I'm Lauren Orton, and this is one strange thing, the show where we search the nation's

news archives for stories that can't quite be explained.

Strangers, we are heading into the holidays, which means it's about time for a Midwestern cryptid story from 1973, right? Good, we thought so. We are nothing, if not seasonally appropriate, podcasters.

And what says holly jolly like a mud monster that terrorized Illinois in one of the hottest months

of the year? So, without further ado, let's travel to small town Illinois, where our tale began.

Now, normally, we are scraping for information on such events,

but the town of Murphy's Borough was kind enough to upload their entire police file.

So between that and local news coverage,

we've got a pretty solid accounting of the events that began in June of 1973, or at least

what people think happened.

That can always get a little sticky, can't it?

And we're not even accounting for all that mud.

So, Murphysboro, it's a town of less than 8,000, that's per the census, that was settled near the big muddy

river, which feeds into the Mississippi. Like much of southern Illinois, it was originally a coal town.

Now its official website tells us that people visit for the local Apple Festival and because of the

town's convenient location to parks and scenic

sites. But Murphy's Brough is perhaps best known for the Bigfoot-like creature who did some

minor terrorizing of its residents 50 years ago, creating a mystery that the town still has not

fully unpacked.

If you've got a good memory for our episodes, then you might recall that there were a spate of such sightings across Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri back in the early 1970s.

We've actually covered a few of them so far on the podcast.

The Spotsville Monster,

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