The Fishy Man-Goat of Lake Worth
Thursday January 31, 2008 8:12 AM
Most lake monsters are said to look like fish or serpents, with snakelike heads atop long thin bodies tens of feet in length. Witnesses typically see them floating in the water or flopping about on the shore. But things are often weirder in Texas, and the Lake Worth monster is no exception.
The first sighting of the Lake Worth monster occurred in July of 1969, when a group of people reported seeing a huge creature on the banks of Lake Worth near Fort Worth, Texas. They described it as part man, part goat, and covered with both scales and fur. One of the witnesses said it jumped onto the hood of his car and tried to grab his wife before he and the other witnesses were able to escape. Investigators found an 18-inch scratch along the side of the car at the scene. The next day, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram published an article about the attack, sending the locals into a panic.
The next day, more reports of the Lake Worth monster began to surface as residents began searching for the beast. Several onlookers reported seeing it throw a car tire 500 feet into a crowd. Some people described the monster as 7 feet tall and 300 pounds, and said that it emitted terrible inhuman cries as though it were in pain. Still others said it had the head of a goat, with a horn in the middle of its forehead.
More sightings were reported throughout the summer of 1969. The beast was seen ripping the limbs off a tree. It jumped on top of another car and held on while the driver crashed into a tree. It had been shot and had left a trail of blood leading towards the lake. It was mutilating sheep. Its tracks were 16 inches long. These sightings were all unsubstantiated until Allen Plaster took a photo.
Plaster and his friends spent that summer looking for the Lake Worth monster. One night they were driving along the shore when they saw something standing in the grass nearby. Plaster managed to snap a Polaroid of the monster as it ran away. He gave the Polaroid to a woman named Sallie Ann Clarke, who used it in a semi-fictional book she later wrote about the monster.
The last sighting of the Lake Worth monster in 1969 occurred in November, when a man named Charles Buchanan claimed that the monster lifted him out of the back of his pickup truck. Buchanan said he gave a bag of leftover chicken to the monster, who caught it in his mouth, headed towards the lake, and swam away.
Local investigators claimed that the Lake Worth monster was a hoax perpetrated by a group of young boys with a gorilla suit and glowing plastic mask. But the hoax theory doesn't explain the large number of sightings, the varied descriptions of the monster, the mangled sheep, or the car tire thrown 500 feet.
Comments (2)
Goat-man lives in Maryland [u]not[/u] Texas.
Posted by Goat Man | February 2, 2008 5:46 PM
Posted on February 2, 2008 17:46
Goat Man, this is a different incident than that which happened in Maryland. Although more commonly referred to as the Lake Worth Monster, it was described to police as half man / half goat by a group of teenagers who were among the first witnesses in July 1969. Although many cryptozoologists and researchers feel that this description simply refers to the white color of its fur and not to any attributes resembling an actual goat.
Posted by Cullan | February 7, 2008 10:16 AM
Posted on February 7, 2008 10:16