WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.759 For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace. 2 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:10.279 Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world 3 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:14.160 refuses to believe in, but those who have survived they 4 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:18.679 know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we 5 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.879 share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness Bigfoot, 6 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:28.239 dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make 7 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:32.280 it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because 8 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:34.640 once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the 9 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.920 woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and 10 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.840 remember some things in the woods don't want to be found. 11 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.240 Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads, 12 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:48.399 and let's head off into the woods if you dare. 13 00:01:02.840 --> 00:01:05.120 Before we hit the road on this stop, I want 14 00:01:05.120 --> 00:01:07.239 to let you know I'm doing something a little different 15 00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:10.159 with this episode. If you've been riding along with me 16 00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:12.719 on this trip, you know the usual rhythm by now 17 00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:16.040 a little background and then straight into the encounter stories. 18 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:18.799 This time I'm slowing down and giving you more of 19 00:01:18.799 --> 00:01:22.280 the history first, because Maryland's monster has a paper trail 20 00:01:22.439 --> 00:01:25.840 unlike almost any other creature we've covered, and that paper 21 00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:29.239 trail is half the story. Some of you already know. 22 00:01:29.400 --> 00:01:32.719 I host another show called Disturbing History, where I dig 23 00:01:32.760 --> 00:01:37.840 into strange presidential stories, government cover ups, conspiracies, and the 24 00:01:37.879 --> 00:01:41.519 real history that the powers that be wanted buried. I'm 25 00:01:41.519 --> 00:01:43.840 bringing a little of that flavor here to this stop 26 00:01:43.879 --> 00:01:46.200 on our road trip, and I think once you hear 27 00:01:46.239 --> 00:01:50.120 where this one goes, you'll understand why. And as always, 28 00:01:50.359 --> 00:01:52.640 this show is for you, so please let me know 29 00:01:52.719 --> 00:01:55.319 what you think of this episode and all the others. 30 00:01:55.719 --> 00:01:58.480 If you're listening on Spotify, you can leave a rating 31 00:01:58.719 --> 00:02:02.040 and comment right there on the episode. If you're listening 32 00:02:02.040 --> 00:02:04.719 on Apple Podcasts, you can leave a rating and write 33 00:02:04.760 --> 00:02:07.480 a review. I've also added a button in the show 34 00:02:07.519 --> 00:02:09.879 notes that you can click to leave me a voicemail, 35 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:13.199 and I genuinely love to hear your voice. Or you 36 00:02:13.240 --> 00:02:15.680 can always do it the old fashioned way and email 37 00:02:15.759 --> 00:02:20.240 me at Brian at Paranormalworld Productions dot com. All right, 38 00:02:20.719 --> 00:02:24.719 enough housekeeping, let's get to the reason you're here. In 39 00:02:24.759 --> 00:02:28.400 November of nineteen seventy one, a family in Old Bowie, Maryland, 40 00:02:28.599 --> 00:02:32.240 went looking for a missing puppy named Ginger. They searched 41 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:35.280 the brush along Fletchertown Road, near the tracks where the 42 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:38.639 Penn Central freight trains rolled through Prince George's County, and 43 00:02:38.639 --> 00:02:42.159 when they found her, she'd been decapitated. A local paper 44 00:02:42.199 --> 00:02:44.319 put it on the front page under a headline that 45 00:02:44.439 --> 00:02:48.560 read residence fear goat man lives, and within three weeks 46 00:02:48.599 --> 00:02:50.879 the Washington Post had sent a reporter out to a 47 00:02:50.919 --> 00:02:53.319 two lane road in the woods to ask people about 48 00:02:53.319 --> 00:02:57.039 a six foot creature that walked on two legs. Here's 49 00:02:57.080 --> 00:02:59.360 the thing that caught my attention when I started pulling 50 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:01.680 the old reports, and I want you to keep it 51 00:03:01.719 --> 00:03:04.360 in the back of your mind as we go, when 52 00:03:04.360 --> 00:03:07.639 you actually read what those witnesses said, When you set 53 00:03:07.639 --> 00:03:11.039 the newspaper headlines aside and look at the descriptions themselves, 54 00:03:11.599 --> 00:03:15.759 the tall frame, the hair covering the body, the upright 55 00:03:15.840 --> 00:03:19.840 walk through the trees along the railroad cut. Almost nobody 56 00:03:19.960 --> 00:03:23.400 was describing anything that looked like a goat. No horns, 57 00:03:23.719 --> 00:03:27.719 no hoofs. What they were describing sounds like something else, 58 00:03:27.879 --> 00:03:31.240 entirely something this show has spent a lot of time with, 59 00:03:31.599 --> 00:03:33.919 and we'll get to exactly what that is later in 60 00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:37.039 the episode. This is the story of how a college 61 00:03:37.039 --> 00:03:41.039 folklore project a dead dog and a few hundred bored 62 00:03:41.039 --> 00:03:44.479 teenagers with cars built one of the most durable monster 63 00:03:44.599 --> 00:03:47.960 legends in American history. And it's the story of what 64 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:50.919 else has been seen in the Maryland Woods, because the 65 00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:53.520 goat man isn't the only thing people out there swear 66 00:03:53.560 --> 00:03:56.680 they've met in the dark. We're back on the backwoods 67 00:03:56.719 --> 00:04:00.879 cryptid road trip, and tonight we're pulling into Maryland. Now 68 00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:04.879 on the map, Maryland doesn't look like monster country. It's 69 00:04:04.879 --> 00:04:09.240 a small state squeezed between Washington and Philadelphia, wrapped around 70 00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:12.759 to Bay half of its suburbs. You could drive across 71 00:04:12.759 --> 00:04:14.520 the middle of it in an hour and figure there's 72 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:17.560 no room left for anything to hide. But I've learned 73 00:04:17.560 --> 00:04:19.560 on this trip that the size of a state has 74 00:04:19.639 --> 00:04:22.199 nothing to do with the size of its file, and 75 00:04:22.279 --> 00:04:24.519 Maryland's file is one of the thickest. We're going to 76 00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:28.480 open in all fifty states, roughly three hundred reports of 77 00:04:28.560 --> 00:04:33.040 large hairy things walking upright, going back over a century plus, 78 00:04:33.040 --> 00:04:36.199 a wolf man, a flying horror with its own newspaper, 79 00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:39.360 war and the creature we came here for, the one 80 00:04:39.360 --> 00:04:41.839 with the horns and the axe, the one that made 81 00:04:41.879 --> 00:04:45.040 teenagers afraid of their own back roads for two generations. 82 00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:48.480 So pull off the interstate with me. We're heading east 83 00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:51.920 of d C into Prince George's County down a narrow 84 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:55.399 wooded two lane called Fletchertown Road, and we're setting the 85 00:04:55.399 --> 00:04:58.959 clock back to the fall of nineteen seventy one, because 86 00:04:58.959 --> 00:05:01.839 that's when Maryland's mind monster stopped being a whisper and 87 00:05:01.879 --> 00:05:05.879 got itself in the newspaper. The headline ran on November tenth, 88 00:05:05.959 --> 00:05:08.279 nineteen seventy one, on the front page of the Prince 89 00:05:08.319 --> 00:05:12.199 George's County News, a small paper based in Bowie, Maryland 90 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:17.759 residence fear goat man lives dog found decapitated in Old Bowie. 91 00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:21.160 There was a photograph of the remains. The dog was 92 00:05:21.199 --> 00:05:24.680 a puppy named Ginger, and she belonged to the Edwards family, 93 00:05:24.920 --> 00:05:27.959 who lived near Fletchertown Road on the north side of Bowie. 94 00:05:28.800 --> 00:05:31.639 On the night of November three, sixteen year old April 95 00:05:31.759 --> 00:05:33.680 Edwards and a group of friends were at the house 96 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:37.399 when they heard strange noises outside in the dark. They 97 00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:41.279 looked and they saw something large moving out there. One 98 00:05:41.279 --> 00:05:44.439 of the friends, a young man named John, would say 99 00:05:44.519 --> 00:05:46.759 years later that what he saw that night was an 100 00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:51.199 animal six feet tall Harry and up on two legs. 101 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:55.639 By morning, Ginger was gone. The family searched the area 102 00:05:55.639 --> 00:05:59.439 around Fletchertown Road, out near the Penn Central Railroad tracks. 103 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:03.839 Few days later, three local guys Ray, John and Willie 104 00:06:03.839 --> 00:06:07.959 found her. She'd been decapitated. Her head was never recovered. 105 00:06:08.360 --> 00:06:10.439 I can tell you exactly what a report like that 106 00:06:10.480 --> 00:06:15.439 looks like on paper. Missing animal found, deceased, cause undetermined, 107 00:06:15.959 --> 00:06:19.439 no witnesses to the death itself. It's a sad little 108 00:06:19.480 --> 00:06:23.480 case that closes itself. Nobody canvasses the neighborhood over a 109 00:06:23.519 --> 00:06:27.000 dead dog. Except this dead dog turned up two weeks 110 00:06:27.040 --> 00:06:29.839 after the same local paper had run a Halloween feature 111 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:33.759 about a creature said to haunt that exact road. A 112 00:06:33.800 --> 00:06:37.120 reporter named Karen Hostler had gone digging through the folklore 113 00:06:37.240 --> 00:06:40.480 archives at the University of Maryland and College Park and 114 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:44.680 written up the local legends of the Bowie Woods, the ghosts, 115 00:06:44.680 --> 00:06:47.879 something called the Boa Man, and a thing the students 116 00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:52.560 called the goat Man. Her article ran on October twenty seventh. 117 00:06:53.279 --> 00:06:57.240 A week later, teenagers near Fletchertown Road were reporting a large, 118 00:06:57.240 --> 00:06:59.920 hairy creature in the dark, and a week after that, 119 00:07:00.439 --> 00:07:04.639 a decapitated puppy was front page news. The coverage fed 120 00:07:04.680 --> 00:07:07.959 the sightings, and the sightings fed the coverage. By the 121 00:07:08.040 --> 00:07:10.680 end of November, the Washington Post had picked it up. 122 00:07:11.319 --> 00:07:14.120 On November thirtieth, the Post ran a piece by reporter 123 00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:17.800 Ivan Goldman about a legendary figure haunting the remote woods 124 00:07:17.800 --> 00:07:21.720 of Prince George's County, and it described what residents were reporting, 125 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:25.639 an animal like creature that walked on its hind legs, 126 00:07:26.040 --> 00:07:29.519 around six feet tall, hairy, and fast enough to drop 127 00:07:29.560 --> 00:07:31.839 down and move on all fours when it wanted to. 128 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:35.319 That's the moment the goat Man stopped being a campfire 129 00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:39.759 story and became a documented American legend. A monster mentioned 130 00:07:39.800 --> 00:07:43.480 in the Washington Post has a birth certificate. Every article 131 00:07:43.519 --> 00:07:46.560 written about the creature in the fifty years since, every 132 00:07:46.600 --> 00:07:52.360 Halloween feature, every television segment, every book chapter, including this episode, 133 00:07:52.879 --> 00:07:55.480 descends in a straight line from that one month of 134 00:07:55.519 --> 00:07:59.199 coverage in the fall of nineteen seventy one. And researchers 135 00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:03.319 can prove it because the earlier oral tradition left almost 136 00:08:03.319 --> 00:08:05.920 no ink at all. And I want to walk you 137 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:08.480 through the whole thing, because when you lay it out 138 00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:11.800 in order, this case teaches you almost everything about how 139 00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:15.480 a monster gets born, how it feeds, and how it 140 00:08:15.519 --> 00:08:19.279 survives for fifty years. Then I want to take you 141 00:08:19.319 --> 00:08:23.360 deeper into the Maryland Woods, because Prince George's County's half 142 00:08:23.399 --> 00:08:27.079 goat axe murderer shares that state with something older and bigger. 143 00:08:27.759 --> 00:08:30.560 Maryland has one of the deepest files of bigfoot type 144 00:08:30.600 --> 00:08:34.000 reports on the East Coast, hundreds of them, going back 145 00:08:34.039 --> 00:08:37.960 before anybody had ever heard the word sasquatch. Some of 146 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:41.720 those reports came from truck drivers, from police chiefs, from 147 00:08:41.759 --> 00:08:44.960 a fisherman standing in a river in broad daylight. So 148 00:08:45.039 --> 00:08:47.159 here's the question that's going to carry us through the 149 00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:51.320 next hour. When that many people across that many decades 150 00:08:51.720 --> 00:08:55.639 report huge hairy things walking upright through the same patches 151 00:08:55.840 --> 00:09:00.440 of Maryland Woods, what exactly are we looking at, legend 152 00:09:00.440 --> 00:09:04.519 with good marketing, a case of small towns scaring themselves, 153 00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:08.919 or a residue of something real buried under fifty years 154 00:09:08.960 --> 00:09:12.720 of teenage ghost stories. Let's start with the ground itself, 155 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:16.399 because you can't understand the goat man without understanding Prince 156 00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:20.960 George's County. In the sixties and early seventies, Prince George's 157 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:25.000 County sits on the eastern shoulder of Washington d C. Today, 158 00:09:25.039 --> 00:09:29.399 it's dense suburbia, shopping centers and beltway interchanges and subdivisions 159 00:09:29.639 --> 00:09:32.960 stacked one against the next. But in the years after 160 00:09:33.039 --> 00:09:36.200 World War Two it was a county caught mid transformation. 161 00:09:37.039 --> 00:09:39.399 The land closest to the district filled up with new 162 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:43.120 housing tracks, while the outer stretches out toward Bowie and 163 00:09:43.159 --> 00:09:48.200 Glendale and Upper Marlborough and Mitchellville stayed rural tobacco fields, 164 00:09:48.240 --> 00:09:52.519 wood lots, gravel roads, old family properties, and long two 165 00:09:52.600 --> 00:09:57.600 lane blacktops running through second growth forest. That combination matters. 166 00:09:58.120 --> 00:10:00.759 You had tens of thousands of teenagers growing up in 167 00:10:00.799 --> 00:10:03.919 brand new suburbs, and right at the edge of their world, 168 00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:08.000 you had dark country roads with no street lights, no houses, 169 00:10:08.240 --> 00:10:12.399 and no adults. And by the sixties, those teenagers had cars. 170 00:10:13.159 --> 00:10:16.159 Barry Pearson, a folklore professor at the University of Maryland 171 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:20.559 who spent years overseeing the university's folklore archive, has argued 172 00:10:20.600 --> 00:10:23.440 that the goat man legend is a creature of exactly 173 00:10:23.519 --> 00:10:27.600 that car culture. The automobile gave suburban kids the run 174 00:10:27.600 --> 00:10:30.399 of the county at night. It gave them somewhere to 175 00:10:30.399 --> 00:10:32.919 take a date, and it gave them a reason to want, 176 00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:35.080 a story that made the dark woods at the end 177 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:38.720 of the road mean something. He's also pointed out that 178 00:10:38.759 --> 00:10:41.600 every one of those kids was sitting in classrooms learning 179 00:10:41.639 --> 00:10:45.960 Greek mythology, where a horned, hooved half man god named 180 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:50.559 Pan chases people through the wilderness. The word panic comes 181 00:10:50.559 --> 00:10:54.559 from him. Whether or not any Bowie teenager was consciously 182 00:10:54.600 --> 00:10:58.120 thinking about Pan while parked on Fletchertown Road, the raw 183 00:10:58.159 --> 00:11:02.200 material was in their heads. The roads themselves became characters 184 00:11:02.200 --> 00:11:06.320 in the legend. Fletchertown Road in Old Bowie, narrow and wooded, 185 00:11:06.399 --> 00:11:11.320 running past the railroad tracks Lotsford Road near Mitchellville, Governor's 186 00:11:11.360 --> 00:11:14.720 Bridge Road, down toward Upper Marlborough, where an old steel 187 00:11:14.759 --> 00:11:18.679 truss bridge crosses the Patuxent River. That bridge picked up 188 00:11:18.679 --> 00:11:22.360 a second name, cry Baby Bridge, and a second legend 189 00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:24.919 to go with it, the one about an infant thrown 190 00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:27.519 into the water whose cries you can still hear at night. 191 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:31.039 Cry Baby Bridges exist all over America. By the way, 192 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:34.320 Ohioa alone has more of them than I can count. 193 00:11:35.320 --> 00:11:39.320 It's a migratory legend, meaning the same story attaches itself 194 00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:43.120 to whatever lonely bridge. A community happens to have in 195 00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:46.120 Prince George's County. The cry baby story and the goat 196 00:11:46.159 --> 00:11:49.919 man story got tangled together until the bridge belonged to both, 197 00:11:50.639 --> 00:11:53.120 and then there was the fence line nobody could quite 198 00:11:53.200 --> 00:11:56.799 see past. On the western edge of this whole territory 199 00:11:56.919 --> 00:12:01.240 sits the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, a federal facility that 200 00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:03.279 would end up at the center of the goat Man's 201 00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:07.679 most famous origin story. We'll get there, but first I 202 00:12:07.679 --> 00:12:10.320 want to show you where the legend actually came from, 203 00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:14.240 because unlike most monster stories, this one has a paper trail. 204 00:12:14.559 --> 00:12:17.879 And the paper trail starts in a college classroom. In 205 00:12:17.960 --> 00:12:21.320 the spring of nineteen seventy one, months before Ginger died, 206 00:12:21.720 --> 00:12:25.279 a University of Maryland student named George Lozama was taking 207 00:12:25.320 --> 00:12:29.120 a folklore class. For his class project, he went out 208 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:32.519 to Clinton, Maryland, in the southern part of Prince George's County, 209 00:12:32.720 --> 00:12:35.440 and collected versions of a legend the local kids were 210 00:12:35.480 --> 00:12:39.240 already telling each other. He gathered eight variants of the 211 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:43.159 Goatman story and recorded interviews with his peers. One of 212 00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:46.120 the people he interviewed was an eighteen year old named Patricia. 213 00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:49.679 The version she told him went like this. The goatman 214 00:12:49.799 --> 00:12:51.720 was an old man with the face of a goat 215 00:12:51.759 --> 00:12:54.759 and the body of a man. He guarded his bridge, 216 00:12:54.960 --> 00:12:58.360 the Governor's bridge, the one people called cry Baby Bridge, 217 00:12:58.639 --> 00:13:01.480 and he came out during the full month. He forced 218 00:13:01.519 --> 00:13:04.840 cars off the roads. He killed people and left no trace. 219 00:13:05.480 --> 00:13:09.440 He smashed car windows without making a sound. That silent 220 00:13:09.519 --> 00:13:12.519 window is my favorite detail in the whole early record. 221 00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:15.840 A monster that smashes your car window without a sound 222 00:13:16.159 --> 00:13:19.840 is how a storyteller describes a nightmare. And it's dream logic, 223 00:13:20.360 --> 00:13:22.759 and it tells me that what Lazama was collecting in 224 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:27.399 Clinton was living folklore, already polished by hundreds of retellings 225 00:13:27.399 --> 00:13:31.120 in school hallways and back seats, long before any newspaper 226 00:13:31.200 --> 00:13:34.519 touched it. When Lazama finished the project in May of 227 00:13:34.600 --> 00:13:37.960 nineteen seventy one, his professor filed the interviews in the 228 00:13:38.039 --> 00:13:41.720 University of Maryland's folklore archive. And that's where things should 229 00:13:41.720 --> 00:13:44.799 have ended. A student paper in a filing cabinet in 230 00:13:44.840 --> 00:13:49.600 College Park, read by nobody but graduate students instead. That 231 00:13:49.639 --> 00:13:52.840 filing cabinet turned out to be a loaded gun. Now, 232 00:13:52.840 --> 00:13:57.279 the legend was older than Laizama's notebook folkloris and researchers 233 00:13:57.279 --> 00:14:00.200 who traced the story back, most notably a pre Prince 234 00:14:00.279 --> 00:14:04.399 George's County writer named Mark Opsasnik, who literally wrote the 235 00:14:04.399 --> 00:14:07.639 book on Maryland monsters. Have found reports of a large, 236 00:14:07.679 --> 00:14:10.159 hairy creature in the county going back to August of 237 00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:15.480 nineteen fifty seven, around Forestville and Upper Marlborough. Those fifties 238 00:14:15.519 --> 00:14:19.480 accounts are thin. They survived mostly as summaries a hairy 239 00:14:19.519 --> 00:14:22.399 monster seen near the woods, and there's no way now 240 00:14:22.440 --> 00:14:25.480 to interview the witnesses or check the details, but they 241 00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:29.639 established something important. Kids in Prince George's County were scaring 242 00:14:29.639 --> 00:14:31.840 each other with a local monster for at least a 243 00:14:31.879 --> 00:14:34.639 decade and a half before a single word about it 244 00:14:34.720 --> 00:14:37.919 appeared in print, and in all those years of telling, 245 00:14:37.960 --> 00:14:42.080 the story split into competing origin myths. By the time 246 00:14:42.159 --> 00:14:45.960 researchers started writing them down, three main versions were circulating. 247 00:14:46.639 --> 00:14:48.799 The first version says the goat man was a hermit, 248 00:14:49.240 --> 00:14:51.399 an old man who lived alone in the woods off 249 00:14:51.440 --> 00:14:54.799 Fletchertown Road, who'd been glimpsed walking the road at night, 250 00:14:55.240 --> 00:14:58.480 and who'd been twisted by rumor into something inhuman. Stay 251 00:14:58.559 --> 00:15:01.840 tuned for more Backwoods b Bigfoot stories. We'll be back 252 00:15:01.879 --> 00:15:06.720 after these messages. I'll say this from a CoP's perspective. 253 00:15:07.639 --> 00:15:10.480 Every rural community I've ever known has had that guy, 254 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:13.639 the property at the end of the bad road, the 255 00:15:13.639 --> 00:15:16.879 man who doesn't want visitors, the stories that grow around 256 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:20.440 him like vines. Some of the oldest goat man accounts 257 00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:24.600 probably have a real, entirely human man standing somewhere behind them, 258 00:15:24.720 --> 00:15:28.240 and if so, the legend did him dirty. The second 259 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:31.360 version says he was a goat herder. In this telling, 260 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:33.879 a local man kept a flock of goats out in 261 00:15:33.919 --> 00:15:36.799 the county, and one night a group of teenagers killed 262 00:15:36.840 --> 00:15:39.559 some of his animals as a prank or out of 263 00:15:39.559 --> 00:15:42.879 playing cruelty. The man lost his mind over it and 264 00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:46.399 took to the woods with an axe, hunting teenagers ever since. 265 00:15:47.240 --> 00:15:50.519 Notice what that version does. It aims the monster's rage 266 00:15:50.559 --> 00:15:54.279 specifically at teens and cars, which is exactly who was 267 00:15:54.279 --> 00:15:57.200 telling the story. Folklors call that kind of thing a 268 00:15:57.200 --> 00:16:01.440 cautionary structure. The legend punishes the audience for the audience's 269 00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:04.600 own behavior. You killed his goats, so he hunts you 270 00:16:04.679 --> 00:16:08.399 at Lover's Lane. But the third version is the famous one, 271 00:16:08.639 --> 00:16:11.480 and it's the one that gave the legend its rocket fuel. 272 00:16:12.120 --> 00:16:14.200 This version says the goat man came out of the 273 00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:19.120 Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. The research center is real, and 274 00:16:19.159 --> 00:16:23.240 it's enormous. The federal government established it in nineteen ten 275 00:16:23.399 --> 00:16:26.840 on farmland north of Washington, and over the decades it 276 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:30.799 grew into one of the largest agricultural research complexes on Earth. 277 00:16:31.159 --> 00:16:35.240 Thousands of acres of pastures, laboratories, barns and test fields 278 00:16:35.480 --> 00:16:39.559 spread across the northern edge of Prince George's County. Real 279 00:16:39.639 --> 00:16:44.320 science happened there and still does. Beltsville researchers developed the 280 00:16:44.360 --> 00:16:48.039 small white turkey that basically became the American Thanksgiving bird. 281 00:16:48.799 --> 00:16:54.000 They ran breeding programs, nutrition studies, livestock experiments of every 282 00:16:54.080 --> 00:16:58.679 legitimate kind, which means that for the surrounding communities, Beltsville 283 00:16:58.759 --> 00:17:01.840 was a huge, fenced federal facility full of animals and 284 00:17:01.879 --> 00:17:06.240 scientists sitting right next door doing work most people couldn't 285 00:17:06.279 --> 00:17:10.720 see and didn't understand. The legend filled that gap. The 286 00:17:10.759 --> 00:17:13.519 story goes that a scientist at the research center was 287 00:17:13.599 --> 00:17:18.200 running experiments on goats when something went catastrophically wrong. In 288 00:17:18.279 --> 00:17:22.200 some tellings, the experiment mutates him fusing man and goat 289 00:17:22.240 --> 00:17:25.000 into a single creature that escapes into the woods and 290 00:17:25.079 --> 00:17:29.039 starts attacking cars with an axe. In later versions, and 291 00:17:29.119 --> 00:17:32.400 this is the Internet era talking, the scientist even gets 292 00:17:32.400 --> 00:17:36.319 a name, doctor Stephen Fletcher, and the experiment involves splicing 293 00:17:36.359 --> 00:17:39.599 goat DNA with the DNA of his assistant, a man 294 00:17:39.680 --> 00:17:43.559 named William Lotsford. Those two names are doing something sneaky, 295 00:17:44.079 --> 00:17:47.880 Fletcher and Lotsford. The two most famous goat man roads 296 00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:51.519 in Prince George's County are Fletchertown Road and Lotsford Road. 297 00:17:52.359 --> 00:17:55.119 The legend reached out, grabbed the names off the street 298 00:17:55.240 --> 00:17:58.839 signs and turned them into characters. That's not evidence of 299 00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:02.759 a cover up. That's evidence of storytellers doing what storytellers 300 00:18:02.839 --> 00:18:06.599 always do, stitching the tale to the local landscape so 301 00:18:06.680 --> 00:18:09.720 it feels like it happened here. The roads came first, 302 00:18:10.119 --> 00:18:13.559 the doctor came later. No researcher by that name, and 303 00:18:13.599 --> 00:18:17.119 no such experiment appears anywhere in the actual record, and 304 00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:20.680 the Department of Agriculture has had to state publicly more 305 00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:23.920 than once that none of its Beltsville scientists ever turned 306 00:18:23.960 --> 00:18:27.880 himself into a goat monster. Imagine drawing that assignment in 307 00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:31.400 the Press Office. Here's the thing, though, the Mad Science 308 00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:35.920 version one, and it won for a reason. Nineteen seventy 309 00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:38.599 one was deep in an era when Americans were learning 310 00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:41.799 over and over that the government really had been running 311 00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:45.480 secret experiments. Within a few years, the country would hear 312 00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:49.799 about mk Ultra, about the Tuskegee study, about chemical testing 313 00:18:49.839 --> 00:18:53.759 on soldiers. The idea that something unnatural might have walked 314 00:18:53.799 --> 00:18:57.079 out of a federal research facility didn't sound crazy to people. 315 00:18:57.559 --> 00:19:00.920 It sounded like the news. The goat Man legend borrowed 316 00:19:00.960 --> 00:19:04.119 that credibility and never gave it back. So that's the 317 00:19:04.119 --> 00:19:07.000 state of play going into the fall of nineteen seventy one. 318 00:19:07.799 --> 00:19:11.880 A legend at least fourteen years old, three origin stories, 319 00:19:12.359 --> 00:19:15.400 a college kid's interview sitting in an archive, and a 320 00:19:15.400 --> 00:19:18.319 county full of teenagers who all know the name goat Man, 321 00:19:18.960 --> 00:19:23.079 every ingredient stacked and dry, waiting for a match. The 322 00:19:23.119 --> 00:19:26.400 match was a Halloween feature. Karen Hostler was a young 323 00:19:26.440 --> 00:19:29.480 reporter at the Prince George's County News in Bowie, and 324 00:19:29.519 --> 00:19:32.200 in late October of nineteen seventy one, she wrote what 325 00:19:32.319 --> 00:19:35.799 was meant to be a seasonal entertainment piece. She'd found 326 00:19:35.839 --> 00:19:39.039 the folklore holdings at the University of Maryland, including the 327 00:19:39.039 --> 00:19:42.680 goat Man material, and on October twenty seventh, the paper 328 00:19:42.759 --> 00:19:45.640 ran her article on the legends haunting the local woods, 329 00:19:46.119 --> 00:19:50.240 the Ghosts, the Bowman, and the Goatman, placing the creature's 330 00:19:50.359 --> 00:19:54.200 territory near Fletchertown Road. It was supposed to be fun, 331 00:19:54.799 --> 00:19:58.160 a little local color for Halloween Week, but a newspaper 332 00:19:58.200 --> 00:20:01.000 telling a community exactly where it was its monster lives 333 00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:05.200 is handing out a map. Within days, people around Fletchertown 334 00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:09.839 Road were listening to the night differently. Then came November three, 335 00:20:09.920 --> 00:20:13.839 April Edward, sixteen years old, at home near Fletchertown Road 336 00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:17.880 with her friends, Strange noises in the yard, A large 337 00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:22.720 creature seen moving in the darkness. John's description, given years 338 00:20:22.759 --> 00:20:25.599 afterward when Ipsisnick tracked him down for an article in 339 00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:30.000 Strange magazine, stayed consistent with what got reported at the time, 340 00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:34.720 roughly six feet tall, covered in hair, moving on two legs. 341 00:20:35.559 --> 00:20:38.799 The next morning, Ginger was missing, and days later Ray 342 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:41.240 John and Willie found what was left of her by 343 00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:44.799 the road near the railroad tracks. Hostler wrote it up. 344 00:20:45.119 --> 00:20:47.599 The paper put it on the front page on November tenth, 345 00:20:47.640 --> 00:20:50.359 with the photograph, and old Bowie came apart at the 346 00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:54.559 seams in the way small communities do not panic exactly, 347 00:20:54.960 --> 00:20:58.759 more like a fever. The paper kept reporting, residents kept 348 00:20:58.799 --> 00:21:01.799 calling and accounts an ant animal like creature walking upright 349 00:21:02.039 --> 00:21:06.119 along Fletchertown Road. Teenagers started driving out at night in 350 00:21:06.200 --> 00:21:08.880 packs to hunt the thing, which meant the woods along 351 00:21:08.960 --> 00:21:12.319 the road were now full of moving flashlights and screaming kids, 352 00:21:12.759 --> 00:21:17.319 which generated more reports, which brought more kids. The County 353 00:21:17.359 --> 00:21:20.400 News ran goat man coverage through the month, with one 354 00:21:20.440 --> 00:21:23.799 final front page story on November twenty fourth, and six 355 00:21:23.880 --> 00:21:27.160 days after that, the Washington Post arrived, and the legend 356 00:21:27.160 --> 00:21:29.880 of a half goat monster in the Maryland suburbs went 357 00:21:29.880 --> 00:21:32.240 out to one of the biggest readerships in the country. 358 00:21:33.039 --> 00:21:37.839 What actually happened provably in November of nineteen seventy one, 359 00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:41.680 a dog died near active railroad tracks and was found decapitated. 360 00:21:42.519 --> 00:21:46.319 Teenagers reported seeing a large, dark shape at night. That's 361 00:21:46.359 --> 00:21:49.200 the physical case. And I'll tell you what any patrol 362 00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:52.079 officer or animal control officer who's work near a rail 363 00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:55.759 line will tell you. Trains are terribly efficient at doing 364 00:21:55.839 --> 00:21:59.960 exactly that kind of damage to exactly that kind of victim. 365 00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:04.160 Dogs chase things across tracks. A puppy wandering at night 366 00:22:04.200 --> 00:22:06.799 along a rail corridor is in about the most dangerous 367 00:22:06.839 --> 00:22:10.160 place a puppy can be. Researchers who've looked at the 368 00:22:10.200 --> 00:22:13.799 older Prince George's County stories have noted the same pattern, 369 00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:17.200 dog deaths near the tracks getting folded into the legend 370 00:22:17.599 --> 00:22:21.599 going back decades. I can't prove that's what killed Ginger. 371 00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:26.440 Nobody can at this distance, because nobody performed anything like 372 00:22:26.519 --> 00:22:30.720 a forensic examination on a dog in nineteen seventy one. 373 00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:33.799 But between a freight train and a genetically engineered goat 374 00:22:33.880 --> 00:22:36.720 hybrid with an axe, I know where the smart money 375 00:22:36.759 --> 00:22:40.200 sleeps and the creature in the yard. Here's where I'll 376 00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:44.039 be more careful, because I take witnesses seriously. That's a 377 00:22:44.079 --> 00:22:48.200 habit from the job. April Edwards never backed off her account. 378 00:22:48.720 --> 00:22:52.440 Decades later, as an adult, she told Opsasnik that people 379 00:22:52.480 --> 00:22:55.880 had treated her family like ignorant hillbillies, and she pushed 380 00:22:55.920 --> 00:22:59.720 back on that hard. Her position all those years later 381 00:23:00.119 --> 00:23:02.920 was simple, what I saw was real, and I know 382 00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:06.359 I'm not crazy. She believed to her core that whatever 383 00:23:06.400 --> 00:23:09.480 stood in that darkness killed her dog. I don't think 384 00:23:09.519 --> 00:23:13.279 April Edwards lied. I don't think John lied either. I 385 00:23:13.319 --> 00:23:16.200 think a group of teenagers, primed by two weeks of 386 00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:19.799 monster coverage about their own road, heard something in the dark, 387 00:23:20.240 --> 00:23:23.920 saw something large, and experienced it through the story they'd 388 00:23:23.960 --> 00:23:26.799 just been handed. Maybe it was a deer standing tall 389 00:23:26.839 --> 00:23:29.799 and bad light. Maybe it was a bear, and yes, 390 00:23:30.200 --> 00:23:33.720 black bears do wander into Maryland. Maybe it was a person, 391 00:23:34.200 --> 00:23:36.960 which frankly is the possibility that would worry me most 392 00:23:37.039 --> 00:23:40.480 as an investigator, because a six foot figure lurking outside 393 00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:42.920 a house full of teenage girls at night is a 394 00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:47.440 police matter, not a folklore matter. The honest answer is 395 00:23:47.440 --> 00:23:50.920 that the identification window closed fifty five years ago and 396 00:23:50.960 --> 00:23:54.640 it's never going to reopen. What's documented is what they 397 00:23:54.680 --> 00:23:57.799 reported when they reported it, and what the county did 398 00:23:57.799 --> 00:24:01.200 with it afterward. I'll add one observation from the other 399 00:24:01.279 --> 00:24:04.279 side of the badge, because monster flaps look different from 400 00:24:04.359 --> 00:24:07.920 inside a patrol car. When a community decides something is 401 00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:11.160