Lake Worth Monster

In Texan folklore, the Lake Worth Monster is a scaly, "part-man, part-goat" creature said to have been seen in Lake Worth just outside Fort Worth.[1][2][3]

Goatman
CountryUnited States
RegionLake Worth, Texas

History

Reports of sightings by local citizens of "a half-man, half-goat, with fur and scales" in July 1969 led to the belief that a mysterious creature lived in Lake Worth. Newspapers reported the alleged sightings, including one in which the monster landed on a man's car after jumping out of a tree, and another in which it threw an automobile tire at a group of people. Newspapers also published a photograph purportedly of the creature and locals began driving out to the lake at night to get a look at it.[4] Local police investigated the claims, but found no evidence of the monster in the Lake Worth and Greer Island area. [1][2][3]

Four decades later, many, including Allen Plaster, who took the supposed photograph of the creature, suspected that it was a hoax. Reports of the monster ceased when school resumed, which suggests that the incidents were pranks carried out by high school students. In 2005, a reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram received an anonymous letter from someone claiming to be one of three high school classmates who, in the summer of 1969, "decided to go out to Lake Worth and scare people" using a tinfoil mask. In 2009, Fort Worth, Texas magazine published a report about an unidentified man who said that he had been a perpetrator of the tire-throwing incident.[3]

Festival

Since 2009 (the 40th anniversary of the sightings), the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge has held a Lake Worth Monster Bash each October.[1][2]

H2OMG Podcast Series on the Lake Worth Monster

In 2019 the Fort Worth Water Department's H2OMG Podcast released a four-part investigative series on the legend of the Lake Worth Monster.

See also

References
  1. Scudder, Charles (2014). "Greer Island's Goatman". The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
  2. Van Horne, Chris (September 30, 2011). "Monster Bash Keeps Lake Worth Legend Alive". NBC 5 Dallas–Fort Worth. NBCUniversal Media, LLC. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
  3. Vaughn, Chris (August 8, 2009). "Mystery Still Engulfs Lake Worth Monster". NBC 5 Dallas–Fort Worth. NBCUniversal Media, LLC. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
  4. Bills, E. R. Texas Obscurities: Stories of the Peculiar, Exceptional and Nefarious. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2013.
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