The Grafton Monster

Hi, I'm Holly and I'm Haley. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. All right, welcome back. Hello.

Hello. You know, we say that a lot. We do. It's been a rough month.

We're just having this conversation about like, we're just doing a whole like rain and it's just been a rough like two months, like into the year. I feel like it's been a rough 2021-2022. I've had a really, it's been hard in different ways. Right, it's been a lot and it's like ending the year out just with a lot of stress and a lot of like different things going on in our lives that are stressful and a lot and I don't know.

It's just. And I, you know, I know that we're not alone in that because you know friends of mine are going through really hard times and you know, everybody seems to be going through different things but equally as challenging whether it's health issues or financial issues or marital issues or issues with your kiddos. I know my son is like freaking the flip out all the time and will not sleep since the time changed. I know.

He wakes me up a lot. It's been and like I don't know. I just, it's almost like it's been one thing after another after another. I feel like I can't catch a break.

I know. I feel like I just can't get my head above water right now. Is there something like mercury and retrograde or something, you know, kind of going on at the universe that is altering our capacity to function? I think it's just rough out there for everybody right now.

Like I know, I mean, I just, yeah, and I think we're pretty real with talking about stuff and I never want you guys to think that our lives are perfect or. They would instantly know we're not right. Obviously, no, we're lying. Yeah.

No, it's just been a it's been a rough like we're just going through it. I think the seasonal depression is real right now. Like they're getting dark at 5 p.m. is really throwing me off my game.

I know. It was it was worth hurting. It was hurting. It was hurting.

It was like where is Haley? I know I was driving out here and I was like freaking out because it's dark. How do I get there? And there's no and none of the lights like the street lights were on.

That's weird. On the interstate, which I don't feel like I'm saying. They called interstate lights about police instead of street lights, but none of of them were on and it was pitch black because it was raining. Did Randy have the lights on in the the car jack.

The lights were on the car jack, but the like when I got off the interstate, the lights were not on and I was like what that's weird. So it was and it was rainy and it was just ark and it just sounds like a ghost story. It felt like it. I was like kind of I break down.

I'm gonna die. Well, you know what? I didn't hear from you for a little bit. Like I had shot you at Hacks and said, hey traffic moving now and nothing's rough again this week.

And I was like, oh my god, is she dead? I did pan a little and then all of a sudden I get this text message that says here and usually Randy will alert me like, hey, you know, your visitor is here. You know, just have a while but he didn't this time and I don't know if it's because he knew you were coming through just insane. I don't know.

Right. But there you were. There was in the driveway. Yeah.

But it was one of those like traffic was rough again this week. I shot you at text because I was stuck in like standstill traffic. We were not moving. I could have put my car in park for an extended period of time as how much we were not moving on the interstate and I shot you at text real quick.

Don't text and drive. But I was like, hey, I'm stuck in traffic like literal standstill traffic. And I guess when you text me back, we started moving again. I saw your text on my guy here because I hadn't checked my while I was driving and it didn't normally like in my car to like pop up that's like text from so and so or like whoever my favorite person ever.

But it did not. So I didn't even know you text me. But yeah, it's just really feel like I'm going through it right now. And I mean, I have so much to like be grateful for and think before and all that and like but I don't think that diminishes the feeling of just like bliss.

So I think this is that moment in the podcast before we get to the story where we just take a collective deep breath in and blow out. I don't know everybody. I love it. That was nice.

You know, you kind of breathe in that nervous energy. And so when you first breathe out, it's kind of, you know, but when you do it a couple of times, you do start to regulate a little bit. I have to do the box breathing thing where it's like inhale for seven, hold for seven or however long if you do, I think I do seven because I can't breathe. I like your given birth and your in labor and then I deep breath in.

Now push to and they slowly count for you. Yeah. I have to do the like inhale for seven seconds hold for seven seconds. Exhale for seven seconds.

Hold the exhale for seven seconds. Like a box. You think about it as a box. But I do sometimes I get to sleep at night.

I've started using like hypnosis visualization to go to sleep. Like yeah. So there are many a YouTube, you know, videos that have this and you just listen to it and you put your phone beside your bed and you charge it and you're listening to, you know, now you feel your toes, you know, and you feel it in your limb, whatever. And it's just like, and it works until my child comes in at 2 a.m.

What you doing, mama? I'm sleeping. I have to have something some type of noise playing and usually I will turn on like a random YouTube video. I've seen like 8,000 times or something and like just have it playing and like obviously not listening to it or watching it.

I already think about it. Just about it. Having it play and I'm out in like five minutes. Here lately I've been trying to catch up on The Office, which I've seen a hundred times, but I just love that show and I get to done, done, done, done.

So I love it. Alright, Haley. What is this story about? So I've lost my notes, so let me find them again.

Well, and we've done the, you know, so many minutes that my friend will be like timer. Yeah, no, we're good. Well, you're just gonna have to chill for five seconds, maybe longer. Should I sing a song from last week about the heart and the box?

Hey girl, I'm back. You thought I was gone, but I'm not. And I still have your heart in this box. Gotcha, hot in the box.

Yeah. Okay, I found them. Oh, I'm bumming. I'm cutting her off.

I'm gonna rock. Alright, you're welcome. Oh, no, that was beautiful. I hope that you sing that at my wedding.

If I can't hear it, I'm gonna need that as my first dance song or am I walking down the outside? You couldn't have done, you would come to the bride. You had to do a stupid. You know, Larry would be into it.

Larry would be like, heck yeah. Break it down, Mary. You'd be fine. Some of your family may not care for it, but you know what?

I don't know. They might be. Mike, Mike, me up. Let's tear up this bad boy.

Alright, let's go back to West Virginia this week. Virginia, we're gonna talk about the Grafton Monster. Oh, okay. It's kind of a spooky, you know, not as dark as missing and possibly birds children.

That's a bit of tomato. This is a little bit more, a little bit more fun. Hard in the box. I don't know.

You don't know how you beat hard in the box. Yeah, you don't. Oh, heartbeat. How you beat it?

Boomb, boomb, boomb. Sorry. I hate this. Okay.

West Virginia Grafton Monster, taking it back to the 1960s. All right, June 16th, 1964. Robert Cockrell was driving along the Tigeret. Sure, Tigeret River on Route 119 on his way home from work.

While on his drive, he encountered a large white creature on the right hand side of the road. Me. Large white creature. Well, okay, kind of, baby.

Just starting to get on the side of the road. I mean, sure. The 60s was a weird time. A lot of times.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of drugs. There's a lot of, you know, free spirits.

Okay, so according to Cockrell, the creature was walking around on the side of the road. He heard a low whistling noise from further away towards the river. So he didn't think the creature was making the noise, but he could hear it. It was like a call for the creature, like come back here Irene.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Got it.

Got it. Got it. He said he couldn't explain the noise. One theory though about the noise is that the creature was actually an extraterrestrial, and that the noise was coming from a UFO.

I mean, that's a pretty big jump. Right. But that's kind of where we're starting. It actually makes sense with the time period, right?

There was a lot of hysteria around like UFOs. So that's kind of where we're starting. Okay. Cockrell slowed down to get a better look at this creature.

He stated that it was very large and a muscle. Oh, well, I have them whipping weights. He said it had white seal like fur, which I mean, when I haven't shaved in a beat. Listen, I got some fur on the legs, the underarms.

He said legs, the underarms. It's just a little rough face. A lot of the shaving. Arms.

Yep. Back. Tose toes. Just hear everywhere.

It's body parts. I say no one's feeling that my legs right now are good. Oh, okay. I'm sorry.

Sorry. Anyway, it also didn't appear to have a visible head. I mean, really, who needs one? Right.

I mean, this is the rest of the body speaks for itself. Right. I mean, very large, white, weird, whistle noise, no head sounds like it. But it wasn't making the whistle noise.

The UFO was accompanied by a whistle. Correct. Yes. The creature then moved very quickly out of view.

Once Cockrell realized that it was a living thing and not just like a weird thing on the side of the road, he sped away until he reached home, which is a good call. Once home, Cockrell called two friends, Jerry Morse and Jim Mauser. Cockrell described what he had seen and his friends agreed to go with him back to the site to investigate. If you called me and told me that you saw a headless white blob that was hairy on the road and you wanted me to come back with you to kind of check it out.

I mean, what do you think I'm saying? I think you would say no, but if the rules were reversed, I would 100 percent say yes. Yeah. I mean, I would probably say no because I wouldn't want to bring my kiddo.

Right. So that would be it. Well, if you could get a sitter. Is it daytime?

No, it's not. I mean, if you hold my hand, I'll go. Okay. Great.

All right. Now let's go. Yeah. Okay.

So they agreed to go back to the site to investigate. Holding hands, holding hands. Once they arrived, though, the creature was gone. Of course he was, but the grass was trampled in the area and they could still hear a low whistling noise that seemed to follow them as they walked around the area.

That's creepy. Creepy weirdo. I don't like it. The next day, Cockrell went to work and he actually worked at the Grafton Sentinel, one of the local newspapers, and he mentioned his experience.

The editor there didn't really take him very seriously. It's like, weird. He's been drinking a lot. Cockrell seemed to drop it, but his two friends became obsessed with this story.

They went around telling anyone who would listen that there was a monster on the loose. That's not causing any kind of panic. Right. That's like screaming fire in the movie theater.

Don't do that. No, don't do that. Hunting parties formed. Mostly of local teens.

Of course. With baseball bats. Baseball bats. They went out to hunt the monster.

I wish like, I work with teenagers every single day. I don't want any of them with a baseball bat in a hunting party. I could even say to myself, what you doing with the bat? He was like, momma, don't worry about it.

I got things to do. I'm chasing the headless monster. I don't think I would trust any of the teens I work with with baseball. Don't give them weapons.

They don't need weapons. Baseball bats and kids. I worry about them on sports teams when they have to have bats. I mean, acne and just puberty alone is scary.

They don't need bats. No, they don't need to add any hysteria into the past. Well, the teen hunting party they set out near the initial sighting. That's just mob of teenagers.

Why not? Soon news sightings are reported. The Grafton sentinel jumped on the story this time and interviewed some of the teens. An article was published on June 18th of 1964 titled, Teen Age Monster, Teen Age Monster Hunting Parties.

Latest activity on Grafton scene. It's a dream. You know, I was scrolling the TikTok. I love TikTok.

Yeah. And I saw a video of this Harry headless thing. And it was so cool and so trendy. And so we all just kind of got together and started seeking it out.

And like, you know, it's now what we do. You want the teens? Me and the teens. And then I did a really cool TikTok video where I drop it like a top.

Go get it. Get it. I'm from another generation. I don't actually have the TikTok.

I have the app. I do not. I have I have the Instagram. I have the Facebook.

You have the TikTok. You don't have to make anything on it. You want to see what I made. You just like, you know, be so boring and watch the videos.

Yeah. I can watch it on. I watch a lot of them on like YouTuber and stream. So I don't actually need to watch them on.

Anyway, it's a good time. It's fun. I enjoy it. Trinity teens.

Trinity teens. Are hunting this monster. They had TikTok at the time. They definitely would have been making TikToks.

Oh, right. Because that's what I imagine it sounds like. Okay. Overall, there were more than 20 sightings reported.

Robert Cockrell interviewed all of them. Of course he did. Here are two. I'll read them from the newspaper.

So this is like word for word from the thing I copied and pasted it from his article. All right. Quote, I have seen the creature called the Grafton Monster several times when I was a young man and it is very real. My first encounter.

I was with my father cutting wood. We had finished and we're loading the truck when our two dogs started barking. We stood there and listened. Something was walking getting closer.

My dad told me to get the gun from the cab. He carried a double barrel tin cage with some type of book shot. I don't know what that is. Whoever knows about guns.

Whatever it was had picked up its pace and continued towards us. All we need for sure was it was big and it wasn't scared of us. The dogs or the chainsaws. It stopped about 15 to 55 yards away from us and the trees and went quiet.

My dad pulled both hammers back and stood in front of me, told me to be ready. The next thing that happened. I'll never forget. It stepped out, looked at us, took three strides in our direction, turned and walked back into the tree line.

That was my first sighting of the beast and I'll never forget it. My second encounter was about two months later at night fishing alone. I spotted him on the opposite bank and I got the hell out of the area. Mark.

Yep. That was that was this guy's story. Was it a bear? Was it?

I don't know. All right. The other story was quote. I saw the monster near the river early in the morning.

It saw me and instantly froze. It did not move. I was fishing at the time and left all my gear there and started to run away. As I ran and turned, I saw that it too turned away and started running off.

As I got near my truck and began opening the door, I heard a whooshing sound and a bright light appear above the tree line. I drove off and got my gear two days later. So people run into preparing to fight this better. Well, and we know that this creature is pretty trip of the lights.

Fantastic. This one is like up late. Like early in the morning, he's probably got the walk of shame and he runs across the guy fishing. And he's like, oh man, my head hurts.

I shouldn't have drank so much. What a party. And he kind of gets startled too. And the guy runs off towards his car and the monster is like, oh crap.

And he goes running off and embarrassed and all the things that you are after a night like that. Yeah, I've been there to that. So I wouldn't recommend. But I mean, smart that both of these teens got the hell out of them.

I wouldn't stay around. Mm-hmm. Nothing cute. So due to the large amount of people turned monster hunters bringing loaded guns into the area and with tensions rising, police decided we'll go ahead and take a look at this and do our own investigation.

So the next day, June 19th, the Graphen Sitnell printed another article on the subject. This time dismissing the monster as simply the result of spring fever, saying that these were just bored locals, wildly imagining this creature, kind of like a mass hysteria. They said, instead of a creature, it was a hand cart piled high with boxes was what was on the side of the road that night. It was just a...

But boxes don't have hair. Nor do they move. Exactly. But that's what they're going with.

The hand cart piled out boxes. People were just freaking out. With this information, the town, you know, started to kind of calm down and, you know, everybody, especially cops were relieved that no one had been shot or hurt during the monster hunt. One teen in 1964, and she suggested the creature was an escaped polar bear.

But no one could determine where or what a polar bear was doing in Graphen West Virginia without a head. Without a head, right. It's pretty hard to move around without a head. Yeah.

So like I said, the Graphen Sitnell posted on that June 19th article that the monster was simply an individual who had been pushing a hand cart loaded high with boxes along Riverside Drive on Tuesday night. Why if he was pushing a hand cart along on Riverside Drive at the middle of the night? Um, newspaper claimed that due to the dim lighting and the wildly imaginative teens, the hand cart was the most likely called for the story. The paper then said, quote, it's fairly certain that monsters don't go around pushing hand carts with loaded boxes.

Not unless they need a second job. Right. Maybe he was delivering, you know, supplies or... The office supplies or...

Oh yeah. You know, people need paper. Paper and staplers. Paper clips.

Staples. Exactly. Hosted notes. Maybe he works for Staples.

Oh yeah. Probably had the red shirt on. They couldn't see it in the dark now. Not to just other boxes.

Yeah. Delivery. I'm pushing it down the road because the truck broke down. Right.

That's why. Yeah. There we, and I have to get this delivery. And like, I don't know if this is like an industrial area where it would like make sense if somebody was pushing a cart.

Like, but in my mind, I'm imagining like a rural road where there's just some dude pushing a cart. You know, it would make sense that if it was made up, it started by this guy who works for a newspaper who wants something to write about when it'd be interesting to kind of have that take and then everybody like blow it out of proportion. I mean, that's like a writer's dream. Right.

Definitely. Since the original sightings in 1964, the lore that surrounds the Grafton Monster has spread across West Virginia in the nation. Gary Barker, the Carksburg researcher who popularized tales of the Mothman. Your favorite?

I love that guy. Believed that the Grafton Monster was a lab animal left on earth by extraterrestrials to test the planet's livability. While others suggested that it was an interdimensional traveler. I like us.

I feel like both of those theories are just, it's like how much crack. And at what, I mean, these Martians have been studying us for years. At what point are they just going to take over or just start sucking out our brains? I mean, you know, get with it already.

Are they taking a look at our, you know, our political systems and our health care disasters and they're like, you know what, I think we just leave this one to kind of fizzle out on something. Or have they listened to the podcast and they're like, no, we're over it. There's not enough intelligent life here to deal with. But if it's just Holly by herself, just maybe, maybe, maybe.

No, we know that ain't true. All right. So the Grafton Monster has brought you know, considerable attention to its hometown. Sorry about that.

You got it. Right. Right. So it actually appeared in West Virginia.

It's one of the West Virginia cryptids. So like Mothman and others that appeared in Bethesda studios a Fallout 76, which I think is a video game. Maybe a movie? I don't know.

Do you want me to look at that? Sure. Why not? Because I didn't write down what it was.

I feel like when I wrote this, I knew what it was. So to capitalize on this attention, the town place is signed commemorating Cockroese sighting at the location of his encounter along Riverside Drive. However, the sign was stolen by West Virginia University students shortly there afterwards. It was, but just as it was, you know, quickly recovered.

And when it was, it was moved to a new location on Main Street. Well, I do what you gotta do. So there's a sign there. As far as I know, there are continued sightings of the Grafton Monster, but you know, none that are obviously credible.

Hmm. So I don't know. What do you think? Do you think it was a guy with boxes?

Are we thinking alien? Are we thinking escaped polar bear? Are we thinking UFO? Like what are you thinking?

So to clarify Fallout 76 video game. Yes. So you are correct in that. And it says, you know, Xbox role playing.

Ooh, kinky. I do like some role play. I love you the French made. And you be the big scary monster.

You do the Grafton Monster. I don't know. I mean, I think it's just hysteria. I mean, I think that teens will go after whatever feels like cool and hip like, yeah, let's go take care of it.

Yeah. No, I don't think it's real. I don't think it's real. I don't think it's necessarily like what they're saying.

I think there are. I don't think it's boxes. I don't think it's boxes. I don't know.

I think there's creepy crap in the woods. I think the Appalachian Mountains that we have was poopy stuff. I'm not out in the woods by myself at night because there are creepy things out there. People and otherwise.

I'll leave immediately. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, it could be something.

I don't necessarily think alien. I don't know. To me, the parallel with alien thing with the whistling really is only because of the time period because that was cool to talk about in the early 60s was the UFO. Yeah.

I'm not feeling UFO. I am feeling maybe like a corrupted type creature. Yeah. But I don't know.

I think there's spooky stuff in the woods. I'm waiting for you and I to experience something to this effect and then, you know, and then be talking about it. I don't know. I mean, I've been in the woods enough, just like, roaming, roaming now, just like I've been in the woods enough and gotten enough uneasy feelings that I'm like, I don't want anything to do with that.

I don't want anything to do with the woods, period. No, I mean, like, I remember as a kid walking like our farm property, and coming back up like one of the dirt roads onto the main farm area and just having this overwhelming feeling that something was watching me. And I was probably like 10 or 11 years old at the time, and I still remember that feeling that like there was something in the woods watching me as I was walking. And I hate like the tingly feeling on the back of your neck and the heart was racing and, you know, I just, there was something out there and I didn't like it.

So I don't do the woods. No. And if you listen enough to this podcast, you know, you just shouldn't. Now there's creepy things in the woods.

Appalachian Mountains are very, very old. There's a lot of this area that people haven't been and shouldn't go and we don't know about it. And we just need to leave it, leave it alone. Just leave it alone.

Just leave it alone. I'm curious. You know, we have so many listeners who are from West Virginia. I'm really curious, um, your viewpoints on this.

Yeah. Have you seen this? Have you heard it? What's the focal work going around?

Like, do people actually buy like, do they buy this? Do they feel like, yeah, or do you know someone who's seen it? Or is it like, yeah, let's just a tall tale that kids came up with, that this writer came up with like, I didn't like tell us. Tell us.

What do you think that is? What have been your creepy experiences in the woods? You know, what have you seen or heard or felt or, you know, I mean, we've all had, I mean, this is smoking shit out there. Do you know that, um, a couple of days ago at work, we were doing this training and my boss was doing this presentation and it was about, you know, um, how fear affects our body.

And she said something about how much and you find a snake, you're out in the woods and you're walking and there's a snake. And so I responded and said, well, first of all, I would not be on the woods. I would not be on the woods. Um, but you know, it was talking about, you know, fight, fight or freeze, what did you do when I said, I'd run like hell.

And a lot of people said they'd freeze. You're a flight fighter. So, um, yeah. So, you know, if I were to see this headless hairy monster, I'd run like hell.

Yeah, I think I'm more of a runner. I'm a runner. Yep. What are you?

Are you a runner? A fighter? Would you fight the monster? What would you do?

I wouldn't recommend that. I would either. But you let us know. Yeah.

Um, how do they do that? You can do that. Bye. Sending us an email at matmiseries.appolation.gmail.com.

Find us on our Facebook, Matmiseries Tales from Appalachia. Find us on our Instagram, mountainiseries.appolatja. Check us out on Patreon for some bonus content, patreon.com.com slash mountainiseries. And do it because that bonus content is where it's at.

You can hear us make mistakes. How weird. Um, you can hear some sort of one-off that you normally wouldn't expect from, you know, us. If you feel so inclined, you can also leave us a lovely review on Apple.

I think just Apple. I don't think Spotify does that. Um, rate review us. Please be nice about it.

And I have read some really nice ones too. I have two. Thank you so much for that. I'm just so lovely.

Yes. Hey, are you working on that vocal? I am. I'm getting it worse, actually, because I've got some like chest congestion type stuff going on.

So I'm really, really hoping that it is progressively good. I feel like a pack of day smoker right now. That I sound like one. No, it's not.

It's not that bad. It's not that bad. Okay. It's not good progressively worse.

That's all right. That's all right. Well, well, I want to give a shout out. And I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to West Virginia since we've covered them twice once last week and this week.

So Beckley West Virginia, this one is for you guys. Thank you so much for listening. Yeah. We love you.

You may not love us, but we sure do love you. Who says they don't love us? I don't know if I heard somebody from West Virginia got real mad at us when we made that. That was an email and that was you and Travis.

Yeah. I wasn't in that episode. So they probably still like me. They probably like you.

They hate me. But it's fine. Yeah. It's a friend of the club.

Sometimes I hate you too. It's all right. No, no, I really hate you. I don't hate you.

I'm like a careless. Anyway, this is really weird or day or wherever you are in the world. Thank you all for joining us and we'll see you next time. Bye.