Imagine hearing a scratching at your door and the kids complaining about an animal trying to get in. You go outside, expecting maybe a stray dog or even a puma… Instead you are met with a disturbing three-legged grey monster.
What started as a strange encounter lead to a monster hunt that nearly uprooted the village of Enfield, Illinois.
April 25, 1973: A boy, Greg Garrett, claims to have been attacked by a truly bizarre beast. He describes it as having around three legs, grey and slimy skin, and glowing red eyes.
It had tore at the child’s clothes, stamping clawed feet until Garrett’s tennis shoes were shredded.
Only 30 minutes after the boy was attacked, there was another sighting of the Enfield Horror that put the small town on the map for monster hunters everywhere.
Henry McDaniel, Garrett’s neighbor, came home to find his children in a fearful stupor. Apparently a creature had tried to break into their home, causing the children’s fright.
McDaniel heard some scratching at the door and promptly went to check for a cat or dog… Only to be met with the abomination that is the Enfield Horror.
Recoiling, McDaniel grabbed his .22 pistol and fired upon the creature four times. McDaniel claims that the first shot struck the creature, causing it to hiss and retreat (rather than stagger, wounded, as one would think a normal animal might do.)
After calling the police, it was found that the creature had left scratch marks on the door as well as bizarre footprints: similar to a dog yet it had six toes, as well as two prints that were four-inches wide while a third was noticeably smaller.
The buzz this encounter caused (as well as a later encounter, once again by McDaniel) incited a surge of amateur investigators to search for the creature. At one point, five men were arrested for shooting haphazardly into the woods at a “grey thing”.
Due to this, the police even advised McDaniel to stop talking of the creature, lest he might be arrested for disturbing the peace in the quiet village of around 500 people.
Once the initial hype died down, there were supposedly more sightings of the Enfield Horror. However, since the 70s, the creature hasn’t shown itself to humans. Maybe it was a single mutated animal that died off, leaving behind a legacy. Or maybe the abomination continues to stalk the fields of Illinois. We may never know.
Images of creature from Cryptidz.Fandom.com. Image of Enfield Illinois from WikiMedia Commons. All images on this site are free use!
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