Posted on 12/17/2021 3:20:44 PM PST by nickcarraway
From skinwalkers to La Llorona to the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, we have our fair share of urban legends in Arizona. One of them is the Mogollon Monster: an ape-like creature that allegedly stalks the dense forest landscape of the Mogollon Rim. Have you ever heard the story? If not, you’re in for a spine-chilling read!
During these uncertain times, please keep safety in mind and consider adding destinations to your bucket list to visit at a later date. Did you know Arizona has its very own Bigfoot?
The creature is known as the "Mogollon Monster," and the tale promises to leave you lying awake at night. It may be known as the Mogollon Monster, but the first sighting of the ape-like cryptid occurred near the Grand Canyon in 1903.
A man named I.W. Stevens told The Arizona Republican he saw a "humanoid creature with long white hair and matted beard that reached to his knees." The monster allegedly did not have on any clothing, and possessed at least two-inch-long claws on its talon-like fingers.
The majority of Mogollon Monster sightings are in the dense forest landscape of the Mogollon Rim. This 2,000-foot-high escarpment stretches from northern Yavapai County to the border with New Mexico.
Even a cryptozoologist, Don Davis, is a believer. He claims that during a mid-1940s Boy Scout trip near Payson, he laid eyes on a large, hairy creature with expressionless eyes and a square-shaped face and head.
According to anecdotal reports, the creature is over seven feet tall, walks upright, and emits a strong, pungent body odor.
The monster is allegedly nocturnal, omnivorous, territorial, and, at times, violent. It takes wide, inhuman strides, and leaves behind footprints that measure nearly two feet across.
The Mogollon Monster is said to mimic the noises of wildlife in an attempt to blend in with its surroundings.
Reports also state the creature gives off a blood-curdling scream similar to that of a woman in great peril. Next time you decide to go camping on the rim, keep a watchful eye.
One of the monster's favorite activities in exploring campsites after dark!
Pictured here is a wood carving of the Mogollon Monster, whose existence - whether fact or fiction - is now a permanent object of Arizona folklore.
Scientists aren't convinced, attributing sightings either to hoaxes or misidentification. Either way, there are a whole host of origin stories for the monster, each one a worthy campfire tale.
So if you ever hear a piercing scream or come across a set of impossibly wide footprints on the Mogollon Rim, run far away and never look back.
The Mogollon Monster just might be lurking deep in the woods, waiting for the perfect moment to strike... Have you ever heard of the Mogollon Monster – or perhaps even spotted it? Tell us your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below. For more spine-chilling urban legends in Arizona, check out our previous article.
Address: Mogollon Rim, Arizona 85541, USA
Been to the rim many times. Camped there too. No sights of the Mogollon Monster.
But once while driving along the rim, with a straight drop of thousands of feet down to my right and pine forest that came right up to the edge of the road on my left and few and far between roads into it I saw a car behind me, coming up the road fast and closing in on my car.
That road is narrow and filled with holes and ruts, or it was then, in the end of the 90s early 2000s.
The car was covered in gray primer, and I remember seeing in my rear view mirror it’s driver a young teenagery looking guy, with a friend next to him
With no where to get out of his way as he was barreling down on my car I was pretty uncomfortable. I kept checking the mirror to see how close he was ‘now’.
Frequent checks and no road next to us the next check and the car was completely gone!
I pulled over on the very narrow piece of land next to the cliff and looked down, thinking he went over, Could see nothing. I drove back a few hundred feet checking over the cliff where I last saw him, nothing could be seen. To look over the side was dizziing and hard to do, I could not do it from the very edge or I’d go over.
I did tell the police and kept checking the papers but nothing about it ever surfaced.
Always wondered about it. Wondered if it was a ghost car?
I lived on the Mogollon Rim for most of year in Pinetop, AZ ten miles south of Showlow back in the mid 70s. I absolutely loved living at 7,500 feet in the White Mountains. We never considered the Magellan Rim to be as large as shown on the map. It was mainly that big escarpment south of the oval that took you from the low desert up to the high desert and the mountain ranges.
Know how Show Low got its name?
C.E. Cooley and Marion Clark, neighbors in the Mogollon Rim area, decided around 1876 that the region wasn’t big enough for the two of them, so they played cards to determine who would leave. The game was “Seven-Up,” in which the low card won. Clark told C.E., “If you can show low, you win.” C.E. threw down his hand, saying, “Show low it is.” Popular lore claims he had the deuce of clubs.Looks like Old CE got in one too many fistfights.Yet C.E.’s great-grandson believes an earlier card game inspired the name, one played around 1872, between C.E. and Henry Dodd, to decide who would get the rights to ranch in the area. When C.E. won, he called the place Show Low. Anthony found an 1874 Yavapai County census listing Clark as the only inhabitant at the Show Low River, so the card game had to take place before 1876.
That’s not to say Cooley and Clark didn’t play a card game, just not the one that named the place Show Low.
Corydon E. Cooley while he served as chief of the Apache scouts under the command of U.S. Army Gen. George Crook, 1871 - 1874.
I grew up right on the Mogollon Rim. In summertime campouts someone would always break out the story, using scary voices, “It skreeeeams like a woman and it criiiiies like a baby.” This always had us a little on edge.
Goonie goo goo
j
Bookmark... need to check this out sometime. :)
Very intelligent creature to not explore campsites of armed campers.
Check out;
“Fire in the Sky” !
.
Same area of an Alien Abduction which was made
into a movie...
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Still not sure how to pronounce “Mogollon.”
.
Prescott is closer sounding to “Biscuit.”
Yeah these Bigfoot stories never seem to quite pan out, despite almost everyone carrying a camera around in their pocket these days.
Anyone who has read any of Ivan T. Sanderson’s books from the 1960s will know that such legends abound through out the US, from the Boggy Creek Monster of La-TX to another that inhabits the Cherokee Lands of Oklahoma.
******
PING
Oh, argh!
(While you’re in the neighborhood, check out # 11.)
“...Next time you decide to go camping on the rim...”
I have no immediate plans.
“The monster allegedly did not have on any clothing, and possessed at least two-inch-long”
For a brief second I felt sorry for it.
He's going on the ballot in Arizona, running as a Democrat, and will win. ;^)
Had an “experience” ca 1958 while camping out in Iowa with 2 other guys. At night in tents. Won’t go into details but to this day we don’t know...and never will...what made those sounds we heard. Only had 22 rifles.
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