Monster Stories of Indiana

Within Indiana’s lakes, ponds, rivers, woods, and even cemeteries are stories of monsters.

Unexplained creatures that have terrified Indiana citizens often leave disturbing evidence that they were there and may return without warning.

More than just folklore, these terrifying experiences, told by credible eyewitnesses, have made local and national newspapers.

While most people are familiar with Bigfoot, many other beasts call Indiana home.

If you travel west of Lafayette, Indiana, to the small town of Oxford, you’ll find the Oxford West Cemetery. It’s typical of many small-town Indiana cemeteries except for what looks like a fortress in the distance.

This large mausoleum was built to house the dead’s bodies for eternity safely. It would not be unusual in a big city, but it is here in a country graveyard. And the reason it was built is the stuff of legends.

In September 1889, at least a dozen witnesses spotted an enormous snake in this graveyard. According to the Logansport Journal, it was at least 15 feet long and wide as a stovepipe, big enough to swallow a person. Some said it had horns and eyes that glowed. But more terrifying, they found holes all over the cemetery underneath the graves of loved ones. In a day when caskets were made of wood and quickly disintegrated, the beast was eating the bodies of the dead. It was then that this castle of a mausoleum was built to protect the dearly departed from being the lunch of what would be called the ghoul snake of Oxford West Cemetery. The mausoleum is imposing and looks like it would resist hurricane-force winds or a monster snake’s devious attempts to get in. But is there any proof? You’ll find circular bare spots that are probably naturally occurring. But you’ll also find many holes, about 15 inches across, the size of an old stovepipe. The ground is raised in long lines in some places as if something is burrowing. Is it just a large mole? Or a giant snake still searching for bodies? No one has seen the ghoul snake in a long time. Since 1889 and the construction of the mausoleum, burials have also had concrete vaults and locked caskets made of steel, providing ultra-safe places for eternal rest and a strong deterrent against a monster snake with a huge appetite. All the same, I won’t be here in the dark.

Northeast of Logansport is the town of Rochester in Lake Manitou. The lake covers 775 acres, is three miles long by two miles wide, and is up to 65 feet deep. But the Potawatomi word Manitou has a special meaning. Loosely translated, it means Devil’s Lake, for they believed it was home to a lake monster. They’d seen a giant serpent-like creature appear in the water, swimming with a large wake behind it. They called the fearsome creature “Missonabi.” But by all accounts, it resembled later reports of the Loch Ness Monster. It killed two other warriors in a single day, leaving them with a perpetual fear of this place. They warned white settlers, but the stories were dismissed as just enduring folklore. But not for long.

Men surveying the lake reported seeing a creature over 30 feet long with a horse’s head. Then, John Lindsey, a local blacksmith, spotted what he described as a snake-like creature, at least 60 feet long with a head three feet in diameter that looked like a horse. And just like sightings of Bigfoot and other lake monsters today, everyone made fun of him, saying he’d been drinking. But it was not the last sighting by far.

In 1838, three fishermen spotted the lake monster, reported in the Logansport Telegraph newspaper. They said it had a head like a cow, a body like a snake, and maybe 60 feet long. The story went nationwide, and fishermen from the East Coast came with large nets to try and capture whatever it was, but left empty-handed. Freakishly large fish were caught in Devil’s Lake, some over 200 pounds, but none resembled a serpent with a cow or horse’s head. And catching them did not stop sightings of the Lake Manitou monster.

In 1969, Carol Utter and her son were out on the lake when something surfaced. It was larger than her 14-foot fishing boat, and she could not see the entire length of the creature. Many fishermen since then have reported something very similar. Some say the lake has an eerie quality that isn’t easy to explain. Residents have reported a deep booming noise from the lake and wonder if it’s the monster.

It’s been almost 200 years since the first sighting, and yet the mystery has never been solved.

Northwest of Fort Wayne, Indiana, is the town of Churubusco. With great pride, the town calls itself Turtle Town USA for a strange reason. In 1898, Oscar Folk lived on a farm just outside of town. One day he looked out on his seven-acre lake and spotted a monster snapping turtle, five feet wide, six feet long, and weighing up to 1500 pounds. It was gigantic and looked like a dinosaur. The giant alligator snapping turtle on record was 35 inches long and weighed nearly 250 pounds, but given how ferocious even standard-size snapping turtles are, one that’s six feet long could be a man-eater.

But when Oscar told people about the dinosaur in his lake, no one believed him. Fast forward to July of 1948, two friends, Charlie Wilson and Oral Blue, were out on the same lake and saw the monster with their own eyes. And no one believed them either. But everything changed after Minister Orville Reese’s new owner, Gail Harris, in The Lakes, saw the monster turtle, and they told everyone. For starters, no one’s telling the minister that he’s a liar or has been drinking, but they did tell Gail Harris that if there was a monster, prove it, which is why he did.

Immediately, Gail made an elaborate trap and caught the lake monster on day one, but it was way too strong and busted its way out. This ignited an obsession within Gail. He attached an underwater periscope and light to the boat so they could drive across and look for the monster. Newspapers and radio programs published the stories from coast to coast. Over 5,000 people came to Tiny Town, and the phone rang non-stop. The monster was called the Beast of Busco, but also Oscar in honor of Oscar Folk, the man who had first seen the massive turtle in 1898.

Curious people came to the lake to help search, but Oscar also alluded to them. Gail even brought a female turtle as a lure, but Oscar was not in a romantic mood. An airplane flew overhead to try and spot him, but, unfortunately, Oscar was a no-show. Gail acquired diving equipment and enlisted a friend to jump in the water to take a look. But the diving helmet filled with water, and he nearly drowned. General Electric, having read the news of the monster turtle, offered a new tactic, high voltage.

They sent 2,500 volts into the lake to make Oscar surface and maybe stun him a little. The lake was electrified, and the vast turtle briefly came up to the surface but quickly swam away. In the end, all it did was kill a bunch of fish and frogs. Gail was starting to look pretty silly and was losing face with the people of Churubusco and all the out-of-towners. Finally, it came to see a monster. In a last desperate move, Gail decided to drain the lake.

Gail rigged his tractor to be a pump and started pumping all the water out of the lake. He used over 2,000 gallons of fuel. People thought he was crazy, and there was a lake monster. He reduced the size of the lake from seven acres to just one. But unfortunately, Oscar did not show up. The remaining pond was dredged with a crane. Unfortunately, Oscar was too clever to be caught. Oscar might have swum through an underground tunnel to another pond or lake for all they knew. These subterranean waterways are known to exist in Whitley County.

Gail had spent a small fortune trying to prove a point and was so busy hunting a monster that he didn’t have time to be a farmer. The bills mounted up, and he ended up selling the farm and lake and working for General Electric. Since 1948, interest in the Beast of Busco has remained high, but there has never been as large of a search as that made by Gail Harris. Oscar now has his statue at the community park, and each July, the town hosts a Turtle Days festival, with the highlight being a turtle race.

Some have speculated that the Beast of Busco was once the pet of a Miami Chief named Little Turtle, born here in Whitley County, and that we should let the old turtle live its life in peace. Many people claim that they’ve seen the Beast of Busco, while others say he must have died by now. But given that some turtles can live between 200 and even 300 years, I wouldn’t put my toes in the water just yet.

In 1911, a baby alligator was spotted and captured near Evansville, but it was only two feet long, a baby, and perhaps that’s what scared people more than giant alligators were having lots and lots of babies. In 1946, at Vincennes, Indiana, 200 spotted and killed a sizable alligator at Mariah Creek. Alligators also showed up in the city. In 1959, an 18-inch alligator was found swimming in Fall Creek in Indianapolis. Small and alone is manageable, but in 2006, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources confirmed that a pair of alligators were swimming together in the White River, and it didn’t stop there. In 2018, an alligator was spotted in a pond in Plymouth, Indiana, and captured. In 2021, there were two more incidents in July, seven miles northwest of Columbia City. First, an alligator was killed at Whitley Lake, which is over five feet long. Just a month later, in August, a woman walking her dog in Indianapolis was startled when a five-foot-long alligator snapped at her dog. The question is, where are all these alligators coming from? Unlike Florida, Indiana gets pretty inhospitable for cold-blooded alligators. So while snakes, lizards, and turtles go underground during the winter, alligators would find it impossible to do the same. But there is another solid theory about how alligators got to Indiana over 100 years ago. Why are they still being spotted today? In the late 1800s, rail lines to Florida brought in many tourists, and alligators were fully exploited for their exotic nature. You could get your picture taken with a stuffed alligator or go on an exciting alligator hunt. At Jacksonville alone, there were 12 alligator dealers. They sold alligator teeth, taxidermied alligator heads, and whole bodies for conversation pieces. But the main draw is that you could buy a pet baby alligator. In 1890 alone, over 8,000 baby alligators were bought by Florida tourists. And many of these made it back to Indiana. That coincides with when people started seeing alligators in Indiana lakes, ponds, and rivers. Selling baby alligators was still perfectly legal in the 1950s. While the alligator pet stores are gone, anyone with a net can scoop up a baby alligator from Florida and take it home. Baby alligators are cute and don’t eat very much when they’re tiny. Not so much when they are five feet long and can eat your dog. During the pet alligator craze, zoos were overwhelmed by people offering large, aggressive alligators they couldn’t handle anymore. Zoos had to turn people away, so we have all the alligators that we can handle. So having no alternative, these pets were released into Indiana lakes, ponds, and rivers with zero regard for public safety. And unfortunately, this still happens today. It’s probably too cold for any alligator to survive in an Indiana winter. But if you’re swimming in Indiana’s lakes, ponds, or rivers during warm weather, you may not be swimming alone.

When it comes to monster stories, perhaps the most terrifying ones are where the monster patiently and quietly waits in the dark, methodically hunting its victims down, only attacking when it’s too late. For nearly 150 years, people in Indiana have told stories of large cats, particularly a black panther, a monstrous jet-black cat big enough to take down deer, giant pigs, and even cows. One that lurks in the woods, waiting to strike at night. People see them on a dark road, at the edge of their farm as dark silhouettes on the horizon, or they hear unusual things in the woods at night before livestock are viciously killed and taken away.

But sometimes, they seem to be prowling small-town streets early in the morning as paper carriers or someone headed to work. Many dismissed the sightings as house cats with exaggerated size, until the farm animals are attacked in ways so savage that it cannot be overlooked. People form search parties with shotguns and high-powered rifles, but the big cat hears them and easily slips away. Most usually, the panther is never seen again, and sometimes, it returns. But the terror of never knowing has people lock up all their animals and have loaded weapons ready by the door.

Conservation officers say there is no such thing as black panthers, mountain lions, or other large cats in Indiana. But that’s not what people have been saying for generations. As early as 1877, The New York Times printed a story from Rising Sun in which the monster-sized cat attacked a young couple. The beast left a paw print six inches across. Sightings and savage livestock attacks followed: Dresser in 1890, Scottsburg in 1894, and Uniondale in 1899. But the panther managed to escape every time. That changed in 1946 in Lebanon when a black panther terrorized farms across the community, killing pigs, lambs, and calves at night. But two men tracked the monster into the woods and up a tree. They shot the beast with a .30-30 rifle, and it fell into the creek. It made no struggle and floated away lifeless. The men were confident that everyone had seen the last of Indiana’s Black Panther. But they were wrong.

Numerous livestock attacks continued in 1947, but in 1948, the beast started leaving a new hideous calling card. Fountain City farmers found their pigs dead, but the panther ate only their hearts and livers, leaving the rest of the carcass behind. The Black Panther was seen in Southwest Indianapolis in 1949, near Lafayette in 1956, and in Pike County in 1957, leaving a trail of mutilated animals wherever it went. In 1958, it killed 35 chickens at just one farm near Paradise. People were either firm believers in a black panther or assumed others were misidentifying coyotes in the dark. But in 1961, a minister at Lilydale saw and shot at the beast. Without a doubt, he said it was all black, five feet long, and had a 30-inch tail. Reverend David Brown had been a missionary to Africa and had seen big cats there and said it looked exactly like a black leopard. And it got away.

There have been sightings in Perry County in 1978 and in Michigan in 1985, where the panther was seen with a dead domestic cat in its mouth. Numerous black panther reports were filed in South Bend in 2003, leading many to think that it had little to no fear of people with a population that large. By February 2004, one was seen at the southern tip of the state, Clifty Falls State Park, by a park employee. As tourists heavily visit the park, no good could come from it being there. A black panther was later seen in Albion that same month, just 18 miles away. One was seen in Bloomington in 2005; in that same year, Elkhart, by 2006, had slaughtered six pigs at Whitehall. And in 2008, a black panther was seen in Floyd County, Northwest of New Albany, taking down a deer. For an animal that doesn’t exist, it sure is seen a lot and has killed countless animals in savage ways. To this day, Indiana black panther reports keep coming in faster than people can say there is no such thing. The only question is when you walk into the woods, what do you believe?

The monster stories told so far are certainly not the only ones in Indiana. Native Americans that inhabited what’s now Anderson and Mound State Park claimed that tiny cantankerous people named pukwudgies roamed the forest. Living in this ancient sacred area, they have poison arrows and magical powers, can disappear at will, and are not to be trifled with. It seems a bit far-fetched, but people in modern times, as late as the 1990s, claim to have seen them. Witnesses have said that they think they see small children in the woods, but as they get closer, they have troll-like faces.

Since the late 1600s, there has been a long-standing legend of werewolves, with sightings at the old French and Indian cemetery on a full moon. But unlike the Hollywood version, they have helped people. Once, they saved a man from drowning, and another nursed a sickly man back to health. If you search county archives across the state, you’ll find numerous tales of werewolves and dogmen.

In 1891, people in Vevay reported two strange creatures that were half human and half lizard, found along the bank of the Ohio River. They called them mud mermaids. But unlike the Little Mermaid you’re familiar with, they were highly hideous with dog-like ears. In 1955, a woman tubing down the Ohio river near Evansville was grabbed by what she described as a river monster with a green hand and claws. It pulled her under the water twice before she could get away. After the attack, she had a bloody leg that retained a green stain for several days.

And all over Indiana are tales of Bigfoot, with most occurring in and around the Hoosier National Forest. These tales make great campfire stories, with some very difficult-to-tell facts from fiction. But if one thing is for sure, there is no end to the imagination, nor the monster stories of Indiana.