Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Lyle Blackburn is a renowned cryptid researcher, author, musician, and
one of the leading voices exploring the dark intersection of folklore,
eyewitness encounters, and unexplained creatures. A native Texan with decades
spent investigating America's strangest legends, Blackburn is the acclaimed author
of the Beast of Boggy Creek, The Texas Bigfoot, and
(00:27):
the Lake Worth Monster, The True Story of the Greer
Island goat Man, and his latest terrifying encounters Bigfoot, dog Man, Devil, Monkeys,
and other mysterious manimals. He's also appeared in numerous documentaries
and television series, including Expedition X, The Unexplained and Finding Bigfoot,
bringing a grounded investigative approach to the world of high strangeness.
(00:52):
Lyle Blackburn, Welcome back to Coast to Coast AM. How
are you.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
I'm doing good. It's great to be back.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Good to have you. I don't know a lot about
the Lake Worth Monster, to be honest, So what was
going on back in the summer of sixty nine? I
mentioned during the introduction how America was looking toward the
moon that summer, and then we had these terrified people
in Texas suddenly looking into the trees around Lake Worth.
(01:20):
What did these original witnesses describe.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Right, Yeah, I mean it was an interesting time in
the summer of sixty nine. So Lake Worth is located
north of Fort Worth. It's a reservoir of the Trinity River,
and especially back in nineteen sixty nine, it was kind
of a very remote, wooded, secluded area and people went
out there to fish and sort of a lover's lane
(01:45):
area where people would venture off to be away from others.
So there was a resident living in Fort Worth and
he had heard that the fishing was good out there.
So one evening on July tenth night, he's sixty nine,
he and his wife went out there and he was
going to do some fishing. Well, they got out back
(02:06):
in there near a place called Greer Island, and by
then it was already kind of getting dark, and his
wife was just not going to have this. She was
going to stay in the car. She didn't want to
get out. She was kind of creeped out by the setting.
So this witness, John Reichert, went down. He was fishing
(02:28):
at the edge of the lake well. A couple of
other cars had pulled in and were sitting over there
near where they were parked, And as he fished, all
of a sudden, he heard his wife scream and he turns
around and he looks up at the car and he
sees some sort of white figure that had got on
the hood and was coming around to the passenger side
(02:50):
where she was sitting, and so he of course ran
up there, and he said that when he got there,
this thing stood up, and it was something that stood
maybe seven feet tall. He said it was covered in
white hair, and he saw what he believed were horns.
The best way he could describe it was essentially, for
(03:12):
lack of a better term, a goat man. And so
he tussled and fought with this thing for a few
moments before he managed to get in the car and
they sped off, and his wife was in complete hysterics.
They drove up to a cafe where they called the
fort Worth Police. The police responded, and about the time
(03:35):
the police arrived, two other cars that had been down
there and saw the whole thing pull up in the
parking lot. So the police interviewed all six of these
people who had tested that there was some sort of
strange what seemed like a creature to attack Miss Richert.
And so that's where it all kind of started as
(03:57):
far as the public being aware of it, because the
police went down there and followed them to the area
and looked around, and of course by the time they
got there, the creature or whatever it was was nowhere
to be found. But that was followed up with a
newspaper article that appeared in the Fort Worth Star Telegram
the following day that told this story of these people
(04:20):
being attacked by a goat man. So, as you can
well imagine, it was instantly viral because the Star Telegram
was a huge newspaper, and that really set off this
summer of terror that followed up that initial encounter by
the Richerts.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Was there any physical evidence in the wake of this
sighting footprints or hoof prints I suppose, or I don't know.
This thing climbed onto the hood of a car and
was clawing at the car. Were there any scratch marks anything?
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Right, So, when the writers were driving away and the
creature had sort of stumbled back as he fought with John,
it lurched towards the car and tried to grab it,
and he he had claws and it scratched down the side.
And so when when they were at the cafe and
(05:15):
talking to the fort Worth police, you know, of course
they showed them this scratch and you know, it was
all they could offer as far as evidence of what
had happened. Now, when the when the police went down
to the area and looked around, they they didn't find
any tracks or it wasn't really mentioned in the newspaper,
but they did something of a thorough investigation as much
(05:39):
as they could and taking the subject at face value.
But the long scratch down the side of the car,
you know, was something that you know, the police felt
that they they wouldn't have done to their own car.
And you know, something happened. And I think the main
point was these people were so scared and so frightened
(05:59):
at the police knew something happened. This was not a hoax.
These people were not making this up. You know, something
had attacked them that they really couldn't explain.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
But I know you're gonna want them after hearing this.
This is an amazing story. We've got Stephen and Malachi
Gregory in Nelson, New Zealand. I understand that Malachi, who
is eight almost nine years old now, was suffering with
not just one or two warts, but I mean a
significant outbreak of warts all over his body, so significant
it impacted his ability to really function.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
Yeah. Yeah, he was having trouble even holding a pencil
to right. It was Ty's book actually that got me
thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I'm not surprised.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
It is an amazing immuno modulator, and so I can
see that it would work. And so at what point
did you see that there was actually improvement it's really
going to work.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Well, look, we really started to notice it around twelve weeks.
You can see these things actually getting smaller and smaller
and then going down to with just little rid monks.
The whole things are gone and we're talking about what's
you know one the size for oneer. I thought, no way,
that's gonna wow. That's just been miraculous to see him
get into a pair of shoes.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yes, how wonderful.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
That's great to see.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
I'm so happy and yes, untident, absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
For instead of seen it that is blown away, TI,
this is awesome, Yeah, this is awesome.
Speaker 6 (07:17):
Another amazing story. Why we're talking about Carnivora. Call them
to awaken your immune system and protect yourself. Now call
one eight six six eight three six eighty seven thirty five.
That's one eight six six eight three six eighty seven
thirty five. Or visit carnivora dot com c A r
niv O r A carnivora dot com.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And you mentioned I think there were six witnesses. Did
they all describe the same thing? Seven foot white hair horns?
I believe something. Does someone also describe scales on this creature?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Right?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
It was kind of of a strange description, or at
least what was written in the paper. Uh, And incidentally,
Jim Mars wrote that article for the Fourth Star Telegram
and Jim now that Wow, Yeah, kind of ties interesting
tie in there, but uh, but yeah, the description was
(08:17):
kind of a varied thing. They John said he thought
it had scales on it, It had horns, it had
white hair, It was tall. The the people sitting in
the other cars didn't have a great view because it
was dark out there and they were sitting, you know,
many yards away, So they saw something that was white
(08:41):
that got onto the hood of the car and jumped off,
and they saw John fight with it, but their descriptions
weren't really uh documented in the newspaper. And incidentally that
John John reiter his description of the creature was something
(09:03):
that he often told his family years later. I actually
met his son, and of course I asked him, you know,
what did your father talk about this incident? And he
said yes, he stuck to the story and he had
also done a drawing of what he believed the creature
looked like, and I was able to see that, so
(09:26):
that was something. Though I didn't interview John himself, the
original witness, he since passed away, but talking to his
son really gave me a good perspective that something really
did happen here.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Did the goat man make any sounds?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
He didn't mention sounds, you know, I think the an
instant like that when his wife was being attacked, and
just how fast that was in the fight. Whether whether
it did make a noise or not, he didn't mention
it to the police, and it wasn't recorded in the article,
so I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And this is around a wooded area called Greer Island.
What is that like a nature preserve or a national park?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Right? It's now called the Fort Worth Nature center. But
back then it was a it was a official Fort
Worth refuge there. And the way, like I said, Lakeworth
is a reservoir of the Trinity River. So the Trinity River,
which is a very significant river in Texas, flows there
(10:37):
and it's kind of dammed up and creates the lake. Well,
Greer Island was an island that was just out in
the middle there, and it's heavily wooded and back in
those days there was no bridge. There was no way
to get there except for by boat. And of course
immediately people theorized that perhaps the creature had been hiding
on this island because it really wasn't that exc accessible.
(11:01):
But yeah, it's it's a place where definitely, though it's
near a big city like Fort Worthy, it was definitely
secluded and still is very wooded to this day.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And did the police, if I'm understanding correctly, they initially
suspected pranksters in ape suits or something like that.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Well, as these as it developed and more sightings took place,
and you know, there were many more witnesses, then you
have rumors, you know, people claiming that it had been
pranksters or it had been them, and the police looked
into those theories, but never really had any solid proof
(11:46):
that somebody, you know, somebody had perpetrated a hoax. And
and just like with most of these cases where you
get so many sightings and multiple witnesses, you know, you
have to separate the wheat from the chafts, so to speak.
You know who saw something and who was trying to
(12:07):
add to the mystery. So I think if you go
back to the core witnesses and some of the key
incidents in this case, they stand up to scrutiny, whereas
there's some other ones that sure could have been people,
you know, trying to scare other people. There were a
lot of people after those articles came out in the
(12:28):
four Worth Star Telegram that were coming out to the lake.
So but there was never really any proof of somebody
perpetrating a hoax. And a lot of the claims were
in fact, and I go into this in my book,
were almost more, quite more ridiculous than just to say,
(12:48):
there's a goat man.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You know, tell me about this tire throwing incident. This
is we have a seven foot creature allegedly hurling a
heavy tire, what hundreds of feet.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Right the following day, after the story had been in
the Fourth Star Telegram. By the very next afternoon, there
were numerous people gathered out there near Grier Island, interested
in seeing the monster for themselves, and people were hanging
out there, and by the time it turned evening, there
(13:24):
were probably thirty to forty people at this little spot
there known as the Pit, which is across from Grier Island,
and this sort of open meadow where there's this rocky cliff.
It's wooded and goes up into the woods there, and
(13:44):
this group was out there, like I said, thirty forty people.
All of a sudden, something ran up on that ridge,
and the witnesses said that it was tall, it looked
hairy that presumably wasn't a person, and it ran around
and it grabbed a tire which was up There was
(14:04):
some junk that had been thrown up there, and it
allegedly took this tire and hurled it across the heads
of these frightened witnesses, and they said it flew four
hundred or five hundred feet before landing there in that
open area by the pit. And of course all the
people with their bravado and they're going to see the monster,
(14:26):
suddenly saw this site and everybody scattered, jumped into their cars,
took off running. It really freaked people out, and that
incident made the headlines the following day in the Fourth
Star Telegram. It had pictures of the tire, It had
interviews with witnesses. WFAA, one of the local news stations,
(14:50):
went out and actually interviewed some of these people about
various incidents that had occurred and started talking to the witnesses.
So this thing was all over the New Use at
the time and was something that everyone you know in
the Fort Worth area for sure, was reading about.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
And at what point did people armed individuals start showing
up around Greer Island hoping to, I don't know, shoot
and kill this thing.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Well, that was the pre eminent danger, and I think
the police were and park rangers were more concerned about
that because I mean, I mean, this is Texas and
there were people with guns, and I think the idea
that there was some kind of creature attacking people was
attractive to sort of these guys who felt like they
(15:43):
could take care of the problem, if you will. So
even at the time when the tire incident happened, there
were people out there with guns, and somebody could have
easily been shot, you know, if circumstances had been different.
But you know, armed individuals kind of roamed that area
(16:04):
at the time. Fortunately, nobody was hurt in all of this.
And you know, though the monster was scary and you know,
fun to be had, uh, no one was hurt.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam
dot com for more