Lake Worth's Mysterious Creature

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
The summer of 1969 three couples had parked by a clearing on the shores of Lake Worth, Tarrant County, Texas. A favorite hangout place for the teenagers of the area, it changed on the night of July 9, when a beast straight out of a horror movie jumped on top of one of the automobiles. It tried to grab one of the girls through the open car window. The auto sped away before it could pull her out. 

---

Greer Island c.2012

Dubbed the Lake Worth monster, the 7 ft. creature grabbed the headlines once police opened an investigation, based on the incident reported by the witnesses, who seemed genuinely scared.

One witness described it as having a "head like a man, ears like a goat, a back like a dragon, one horn and scales." Based on this description it was alternately known as Goat Man.

Monster fever brought not only onlookers and reporters, but hunters as well and the police found their hands full trying to keep peace.

On July 10, a group of people gathered at a clearing near the lake when the monster was sighted on a cliff. It picked up a tire with the rim attached and hurled it 500 feet. Sheriff's deputies who were among the crowd, did not wait to see what else it would do, and ran away with the rest of the onlookers.

A witness said​:

---

We were driving around trying to find it, when we heard it squalling. We heard it before we saw it. I saw it come across the road and I tried to take a picture of it but the flash didn't go off. I took another picture but I don't know if I got anything because I was too busy rolling up my window. We watched him run up and down a bluff for a while and other cars arrived. There must be been 30 or 40 people watching him. Well, some of them thought they would get mean with the thing but about that time, it got hold of a spare tire that had rim in it and threw it at our cars. He threw it more than 500 feet and it was coming so fast that everybody took off. Everybody jumped back in their cars.

Earlier there were some sheriffs deputies there asking us about it, and one of them was sorta laughing like he didn't believe it. But then that thing howled and I think it stood his hair on end. He decided it wasn't so funny anymore. Those sheriff's men weren't any braver than we were, they ran to get in their car. 

Jim Stephen's story of his encounter (Source - The Lake Worth Monster)

Reporter Jim Marrs wrote a story in September, 1969 when another sighting was made of the Lake Worth Monster. It had last been reported on July 11, but according to a witness it had never left the area.

The week before, six teenagers parked near Greer Island at a spot known as The Pit, saw it leap out of some trees and land only five feet away from them. 

According to Sallie Anne Clarke (1929-2009) who authored the book The Lake Worth Monster (1969) it had been sighted for at least 20 years. It was known to kill sheep, accost fisherman and had been seen eating fish. She claimed to have seen it four times after the summer of '69.

In October of 1969, a man named Allen Plaster took a picture of the Lake Worth Monster, which is the only evidence of the creature. Captured is a large creature with light-colored fur. Eventually Sallie Ann Clarke got the picture, which became part of her self-published book.

Throughout the summer many claimed to see it running through the landscape, and dead sheep were found. Police insisted it was either a bobcat or the work of a prankster. ​It was usually sighted between midnight and 4 a.m.

A few days later a Fort Worth resident said he and others had seen ghosts on Greer Island. Man-shaped figures that drifted through a bank of mist. The man described where he'd been visiting the island for the past 18 months to see the ghosts, and had occasion to see the goatman as well. ​

---

Sallie Ann Clarke's book The Lake Worth Monster c.1969

Among the numerous people who claimed to see or hear the creature was Ft. Worth police sergeant A.J. Hudson, who witnessed when it threw a tire at their cars. He said Tarrant County sheriff's deputies who had scoffed at the ideas changed their mind when they heard it howl.

On July 17, Joe Pack, a sculptor, inspired by conversations he'd had with 100 witnesses who saw the goatman decided to carve the creature into a 2-foot replica.

Thurman Rench (1911-1986) was the marina manager of the Lake Worth Boat Works, and he claimed he devised the Lake Worth Monster in 1947 to scare away three, older women who fished at the marina everyday, and blocked boats from docking. He said he used a tire and two large, green buttons.

Newspapers reported in December, 1947, that the "monster" was 150 feet long, and Dutch Carroll a lake officer was the first to observe the creature's behavior. It was compared to the Lock Ness monster. Many thought it was a hoax, but were still cautious about going out on the docks behind their homes.

​How this morphed from a dinosaur type thing to a goatman in the 1960s remains unexplained, however there are still those that believe Greer Island is haunted by something, but they're not sure what. 

There were serious events taking place the summer of 1969. Troops were being withdrawn from Vietnam by President Nixon, Neil Armstrong would be the first man on the moon, and Mary Jo Kopechne would die under mysterious circumstances, when the vehicle she shared with Senator Edward Kennedy veered off a narrow, wooden bridge into Chappaquiddick Island pond.

Perhaps this is why the country was ready for a crazy story about a strange creature that howled piteously, and traipsed through the woods in the dead of night.

---