Enfield Horror

 

The Enfield monster incident, also known as the Enfield horror, happened in Enfield Illinois on April 25h, 1973. These events should not be confused with the Enfield poltergeist, which took place in England.

At 10pm, Henry McDaniels was returning home after a long day at work. On exiting his car he

found all the lights on and the drapes pulled shut. By this point his two teen children should have been asleep. Henry knew something had to be amiss. When he went inside he found his children cowering in fear. They said there was a monster lurking outside and that it had tried to pull the air conditioner out of the wall to get inside. Henry was skeptical of their story. He had just been outside and seen nothing.

Henry was a widower and a single father. Previous to this he had refrained from working late so he could look after his children in the evenings. But had believed them to now be old enough to be left alone for a few hours, being ages 15 and 12. So Henry believed this was nothing more than the imaginings of children who were not yet used to being on their own in the evening.

Henry opened the front door, intending to prove to his children there was nothing to be afraid of. Instead Henry saw the monster for himself. Henry slammed the door, then went back into the house to grab his .22 pistol. He opened the door again, noting that the monster had come even closer now and was at the edge of the porch. Henry aimed at it and took note of its bizarre appearance.

The monster’s torso was somewhat humanoid, but lumpy and misshapen. It had little arms that came forth from its chest rather than shoulders. It had large, bloodshot, saucer-like eyes. And most notably, three legs, which stood bench and crouched. The whole creature was covered in grey, slimy skin.

Henry fired on the creature. He was certain his first shot hit it. The monster hissed like a wild cat and bounded 50 feet away to the end of the property in only three leaps.

After the encounter Mr. McDaniels called the police. He used the non-emergency line. When Officer Masser arrived he found Henry to be sober and reasonable, not at all in a state of panic. Officer Masser and his deputy searched the area and found some strange tracks, which looked like those of a dog, but with six paw pads, and the locations of the footprints were strangely spaced. Masser stated in the report that he did believe something unusual happened at the MCDaniel residence.

The next day Officer Masser visited other houses in the area, looking for more witnesses of a strange creature. He spoke with 10 year old Greg Garrett, who described a similar monster to Henry’s encounter. Greg said the night before, around 8pm, the monster had jumped on his feet and clawed up his shoes, but he himself had not been injured from the incident. No one else at this point had seen anything.

The local press had been listening in on the police radio, which was a common practice in the 70’s. From here they found out about the monster story and contacted Henry McDaniels. Henry never sought out the press. He didn’t intend to tell anyone beyond the police about the incident as he didn’t believe it warranted such publicity. On being approached by the press he told the story in a very matter of fact way, seeing the events as strange, but ultimately unimportant. The press however thought otherwise and began sensationalizing the story, while also ridiculing Mr. McDaniels.Because of the press’s coverage the town became overrun with monster hunters, thrill seekers and more press.

Two weeks later Henry reported seeing the creature again, this time he approached the press first. He said he saw the creature walking along the railroad tracks near his house, and that it had walked off into the distance. This only ignited the press further. By this point Officer Masser wanted nothing more than for Enfield to return to its typical quiet state. Whereas he had seen Henry as reasonable before he now told Henry to stop spreading rumours of a monster or he would be arrested for disturbing the peace. 

The local radio station’s director, Rick Rainbow was in the midst of the press’s monster hunt. He went out one evening with a camera crew looking for the monster. Mr Rainbow and his film crew found an ape-like monster lurking around an abandoned building, trying to get inside. The group of men scared the creature, which let out a scream like a terrified woman and ran off out of sight. They weren’t able to get any footage of the monster, as they weren’t set up the film yet. But Rick Rainbow was able to get a sound recording of the scream. Rick Rainbow played this recording on the local radio along with recounting his story. The audio has subsequently been lost. Supposedly cryptid researcher Loren Coleman has the audio, but for whatever reason has never shared it.

The last encounter with the monster came from a posse of drunk and armed men who were supposedly out monster hunting. They said they had found the monster, and tried firing on it, but it had escaped. The combination of alcohol, firearms and monster hysteria didn’t sit well with officer Masser, so he broke up the group and sent them home.

On May 15th Greg Gerratt phoned the researchers from Western Illinois University, who along with the press were also looking for the monster, and told them that he had made up the story about the monster. After this the press activity died down. People walked away from the events believing it to just be a bout of mass hysteria perpetrated by local children and nothing more.

The Enfield monster is one of those more contentious cryptid cases that’s argued about by both skeptics and those within the fortean community. One reason is that the creature is just so bizarre that it defies any sort of relation to any Earthly life form. Because of this, more cautious cryptid researchers have discounted this story. Although as we’ve seen from the Swan Valley monster and the Henderson Island monster, there’s no limit to the insanity cryptids can reach. Other people have suggested that the Enfield monster was an alien, although no UFO activity or strange lights were spotted with this beast, as is typical of alien encounters.

The situation is not helped by the fact that while multiple people claimed to see something, Mr McDaniels was the only one with a consistent story. Greg Gerratt took back his story. Rick Rainbow saw a completely different monster. And the monster hunting gang was never questioned on the details of what they saw. Also Henry’s and Greg’s encounters were the only ones that happened before the situation blew up in the media. So everything after that has to be viewed through the lens of possible influence.

The skeptic’s go to answer for what happened was that Henry McDaniels saw an escaped kangaroo. With the surprise of this sighting and the agitation from his children he was whipped up into hysteria. This answer is simplified to the point of being insulting, and there’s a lot of issues with it. First off Henry was an army veteran who had been stationed in Australia. The army base’s mascot was a living kangaroo, and it was one of Henry’s duties to look after it. He even considered the kangaroo a pet and was fond of it. Of all the people in Enfield, Henry was by far the most familiar with kangaroos. Secondly, being in the military, Henry had training to deal with stressful situations and was not likely to be whipped up into hysteria, especially not by something as simple as his children being afraid. Remember in the initial police report Henry was said to be sober and reasonable. In addition to this, before the monster sighting happened Henry had a reputation of being responsible and straightforward, not someone who was inclined to hysteria, flights of fancy or practical jokes. Flying off the handle about a monster was not at all in character for him.

And so we’re left somewhere in between. In the later encounters with the creature there was obvious influence from the media and a desire to participate in the growing situation. Yet Henry’s own story and reputation has been dragged for association with the later events, even though he initially came off as a reliable witness. While many people even within cryptozoology insist this story is too weird to be true it’s far from the strangest. Today the vast majority of written material calls the events a case study in mass hysteria and nothing more, undoubtedly due to the opinions shared by the researchers from Western Illinois University who had been involved in the events.