The Mogollon Monster is a cryptid hominid, or an unconfirmed human-like creature. Reports have placed the Mogollon Monster in the mountainous regions of northern and eastern Arizona, largely along the Mogollon Rim, an escarpment forming the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau. Although descriptions of the Mogollon reference a wide range of potential creatures, general reports are of a tall hominid, and the creature has largely been viewed as Arizona’s version of Bigfoot.
Although not nearly as well known as his cousin from the Pacific Northwest, and with far fewer sightings, the Mogollon Monster has nevertheless accrued an impressive and colorful array of attributes and behaviors in legend. Much like Bigfoot, the Mogollon is noted as being well over seven feet tall, sometimes even eight feet tall, walking perfectly upright and possessing incredible strength. However, accounts seem to indicate that this cryptid is more violent and unpredictable than Bigfoot. The Mogollon is noted for having devilish red eyes, having the ability to mimic other animals, giving off blood-curdling screams, and emitting a horrible odor. In just about every regard, the Mogollon is depicted as being more unpleasant than Bigfoot and other North American cryptid hominids.
Some reports have suggested that the Mogollon is advanced enough to carry and use weapons. According to eyewitness I. W. Stevens, the creature threatened him by brandishing a club when he caught it drinking the blood of two young cougars. Stevens’s 1903 account, which was reported in the Arizona Republican, was the first recorded story of this creature, although oral traditions from indigenous groups extend back into the nineteenth century.
Subsequent accounts have not supported the Mogollon as tool-wielding, however. In general, the creature is described as a tall, powerful hominid, upright in posture but containing no other features distinguishing humans from other primates. Cryptozoologist Don Davis claimed to have encountered the Mogollon during the mid-1940s and described it as huge, with a very hairy body and relatively hairless face, and with flat, lifeless eyes. One feature common throughout many of the reports is the silence that occurs in an area immediately prior to a sighting, as might happen when forest animals note a predator stalking its prey.
As some of the area through which the Mogollon Rim traverses is reservation land, many of the sightings have been by Native Americans. In 2006, Collette Altaha noted an increase of sightings within the White Mountain Apache Nation. Contrary to nonindigenous reports, Marjorie Grimes claims that nobody who has seen the Mogollon on reservation land has had a negative encounter with the creature. According to Grimes, the Mogollon is shy and retiring. Although also noting that the Mogollon had never hurt anyone, tribal police officer Ray Burnette stated that the creature is sometimes spotted peering into windows, and that these reports are generated by terrified and upstanding members of the community with no history of addiction, flights of fancy, or crank calls.
The Mogollon is purported to be an omnivore, eating grass and vegetable matter, but also preying upon mammals. Several sightings report Mogollon Monsters either killing or eating deer. According to Mogollon enthusiast Mitch Waite, there is a specific profile for deer kills that differs from that of all other predators, and which generally involves the systematic removal of the forelegs, head, heart, and lungs, leaving the bones and hide more or less intact. Waite also notes that the most common foodstuffs found in what he believes to be Mogollon scat are grass and elkweed, marking the creature as omnivorous.
As with its more famous hominid cousin, evidence in support of the Mogollon’s existence ranges from sight-only anecdotes to hair, footprints, and scat, to inconclusive and often highly interpretive photographic or video evidence. As with Bigfoot, mainstream biologists maintain that many such sightings may be associated with black bears, or perhaps with grizzly bears in the case of those sightings that predate the latter’s disappearance from Arizona in the 1930s. Just as sightings and descriptions vary widely, so too do fanciful stories concerning the creature’s origins, which often involve more magical properties than do those of many other cryptid hominids. Although most of these origin stories involve the creature being some sort of cursed member of a prehistoric indigenous tribe, a few are even stranger, including one involving the creature being the ghost of a white settler who was hanged by his hands until he was eight feet tall.
As with numerous locally known cryptids across North America, the Mogollon Monster has impacted local popular culture. The creature commonly factors into campfire stories told throughout the region. Although there are several stories and multiple versions, the most well-known involves an encounter between the creature and an Arizona pioneer named Bill Spade. After making the mistake of building a log cabin near the highly territorial Mogollon Monster, in this story Spade is captured and his face ripped off. Although Spade is never seen again, his face is left hanging from a tree as a warning to others who might trespass upon the creature’s lands.
Not all of the creature’s appearances in popular culture are so macabre, however. Each September, the city of Pine, Arizona, hosts the Mogollon Monster 100, a 106-mile endurance race along the trails of the Mogollon Rim. Payson, Arizona, also recently added the Mogollon Monster 5K run as part of their Mountain High Games. And in a humorous vein, the Mogollon has also acquired the local nickname Abominable Snowbird, a sly reference that offers nods both to the hominid cryptid of the Himalayan Mountains, known as the Yeti, and to the fact that Arizona is a popular winter destination for retirees whose primary homes lie in more northerly regions.
Although not nearly as famous as Bigfoot, or even as its southern cousin the Big Thicket Wild Man, the Mogollon Monster has nevertheless acquired a certain level of cultural penetration and left an impression on the popular culture of the Mogollon Rim region of Arizona. The local color with which this cryptid has been invested by its human observers can, in part, be attributed to the wide variability of descriptions, which range from the more malevolent creatures noted by early twentieth-century observers to the more curious creature depicted by indigenous eyewitnesses. As sightings have declined and the creature has slipped into the arena of pure legend, the Mogollon Monster’s more unpleasant features have largely been consigned to the campfire story, and it has been embraced as a cornerstone of the biomythology of the region.
Andrew Howe
See also Bear Man of the Cherokee; Bigfoot or Sasquatch; Fearsome Critters; Pope Lick Monster; Pukwudgie; Skunk-Ape of the Everglades; Wild Man of the Navidad
Further Reading
Farnsworth, Susan A. 1996. The Mogollon Monster, Arizona’s Bigfoot. Mesa, AZ: Southwest.
Farnsworth, Susan, and Maj. Mitchell Waite. 2011. More Mogollon Monster, Arizona’s Bigfoot. Mesa, AZ: Southwest.
Loxton, Daniel, and Donald Prothero. 2013. Abominable Science!: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids. New York: Columbia University Press.
Moran, Mark, and Mark Sceurman, eds. 2007. Weird Arizona. New York: Sterling.
Regal, Brian. 2013. Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads and Cryptozoology. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.