two-egg 09/18/18 (Tue) 04:12:59 #15072849

Pop culture iconography typically associated with the Skunk Ape.

The Skunk Ape is a hominid Cryptid. The name is self-explanatory. The smell's been compared to dog breath mixed with rotten clams. Common knowledge is that the Bigfoot family is the most well-known cryptid in North America and the Skunk Ape is one lesser-known subspecies. The largest population lives in Big Cypress National Preserve.
When living closer to humans, Skunk Apes are more likely to incorporate previously inhabited spots such as homeless encampments as dens. It is estimated that the Skunk Ape may become extinct by 2030, depending on the severity of climate change, saltwater intrusion and sea level rise on their habitat.
They are typically described as being of similar physical build to others in the Bigfoot family. The main differences are the Skunk Ape's shorter and more stout build, longer, darker fur, and extremely reflective eyes. Getting close makes you feel intense warmth and humid dampness hanging in the air around them. This is on top of the normal Florida wet blanket weather.

Contact with their fur leaves a burning sensation. If expecting to meet a Skunk Ape in the wild, dress in long sleeves and make sure you're wearing eye protection. The most reliable way to pinpoint a Skunk Ape dwelling is to check the internet and a local newspaper, if one is still printing, for a spike in missing pets, livestock, and alcoholic beverage kegs.
Tracks left behind show that they almost always travel in groups, and their tracks are infamous for meandering, back-tracking and dead ends. Skunk Ape fur is highly oily and plaster impressions of their footprints are some of the rarest of any cryptic tracks. They're exclusively nocturnal creatures, and their dark fur makes photographing them difficult.
While their diet isn't known, they've been recorded reducing lost house pets to the bone.
The Skunk Ape has existed in Florida for as long as humans have recorded history. The Miccosukee and Seminole Indian tribes wrote descriptions of a Bigfoot-like creature. Workers on the Florida East Coast railroad were the source of rumors about a captured Skunk Ape. Supposedly, railroad magnate Henry Flagler had it kept in a special suite in his Ponce De Leon hotel.
An apocryphal story exists which claims the 19th governor of Florida, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, coined the name "Skunk Ape" from his reaction to seeing one of the cryptids when touring a dredging site in 1907.
During the construction of the C-38 canal in the 1960's, there was a boom of Skunk Ape sightings in and around human settlements. This caused considerable tension between the human and Bigfoot populations. Further human development into the everglades basin lines up with Skunk Ape sightings becoming much more common by the late 1970's.
In 1977 the Florida State Legislature failed to pass a bill which would have made it a crime to "harm or molest anthropoid or humanoid animals” as a response to the Skunk Ape encroachment. This did not pass, and is to date the closest the state has come to protect any form of Bigfoot through law.

Unverified photograph.

Now, the first time I ever personally saw the Skunk Ape, I was living with my first husband in Palatka. We'd just moved into a new trailer, the old one had floors sinking in and an unwelcome houseguest had left it smelling like a public shitbox.
I was working a lot then, and taking care of a feral cat colony that lived underneath my unit meant I didn't have a lot of patience for that shit. So it's the middle of the night, and I wake up because the smell's gotten so bad. I'm thinking aw shit, Rick's come back for his stuff. I grab a cleaver and run up to the door to tell him to fuck off.
Instead right there over the feeding dishes was this BIG thing. I was blinking to try and figure out what I was seeing. We froze when we saw each other. But I saw what he was holding. If he thought he could walk off with my babies he had another thing coming.
The cleaver didn't help much. I'm not exactly the most athletic person in the world but I got the first hit in about a nanosecond after I saw what was in his hand. But it just got tangled in that unkept bush of a coat. But he dropped Daisy, and started hoofing it back to the forest.
That's where it started for me. I found some blood on the fence where it had gone off. Never got my cleaver back. Nice cleaver, I miss it sometimes. But I'd pay that again to be where I am now.
I've never smelled anything like it ever again, but I know I will again someday. I'll be ready then.
— Audio log of Darlene Wuornos

two-egg 09/18/18 (Tue) 04:15:35 #15072856

Video Transcript of a kid's birthday party home movie. Video has been lost.

Candle-lit backyard. Young girl with parents seated at a picnic table. Checkered red tablecloth.
> FATHER: Happy birthday, sweetie!
>
> MOTHER: Blow out the candles!
>
> Child 1: I wish for no more school nights!
>
> ADULT 1:(off camera) They really went all-out for this one, huh?
>
> ADULT 2: Tell me about it. You just know they're trying to put the rest of us to shame. There's a guy in a bunny costume waiting in the garage to come out and play with the kids once they finish cutting the cake.
>
> CHILD 1: Oh, Mommy it stinks!
>
> MOTHER: Now, sweetheart, that's not… what is that? Oh, god, what is that?
>
> Adult 1: That's not a bunny.
>
> Camera is dropped, and only muffled voices are recorded until the tape ended.

two-egg 09/18/18 (Tue) 04:28:19 #15072918

Written Statement Provided to the Dade County Public Safety Office by Sebastian Coronado, 1961, transcribed.
Life is different when you've been widowed. I was widowed. I'm not a monster. You're not going to believe in the monsters lurking out there.
I was so lucky to have the insurance money, to be free. She wouldn't have wanted me bankrupted. I made our old place into something new, just like we'd always talked about. It was still so lonesome, and hard, but I was living. It was when I lived alone that I started seeing 'em.
Those swollen red eyes, always swiveling, turning, and stretching, watching. Through the sawgrass and the mangroves, deep in the swamp. I could smell them, even then. Like rotten eggs and cat litter baking in a fast-food oven.
I never have the comfort of privacy. God, we take that for granted, don't we? It didn't matter how far I went or how long I was gone, I always had to come back to the eyes. They studied me, always looking, waiting and waiting.
It got worse when I lost my dog. Poor Little Bit. Chewed through a fence and took off into the woods. No time to grab the flashlight. I'm glad I didn't. The crunch was bad enough. Red eyes and matted fur scuttling through the crack until all of them were free. All I could do was hide until morning.
The stink came the next day. I thought it was Bit at first. So I went out to find her. Should've gotten a decent burial just like her mother. All they left me was the joint bones. I didn't know what they wanted then, and I always thought it would be something that would leave me dead.
Wish I'd been right.
A lot of my neighbors were moving out, Big Sugar needed the land. But they left me alone. After awhile, felt like it was just me and them. They saw me through.
They stopped being as scary after that. Honestly, appreciated the company. Sometimes I went out in the woods and saw things. Little… bone sculptures, sticks tied together, rock formations and scuffs in the dirt. That was when I found it. Walking through the woods, they weren't around. But dug up in the middle of the trail, there she was. Or at least, what was left of her.
I don't know anything else about how it got there. But this is the god-honest truth, I had nothing to do with that skeleton they dug up out there. That's everything I know.
Coronado was charged with manslaughter, and reached a plea deal with prosecutors before reaching trial. He was released in 1976. Confirmed dead 1981.