from a car wreck after hitting a tree. Following that, a man sleeping in the bed of his truck is hoisted bodily into the air and dropped. The creature grabbed an entire chicken from him in its mouth and took out 4inch thick saplings as it ran away. The man described the creature as 700- 1,000 lbs which no human is going to achieve and run away successfully. Just watching one episode of My 600 lb Life will let you know that dashing through the forest and escaping is not an option for something that large.
There are at least 2 different tire incidents. The creature threw a tire 500ft at a few folks from atop a ridge and at another time in front of a few dozen people which included sheriff deputies, threw another tire at them from atop the ridge and screamed. A few dozen people were terrified and believed it to be real enough to run. A few dozen people did not say it was a costume. A few dozen people were unable to track it down later and something weighing between 350 and 1,000 lbs should be decently easy to track, even for a novice, but they couldn’t. My suspicion is that if the creature exists, the incident with the deputies may have been the real creature while the second one was a copy cat move by someone having fun like those 2 teenagers who confessed later on.
I could not find the dates these incidents happened specifically and in what order they happened. That seems an awful lot of tires at their disposal to hurl at random passers by. However, a man later confessed in 2009 that he was with friends rolling a tire along and the story was embellished seems a little odd if deputies were freaking out. A man and his friend rolling tires isn’t going to terrify a few dozen people. The Lake Worth Monster and his accomplice jumped around on top of the hill waving their arms, then rolled a tire from the junkyard down the incline. Police especially are trained to handle high stress situations and are likely hunters themselves being in that area. Seeing someone throwing their arms in the air, suit or no suit, and a tire apparently merely rolling towards them as they latter confessed isn’t going to terrify law enforcement and lead them to no conclusion on the investigation. This is why I believe that one of these incidents was a copy cat incident. However, a naturalist said this might be a bobcat. Honestly I have to wonder if the naturalist was tripping on LSD since this was right around that time period.
5 people claimed they saw the monster break the limb of an oak tree. Oak is a very hard wood and this would have been quite an impressive display. No matter how strong or heavy a person you are, breaking the limb of a tree is going to require effort and time. Likely enough time to figure out the person doing it was in a costume, especially with 5 witnesses. The only known image of the creature does not help one way or another.
Some high school students admitted to the police that they had pranked people by dressing up in a gorilla suit and parading around the lake in 1969 but that does not explain the years and years of sightings and violent encounters with inhuman strength. High school students, no matter how fit, are not going to be able to gash cars and grab people, lifting fully grown men into the air and knocking down trees. So while maybe they did dress up for fun, that does not mean that every sighting of the monster was them. The inhuman strength sittings could very well be something much more cryptid.
The gentleman who took the photo and later thought it a hoax may have been mocked and made fun of for what he saw and eventually convinced himself it was fake. This has happened many times during police interrogations and people who are actually innocent confess to the crime because they have convinced themselves it was them or have been considered a bad witness because their memory recall of the incident was not like a perfectly played out video rerun. A lot of people come under fire and are laughed at by skeptics when it comes to cryptids especially. It is easy to convince someone they have or have not done something, especially over the course of many years. He was very sure of himself in the beginning and only years later said he believed it was a hoax. That makes me wonder on the psychology of how he was treated in the town after the incident and over long periods of time.
Since reports of the monster ceased when school resumed, many suspected the incidents were pranks carried out by high school students but you also have to consider that many of the folks who saw the monster were young people who likely wouldn’t have time to go out that way when school was back in session. It is hard to have witnesses to a monster when the witnesses are otherwise occupied for 8-10 hours a day and going to a middle of nowhere make out spot/ camping spot isn’t as convenient or easy.
Three high school classmates confessed that in the summer of 1969, “decided to go out to Lake Worth and scare people” using a tinfoil mask. That is absolutely illogical as what people are seeing is a giant ape monster that breaks trees and throws people around. How is a tinfoil mask going to explain even half the incidents that happened? And finally, an old man who used a tire, twine, and shiny green buttons tried to scare fishermen away and that is a monster? I don’t think so.
My opinion is that there may very well be something out there reminiscent of Big Foot but there are also a lot of storytellers out there looking for their 15minutes of fame.
Danger Level: Unsafe
Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/lakeworthmonster, Http://tchj.com/category/the-lake-worth-monster/, https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Lake_Worth_Monster, https://texashillcountry.com/legend-of-lake-worth-monster/, https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/tarrant-county/tracking-goatman-the-story-behind-the-lake-worth-monster/287-526680734, https://tpwmagazine.com/archive/2003/oct/legend
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