The ‘Skunk Ape’ Bigfoot Encounter In Creepy Florida Swampland
Wikimedia CommonsFlorida’s Lettuce Lake Park sprawls across 240 acres and is purportedly home to the “Skunk Ape,” what could be Florida’s version of Bigfoot.
Just as the Indigenous tribes across North America each had their own ideas about Bigfoot, the plethora of modern-day sightings all across the nation has yielded the belief that there are various kinds of Bigfoots with different characteristics — such as the “Skunk ape” of Floridian folklore.
The Skunk ape allegedly enjoys Florida’s warm and humid climate and, like Bigfoot, is known for its putrid stench. The most convincing footage ever recorded of this creature was captured on Jan. 3, 2015.
It was at approximately 1:00 p.m. and during a Tampa, Florida canoe trip in Lettuce Lake Park that Matthew McKamey and a friend suddenly spotted the so-called Skunk ape.
They first heard a noise and the rustling movement of tree branches nearby. McKamey grabbed his phone to film what they thought was going to be an alligator or bear, but turned out to be unlike any animal he’d ever seen before.
“In that moment, I was looking at it and getting a little freaked out, especially once it started really moving,” said McKamey. “You could tell he was slapping the water and it looked like maybe he was grabbing something. At the time, I was just thinking, ‘Holy shit, what the hell is this?'”
“Thinking back to what we saw, I think there’s a good chance that we actually saw a Skunk Ape or Bigfoot or whatever you want to call it,” said McKamey of the creature he’d filmed. “It was not a bear, I know that. It wasn’t human. It’s like a once-in-a-lifetime experience. To have been where we were, when we were, the likelihood of it happening again.”
This Bigfoot sighting in Lettuce Lake Park left McKamey and his friend so traumatized that they agreed not to discuss it any further. McKamey claimed that the only reason he’d stopped filming was to get away from the area immediately. Afterward, he forwarded the footage to former Oregon police officer Phil Poling.
Poling left his career as a lawman in favor of running an investigative Bigfoot website that examines any and all available evidence about the creature. He noted that the animal in McKamey’s film indeed appeared ape-like in its movements, ominously composed, and even reacted instinctually to the sounds of McKamey’s canoe oars hitting the water.
“I came away from this with a distinct impression that I have no idea what it is,” said Poling. “It could be a guy in a costume or it could be the real thing. I do not know. [McKamey] sent the original copy to Bigfoot Evidence, not asking for anything in return.”
Poling concluded to this potential Bigfoot encounter, “Why would someone take all of this time, effort, and danger just to give the video away anonymously?”
