4. The Brooksville Monster
The summer of 1959 was not a good time to live in the city of Brooksville, For a brief period, locals were terrified by stories of an enormous 2.7-meter (9 foot) tall monster (with huge, glowing eyes, no less) roaming the area. Allegedly, the monster hunted only at night and, fearing for the safety of their families, a number of armed men went in search of the strange beast. Some even claimed to have shot at it. Eventually, two local reporters were able to expose the story as a hoax when a young housewife, Mrs. Peggy Thomas, brazenly owned up to scaring half the town sh*tless for weeks on end. In the resultant story, charmingly entitled Just a Housewifes Gag (that ran in the News Tribune on July 27th 1959) Mr. Thomas sociopathic spouse revealed that, for unimaginable reasons of her own, she had created the illusion of the monster as a joke. First, Mrs. Thomas revealed, she had tied two pine trees together and covered them with a sheet, making the monsters body, then, shed attached a battery-powered torch to a cows skull to create a scary head complete with glowing eyes. She had then covered her creation with moss, just to make it look more authentic. Finally, Peggy tied a long rope between two trees and, using a fishing line, pulled the creature across it, creating the effect of a gargantuan, moss-covered beast stomping over the tree lines. It has been suggested by some that Mrs. Thomas monster could have been an early inspiration for the rash of sightings of Floridas own Bigfoot, the Skunk Ape, which is said to be a foul smelling creature that lives in swamps. The Brooksville Monster does bear some passing similarities with the Skunk Ape, it must be said. In addition, interested parties should note that the Skunk Ape was only widely reported from the 1960s onwards... After all the havoc she had caused, the crazy housewife did not seem at all bothered by the fact that she could very easily have been shot in the process of creating this insane (yet also hilarious) practical joke.