Your True Tales - November 2005 - Story of the Month - Creature at Secluded Cabin: What I saw next still baffles me. At my truck there was a creature standing upright, about 7 feet tall with huge claws on its "hands." It had white hair that was almost gray, but I couldn't really see its eyes. It seemed to be searching around the bed of my truck and was paying no attention to the now-frantic dog. When the lights first came on, it did nothing but continue its search, but it then looked up at the deck.
By now I was frozen in horror and it turned around and made eye contact with me. It then made a horrible screeching sound, almost as if it was in terror from the sight of me. At first it seemed as if it was going to charge at me and climb the steps onto the deck. But then in a terrorized rage it made another screech and "sprinted" away. It ran upright and its claws almost went past its knees.
I've been studying the Conser Lake story for some time. Here's a description of the creature from an article I wrote for Oregon L.O.W.F.I.:
Path leading to Conser Lake photo: Regan Lee Mrs. Penning in Devers-Conner, about 30 miles south of Millersburg, told Betty Westby she heard “dripping sounds,” even though it was August. It is interesting that Mrs. Penning described the “dripping” sound; remember that Flix’s footsteps were also described as “squishy.” Looking out her living room window she saw a “large, light form,” hurrying away, and heard a “low pitched cry that seems to start from its toes, tapering off to a squeal like a pig’s.” Penning also fond fingerprints on her bedroom window, and Westby spectacled that they were web shaped, due to the four fingered, spread-out shape of the prints.
Three years later, the story of the Creature of Conser Lake was still news. In an article by Martin Clark, Albany Journal staff writer, he comments on writer Keith Sosebe’s upcoming talk on the “monster.”
Leaping from the shadow of a deep gully, the thing stood fully 7 feet tall in the ghostly moonlight. Petrified with mingled horror and curiosity, the young people sat motionless in their car. Suddenly, the apparition took at enormous leap over the gully and slipped away trough a tangle of boughs.”
Cryptozoologist and biologist Ivan T. Sanderson discussed the Conser Lake monster briefly in his book Abominable Snowmen:Legend Come to Life, citing a small item that appeared in the January, 1961 edition of FATE magazine, reporting that the “monster” was “still on the loose.” Sanderson also writes in Abominable Snowmen that a source wrote Sanderson in October of 1960, insisting that there was not only the one Flix, but several “Flixes” in the area. According to Sanderson’s unnamed friend, there were more than one BHM, several in fact, and fingerprint as well as footprint casts were taken. Referring to Flix, the letter writer described the creature:
he makes extremely high pitched sounds. his hair or fur had slight glow in the dark . . .feet make a squishy sound. Has been seen at day and night and seen to disappear into the lake.”
From another post of mine on the creature at Oregon L.O.W.F.I.:
The creature was called the “Creature of Conser Lake,” also the “Ghost of Conser Lake” (because of its white color) . . . Reported as a bigfoot type creature; about seven feet tall, bipedal, white shaggy fur, . . . a Millersburg truck driver was understandably startled to find a white, shaggy furred bigfoot type creature trotting along beside his truck as he was driving down the road. The driver, a mint farmer, was going about 35 miles an hour; the creature was easily keeping pace with the moving vehicle. . . Flix was Bigfoot like in many ways, yet there were other characteristics described by witnesses that are strange. Flix was said to have claws and or webbed feet and hands and cat like ears.
Conser Lake, OR photo: Regan Lee
