In early May of 1972, Randy Emmert (18yrs old) and some friends reported seeing a very large, white haired, creature in the vicinity of Cole Hollow Road in Pekin, Illinois. They stated that the creature made loud almost screeching like sounds and that they believed it was living underneath an abandoned house.

Days later, on May 25th, the East Peoria police logged more than 200 calls from witnesses who sighted the monster. The calls ranged from seeing the monster walking through the woods, through yards, or along river banks, to a report of the monster destroying a callers fence. The police were naturally skeptical of all the calls, but kept track of them nonetheless.

Two months later, during July 1972, a local search party was formed and more than 100 people took to the woods surrounding Cole Hollow Road to search for the monster. The search party had to be disbanded by the police a few hours later after a volunteer accidentally shot himself in the foot. The monster was not located but it did start being referred to by its nickname, Cohomo (COle HOllowMOnster) amongst the locals.

On July 25th, a witness contacted the police to report that they had seen a large hairy man-like creature swimming in the Illinois River. On July 28th, a local woman reported seeing the monster near an abandoned coal mine while she was out gathering berries, the creature scared her so much that she ran off leaving her possessions behind. That same night, the police received a report from two reliable witnesses who stated that they saw the creature well enough to give a description.

The Cole Hollow Road Monster (or Comoho) is described as being around 8 to 9ft tall, covered in whitish gray hair, long round ears, red lips, human like hands (meaning the thumbs were double jointed and set farther down than the rest of the fingers), it appeared to resemble a cross between and ape and caveman. It gave off a putrid smell that was described like that of a wet dog mixed with rotten eggs. The creature left behind large tracks that appeared to only show three toes.

The monster craze slowly fizzled out in the years to follow due to the lack of capture. Many believe a Bigfoot was being sighted by the locals and because it naturally kept moving and eventually moved out of the region, the sightings of Cohomo stopped.

But Bigfoot appears to have not fully lost interest in the area, sporadic sightings are still reported to this day.

-The Pine Barrens Institute

*Image Credit: Google

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