[SaveTheChief]

But one remains. If Cohomo was the product of mass hallucination, caused by the sightings of a Missouri monster called Momo, why did only the citizens of Tazewell County invent the elusive beast?

Well for one thing, I can't imagine there was a heck of a lot to do in East Peoria or anywhere else in Tazewell County in 1972.

I was but a wee lad at the time and even then we were living in Peoria. We didn't make it to the east side of the river until about 1974 and frankly I only vaguely remember someone at some time mentioning the alleged beast. I wouldn't think a story like that would go largely forgotten in Central Illinois.

[Graybeard58]

I wouldn't think a story like that would go largely forgotten in Central Illinois.

Yet, it is. This is the first I've heard of it in about 30 years. I hunt mushrooms every year along Cole Hollow Road, plenty of mushrooms, no monsters.

[FLOutdoorsman]

Stranger things have happened. For example, catching a Bull Shark on the Miss. river in Alton, Illinois in 1937.

http://www.in-fisherman.com/magazine/exclusives/if2105_IllinoisShark/