Enfield — the Enfield Monster, April–May 1973

OVERVIEW

The Enfield Monster is an unidentified creature reported around Enfield, Illinois, in April and May 1973. It was covered by the press at the time and was later used as a case study in a 1978 paper on social contagion and collective behaviour.

HISTORY

At about 10 p.m. on 25 April 1973 Henry McDaniel heard scratching at his door and saw a creature about four and a half feet tall, greyish, with 'three legs', two short arms and pink eyes; he fired four shots and it fled toward the railway embankment. Police found dog-like tracks and thought McDaniel 'rational and sober'. A ten-year-old neighbour, Greg Garrett, said it had trampled his shoes — and later told researchers that was a hoax. On 6 May McDaniel reported it again on the railway trestle; a search party from the radio station WWKI said it saw an 'apelike' creature and recorded its cries. Two days later police arrested five armed young men from out of town hunting it.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

DISPUTED. Suggestions included an escaped kangaroo (the tail as a 'third leg' — McDaniel, who had kept one in Australia, said it 'wasn't no kangaroo') and a wild ape. Sociologists cite it as group suggestibility; one witness's account was an admitted prank, McDaniel's was not.

VISITING

A small town; the McDaniel house is a private residence.