Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Cryptid Cocktail Party.
I am your host Dave and today I am joined by good friend and co-host of the Cool Parents
podcast Curtis Charles.
What's going on man?
Not much.
How are you doing?
I can't complain.
This beer is disgusting.
I don't know if I could drink it.
Well don't.
That's the good thing about this great country.
You don't have to.
Well no I know but the premise of the show is that you know we have a few drinks, have
a few laughs and like talk about spooky shit so I mean I have to have something and this
is what's left in my fridge so it'll have to do.
It is 2.42 in the afternoon so I'm not and I drank last night so I'm just got a big glass
of water.
Does that count?
That counts yeah.
I mean it's really big like that counts for something.
It's 2.30 but also I'm in Philly and it's Super Bowl Sunday so.
Oh right I forgot about that.
I'm gonna use that as an excuse to start day drinking right now.
That's fine yeah.
Whatever you gotta do.
So Cool Parents podcast is a podcast that you co-host with our good friend Justin.
Now you guys talk about like ghosts and Bigfoot a lot but are you like a cryptids guy?
Like normal?
Oh fuck yeah.
Hell yeah.
Yeah we do talk about cryptids like we do focus on the Squatch of course and ghost demons
and that kind of thing.
But yeah we occasionally talk about like we did the Flatwoods Monster a while ago.
We did an episode about that.
We did we've done various incarnations of the Squatch and Yeti and you know the Momo,
the Yowie and so forth.
We're actually gonna talk about one of those today.
It's not the main cryptid but there is another Squatch.
I only put it in here because the name I thought you would really love.
Oh is it oh I think which one that we've talked about I'm guessing that it's the one that
cries.
The Squonk?
The Squonk.
Is it the Squonk?
No it's not the Squonk.
Okay we talked about the Squonk and I love the Squonk.
The Squonk is one of my favorites.
There's actually a Squonk Fest in August I think in Pennsylvania that I'm desperately
trying to get to.
Do it.
Just go.
I want to be a sponsor dude.
Just do it for free first and then.
Next year?
Yeah then they'll feel bad and they'll say do you need a place to sleep and you say yeah.
I'll go full Squonk on them just start crying.
Yeah exactly that's what I'm saying.
Yeah.
Alright well today we got an episode for you.
I already told you what it is but for our listeners today's episode is about the Enfield
Monster.
Are you familiar?
Yes.
I mean in a general way.
I don't know much aside from the fact that it's like is it in the Midwest or something?
Yeah it's in Illinois.
Illinois yeah so and then like for a long time I kind of conflated it with the Enfield
Poltergeist which is in that's the Enfield in England and so I was like wait is this
the thing from the Conjuring 2?
But it's not.
It's not at all and then yeah all I really know is that it's a hairy beast.
A short beast.
It is short.
It's short and you know not a lot of evidence for it but.
No.
No there's not.
But that's pretty much it.
That's all I got.
It made research really hard for this episode because like only like three people saw it.
Right.
But also because the Enfield Poltergeist like trying to find like I'll see the Enfield Horror
and I'll go to the website and it's just about like spooky ghosts.
Yeah exactly it's they need to be better with their naming conventions and just give it
a name similar to Squawk if you want it to stand out.
Exactly.
You know it's a it's a crowded field the cryptid industry.
It really is.
That's why they have so many different names for Bigfoot when it's literally all just Bigfoot.
Right.
And really their feet their feet are proportional to their body I think right because they're
like 10 feet tall.
Yeah.
So their foot ought to be big.
It ought to be.
I feel like that's just they're being really insensitive to him.
Yeah.
Oh my god I'm sorry.
All right.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
You ready to get in on this?
Hell yeah.
All right.
So the Enfield to me I'm going to.
All right.
Yeah.
The Enfield monster or the Enfield Horror as some call it is a North American cryptid
spotted in the southern area of Illinois in the town of Enfield.
Now did you just pronounce the S in Illinois.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
I did.
Is that a thing that people do?
Southern Illinois.
Is that a Philadelphia thing?
I don't know.
I don't know why I did it.
Let's go.
It's okay.
No I say I say stick with it.
Go with your heart.
Yeah.
So you're high.
Before we get into the sightings and descriptions of the monster I think it's important to talk
about the area in which it was cited.
So southern Illinois has a really long history of high strangeness cryptid sightings and it's
been going on for so long now that even the Native Americans and early settlers of the
area designated the area as the Devil's Kitchen which isn't that I think isn't that that's
how the hell's kitchen is.
Yeah.
That's where Daredevil is from.
Yeah.
That's a real place too and it's also a reality show about cooking.
So yeah.
So reports of UFOs, phantom black cats, thunderbirds and abominable swamp slobs with the most famous
being the most famous being the Murphysboro mud monster which was seen in the summer of
1973 by a four year old boy.
I love that.
Abominable swamp slobs.
Yeah.
It's good.
Everything about that.
I mean that's the best part.
Abominable swamp slobs is a tongue twister for the ages but also just giving credence
to a four year old's account is fucking hilarious.
He was the only one who saw it.
Right.
Which means he fucking drew it on a napkin or something and when he was at Friendly's
and was just like hey Bob look at this.
I just made him up.
He's called the what was he called?
The Murphysboro mud monster.
He's the Murphysboro mud monster and then mom's like that's not real and he's like yes
it is.
I'm going to the police and then he made his statement official.
So yes so the four year old boy saw that in 1973 which coincidentally this is the same
time frame that the Enfield monster was also spotted.
According to AstonishingLegends.org the first recorded sighting of the monster occurred
on the evening of April 25th in 1973 by a young boy named Greg Garrett who was playing
in his backyard when he was approached by the creature.
So he described it as being tripedal with sharp claws on each foot, gray skin that seemed
almost slimy and having massive red eyes.
Greg straight up.
Wait it's not hairy?
No it's not hairy.
I thought it was hairy.
Wow wow see I was fed a bunch of eyes.
Yeah well some depictions also show it having horns but I don't know if it does or not.
Right.
I've never seen it.
Hard to tell.
Yeah.
So Greg frozen with fear stood there as the creature clawed at his feet which tore his
sneakers to shred.
Unfortunately Greg would not survive his encounter with the Enfield monster and he became the
first victim.
What?
No.
No he didn't die.
No.
Just his shoes?
Yeah no he just he just.
I figured this out.
I debunked it.
I debunked it already.
Can I tell you my quick theory?
Really quick.
Yeah go for it.
He just he fucked up his new shoes they just got from his mom or his dad for Christmas
or whatever and he didn't want to admit that he went where he wasn't supposed to go and
fucked up his shoes in when he was playing in the old scrap yard or something.
That's yeah.
And that's it.
He's just like a monster did it mom.
I really hope that.
I swear.
I feel like that's a lot of cryptid encounters could also be that.
Yeah.
Just trying to blame it.
It's all excuses.
Like no no no I swear to god.
I didn't kill that guy.
There was a Sasquatch ripped his arms off.
I saw it.
There was a debaubable swamp slob.
Yeah.
And he fucking just came out of nowhere.
Right.
All right so the the next sighting would happen later that night at around 9 p.m. when Henry
McDaniel and his family would also encounter the Enfield monster.
McDaniel was at home just being a father and husband in the 70s so I'm gonna assume.
Smoke his cigarettes.
He's sitting in his chair drinking a Schlitz muttering something about how he works too
hard for this shit when he heard a scratching at the front door.
Now when he opened it he was met by the same creature that Craig had reported.
Henry described it as about five feet tall with a flat body.
I don't know what that means.
What.
Greyish in color with a strange disappearing head at least 12 inches across.
It had three legs and two pink eyes the size of flashlight lenses.
Now that's a direct quote.
This is in the newspaper.
I don't know what any of that fucking means.
What.
OK.
First of all the the flashlight lenses thing.
Yeah.
The other kid said that too right.
He said he had one who's.
Well no they just he had two big red eyes.
Oh just big big red eyes.
OK he didn't say flashlight eyes.
No.
OK.
He also didn't describe it as flat or having a disappearing head that's 12 inches across.
12 inches across flat head.
So this is a it's like a pop up book.
In my head I just picture Danny DeVito from that one episode of It's Always Sunny where
he's wearing like the wrestling unitard.
Yes.
Like the trash man or whatever.
That's the trash man.
That's the image I have in my head when he describes it as a flat body with no no that
that works.
I mean technically not flat.
But.
But his head doesn't go that far above his shoulder so he's kind of.
It's not 12 inches wide either though the head and it also doesn't disappear.
Danny DeVito is not the Anfield monster.
We got to make that clear.
But can we prove that though.
What was Danny DeVito doing in 1973.
That's a good point.
It really makes you think that really makes you think.
Yeah.
So upon upon being greeted by this hideous beast Henry's immediate reaction was to fire
a pistol at it.
Yeah.
Cause it to hiss and fuck right off.
Of course.
So that just means that he answers the door with a gun.
All the time.
Right.
It doesn't matter.
Yeah.
It's time of day.
What he's doing he could interrupt dinner and he's he's cocking his gun and he's what
do you want.
Get off my lawn.
Who are you.
You know the old man like grizzled thing to do.
Yeah.
But this was in the 70s right.
So like old people were like 30 at that point you know.
So that's like you know he was he could have been my age had a whole bucket of kids.
I was going to shotgun.
Oh wait no it wasn't shotgun.
It was a pistol.
Either way.
Okay.
But news of the sighting broke and by April 27 stories of the monster was being reported
all over Illinois.
I said Illinois again.
Well all the there's West Illinois.
Yeah.
So both of those.
Now one newspaper the shame the champagne Urbana News Gazette noted that Henry was a
rational and sober person.
So they took his took his sighting.
And they have they have alcohol in their title.
Yeah.
And you know he was hammering back some schlitz dude.
Oh for sure.
Yeah.
But yeah definitely.
On May 6th just a couple of weeks after Henry's first encounter with the Enfield monster he
was awoken by his neighbor's dogs causing all sorts of a ruckus and then curious as
to what was causing the dogs to be so I wrote boisterous because I wanted to sound smart
but I really don't know what that word means if it even fits.
That works.
Boisterous yeah.
Yeah yeah just like loud.
I'm so fucking good at podcasting it's not even funny.
Yeah.
But Henry got out of bed opened his front door to see the creature again down by the
railroad tracks which are just outside of his house.
Henry was quoted as saying quote I didn't shoot at it this time or anything.
It started down the railroad track.
It wasn't in a hurry or anything.
So it's just kind of sauntering along the railroad tracks and he had to specify they
didn't shoot at it this time.
I did not shoot at it this time so I followed it calmly.
I wanted to see where it was going.
So that means he opens the door with a gun but doesn't sleep with a gun.
Right.
Which is good.
Yeah no.
Yeah I mean.
I feel like she'd be there the other night.
Not much of a not much of an Illinois man if you ask me.
For not sleeping with a gun.
Yeah you got to open carry into the bed you know.
That's the only place.
All the time.
Yeah no.
All the time because what's going to stop a bad guy with a gun right.
It's the guy who sleeps with his gun.
A good one.
Now after all the reports going out about the creature Enfield was soon swamped with
reporters monster hunters researchers and looky loos.
I don't know why I wrote looky loos.
I think I read that somewhere and I thought it was really fun.
They're a real pest.
Looky loos.
Now some of them were causing such such a stir that deputy sheriff Jim Clark arrested
five men for hunting violations as well as being quote threats to public safety after
they were open firing into some underbrush where they claimed to have seen something
gray and hairy that ran off quote faster than a man could.
So anything else.
Anything.
The neighbor's cat.
There are just five shooting into a bush.
A squirrel.
Look at a squirrel.
I love it.
Fuck this bush.
I just love that day.
Threats to public safety.
Yeah.
I agree with that part.
Yeah.
Definitely.
God damn.
Now out of all the commotion caused by all these nerds descending onto the town one
actually credible report came from it.
A news director from Kokomo Indiana with this name sounds so fake Rick Rainbow and three
great good old Dick Rainbow Ricky Rainbow is a traveling clown.
That can't be a real name right.
That's got to be a clown name.
It has to be.
But apparently he was a news director from Kokomo Indiana which is the Kokomo to it in
the Beach Boys sing about that song.
Is that the sad can't be the same Kokomo.
I don't think so.
I'd really like that song.
There would be.
Yeah.
I think you'd a Kokomo Indiana.
Yeah.
That's where everybody wants to go.
Yeah.
Way down the Kokomo.
But way down.
But Dick Rainbow and three other people claim to have seen the monster at an old abandoned
Dick Rainbow.
It also sounds like it could be like an old sheriff or something.
You know.
Yeah.
Sheriff Rainbow was in town.
He ain't gonna take none of your shit.
Rick Rainbow at your service.
You know.
You think you could come into Rick Rainbow's town and show your ass.
I just feel like Rick Rainbow is such an improbable name.
Like I've never heard of a person with the rainbow as a name.
No that's why I don't know.
I don't know.
The first the first I mean honestly I just think of Gary Glitter which I'd rather not.
That's unfortunate.
It's like on the same level like the name just the name that's you know.
Well wait what was it.
It reminds me of what was Robin Williams character from death to death to smoochie.
Oh my god I don't remember.
But wasn't it something rainbow.
It might have been.
I think it was.
I can check.
Yeah we'll look it up.
You look it up.
I'll look it up.
Sorry.
Yeah.
But they claim to have seen the monster at an old abandoned house which is right near
McDaniel's place.
The group didn't get the best look at it since it was running away but Dick Rainbow claimed
to have gotten a recording of its cry and I could not for the life of me find a recording
at all.
What really?
No I don't think it actually exists.
You think you would if you would have that you would have aired it.
He was the news director for a station.
Yeah even in the 70s I think that they would have a record of it.
I would think.
You put that canister real you know you bury it or something so that it doesn't get lost.
It's important information.
It's like a time capsule.
Yeah Robin Williams played Rainbow Randolph.
That was close.
Yeah that's halfway there.
Rainbow Randy.
Rainbow Randy yeah.
Rick Rainbow.
Rick Rainbow yeah.
Oh wow.
So we've got Robin Williams hunting for Danny DeVito.
That pretty much sums it up.
That's the whole story.
With a gun?
With a gun.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now not long after Rick Rainbow and his encounter the sightings of the Enfield monster pretty
much ended abruptly with no explanation ever given as to what exactly people were seeing
around the town.
Some people think that it was connected to sightings of UFOs that were happening around
the town.
Others just chalked it up to the area seeing as how it's been known to have stuff like
this happen a lot.
Either way the beast hasn't been seen since and still 50 years later people are still
talking about it hoping that one day they will get an answer as to what happened all
those years ago.
Now the best part of this story is that remember Greg the boy whose shoes got all fucked up?
How could I forget Greg?
I'll remember Greg forever.
He later told researchers at Western Illinois University that his report was a hoax and
he just made it up to tease McDaniel and have fun with any out of town newsmen.
He just wanted to fuck with this old man.
Wow.
And people still latch on to that story.
So the Greg story was actually in several articles that I read about the Anfield Monster
as a credible story until I stumbled upon, I forget what it was, but it was like a news
thing and it came out that he lied just to make fun of the old man.
So not a lot of people know about this.
No, no.
So you're blowing the lid off of this thing.
Yeah.
It's going viral.
I am fucking Snowden.
Not Snowden.
Yeah Snowden?
Sure.
Yeah.
The WikiLeaks guy?
Who's the WikiLeaks guy?
Julian Assange.
Yeah.
But no, that's the story of the Anfield Monster.
That's really all it is.
There's nothing going on here.
I love it.
But I have some questions.
Ask me.
Why?
Just from a biological standpoint, why has this fucker got three legs?
Nothing has three legs.
Nothing.
It would seem really inconvenient, right?
It doesn't, right.
It's not going to help with anything.
It's just going to get in the way.
No, because if you-
Are they sure it wasn't just a giant, you know, a giant dong?
That's what I was thinking.
Yeah.
Just a massive hog.
Yeah.
Just had a huge cork on him.
That had to be it.
Yeah.
That had to be it.
I don't know.
Because nothing has a third leg.
It's just a little, and there's two legs or four legs, or like a million legs if you're
a bug.
That's it.
Maybe it was just like a fucked up dog.
No, because that had two arms.
Or Danny DeVito.
Or it was Danny DeVito.
Because he does wear-
Wait, wait.
Danny DeVito wears magnums for his massive hog.
Right.
Of course.
We know that.
That's the third leg.
So that's already, that's not up for debate.
But the head disappearing, that was, who was it that said that was-
I don't know.
That was McDaniel.
That was a different guy.
That was the one who answered the door with a gun.
Right.
But I don't know what he means by disappearing head.
I don't know if he means like it retracts like a turtle, or if it like-
That's what I was thinking.
Like those Power Rangers toys.
You remember those ones that the head just retracts into the chest?
Yeah, then you squeeze the legs and fucking pops right back up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like that.
Kinda, I guess.
I just don't know what-
Yeah, no, it is.
I don't know.
There's like, every rendition, every like picture I've seen of it is obviously like
an artist's rendition of it.
And they're all wildly different.
They take some liberties.
Yeah, they tend to do that.
When all you've got for description is like the head disappears-
Dick Rainbow and fucking-
Huge dick.
Oh, and Dick Rainbow.
You got, what else?
Big eyes, like flashlights.
How tall?
Three, four feet?
He's a four to five.
Four, five feet?
But that seems big.
I can't imagine it was-
Oh, you think?
It seems big, right?
Well, it depends on what it is.
You said it was five feet tall.
It's small for a human being.
Yeah, but I'm five, five.
Right.
So that means it was as tall as me.
So the Enfield Monster is a short king.
Basically.
But what I want to know is, sorry, so it has three legs and two arms, kind of like a fucked
up satyr type looking thing, I guess.
Okay, yeah.
But what I don't understand is like is it five feet, like, is it like, is it like, is
it like, is it like, is it like, is it like, is it like, is it like, is it like, is it
like,
All right, what's his posture?
Yeah, like I feel like he'd have to be like hunched over if you have three legs, right?
You can't just be fuckin-"
Well this dude didn't even say where the third leg was.
Every picture I've seen is fucking right in the middle.
Just a tripod thing.
Then how do you run like that?
And it runs really fast, apparently.
Oh, faster than any human.
So you think maybe it's supernatural in nature?
See, I don't know.
To me, this type of sighting, for some reason,
it reminds me a lot of the Dover Demon,
which was just like a random encounter seen
by just people going about their daily lives
and then never seen again.
So to me, it's kind of like that.
It could be extraterrestrial nature.
Interdimensional.
Maybe.
Could be a flap there.
I don't know if you're familiar with flaps.
Maybe that's where the head was.
Yeah, that's where the head was.
It disappears because he's poking it in and out of the veil.
Yeah, maybe he's a tolpa.
Interdimensional glory hole.
Could be a tolpa.
A tolpa?
What?
You don't know what a tolpa is?
I don't think so.
So a tolpa is like basically, a lot of people
think like a lot of high strangenesses.
If enough people are like, you kind of will it
into existence, kind of.
Does that make sense?
Oh, like mass hysteria.
Yeah, kind of like a, it's a good way to put it.
Like Freddy Krueger at the end of one of the Freddy Krueger
movies, he comes into the real world because you kind of like.
Oh, OK.
So like actually willed into existence.
Yeah, basically.
OK.
All right, I see.
I see.
But that doesn't make any sense because I'd
highly doubt that fucking Henry McDaniel was just
like building a nightmare creature into existence.
Maybe he really wanted that thing.
He really wanted to kill something.
And he's like, what's great to shoot at?
What's a universally hated sort of thing?
It's this slimy, three legged fucker with a head
that disappears.
Everybody sees that and they want it dead immediately.
I'm going to be a hero.
Also, but his description also kind of reminds me of.
What were the fucking demon dog things from Ghostbusters?
Oh, yeah.
It kind of reminds me of that.
Only with three legs and two hands.
Three legs, yeah.
Yeah.
Massive.
But maybe this one was just maybe it was a defect.
Maybe it was a birth defect.
Maybe the other creatures in its family have four legs.
Oh, and he was like the runt of the litter
so they had to fucking throw him away.
Yeah, he's born a little bit less than good.
So they tossed him aside.
That could be.
He's pissed.
He's out for revenge.
That's why he's terrorizing these people.
But he didn't make it far after that.
He unfortunately had a bum ticker.
He collapsed.
They don't ever say what happened to him.
I mean, again, there was no.
No corpse, no scat, no footprint.
But no one even attempted to come up with an explanation.
At least with the Dover Demon, they
thought it was a baby moose.
And you know what I mean?
There was nothing to even kind of like.
Like the chupacabra is a.
It's just a dog with mange.
With mange, yeah.
I believe that.
I don't believe the chupacabra is real.
Totally.
Yeah.
I don't think it's sucking any goat, that's for sure.
I believe in a lot of weird shit.
I think somebody's sucking goat.
Somebody's sucking on goats down there.
But.
It's not the coyote or the dog, the dog with the mange.
It's definitely not.
He can't suck.
He doesn't have enough lips because of the mange.
It's all rotted away.
Fair enough.
All right, Curtis.
Well, that's the end of the episode.
We did it.
Wow.
That flew by.
Yeah.
Half hour episodes, baby.
That's what I'm trying to do.
Tight.
Nice and tight.
You like that shit?
You did a great job.
Oh, yeah.
Great show.
I'm thrilled to be here.
Yeah.
Well, I appreciate you coming on.
Any last thoughts on the Enfield Monster before we part ways?
So yeah, just to recap real quick.
Recap.
Danny DeVito.
Huge Dick.
Massive Hog.
Dick Rainbow.
And Robin Williams.
That's it.
All right, well, Curtis, you got some stuff going on.
You got your podcast.
You got a band.
You got anything you want to plug before we mosey on out of here?
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to plug up my podcast, Cool Parents podcast,
which if you like this kind of shit and some even weirder shit,
some real high strangeness, if you know what I'm talking about,
then yeah, check that out, CoolParents.co.
And yeah, Cool Parents is also a band.
We do like power pop, pop punk stuff.
You can find that also on CoolParents.co.
And yeah, yeah, it's been real.
Yeah.
And also Cool Parents, one of the best bands ever.
You guys got songs about Bigfoot, Alien, Vampire, some other stuff.
So got a new one that we've been working on about a werewolf.
An American werewolf and fish nets.
It's about a prostrusting werewolf.
I love it.
Yeah.
That's just one of many.
We've got all kinds of spooky songs.
So jump on it if you want.
Yeah.
I'll be sure to link all that stuff in the description of the episode
so you guys can find it easy.
Thanks, everyone, for listening.
Super appreciate it.
And with that, I'll see you or talk to you.
See you.
Talk to you.
This is an audio medium, right?
Yeah, but you know, I'm not going to be able to do that.
Yeah, but you know, people see shit.