A story in a local newspaper of July 30, 1930, said that in or near Homesville, Ohio, USA, a Mrs Rucker saw an ape-like creature coming in through her back door. She alerted her husband who also saw it, and they fled.
This, later, entered a "Bigfoot" book, then a "skeptical" ufology catalogue.
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[Ref. pr1:] PETER ROGERSON:
July 30 1930.HOMESVILLE (OHIO : USA) Mrs Rucker saw an ape like creature coming in through her back door, alerting her husband who also saw the thing. The couple fled. Arment 2006 p245 citing Elyria Chronicle-Telegram 30 July 1930 |
It may seem incredible that a "skeptical" ufologist [pr1] cataloged a story of an ape in his ufology catalog.
The "mechanism" here is as follows: Peter Rogerson [pr1], on the issue of UFOs and their occupants, argues that that they are all misinterpretations and inventions. He intended to show that the errors "due to imagination" according to him, and "inventions", have always existed.
He then retrieved a number of fairy stories, ghosts stories, "Bigfoot" stories in the books, not as UFO occupant sightings, but as imaginary or invented "entities" sightings; as examples.
Although, I think, no one doubts that hoaxes and misunderstandings exist, many of these "examples" fall short, and this is generally the case for stories of this type, stories of apes seen at large in the United States in the 1930s.
Indeed, there was in those years a craze for apes that followed movies, comics, and short stories appearing in newspapers, including "Tarzan the Ape-Man". There were circuses responding to this craze by showing great anthropoid apes. And sometimes, apres escaped, and were seen roaming the country.
As the great anthropoid apes were often shown as quite dangerous creatures in fiction - and they are often dangerous in reality! - people were often frightened by the reports. And they often organized search parties to capture or shoot them down.
Newspapers, or authorities, or locals, sometimes expressed skepticism about monkey sightings. They did not want to believe. But what is quite obvious, is that in these cases, neither the hoax nor the misinterpretations are proven, Nothing allows to affirm that, in this case, mayor Lyman Clark or farmer Myron Hetrick the day before, have "invented" or "imagined" anything!
They reported seeing an ape, and there may have been one. Of course, we were not told, perhaps in Arment's book but certainly in Rogerson's catalog, that the Press had reported a circus ape escaped in the area.
To give the context, for the year 1930 alone, I list at least 4000 mentions of the expression "Tarzan the ape-man" in the US newspapers that I can access - obviously not the complete Press. Newspapers published in comics and illustrated short stories the adventures of Tarzan written by Edgar Rice Burroughs:
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Circuses capitalized on the success of Tarzan and the monkeys:
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Seeing "Bigfoot" in any story of stray ape in the US, as well as thinking that all reported of alien encounters really are alien encounters, is obviously wrong, my catalog clearly shows this.
But on the other hand, if this case obviously does not prove that imagination and invention never existed, it proves that the generalization of this explanation to all cases is an error sometimes leading to probably false explanations.
| Id: | Topic: | Severity: | Date noted: | Raised by: | Noted by: | Description: | Proposal: | Status: |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Data | Medium | September 30, 2018 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | Missing primary source [ec1]. | Help needed. | Opened. |
Probable ape, not UFO-related
* = Source I checked.
? = Source I am told about but could not check yet. Help appreciated.
| Main Author: | Patrick Gross |
|---|---|
| Contributors: | None |
| Reviewers: | None |
| Editor: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Created/Changed By: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | September 30, 2018 | Creation, [pr1]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | September 30, 2018 | First published. |
