Ulalume
tart of darkness
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2009
- Messages
- 3,340
- Location
- Not Texas
(I've included these photos I took at Palmetto state park in March of 2012, just to give a general idea of what the entry area near Gonzales looks like, including the lookout point mentioned in the linked article below. Unfortunately, I did not capture any photos of "the thing" - though the linked website does have have an alleged one!)
Sightings of the ape-like "thing" had seemed to drop off in the 80's and 90's - or at least I didn't hear about them, but they seem to have picked up again in recent years. The Texas Crypid hunters website gives the account of The Thing mentioned in the excellent (and sadly out of print) book "Ghost Stories of Texas" as well some more modern tales.
http://texascryptidhunter.blogspot.com/2014/07/sasquatch-classics-ottine-thing.html
To many, the Ottine Swamp is but 198 acres of bog and thicket located almost exclusively within the confines of Palmetto State Park. It is much more than that, however, and is actually made up of some 10,000 acres that flank the San Marcos River between Luling and Gonzalez. There is an amazing diversity of plant life in this area ranging from hardwood bottoms, mesquite flats and true palmetto dominated swamplands. It is a spot out of place geographically and out of time chronologically where people have reported strange encounters with a hair-covered, bigfoot-like creature known locally as “the thing”[...]
The Lookout Hill area has remained a hotspot for encounters with the thing. Many an amorous couple has been run out of the area. Sometimes they abandon their parking spots because of blood curdling screams emanating from just inside the brush line. Others have reported having their vehicles shaken violently or struck by something amazingly strong. A smaller number of people have reported actually catching a glimpse of a huge, hair-covered creature that glowered at them from the edge of the woods or, in rare cases, actually approached their vehicle and peeked in the window or windshield at uncomfortably close quarters. These types of experiences are not limited to only the Lookout Hill area; however, they have been reported for several miles up and down the river between Luling and Gonzales. Mobile homes have been slapped and shaken, pets have come up missing and strange tracks have been found over the years.[...]
Ecologically, the region is a transitional area where the Balcones escarpment (an area of rocky hills and canyons) becomes post-oak savannah and blackland praire, so it's quite different from the usual heavily forested area where sasquatch sightings occur. It's also (IMO) far less swampy than some of the areas where where "swamp monster" lore is more common. So it seems a bit out of the ordinary in either case.
I don't really have an opinion on whether said Thing exists. Maybe it's sasquatch, maybe it's pranksters, vivid imaginations or maybe it's locals who have gone "back to nature" down in the river bottoms. The tales perhaps skirt the line between cryptozoology and folklore. But still I thought it was worth posting here.While South-Central Texas does not contain the type of habitat most would consider ideal for a sasquatch-type animal (the possible exception being Ottine Swamp) the area actually has a long history of encounters with such creatures. The tales of the Wildwoman of the Navidad, the beast of Bear Creek, the bear king of Marble Falls, the Converse werewolf, the naming of Woman Hollering Creek, the hairy man of Round Rock and, now, the Ottine thing all contain elements that, if described today, would have most people thinking “bigfoot.” Granted, most of these tales involve flaps of sightings that took place decades ago but encounters continue to be reported sporadically, especially along the San Marcos River between Luling and Gonzales, to this very day.