The area around Greer Island wasn't fenced off back then, as it is today. Teenagers would wander down Shoreline Road alone near the lake and enjoy the freedom of summer nights.
On July 9th, three teenage couples parked in a clearing. Around midnight, a beast descended from a tree trunk onto their car. The creature attempted to abduct one woman, but witnesses said the car sped away before it could do so.
"We had reports of this happening for about two months, but we laughed them off as jokes," a police spokesman told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
However, a nearly 40-centimeter scratch on the side of the car and the frightened nature of the witnesses forced the police to launch a full investigation. The monster's story appeared in the press the next day, and a search for the creature immediately gripped the area.
Scores of armed men were heading towards Greer Island, trying to track down the creature. Onlookers also arrived, trying to spot it. Reporters swarmed the area, and police tried to maintain order.
The then-director of the Greer Island Nature Center, Rick Pratt, remembers people coming to the site with wine, whiskey and beer in hand to have a good time and look for the monster.
"Here was our very own Sasquatch," Pratt said. "It was fun, come on, let's go there."
On the night of July 10, dozens of people were in a clearing near the lake when the monster made another appearance. The creature appeared on a cliff, appeared agitated, and threw a tire 500 feet. All witnesses, including sheriff's deputies, fled in terror.One witness recalled that the animal let out a "pitiful cry as if it had been wounded."
Craig Woolheater was 9 years old at the time. He was fascinated by monsters, dinosaurs, and UFOs. He clipped newspaper articles about the Lake Worth Monster scare and kept them in a scrapbook.
Years later, while driving through Louisiana, he saw something inexplicable. He said he saw the gray body of a large primate, walking on two legs, in front of his headlights. He began to believe in it, and in 1999, he founded the Texas Bigfoot Research Center to study and educate people about this elusive creature.
Today, Craig Woolheater lives in Mansfield and runs a cryptozoology blog. He believes the Lake Worth Monster is real, as are other enigmatic creatures sighted throughout the United States that have chosen a specific location for its favorable conditions for survival.
"As far as I'm concerned, I think it's an undiscovered and uncatalogued species of bipedal primate," Woolheater says.
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