Book Review: Lake Worth Monster: The True Story of the Greer Island Goatman by Lyle Blackburn

Lake Worth Monster: The True Story of the Greer Island Goatman by Lyle Blackburn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The nation was getting ready to watch man land on the moon, but for a week in July 1969 for one community in northern Texas what was important was the creature roaming the local lake. Lake Worth Monster: The True Story of the Greer Island Goatman by Lyle Blackburn examines the well-told two-night incidents surrounding a mysterious creature that was witnessed by nearly 50 people as well as the sightings and incidents before and after the famous two-night appearances.

In 110 pages, Blackburn goes over famous July 10 and 11, 1969 incidents around Greer Island in Lake Worth just northwest of Fort Worth. Then he goes into the rest of the story from the research and interviews by Sallie Ann Clarke who wrote a book about the incidents a few months later but started a decade-long hunt to find out the truth, especially after she saw it five times over the years. Blackburn then goes the history of various creature sightings around the area, usually matching descriptions of a sasquatch especially with the tale tell big footprints including later sightings around Greer Island and the wider Lake Worth area. However, original reports called the creature a bipedal goat shaped man with horns and cloven feet which leads Blackburn to various locations where a “goatman” is said to haunt or roam from around Old Alton Bridge near Denton, Texas and Prince George County in Maryland. Blackburn also covers every base by going through the rumors who the July 1969 incidents being pranks and hoaxes done by a group of teenagers or multiple groups of teenagers independent of one another over a span of months or just spur of the moment hijinks in front of a large crowd. The major issue I have with the book is that there is a total of 164 pages which meant 50 pages were dedicated to appendices—maps, news and photo archives, an transcript of an interview of Sallie Ann Clarke, and a brief memoir by Bobby Brooks about his connected with the Lake Worth Monster story—which me seemed like the book was formatted incorrectly as the maps, news articles, and photos could have been dispersed throughout the text or between chapters while saving the Sallie Ann Clarke interview and Bobby Brooks’ short memoir as welcome additions at the end of the book. Besides the personal annoyance of the book’s structure, Blackburn’s writing is great as I finished this book in one day due to how interesting and readable he presented everything.

Lake Worth Monster covers one of the most interesting and maybe the best attested cryptid incidents on record, Lyle Blackburn covers the famous two day in July 1969 and then reveals what happened before and long after.

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