YEAR: 1976

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: December

DATE: 23rd

STATE: Texas

COUNTY: Tarrant County

LOCATION DETAILS: Fort Worth Nature Center Lake Road. This road, at that time, went through, going North from 199 about 5 or 6 miles to 199. On one side is the swampy area of Lake Worth. On the other side, it is wooded with the Trinity River running through it, kind of a swampy marsh.

NEAREST TOWN: Fort Worth, Texas

NEAREST ROAD: Highway 199

OBSERVED: It was the Friday before Christmas, 1976. School was out that day. Everything is a blur except what happened that night at the Nature Center. It was called Greer Island then. My name is Robert. After work, I picked up the new kid in my class, Mike, and my best friend, Al, bought a 6 pack, and drove out to the lake roads. We drove north off of highway 199 and through the Nature Center to where we fished, called the bend in the river. Mike and I got out and were putting the batteries in the flashlights, while Al was in the truck with the music loud. We were talking in back of the truck watching the river running by and shining the flashlights. It was cold.
We were facing north and we hear this "roar, scream, howl," behind us. It was so loud that I ducked foward, gritting my teeth, Mike grabbed my jacket and said "What the hell is that?" I said "We gotta get out of here.", and it does it again, "scream, howl, roar." It was echoing, and it felt like the the woods were shaking. Al lowered the radio while rolling down the window and said "Robert, what the hell was that?" As Mike I were getting in the truck, it does it again, "scream, howl, roar." It's loud and long and sounds mad as all get out.
You could almost hear it taking a breath before it howled. By this time, I'm starting the truck and when my hand started to go to Drive, Al put his hand on mine and said "Whatever you do, don't wreck. Let's go." I knew this road real well, so we knew that after we're going about 50 mph, that we were safe. Nobody says a word till we stop at Hwy 199. and then we start saying "What was that?, What was that?"

ALSO NOTICED: It is noted that there were sightings and hoaxes
during the middle to late 60s. It was called the Lake Worth Monster. I went to a Monster Bash gathering and learned the last documented sighting was in the Spring 1977 or thereabouts.

OTHER WITNESSES: Three, Al was in the truck, Mike and I outside the truck.

OTHER STORIES: After I went back to school after the Christmas Holidays, I was telling my friends, and they told me of a man that was around named Dennis. I talked to him, and he said he saw it 2 times. The first time, 6 people in the car saw it standing with its arms over its head. Someone said "look at that dumby in the road", and as they got closer, it was panic in the car. Three girls and 3 guys, all at the same time, seeing it. He said it was huge, massive. The headlights showed huge pec muscles and arms. He spun the car around and left. No girls went along the next few times. The next time he saw it, it was running through an area where the asphalt turned to dirt road. I knew where he was talking about. It was thought it was heading to the woods. Then it turned and was after the car. They were they all screaming as they left it in the dust. Oh, they had guns,but were so surprized and scared,they had no thought to use them.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: 10 to 11:00pm, dark and misty and cold, truck parking lights and flashlights.

ENVIRONMENT: It is now the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge.
River bottoms, bird estuary, native animal habitat.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Gary Christensen:

I spoke with the witness by telephone. The entire incident lasted only a few seconds. He heard 3 extremely loud vocalizations, each lasting about 3 seconds in duration with a pause in between. The vocals went from a high to low pitch. Within 15 seconds of the first vocalization, all three boys were in the truck and leaving. He added that the vocalizations came from the woods behind them and were so loud that it was difficult to estimate the distance to the origin. The sounds were like nothing he had heard before or since.

I visited the Fort Worth Nature Center where the incident occurred and hiked several of the trails within the Center. In addition to the hills and woods, part of the center is a swamp connected to Lake Worth containing tall reeds and mud that makes the swamp nearly impenetrable by hikers. During my late morning hikes, I saw several deer, squirrels, lizards, fish, turtles, and water birds.

This location is where the highly documented sightings of the Lake Worth Monster occurred from the late 1960's to the mid 1970’s. See recent Lake Worth Monster Revisited article at Cryptomundo. I found the witness to be forthright and credible about his experience.

About BFRO Investigator Gary Christensen:

Gary is a retired USAF pilot, a Vietnam veteran with 312 combat missions in the B-52. He also retired from American Airlines in 2008 after 18 years service as a flight training manager. A graduate of USAF ground and sea survival schools, Gary is an avid bird hunter and fisherman. He has been following the bigfoot phenomenon since the 1950's.

• Explanation of the report classification system
• Submit a report for the sightings database
• Please send any comments or inquiries to ContactUs@BFRO.net