Illinois - The Enfield Horror. “50 States of Freaky!” Vol. 13 “Back in Time” Vol. 7

Illinois - The Enfield Horror. “50 States of Freaky!” Vol. 13 “Back in Time” Vol. 7

Be sure you’re all caught up with both “50 States of Freaky" & "Back in Time”!

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On our next stop in our tour of the states, we stop by Illinois to talk about probably one of the most famous paranormal stories ever, and that’s the ‘Enfield Horror’. On April 25th, 1973 in Enfield, Illinois, a young boy, named Greg Garrett, was playing out in his backyard when suddenly, a creature attacked him. Greg described the creature as having three legs, slimy grey skin, short claws and red eyes. It clawed at his feet and tore up his shoes. Frightened and crying hysterically, he ran back to his house to hide. Then, later that day, Greg’s neighbors, the McDaniels, returned home at around 9:30 p.m. only to find their two kids, Henry jr. and Lil hiding in fear. They said that a “thing” was trying to get break into the house through the door and a window mounted air conditioner. Then, all four of them heard a scratching at the front door. Henry, the father, went to see what it was, thinking it was just a stray animal, but what horrified to see that it wasn’t a stray animal. Instead, it was the same creature that Greg saw earlier that day, only difference was that Henry described it having two small clawed arms and ‘pink’ eyes as big as flashlights. Henry quickly slammed the door shut and ran to get a flashlight and his .22 pistol. He opened the door again to see the creature still standing there and proceeded to shoot at it. All the creature did was hiss like a wild cat and ran away and covered 50ft. in just 3 leaps. He is 100% sure that he shot it four times and yet it didn’t even flinch. He called the authorities, who found scratch marks at the front door and strange, 6 toe padded dog-like prints and that the tracks resembled those of a three legged “animal” with one foot smaller than the other. Later in the year, on May 6th, Henry was awoken by his neighbors’ dogs howling nearby. He grabbed his pistol again and went out front to see that the creature had returned once again. This time however, it was at a distance walking on nearby train tracks. He didn’t shoot at it and it just continued slowly along the tracks.

After Henry’s second encounter, the media swarmed the town. Amateur paranormal creature hunters also descended on the town. One group reported seeing the creature only this time it was reported to be hairy, in the underbrush near the L&N railroad tracks and proceeded to shoot at it. It didn’t flinch and bolted off at very fast speed. The last person to report the creature from the media blitz was a man named Rick Rainbow (best name) who was a radio news director for the WWKI radio station in Kokomo, Indiana. He and three other anonymous claimed to has seen a 5-foot tall, grey, stoopy creature near an abandoned house not far from the McDaniels and Garretts. They were able to record the creature’s disturbing screams, which were described to be similar to those of the fabled Banshee. Ever since then, people have speculated that the creature was an alien that was connected to a bunch of UFO sightings around the time and near the area where the creature was sighted.  It should be noted that between the year 1941-42 in Mt. Vernon, Illinois (less than 40 miles from Enfield) a “leaping” creature was sighted and terrorized the town and killed multiple animals. They described that creature to look similar to that of a baboon and was able to leap 20-40 feet in one bound.

And now I’m DEFINITELY not going outside, ever! All jokes aside, it’s hard to say what this creature really was and if it even existed. On one hand, I don’t want to say the whole thing was made up by neighbors who wanted to get some news attention, because the whole town was frightened and they did find odd tracks and supposedly record the creature’s screams. But, on the other hand, you have to ask why this thing was never seen since these sightings. As much as I really want to come to a conclusion on this, I just can because both sides have equal chances of being the truth. (Those two being it was all a big hoax or it really did happen) So I’m going to go undecided on this one, but what about you? Do you think this famous story is true and there could be a bullet proof alien still hiding in Enfield, or do you believe it was all made up?
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