Cole Hollow Road Monster (Cohomo)

In spring and summer 1972, residents around Pekin and East Peoria in central Illinois reported a large, hairy creature. The sightings drew hundreds of phone calls to police, mobilized over a hundred volunteers in a search effort, and became part of local folklore.

The first reports came in early May of 1972, when Randy Emmert and several friends described a huge white-haired creature near Cole Hollow Road in Pekin, Illinois. They reported that it made loud screeching sounds and seemed to be living beneath an abandoned house in the area.

Days later, on May 25th, East Peoria police logged more than 200 calls from witnesses who sighted the monster. Witnesses described the creature walking through woods, yards, or along riverbanks. One caller reported that the monster destroyed their fence. The police were naturally skeptical but kept track of the reports nonetheless.

The area drew unusual attention. Over two hundred cars gathered at Cole Hollow Road in 1972 hoping to spot the creature. Locals gave it the nickname Cohomo, short for COle HOllowMOnster.

Two months later, during July 1972, a volunteer search party of more than 100 people took to the woods surrounding Cole Hollow Road. Police disbanded the search after a few hours when a volunteer accidentally shot himself in the foot. The creature was never found.

In July, additional reports emerged. On July 25th, a witness contacted police saying they had seen a large hairy man-like creature swimming in the Illinois River. Later that month, two witnesses gave detailed descriptions of the creature: it was a cross between an ape and a caveman with a powerful odor. A woman collecting berries encountered the monster near an old coal mine and ran away, abandoning her possessions.

According to witness accounts, Cohomo stood around 8 to 9 feet tall, covered in whitish-gray hair, with long round ears, red lips, and human-like hands whose thumbs were double-jointed and set farther down than the rest of the fingers. Witnesses consistently reported that it emitted a putrid smell like wet dog mixed with rotten eggs. Large tracks left behind showed only three toes.

The monster craze eventually faded without a capture, and some think locals had simply been sighting Bigfoot that kept moving through the region. One account calls it one of the most well-documented Bigfoot-like creatures in Illinois history, citing the sheer volume of sightings and the involvement of local law enforcement. Decades later, one of the first people to see Cohomo admitted to the Peoria Journal Star that he never saw anything. Even so, Cohomo was reported as recently as 2000, in Kankakee County.