In July 1969, six people were parked near Greer Island on Lake Worth, just outside Fort Worth, Texas, when something came down from a tree and landed on their car.

John Reichert would later describe a strange creature covered in fur and scales, with long, claw-like hands. Within days, his report had drawn police, reporters, curiosity seekers, and armed monster hunters to the shores of Lake Worth. Then other people began reporting encounters of their own.

What followed became one of Texas's strangest cryptid encounters: the case of the Lake Worth Monster, sometimes remembered today as the Lake Worth Goatman.

But the story that survives isn't quite as simple as the legend it became.

In this episode of State of the Unknown, join host Robert Barber as we return to the original 1969 reports, follow the witnesses behind one of Texas's strangest unexplained encounters, and examine the evidence, contemporary explanations, and later claims that have followed the case for more than half a century.

Was the Lake Worth Monster an unidentified creature? An elaborate prank? Or did something else happen along the shores of Lake Worth that summer?

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Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.