You are now listening to Cryptid Cocktail Party.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode
of Cryptic Cocktail Party, a show where we have
a few drinks, share a few laughs, take a dive
into the unknown. I'm your host Dave, joined
as always by Sarge, aka Darth Handsome. What's
going on buddy? Hey, what's going on? For those
of you who can't see, Sarge is wearing a Stormtrooper
helmet because today we're recording this on
May the 4th. Yeah. So obviously, you gotta celebrate
in your own way. I got a ham tattoo. You know,
he's wearing a helmet. You know, we celebrate
in different ways. That's the beauty of society
and culture. Right, Sarge? Yeah, of course. I
mean, this is why I'm wearing this helmet. I
want to celebrate my imperial roots. So I figured
what better way than to put on a Narragansett
t -shirt and then put on a Stormtrooper helmet.
Which, interestingly enough, when it's humid...
The inside fogs up very quickly, so I'm going
to take it off. Okay, good. But I want everyone
to know that I do appreciate Star Wars. Holy
shit. Goddamn, that was hot in there. Woo! I'm
glad you took it off, because it also sounded
like ass. Yeah, I wasn't going to do the whole
episode. I promise. That wasn't the plan. Yeah,
so what's going on, bud? How are you doing? I'm
good. I'm fucking great. Had a really busy week
at work last week, but I got a lot of stuff done.
Hell yeah. I got a very nice message on TikTok
from someone, and that was nice of them to say,
to agree with you, Dave, actually. They agreed
with you. With me? Yeah, that I am extremely
hot. Well, I mean, yeah. That's what they said.
Yeah, that tracks. I find you eerily... Irresistible?
Irresistible, yes. I appreciate that, man. I
really do. Yeah, yeah. It means a lot to me.
Glad you're doing good. Glad work's going well.
How are you doing? I'm dying from the inside
out. Yeah, I'm not surprised. Last night at Neshaminy
Creek, which is a brewery up by my house, every
Star Wars weekend, like May 3rd, 4th, they always
do a Star Wars thing and they put out a different
Star Wars beer. Last time I went, it was Bantha
Fodder. This year it was Bespin's Best Lager.
Really good. Oh, I like that. Yes, I like that.
I had a few. And then I ended up getting a tattoo
of Darth Maul's skull on my hand. So, you know.
Kind of badass. Just decisions all around. Was
it expensive? Not good or bad decisions, just
decisions. No, it was like $150. Oh, that's not
bad. No, it was just like a flash thing they
had going on there. But I did get Street Fighter.
and The Mummy on VHS in Japanese. So they're
Japanese. Would it be hard to follow? Or are
they subtitles? It's in English. It's just subtitles.
Oh, okay. All right. It's pretty cool. The covers
are all Japanese. They're pretty sick. Very cool.
I'm regretting every decision I made that night.
But besides that, we're doing great. You know
what will help you with that? What's that? Some
Narragansett lemonade with Dells. Iced tea and
lemonade. The hard tea. I'm not drinking, but
I always keep my Shandy's right next to me. Shandy's
are so goddamn good. I need more, Cam. I'll talk
to our guy. Yeah, if I could drink, I would,
but I think I would die if I didn't buy it. So
you're not a hair of the dog guy? No, I'm more
of a crushing energy drink. Hopefully later today
I'll have something greasy and then I'll die.
That's a way to do it. Yeah. I hate this. All
right. So, yeah, like I said, Sarge, listeners,
I'm going to be very upfront. I, as previously
stated, am hungover as fuck today, and I didn't
feel like digging into some fresh rabbit hole
to find something new to talk about. So I figured
what we would do, just take it easy, and we're
going to do another redo episode. We did one
a couple weeks back, maybe a couple months back
on the Flatwoods Monster. So we're going to go
back and cover... I guess one of the very first
topics I ever covered on the show way back in
April of 2023. So this is like long before you
were even a guest, I think, for the first time.
Yeah. And the show is basically just me rambling
at anyone who would agree to come on. So today
I figured what we would do is we would revisit
the Grafton Monster. Are you familiar with the
Grafton Monster? No. No? No, I'm not. Oh, shit.
No. Is it from Grafton, Massachusetts? No, it's
West Virginia, obviously, because everything
awful comes from there. Yeah, so the Grafton
Monster was a huge, pale, headless nightmare
that caused a bit of a stir in West Virginia
in the year of our Lord, 1964. What I love about
the Grafton Monster story, which is why I like
it, is that it wasn't just like a one -off, I
saw something weird story. This kicked off a
frenzy in the community. Teens were organizing
monster hunting parties, local papers were scrambling
to cover it, and the town was buzzing with both
excitement, and fear. So today we're going to
break down the first sightings of this thing,
the media coverage surrounding it, how the public
reacted, and how this lumpy -ass cryptid wormed
its way into the West Virginia folklore lexicon.
Plus, I'm going to be pulling in some extra details
that I missed the first time around because,
let's be honest, I had no idea what the fuck
I was doing back then. I mean, I still don't,
but that's the size of it. Yeah, but I mean,
neither do I. Yeah, so you ready to dive into
this bitch? I am very excited because given the
rural implications here. I think we're going
to get some of my favorite things when we cover
cryptids. I'm not going to say it because I don't
want to steal your thunder, but I think we're
going to get into some of my favorite cryptid
situations. I think you have a good sense about
this. I'm not going to confirm or deny, but I
think... I think you're right on the money. So
I know my country. I know my I know the United
States. So the whole grafted monster saga kicks
off on the night of June 16th, 1964, when 18
year old reporter Robert Cockerell was driving
home after his shift at the cock. You know, I
try really hard to behave myself and be an adult,
but sometimes you just you hear a name and you're
like, you know what? That's funny because it's
a dick. Yeah. You can't do anything about it.
I tried to just breeze past it, but I could not
giggle because I'm, you know, almost 40. Yeah.
So Robert Cockerell was driving home after a
shift at the Grafton Sentinel newspaper. Now
it's around 11 p .m. and he's cruising down a
stretch of road alongside the Tigert Valley River
when he catches a glimpse of something in his
headlights on the side of the road. He described
it as a quote unquote huge white obstruction
just looming there on the riverbank. Also known
as Baron Trump. So Cockerell slams on his brakes
to get a better look at this thing. He described
what he saw as being between seven to nine feet
tall, roughly four feet wide at the shoulders
with slick pale skin, almost like a seal, but
without like the fur, if that makes sense. Just
like a slick white. mass but the worst part about
this thing is that it didn't have a head all
right like it was and it wasn't like hunched
or bent down like it's just straight up headless
just like a massive pale cylinder of pure muscle
standing upright not great it's not no no i don't
like this yeah so obviously freaked out by this
andre the giant looking motherfucker cock rolled
nope the hell out of there and just like tore
off home but after a few minutes he was like
reporter instincts or more likely the I need
to prove I'm not insane instincts kind of kicked
in and he rounded up two buddies Jerry Morse
and Jim Mouser and together they headed back
to the spot to check it out now when they got
there the monster was gone but the grass where
it stood was flattened like something big had
been stomping around there now even weirder As
they searched the area, they heard a faint but
distinct whistling sound that seemed to be following
them as they were conducting their search. Again,
not great. Well, no, I don't like it. Now, the
whistling will show up later in other reports,
but that night, all it did was convince Cockrell
that he hadn't just hallucinated the whole thing.
I've got to tell you, as a veteran, there is
nothing I hate more than a distinct whistling
noise. Um, cause there's usually explosions after
that. Yeah. That, that tracks. That makes sense.
Um, I don't think that like that sound. Yeah.
I don't think it was that kind of whistling to
me. I don't know what I've, I don't, I was, I
couldn't find an example of it because that'd
be just that Russian guy. The, uh, no being the
reporter that he was, he wanted to report on
his encounter, but held back knowing. damn well
people would just laugh him out of the newsroom
if he showed up ranting and raving about a headless
giant down by the riverbank. Still, word got
out, and by the next afternoon, June 17th, Cockerell's
little monster secret wasn't so secret anymore.
Whether it was his friends talking shit or just
the grapevine doing its thing, rumors of the
alleged sighting exploded across Grafton. But
here's the crazy part. Dozens of other locals,
mostly teenagers, started calling the Sentinel
and swapping stories around town saying that
they had seen the same thing. Tall, white, headless,
and emitting a weird, eerie whistling sound.
So Cockrell, now realizing he wasn't the only
one, finally decided to write up his story for
the newspaper. But his editors were a bunch of
fucking wet blankets about the whole thing. They
pretty much were like, eh, sounds like a prank
or local hysteria, and they rejected his draft.
It's really encouraging to know that reporters
have not changed at all. They're very much maintaining
their integrity and not publishing absolute lies
because they can't prove them. It's good to know
that they're still doing that today in 2025.
Now, meanwhile, the town was losing its collective
shits. Here we go. Packs of teenagers grabbed
flashlights, crowbars, and even shotguns and
went full Scooby -Doo up on Riverside Drive trying
to hunt this thing down. Just small town chaos
at its finest. So you got a bunch of horned up
teenagers, long summer nights, and a spooky ass
creature lurking down by the river. So of course
they're going to mob the place and start poking
around. Of course. Yeah. Now by the next day,
this is Thursday the 18th, traffic was so jammed
up on Riverside Drive that locals started joking
that the monster couldn't have shown up even
if he wanted to. Poor bastard would have been
stuck in a traffic jam. Traffic, am I right?
Right. Now that same day. The Grafton Sentinel
finally runs its first official story, but they
don't exactly go like full X -Files and dig deep
into the story. Instead, they came in hot with
headlines basically saying, get a load of these
idiots out there monster hunting. Yeah. The article
focused way less on the creature and way more
on the spectacle. I mean, it makes sense. Teenagers
were roaming the riverbanks with fucking shotguns.
So obviously you're going to report on that.
And the editors at the Sentinel were loving the
chance to just mock the whole thing. Then came
June 19th. The Sentinel ran another story titled
Monsters, Results of Spring Fever, Wild Imagination.
Now, in this article, the paper declared that
after a routine check, they figured out the whole
mystery. The whole thing was just a case of mistaken
identity. What it was is some dude was pushing
a hand cart stacked with boxes down Riverside
Drive that night. and was half -lit by passing
headlights, he was mistaken for a big -ass headless
monster. So, case closed. Everyone go home. I
have questions. Yeah. How does a box look like
a headless person? Well, I mean, if they're big
boxes and they're all stacked up over the guy's
head. Okay. I don't know, dude. All right. Okay.
Yeah. This is feeling very swamp gas to me. Weather
balloon, swamp gas situation. Yeah, so the editors
didn't just shut the door on this one. They slammed
it, locked it, pissed on the handle. They basically
told the whole town, calm your tits, everyone.
You're getting all worked up over some teamster
on the side of the road. What they were doing
with a handcart on this road at 11 o 'clock at
night, who knows? He's just an American worker
really trying to earn money for his family. Exactly.
By making his boxes... look like a headless person
who is nine feet tall. But that tracks. That
happens all the time. Yeah, you see it every
day. I see it on the side of the highways, roads,
back roads. Walmart. I see it in Walmart constantly.
Every day. So, yeah. Cockerel. the original witness
he never bought that explanation he did believe
that yeah some of the later reports were probably
just teens spooking themselves sure but his sighting
the thing he saw that night down by the river
that wasn't a dude with a handcart like that
was a living headless thing so yeah well the
sentinel was busy trashing the whole town for
thinking there was a monster on the loose, the
people on the ground, the townsfolk, were split
down the middle on what they believed. So on
one side, you had true believers, mostly teenagers
who were all in on the story. These kids were
pretty much LARPing as cryptid hunters, prowling
the riverside at night, convinced they were going
to be the one to bag the Grafton monster. So
for them, those few days in June weren't scary.
They were awesome as hell. Like, this was the
most excitement Grafton had seen. Pretty much
ever. God knows I would have lost my fucking
shit. Oh, yeah. But on the other side, you had
the skeptics, like the parents, the police, newspaper
guys, all are basically saying, Jesus Christ,
it's summer break and these kids are just bored
out of their mind. They're just doing what kids
are going to do. Fucking wet blankets is what
they are. Yeah. And they were entirely wrong.
Like the monster hype hit right when school let
out. The weather was warm and every teenager
in town was just itching for something to do
besides mow lawns. Whatever it is they would
do in 1960s West Virginia. So for the kids, this
week ruled. But for some, it kind of ruined their
lives. I'm talking, of course, about Robert Cockerell.
For him, the fallout of the story was pretty
brutal. The dude was a young reporter. His credibility
mattered to him. But all he got for going public
with his story was a big old plate of public
ridicule. His editors hacked up his articles
on the sighting. His peers rolled their eyes.
And he learned pretty quickly that... If you
want to keep a job in journalism, maybe don't
be the guy who cried monster. He's fucking dickheads.
Yeah, I get it. Now, by all accounts, Cockrell
went quiet after that retreating from the story.
Like he stopped publicly talking about it. He
didn't write any more about it. But behind closed
doors, he kept investigating. He even found about
like 20 other witnesses who confirmed that they
had seen the same headless beast. Now, as for
the town people, yeah, a few got laughed at.
Maybe a few teenagers had to endure their dads
calling them dumbasses. No one got ran out of
town or branded a lunatic, not even Cockrell.
Mostly it became one of those, remember that
crazy week kind of stories that people chuckled
about over coffee or a beer or something like
that. So let's get into what the Grafton Monster
possibly could be. You got any theories? Yeah,
I think it was a tall white guy with a camouflage
hat. You just couldn't see his head. He was there.
It was like a camouflage, like balaclava or whatever
they're called, just right over that. You just
couldn't see him because he was wearing camouflage.
Yeah, no, that makes sense. Now, like I said,
the official explanation, the one that's put
up by the newspaper, some dude pushing a hand
cart stacked with boxes down a dim -ass road
at night. According to the paper, that's what
people saw. But that's boring and lame. So let's
look at some other theories as to what this thing
could be. Now, first up, we have escaped animal.
Some teenagers suggested that maybe it was an
escaped polar bear in 1960s West Virginia because,
sure. Without a head? I don't know. But spoiler
alert. There were no missing bears. None were
ever reported. And if one had gotten loose, it
would more than likely just be tearing through
trash cans, not whistling down by the riverbank.
You know what I mean? Right. Kind of weird. The
next theory is that it's a cousin of Bigfoot.
So some cryptid enthusiasts have speculated that
maybe this was some Appalachian variant of Bigfoot,
some sort of headless relative, or maybe it was
a Bigfoot carrying something in its arms that
was just blocking out its head. Call back to
the Appalachian Monsters episode that I did.
Perhaps this is the White Fang. Perhaps. Which
is, he lives in trees. We surmise that it's probably
just Grandpa and he's like really hairy. Gotcha.
Get ahead of yourself, Sarge. Okay. Sorry. The
only thing with the Bigfoot theory is that when
you see a Bigfoot or you get reports of Bigfoot,
it's usually mentioning like hair, the smell,
the noises it makes. It's not shiny skinned,
doesn't whistle. And it's, I mean, I guess it
could be nine feet tall, but I feel like this
is bigger. Lots of farts too. It eats a lot of
roughage. Yeah. So we can chalk this one up as
a maybe, but probably not kind of thing. Now
let's move on to the fun shit. We got aliens
and interdimensional visitors. This comes from
none other than Gray Barker. He's the West Virginia
paranormal writer who helped blast Mothman into
the spotlight. He had caught wind of the story
and went on to write that maybe this was some
kind of alien lab animal that was left on Earth,
like a science experiment that escaped and just
started walking down along the river. The aliens
were just really busy and so they didn't have
time to put a head on it. Exactly, yeah. It's
like forgetting to put the head on like a Lego
man or something. Yeah. That happens to all of
us. Others took this theory and spun it into
interdimensional traveler theories, saying the
monster was something slipping between realities,
popping in and out of our world by accident or
possibly by design. Now, obviously, there's no
hard evidence for either of these theories, but
hey, if you're going to get weird with it, you
might as well just go. All the way with it. Let
your freak flag fly, guys. Yeah. And then you
got the folklore connection. Like you said, some
people link the grafted monster to the West Virginian
white things. But those legends describe more
like a ghostly form, not like a chunky headless
nightmare. Dave, I don't want to correct you
here, but it's pronounced thang. Oh, sorry. T
-H -A -N -G. Gotcha. That's on me. Yep. Oh, and
then a quick little fun fact. Apparently someone
had reported a similar creature up in Morgantown,
West Virginia, just like a week before the Grafton
monster sighting. So is it the same thing? I
don't know, but I just thought that was kind
of cool. It's not really mentioned in any of
the other stuff, but now had this happened in
Indiana, we could have proposed the theory that
something terrible had happened to Larry Bird.
All right. So let's get to wrapping this bad
boy up. So, okay. Okay. After all the chaos of
June, 1964, The sightings, the newspaper buzz,
the roving bands of armed teenagers. What happened
next? Well, pretty much nothing. After that wild
week, the Grafton Monster slipped right back
into the shadows. There was no major new sightings
hitting the papers. No townsfolk were hauled
off by headless beasts. And the cops never filed
any official reports. It just kind of faded from
front page headlines and settled kind of in the
back of like small town folklore. But just like
Babe Ruth said in the hit classic cinematic masterpiece,
The Sandlot, legends never die. So forever. So
for decades, the Grafton Monster remained. One
of West Virginia's lesser known cryptid cases,
overshadowed by the Mothman, the Flatwoods Monster,
and the whole gang of Appalachian weirdos. You'd
hear about it occasionally covered in like cryptid
books or some weird blog deep dive, but it wasn't
really front and center. But that all changed
thanks to the magic of... Pop culture. Now, I'm
not saying it was all thanks to this, but when
Fallout 76 dropped in 2018, suddenly you had
gamers worldwide running into a virtual grafted
monster, a hulking, brutal monster lurking in
the game's digital version of West Virginia.
And just like that, the legend exploded into
mainstream nerd culture. Players started Googling
it, streamers made videos about it, and cryptid
fans were handed a fresh new wave of curiosity.
Now, locally... Grafton leaned the hell into
it. By 2018, they'd slapped up a welcome sign
declaring themselves the home of the Grafton
Monster. Local businesses cashed in on it with
shirts, mugs, hats, art, anything you could put
it on, it's been put on. And by 2024, they launched
the first annual Grafton Monster Festival with
costume contests, memorabilia, panels, and plenty
of people swapping, like my uncle once saw this
thing, tails. What started out as a short -lived
summer scare in the 60s has turned into full
-blown local heritage, celebrated and laughed
over instead of denied or mocked. It's not just
a creepy riverside tale anymore. It's part of
the cultural fabric, a quirky point of pride.
And that's kind of the beauty of cryptid lore
in stories like these. Even if we never get proof,
even if the thing never shows up again, the stories
ripple outward, shaping towns, pulling in curious
travelers, inspiring video games, podcasts, art,
and giving people something to wonder about.
There you have it, Sarge. That is the story of
the Grafton Monster. I hope you enjoyed it. A
little shorter of an episode today, but, you
know, we did what we could. It's a classic, though.
And if you're one of the eight people in West
Virginia, please invite us to the Grafton Monster
Festival. I mean, you don't have to be invited.
You can just go. Or do you mean like as like
speakers? Yeah, no, we should go there to speak
about it because I've got some theories. But
most of them involving a tall guy with a camouflage
hat. Gotcha. All right. Well, you make sure you
write those down and we'll see what we can do.
I already did. I just got the one theory, really.
Okay. So it's not theories. It's just theory.
It's not a bad theory. You know, like I could
probably expand upon that. Maybe it is Barron
Trump. We don't know. He is a tall, scary white
thing. He's terrifying. He's like fucking Slender
Man. Yeah. I mean, he's not that. He's tall.
But he's not that tall, is he? He's seven feet
tall. No, he's not. He's something like six,
I want to say six, nine or seven feet tall. He's
a fucking giant. Dude, that is disgusting. Yeah,
that's why it's hilarious to see him standing
next to Donald Trump, who is actually in real
life only 5 '10". Dude, he's... He wears lifts,
but he's only 5 '10". I feel like Baron's going
to end up with hip dysplasia, like a fucking
old German shepherd or something. You can't be
that tall and not have joint problems, right?
I feel like they're going to have to put him
down eventually because his hips are fucked.
He's like a Great Dane. Yeah. Just all sorts
of fucking joint problems for that kid's future.
What a mess. Yeah. Oh, God. But there you have
it. That's insane. That's crazy. It's got no.
So, I mean, I think my problem is, and maybe
the reason why the grafted monster didn't catch
on more, even though there's other cryptids out
there that, that don't have the, uh, what's the
word I'm looking for? The it factor. Well, no,
I feel like the graph, that's the thing. I feel
like the grafted monster doesn't have the it
factor where other cryptids who probably been
seen even less. have more of an it factor. And
it's because he doesn't have a head. Yeah. There's
no like creepy glowing eyes or like fangs or
anything like that. Yeah. It's just a hulking
mass of just flesh, which I mean, I feel like
is worse and also kind of sick. It is worse.
It is kind of creepy, but I feel like it didn't
catch on in the imagination because you're not
imagining like, you know, it's, it's glowing
eyes in the, in the darkness. Instead, you just
see his nips, you know? Maybe the nips are the
eyes. Maybe we're getting this all wrong. There
was no mention of nipples or anything like that,
but I mean, I'm not knocking it. It's a good
theory. Yeah, I mean, up until you described
the fact that he didn't have a head, I was like,
oh, this is just like my dad, really. Yeah. I
imagine he has the same body shape as Danny DeVito
in... when he's a trash man and it's always sunny,
but just take the head off. And I think that's,
that's the shape I picture. I could be wrong.
I was also thinking of the episode always, always
sunny where they were in the, they were in the
bar and they all had like the flu and Frank covered
himself in, in a hand sanitizer and was like
writhing around on the floor. Yeah. I mean, that's
what I was thinking too. Yeah. He's just, I like
that. We both were picturing Danny DeVito, but
it's just various. Various situations. Basically,
anytime you say creepy and white, that's the
first thing that comes into my mind. That's fair.
I wouldn't expect anything less. Then the second
thing is me without a shirt on. I mean, people
want it. I don't know why you don't just give
it to them. Welcome to the pepperoni potty, ladies.
All right. Yeah, that's all I got. Before we
sign off, is there anything you want to plug
or talk about? Yeah. Yeah, we've been doing our
sponsor dirty. We haven't talked about Narragansett
in a little while, so I want to give them a shout
out. The hard tea is actually weirdly good for
a hard tea. You would think like hard tea, it
just tastes like a hangover, but this is actually
really good. That's because it's got local lemonade.
It's the light carbonation, I think, that does
it for me. Yeah, it really does. Something about
it. It's so good. It's so good. Yeah, I agree.
But the weather is getting warmer and I've been...
hammering those shandies down. I'm about to run
out. I'm very upset about it. I need more shandies
as well. Yeah, Cam, get on it. I need to work
on that. Alright, what else we got? Oh, the coloring
book is still around. It's a ghost that haunted
me. I think it's a tulpa. I made this coloring
book expecting it to be a one -off and now...
Everything predicted in the coloring book seems
to be coming true. You kind of did will this
into existence somehow. I am so sorry to everyone.
Your coloring book is basically the Death Note
notebook, I feel. Yeah, it's totally my fault,
and I apologize for that. But if you want to
get a copy of this coloring book to take out
your frustrations on the horrifying hellscape
that is America currently, just go to SajasSuperNormal
.com. And purchase a copy for $9 .99. There you
go. There you have it. Sajasupernormal .com.
Nailed it. That's fine. Sajasupernormal .com.
There's going to be two S's in the middle there,
so don't forget about them. If you want to follow
us on social media, you can follow us on Instagram
at Crypto Cocktail, TikTok Crypto Cocktail Party.
There's also links in our bio where you can find
this coloring book, Sarge's social media, all
that stuff. Leave us a rating and review, please.
It really helps the show. I can't ask. enough
but you know it's and send us direct messages
just telling us like if you can't review send
us direct message and we'll read them on the
show yeah I mean I know fun I know Spotify doesn't
allow reviews you can write some content yeah
I haven't done one of those in a while so let's
yeah let's get on that um I think that's it that's
all I have anyways hey everybody goodbye and
I love you