The Mount Vernon Monster

GoogleEarth image of the Mount Vernon area

**NOTE UPDATES BELOW

Back in 1979 there was a rash of sightings and sound encounters in Fairfax County, VA, in a subdivision called Mount Vernon -- of course, very near our first President's home, from which it takes its name. I heard about this a little later on as I had already moved out of state by then, but it was quite near where I used to live just previously, and my wife lived even closer. In fact, she went to Mount Vernon high school, and several of her friends were witnesses to the strange sounds that emanated from the tract of forest land that their subdivision abutted. Until recently, I thought that only the sounds were heard, but I have now found two sources that tell of actual sightings during that time. [UPDATE: There are now several accounts of sightings in the comments below and in updates at the bottom of this post.]

The first is a local historian who gave a talk where he mentions a sighting -- you can see the whole thing here (you have to scroll down a bit, past the part about the lost gold of General Braddock), but here is the relevant portion:

One resident said she spotted the monster. She described it as a creature about six feet tall, which lumbered into the woods after being sighted.

(Note: You can see that he has used the wording of the article I linked up above for much of his talk, so I think most of his information has come from that, but he must have at least one other source because he mentions the sighting, which isn't in the article.)

I mentioned on Friday that I was going out in the field, and I did, along with Billy Willard, Tom L. and Billy's brother. We drove out in Billy's brand new Ford truck to meet with a fellow named Charlie to do some surveillance at a local sighting location. We didn't find much, except one strange, large bit of scat, which was collected and has been sent for some analysis -- perhaps there'll be more on that later. But I did get a chance to talk to Charlie, who, it turns out, had been a police officer in Fairfax County back during the Mount Vernon Monster saga.

He said he heard about the goings on out in Mount Vernon and wanted to see for himself. He spoke with the game warden at the time and heard from him that there had indeed been sightings of the creature, and that there were families that knew about the creature. The warden also played a recording of it's call for him. (What I wouldn't give to get that recording now!)

Here's a transcription of what Charlie told me (I've edited out some of the salty language for my more squeamish readers):

Anyway, the game warden says, "Hey Charlie, come here, I want you to listen to something," and he plays this recording that's got these screams on it. I said, what the hell is that, I've never heard anything like that before. And he says, "Well, these people on the dead end of Old Mill road report they've seen this bigfoot-type creature." So he says, "I went down there to investigate," and he says, " sure enough, I heard it and I recorded it." So he got his shotgun and went back in the woods and he says he found a footprint, and cast the footprint. He says, "Now Friday night, we're going to put the SWAT team in the woods. I talked to the chief and its alright." And I says, well I'm working down Rt 1 area anyway, give me directions and I'll slide by there.

I get over there about 8pm with my partner, there's people standing around there, and the SWAT team is in the woods. They come out about 8:30 and they're putting their [stuff] in the SWAT van -- they were gonna go eat and, they had borrowed some night vision from Belvior and they were gonna come back and hit the woods again and stay until midnight. They no sooner got out to the van than that thing let out this hellacious scream. I said, "holy [stuff]!" and I ran back to the edge of the woods. And just as I got to the edge of the woods, it screamed a second time. And I could feel the reverberations.. I could feel it in my chest, like if you stand in front of a bass speaker, I could feel it in my chest, and it made every hair on the back of my neck stand up. And I could hear twigs break and branches snapping, and I drew my revolver and I was looking around but I couldn't see anything.

It was right before dark, and [the SWAT team] all grabbed their [stuff] and ran back in the woods and stayed until 10:00 but they never saw anything. I spoke to the game warden later and that was the last anyone ever saw or heard of it. But it came out like it knew, it was like it was saying, "[screw] you!" But the people there were saying, "Leave this thing alone, we feed it, it eats out of our trashcan." The people on the end were leaving pies on their trashcan, and the thing was coming up to the house and looking in the window. That went on for a few months but then it died out after that night. Now I have hunted all my life and I have never heard anything that sounds like that. Even afterward, listening to the recordings on the net, I've never heard anything that sounds like that.

This is a lot of information and it adds quite a bit of detail to the story. I can't thank Charlie enough for telling his story and allowing it to be written out here. The Mount Vernon Monster story was always a "classic" to me, probably because it was so near where I lived, but also because it was news in its day and so many people experienced it. Many of those people are still alive now. I'd love to hear from the witnesses who actually saw the creature.

Not so long ago, I was involved in another case, in Maryland, which ended in much the same way. I don't believe I have written about it, and I certainly didn't tell Charlie about it, so these are independent accounts. In that case, the creature, which seemed to have developed a relationship with the home owner, and might have been eating food he left out, came to the edge of the woods and howled after the investigators had left, and then was never seen nor heard again. What accounts for the similarity of the behavior of the creatures in these two tales? Were they expressing their final outrage at the betrayal of trust? Of course we'll never know, but the resonance strikes me as interesting, anyway.

LATE UPDATE: An anonymous poster added this in a comment:

I was there. I decided to debunk it and went in the woods on Union Farm right off Old mill in a swampy bottom at 2:00 AM and climbed a tree and waited. I had a sigting within thirty minutes, it came trudging though the swamp right at me. It was a full moon and there was no mistaking this thing for a person even though it walked upright on two legs. It got to within 15 yards and then suddenly turned and ran up the hill and hid behind some trees. It must have smelled me or something. Anyway I tracked it for some time and found it was living in a large cement storm drain adjacent to Old Mill Rd.I saw it more than once and actually had it in my sights twice and couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger. This thing didn't really go away for some time, people just stopped calling the police or the news about it. Most decided it was better left alone including me after it decided it wouldn't put up with me anymore. It got agressive and would come directly at me breaking trees as it came imediatley after I entered the woods. It threw rocks at me the size of softballs with enough force that you could hear them whistling as they came through the air. It does eat meat, I found parts of deer tucked up in under cuts along the creek bank where it was nice and cool. Be carefull out there fellas.

EVEN LATER UPDATE:

Since my last sign in for this story, I've collected a few more reports.  Several have been left in comments by the good readers of this blog, for which I thank them.  I have also found a reminiscence left on a local bulletin board referenced by one of the posters here, which I'll just put up here for safekeeping.  It was posted by a user there on November 25, 2008:

Does anyone remember the Mount Vernon Monster?

True story: In 1979 or 1980 I drove over to a residential area near mount vernon with 3 friends, we parked down past the last house on a street that continued into the woods with a single house at the end. We went to hear the strange screeching animal sound that had been heard by people in the area.

We had been sitting there for about 45 minutes and hadn't heard a thing. We were a bit nervous though, as some of us had been out there before and heard this strange noise. I was sitting in the back seat on the left side.

Suddenly I saw the creature rise up across the street from behind some bushes! The bushes formed a hedge about 6' high and this creature loomed above them. I estimate that its height was around 8'.

I yelled "There it is!", and my friends all turned to look. It looked back at us. Its head was oval shaped and the head, neck and top of the shoulders (all we could see) were covered with smooth, dark hair. Its eyes were dark and glittering. It watched us from behind the bushes.

I said loudly "It's just someone in a ski mask!", loudly enough for the creature (or faker) to hear (the window was open about 6 inches). I was hoping to elicit a reaction if it was someone playing a prank. There was no reaction to my statement.

After a total of around 30 seconds, the creature ducked down behind the hedge and disappeared.

It moved slightly as it stood there, in the way a real animal moves. This was not someone in a suit or some kind of mannequin. It looked something like a large ape, but it stood erect. I'll never forget its face, I can picture it now: oval shaped, somewhat flat, dark hair, shining dark eyes.

I swear I am not making this up.

I returned to the area a couple of times after that and spoke to someone who lived on the street. They said they had seen it before as well. During the same time period there were some news stories on the "Mount Vernon Monster", but I've been unable to find them on the web. Perhaps they could be found in microfilm of newspapers from the time, (probably the Post).

How's that for a weird local incident?

And again, this is a true story.

Does anyone else remember hearing about the "Mount Vernon Monster" in the late 70s or so?

This poster mentions news reports from the time of the events.  I've searched online for free access to old newspaper reports, but I've only come across multiple copies of the one we've already mentioned.  I can't find other local reports that weren't syndicated.  If anyone comes across any, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

In the comments below, a few people who were there at the time have told their stories.  One anonymous commenter posts:

I lived on Gateshead RD from 1968-1986. My mother was best friends with Mrs. Crisp. Among the kids of the day, it was known to be a hoax put on by a MVHS student living on Adrianne DR, at the foot of Dandridge TERR. His house backed to those same woods. His dad had a massive stereo system capable of producing plenty of bass. He made the sounds the people on Union Farm RD would hear at night. It was said he dug in their trash cans too. If you recall the news from that time you only ever heard people on Union Farm RD talking about it. You never heard a word from people on Adrianne DR. Strange, don't you think?

 If anyone can corroborate any of the details in that post, I'd appreciate hearing about that too.  I'm not all about monsters.  If it turns out to be a hoax, let's debunk it.

But I have to confess that I don't expect it will turn out to be a hoax.  I have corresponded with one poster here who tells of seeing the creature twice, and who provides much detail.  Other posters also mention having seen the creature, along with the post we've borrowed from the local Fairfax bulletin board.  I just don't believe that many people would bother lying on an internet board, especially with the knowledge they have about names, places, and dates.  I think there's something to this one, and I'm pretty darn puzzled as to how any kind of bigfoot-like creature can have gotten into the suburbs within a few miles of Washington DC.  I have thought, maybe, that the proximity to the waterway toward Maryland could explain it, as Maryland was quite rural at that time (I lived in La Plata in the mid 70s and remember well the long, lonely drives to and from my grandparents house on the Virginia side of the Potomac.)  But even there, you'd have to cross some busy roads into obviously inhabited areas.  So we have a puzzle there.