Creature record / 1971
July 1971. Two women from St. Louis, Joan Mills and Mary Ryan, stopped off Highway 79 near Louisiana, Missouri, for a picnic lunch. First came the smell. The most horrible odor anyone could imagine. Then a figure in the thicket. Half-ape and half-man, hair over its body, hairless hands, and a face Mary Ryan called definitely human. It made a gurgling sound. It shambled toward them. They ran for the car and locked the doors. Then they realised the keys were still outside. The creature stroked the car and tried the doors. A blast of the horn bought them their escape. This was the first Momo report, a year before the Missouri Monster made headlines.
Louisiana, Missouri, is a Pike County town near the Mississippi. In July 1972 it became famous. Doris Harrison and her brothers reported a hairy creature on Marzolf Hill, and the Momo flap began. But the story did not start there. It started a year earlier, with two women and a picnic.