Sometimes, in order to get additional information about the Bigfoot phenomenon and find little-known cases of encounters with this creature, it is enough to read collections of magazines 60-70 years old. In this case, Western magazines.
So, from a note in the American magazine "Hoosier Folklore" from 1947, you can find out that in the south of Illinois, many people regularly saw an unidentified large ape-like creature, outwardly resembling a "strange" baboon. Here's an excerpt from that note:
“There are legends about a strange beast here in Southern Illinois. Community members have repeatedly reported sightings of the beast in the area of the stream. While it is difficult to tell when these sightings began, the story seems to date back to a 1941 incident near the Gum Creek near Mount Vernon. In the summer of 1941, a local preacher was hunting squirrels here when a very large monkey-like animal jumped from a tree next to him."
It is further reported that the beast began to approach the preacher on two legs, just like a man, and the frightened man grabbed a revolver and fired several times into the air to scare the animal away. He succeeded, but the unusual monkey did not run far.
Soon, other local residents began to see her, and even more often hear her screams coming from the forest. A group of schoolchildren reported strange forest screams, and hunters saw unusual tracks in the forest, not similar to the tracks of local animals.
In 1942, something attacked a farmer's dog in the village of Bonnie and tore it apart. By that time, many people lived in fear and finally their patience came to an end. Soon they organized a "mass hunt" and it was something similar to the attack of peasants with pitchforks and torches on the monster Frankenstein from the horror film of the same name. But despite this, the animal managed to escape from the hunters.
Soon after, a motorist driving at night along the Big Muddy River in Jackson County in Illinois saw an unusual animal quickly cross the road in front of the car. It also moved in an unusual way - in very large jumps, each 20-40 feet long (6-12 meters!).
It is possible that it was the very elusive "baboon", and maybe the American analogue of the British bogeyman "Jumping Jack".
Promotional video:
It is difficult to say how many hunters or groups of hunters there were armed with nets, shotguns and ropes. But they went around all the places where they had previously seen or heard this animal or seen its tracks. They wanted to catch him alive, but they failed. The monster disappeared and it became impossible to tell who he was, an escaped baboon, yeti or something else.