Whitey is a mythical aquatic creature reportedly seen from time to time in the White River of Arkansas. Unlike most cryptid aquatic monster sightings logged in North America, Whitey sightings have most often been reported from a river rather than a lake. The creature has also been referred to by the less colloquial name White River Monster.
Even though the creature wasn’t described until the early twentieth century, there has long been speculation that a Confederate munitions boat sunk on the White River during the Civil War may have been destroyed by the ministrations of a monster. The first recorded sighting of this particular creature, however, was in 1915, with sightings continuing at lengthy intervals until 1937. Reports generally came from more rural parts of the river that abutted farmland. The owner of a plantation along the White River, for example, reported seeing a strange creature that was as “wide as a car and three cars long.” This sighting and subsequent reports by farmers in the area resulted in intense local interest in this creature. At one point, a diver searched an area where the creature was thought to reside, and a rope net was planned that it might be captured and studied. However, the necessary materials proved difficult to procure, due to wartime rationing, and enthusiasm for this project waned.
After several decades without sightings, there were several high-profile reports in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including a 1971 sighting where eyewitnesses noted the creature to be “the size of a boxcar,” having a bone protrusion in the middle of its forehead, and having created three-toed tracks more than a foot in length near the river. Another observer described a long, whale-like back with spiny protrusions. Yet another eyewitness noted that “the thing was peeling all over, but it was a smooth type of skin or flesh.” Those who claimed to have heard the creature described a noise that combined the sounds of a horse and a cow. Generally, sightings seemed to occur when water levels in the White River were high.
Unlike other aquatic cryptids, such as the Loch Ness Monster and Ogopogo, little to no photographic evidence, however flimsy or unsubstantiated, exists to bolster reports of this creature. Despite this lack of evidence, however, there are scientists and cryptozoologists who believe that Whitey may in fact be a real, although not necessarily cryptid, creature. Roy Mackal, co-founder of the International Society for Cryptozoology, believes that the creature is actually an elephant seal, as descriptions of the animal’s appearance, habits, tracks, and vocalizations all match this species. According to Mackal, Whitey is “a clear-cut instance of a known aquatic animal outside its normal habitat or range and therefore unidentified by the observers unfamiliar with the type.” Although referencing an actual, scientifically described animal, Mackal’s hypothesis concerning an elephant seal is considered by many to be equally unlikely, as a hooded seal making it to eastern Arkansas from Greenland, a northern elephant seal from California, or a southern elephant seal from Argentina, strain the bounds of credibility. Another problem with Mackal’s theory is that the life span of all of these seals is not nearly long enough to account for all of the sightings.
Lost manatees, sharks, and alligators have also largely been ruled out, although in this region there are catfish that not only can display some of the features described by observers, but that can also grow to enormous proportions. The fact that a few eyewitnesses have even described Whitey as “fish-like” bolster the claim that sightings of this creature can be attributed to abnormally large, and misidentified, catfish, sturgeon, or alligator gar. There has been speculation that the creature may have been man-made to lay claim to prime fishing locations, but these reports are unsubstantiated and seem unlikely.
Perhaps as a move to draw attention to Whitey and attract tourist interest, the Arkansas State Legislature created the White River Monster Refuge to protect the creature. Despite this move to generate interest, Whitey remains little known outside of this region in Arkansas, not unlike other highly localized and sporadically reported cryptids. This lack of attention is in direct contrast to, for instance, the widespread media exposure given to the supposed rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker from the same region of Arkansas in 2005. Perhaps because the woodpecker did, once, unequivocally exist, the shaky evidence that was offered as proof of its rediscovery (now rejected by all but just a few ornithologists) was accepted at face value and spread as fact across the United States. Although Whitey has enjoyed no such renaissance, remaining a highly localized cryptid, the creature has left a long-lasting impression on the local mythology of the White River region of Arkansas.
Andrew Howe
See also Big Water Snake of the Blackfoot; Champ; Chessie; Hudson River Monster; Igopogo; Ogopogo; Sharlie/Slimy Slim
Further Reading
Budd, Deena West. 2010. The Weiser Field Guide to Cryptozoology: Werewolves, Dragons, Skyfish, Lizard Men, and Other Fascinating Creatures Real and Mysterious. San Francisco: Red Wheel/Weiser.
Coleman, Loren, Patrick Huyghe, and Harry Trumbore. 2003. Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep. New York: Penguin.
Fanthorpe, Lionel. 1997. The World’s Greatest Unsolved Mysteries. Toronto: Dundurn.
Regal, Brian. 2013. Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads and Cryptozoology. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.