The Beaman Monster -Bigfoot or Wolfman?

The Beaman monster Kansas City area is said to be some sort of hybrid gorilla.

Russell Holman, an 81-year old native of Sedalia, said that the legend of the Beaman Monster can be traced back to the 1900s. His father had told him, a circus train got wrecked in the year 1904. Several animals used in the circus shows were aboard. During the train crash, a 12-foot tall gorilla, had escaped . Many people believe that the Beaman Monster was really the offspring of the escaped gorilla. Holman relates that one of his uncles residing on Glenn Road had told him about a hunt that happened in his cornfield during the late 1950s by people carrying all sorts of shotguns, to catch the Beaman Monster.. "It seems like they revive that story every 50 years," Holman said. "Dad said, when the boys would get out of hand, they'd call out the Beaman Monster if you didn't behave. I never did see anything." The Beaman monster was used like the bogey man to scare children into behaving and was therefore known to most people as a story or local legend

A 29-year old Sedalia native ,Daemon Smith claimed to have seen the creature and described it as like a coyote or wolf. Smith saw this monster when he was around 10 years old. He was then riding in his uncle’s pickup truck when a wolf-shaped creature emerged from the woods and started running at the sides of the vehicle. "I've seen what my uncles told me was the Beaman Legend," said Daemon. "I haven't heard nobody speak of it since I was little It wasn't quite animalistic," Smith said. "It's hard to explain unless you've seen it." Other strange happenings occurred around the farm of Smith's uncle. Smith remembered when a pig was found mauled to death without any signs of another animal, such as tracks. Another time, a dark figure moved around in the woods during a thunderstorm. He said ."It's like one of those things, it could be something or it could be your imagination. It's not like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, I think something does exist that's unexplainable."
There have been reports of large footprints. Steve Mallard, 41, who grew up near Smithton saw some when he was about 12, Mallard and a friend went behind his parents' barn to dig for worms to go fishing. It was a spring morning, with dew on the grass and the boys saw a spot where it "looked like a deer or something had laid down." Then they noticed the footprints. "There were these huge footprints," Mallard said. "We followed them down to the pond and just got spooked. They were big; we couldn't stride that far apart." Mallard said he thinks the Beaman Monster may exist, especially after watching documentaries about American Indians who described seeing similar creatures."I get made fun of for it all the time, but I know what I saw that morning, and I'll never forget it," he said.
Some say the Beaman Monster as a prank in the 1950s. Jerry Laudenberger, 65, of Sedalia, was in high school in 1957 or 1958, when Broadway Boulevard was widened to four lanes. "This was about the same time the technology came along that used strobe lights as a caution (for the road construction)," he said. Some teenagers stole a construction sign with large, round, yellow flashing lights, covered it with brush and hid it in a field near Beaman. "We would drive out there just to see who was out there checking on the monster," Laudenberger said. "Mainly to see who was gullible enough to see the monster. ... It did kind of look like eyes flashing." Laudenberger said he knows the culprits behind the prank, but "I've held the secret 50 years; I'm not telling now."

So hoax, gorilla or wolfman? Take your pick!