Florida Skunk Ape: Sightings, History & Evidence Behind the Legend

On August 9, 1971, a mysterious creature said to be roaming Florida's Big Cypress swamps made the front page of The Miami News. Searchers were hunting a hairy "apeman" in the wilderness. By the following day, the newspaper was already asking whether the supposed monster might simply be a black bear.

That was only the beginning.

Over the following decades, the Florida Skunk Ape would inspire disputed photographs, oversized footprints, reports from experienced swamp guides and even a proposed law to protect it. In 1997, a string of sightings near Ochopee returned the creature to the headlines. Three years later, two photographs of a reddish-haired, ape-like figure reportedly arrived at a Florida sheriff's office.

What happened in Florida's swamps, and what do the original records actually reveal?

What Is the Florida Skunk Ape?

The Skunk Ape is Florida's answer to Bigfoot, a mysterious hair-covered creature reportedly seen in the state's forests, cypress swamps and wetlands. The Big Cypress and Everglades region features prominently in its history.

Descriptions vary. Witnesses have reported dark brown, black or reddish hair, a heavy build and movement on two legs. Its most recognizable feature is an alleged powerful odor, often compared to rotten eggs, garbage or decaying vegetation.

The creature shares similarities with the Fouke Monster of Arkansas and other regional hairy humanoids explored in our Bigfoot & Regional Relatives archive. But the Skunk Ape has its own distinctive history through Florida newspaper reports and several highly publicized encounters.

1971: The Skunk Ape Hunt That Made Headlines

In August 1971, South Florida newspapers began covering an unusual search in the Big Cypress wilderness. People were looking for a large, hairy creature described as an apeman, something that supposedly moved through the swamps beyond the reach of ordinary wildlife observers.

On August 9, The Miami News put the hunt on its front page. The report continued inside the newspaper, bringing the mysterious animal and the people searching for it to a wider audience.

For readers accustomed to hearing about Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest, Florida offered a very different setting. The reported creature was associated with flooded forests, sawgrass, cypress stands and the remote roads cutting through the Everglades region.

But the newspapers were not simply repeating monster stories. On August 10, The Miami News considered whether the animal might have been a black bear. The possibility was raised while the search was still attracting attention, rather than years later during a retrospective investigation.

By August 13, more reports had appeared. The Miami News described two ape-like creatures allegedly seen in the Everglades, and the Boca Raton News carried a wire-service story headed "'Skunk apes' sighted."

Within a matter of days, the creature had become both a local mystery and a subject of public skepticism.

What the surviving coverage does not establish is whether the searchers encountered the animal or recovered convincing physical evidence. The reports document the hunt and the stories surrounding it, but they do not settle what prompted the original sightings.

Readers can examine the newspaper pages themselves: The Miami News, August 9; August 10; and Boca Raton News, August 13.

Where Did the Name "Skunk Ape" Come From?

The creature's supposed foul smell gave rise to its memorable name. Contemporary newspapers were using "Skunk Ape" by August 1971, although the earliest use of the term has not been firmly established.

The odor became one of the legend's defining characteristics. Some accounts described something resembling rotten eggs or decaying vegetation. Others reported a large hairy figure without mentioning a smell at all.

Two Supposed Early Sightings That Don't Hold Up

Some modern histories place the Skunk Ape much farther back in Florida's past. Two frequently repeated accounts deserve closer scrutiny.

The alleged 1818 sighting: An encounter is sometimes attributed to the Apalachicola Gazette. However, the Library of Congress dates that newspaper title to 1836–1840. The cited publication cannot substantiate the claimed 1818 date.

The 1929 Bat Tower encounter: A story involving Sugarloaf Key's Bat Tower appeared in a 2021 article by Brad Bertelli. It came from his fictional Southernmost Skunk Ape Society series, not a contemporary 1929 newspaper report.

In a 2024 retrospective, Bertelli explained that the fiction was inspired by a separately reported encounter on Key Largo in July 1977.

These distinctions matter because they change the documented timeline of the legend. The modern Skunk Ape story has substantial newspaper coverage beginning in the early 1970s, but some much older dates repeated online have a less dependable history.

By 1975, the creature was appearing in movie publicity and illustrated newspaper features. Then came something even stranger: a proposal to protect it under Florida law.

Florida Tried to Protect the Skunk Ape by Law

Representative Hugh Paul Nuckolls sponsored legislation that would have made it a misdemeanor to take, possess, harm or molest an alleged native anthropoid or humanoid animal known as the Skunk Ape.

The State Archives of Florida preserves House Bill 58, printed for 1978, along with earlier committee materials and a staff analysis from September 1977.

The proposal was never enacted. But unlike the legendary sightings, the bill itself is a surviving government document, evidence that the creature had become well known enough to enter a legislative discussion.

It was a remarkable turn for a mystery that had made headlines only a few years earlier. Florida lawmakers had considered protecting an animal whose existence had never been established.

The archival file also includes a September 26, 1977 staff analysis.

1997: Four Skunk Ape Encounters in Six Days

On July 16, 1997, tour guide Steve Goodbread was driving a bus through the Big Cypress region when he reportedly spotted something unusual near an old burned-out wooden bridge along Turner Road.

According to a later investigation, the figure was large, brown and upright. It appeared to move or rock behind vegetation while tourists watched from the bus.

Goodbread's report was the beginning of a remarkable cluster of encounters that would soon involve other guides, a local resident and the Ochopee fire chief.

The July 1997 Sightings

• July 16, 1997 Steve Goodbread: Driving a Pelican Tours bus, he reportedly watches a roughly seven-foot, brown-haired figure near a burned-out bridge on Turner Road. According to the BFRO account, the encounter lasts approximately 15 minutes. Goodbread moves the bus to give passengers a better view and suggests that someone with a telephoto camera photograph the subject. Nobody volunteers to step outside.
• July 18, 1997 Dow Roland: The Everglades Day Safari guide reports a brown-haired, upright figure near Turner Road. After a brief glimpse during one tour, he reportedly sees it again while returning with another group. He later goes back with a camera and searches the road without obtaining a photograph.
• July 21, 1997 Jan Brock: Traveling along Burns Road before work, she reports seeing a dark brown animal with a lighter patch on its chest cross the road roughly 1,000 feet ahead. She drives to the crossing point and looks for tracks but finds nothing. Despite the Skunk Ape's reputation, she reports no unusual odor.
• July 21, later that morning Vince Doerr: The Ochopee fire chief reports a large, hairy figure crossing Burns Road. He stops his vehicle, searches the area with his camera and photographs a dark subject partly concealed by vegetation.

The fuller Goodbread account is particularly unusual. He reportedly considered a hoax possible, yet wondered how someone wearing a heavy costume could endure the July heat and insects in the swamp. Roland likewise initially considered a gorilla-suit prank.

Those questions were being asked by the witnesses themselves, even as the sightings attracted wider attention.

The reported encounters were clustered around remote roads through the Big Cypress wetlands. The summer had been unusually hot and wet, and swamp conditions were attracting attention in the coverage.

Researcher Dave Shealy suggested that severe mosquito activity and high water might have driven the supposed creature toward drier ground. That was his interpretation, not an independently established explanation for the sightings.

Vince Doerr's Mysterious Photograph

Of the July 1997 witnesses, Vince Doerr produced the most enduring piece of evidence.

Doerr described seeing a tall, brown-looking figure cross Burns Road several hundred feet ahead of his vehicle. It moved into the vegetation before he could get close.

He stopped and photographed what he believed might be the same subject farther back in the swamp.

Unlike a fleeting sighting, a photograph offered something that could be examined long after the encounter. That made Doerr's report especially interesting to Skunk Ape enthusiasts and investigators.

But the image was frustrating. It showed a dark, apparently upright figure among trees and brush, without a reliable way to establish its dimensions.

See Vince Doerr's Skunk Ape photograph in Smithsonian Magazine →

There was also an intriguing delay. When Miami Herald reporters Cyril T. Zaneski and Susan Cocking covered the encounter on July 28, Doerr had not yet developed the film. The story was already attracting attention before readers could examine the photograph.

Contemporary newspapers placed his encounter along Burns Road. The later BFRO summary instead listed Turner Road, a discrepancy worth noting when comparing accounts.

But the most memorable part of the episode was Doerr's own attitude.

Despite reporting an unusual encounter, he was skeptical that he had seen an unknown animal.

In Andrea Stetson's July 23, 1997 report for the Fort Myers News-Press, Doerr offered this reaction:

"I just think someone's playing games. I just looked at it and laughed."

Here was a fire chief whose photograph would become Skunk Ape evidence, yet who himself suspected a prank.

Footprints, Hair and the Search for Evidence

The sudden cluster of sightings attracted Dave Shealy, who had been interested in the Skunk Ape long before the 1997 reports.

On July 24, he searched an area associated with the encounters and reportedly discovered several large tracks. He made plaster casts of two impressions, each measuring approximately 13½ inches long, six inches across the toes and three inches at the heel.

He also reportedly found brown hair caught in vegetation along a path. That sample was later described as lost, eliminating the opportunity for independent testing.

The BFRO investigation includes photographs of the casts and descriptions of the search, but the impressions were not directly connected to a witnessed animal.

The reporting continued into the end of July. The Fort Myers News-Press published a July 31 feature examining reactions from believers and skeptics.

One of the most revealing features of the 1997 scare is that several witnesses considered pranks even while describing encounters they found difficult to explain. The reports were not a single, uniform story, but a collection of unusual observations made along the same stretch of Florida wilderness.

For the witness narratives, track measurements and contemporary reporting, see BFRO Report #721.

Dave Shealy and the Famous Skunk Ape Video

Dave Shealy's association with the Skunk Ape extends beyond the 1997 sightings. A longtime resident of the Ochopee area, he grew up hearing stories about the creature and has described seeing one while hunting with his brother as a child.

By the 1990s, Shealy was operating the Florida Panther Gift Shop and campground near the region where so many reports had originated. He investigated sightings, collected alleged evidence and became one of the best-known public advocates for the Skunk Ape's existence.

When reporters descended on Ochopee in July 1997, he was among the local figures they interviewed. He believed the swamp could conceal a large, elusive animal and suggested that environmental conditions might account for its occasional appearances near roads.

The July 2000 Footage

Shealy's best-known piece of evidence is a video attributed to July 8, 2000.

The recording shows a distant, dark, apparently upright figure moving quickly across an open grassy area toward the trees. The subject is visible against the landscape, but too far away to distinguish reliable anatomical details.

Its apparent speed became one of the main points of debate. Supporters argued that moving that way through flooded or difficult terrain would be unusually challenging for a person.

Others questioned whether the footage clearly establishes the water depth, the distance from the camera or the actual speed of the figure.

Watch Dave Shealy's published Skunk Ape video →

In May 2023, the Mid Florida Bigfoot Research Team published a reenactment study attempting to test whether a person could reproduce the movement under comparable conditions.

That effort added another chapter to the video's history, although differences in water levels, vegetation, ground conditions and camera geometry limit how confidently the results can be applied to the original recording.

The video's subject remains unidentified.

Shealy's Skunk Ape Research Headquarters eventually became a tourist attraction as well as a center for his investigations. His role is unusual because he is simultaneously a witness, researcher, promoter and business owner, all within the same local legend.

The Myakka Skunk Ape Photographs: What Is That Creature?

Two photographs show a reddish-haired figure partly concealed behind dense vegetation. Its dark face appears almost ape-like, framed by long hair, with features that look strikingly different from the distant shapes in most alleged Bigfoot photographs.

The subject appears close to the camera. Its face and upper body are visible enough to invite comparisons, yet the photographs still leave important questions unanswered.

Is it a real ape? A costume? An elaborate prop?

In late 2000, these pictures reportedly arrived at the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office with an anonymous letter. They would become two of the most famous and controversial images in Florida Skunk Ape history.

View the original Myakka Skunk Ape photographs →

The Anonymous Letter and the Escaped Orangutan

The letter reportedly described a strange animal visiting a Sarasota County residence. According to cryptozoologist Loren Coleman's May 2001 FATE account, the writer mentioned apples disappearing and disturbances around the property.

The animal apparently returned more than once, prompting the correspondent to photograph it.

But the writer was not claiming to have discovered a new species. The reported concern was that an orangutan might have escaped from captivity and was roaming the neighborhood.

That possibility is especially interesting because the photographs themselves appear to show reddish hair surrounding a dark face, characteristics associated with known orangutans.

There has never been a documented orangutan escape conclusively linked to the Myakka images. Nor has the anonymous letter's writer been reliably identified.

The account nevertheless provides a different perspective on the famous photographs. The person who reportedly supplied them may have been more concerned about a loose exotic animal than a mysterious Florida monster.

Where Did the Myakka Photographs Come From?

The images are frequently described as having been taken in December 2000, but the most familiar dates relate to their mailing and distribution rather than a confirmed time of exposure.

According to Coleman's account, an envelope containing the letter and photographs was postmarked December 22, 2000, and reportedly reached the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office on December 29.

Investigator David Barkasy reportedly obtained a black-and-white copy on January 3, 2001. The images subsequently circulated among cryptozoology researchers and began attracting press coverage.

That chain of events provides a partial history of how the photographs became known. It does not establish who originally took them or what happened at the supposed encounter site.

The name "Myakka Skunk Ape" creates another complication.

The letter reportedly described a property in Sarasota County near Interstate 75. It did not establish that the animal was photographed inside Myakka River State Park, despite the name that eventually became attached to the pictures.

No reliably identified photographer or confirmed camera location has resolved that uncertainty.

Orangutan, Costume or Something Else?

Unlike Doerr's distant 1997 photograph, the Myakka images appear to reveal a recognizable face, shoulders and extensive reddish hair.

Those details helped make the photographs famous. They also gave critics specific features to examine.

The figure's head, facial shape and apparent anatomy have been compared with known orangutans, theatrical costumes and artificial props.

Zoologist Darren Naish examined the images and argued that a fabricated subject was more plausible than an unidentified primate. He questioned aspects of the figure's anatomy while also warning against weak claims that it matched a specific commercial costume or statue.

There is a difference between suggesting that a picture shows a constructed subject and identifying exactly what was used to create it. The latter has not been established conclusively.

Another difficulty is the condition of the images that circulate online.

Many copies have been brightened, enlarged, sharpened or recompressed. Those adjustments may make the figure easier to see, but they can also alter apparent edges and facial details.

An authenticated original negative or earliest-generation photograph, together with a confirmed location and photographer, would be much more informative than another digitally enhanced copy.

Those materials have not been reliably established in the public record.

How the Photographs Captured Public Attention

By February 2001, the photographs and related Skunk Ape claims were receiving newspaper attention. Columnist Steve Otto discussed the mystery in two Tampa Tribune pieces, while the Texas Orange Leader published "X-Files: Alleged 'skunk ape' baffles experts" on February 22.

The photographs remain recognizable more than two decades later, not because their mystery has been solved, but because viewers can still look directly at the reddish-haired figure and disagree about what it depicts.

Are Skunk Ape Sightings Still Reported?

Yes. Reports have continued beyond the celebrated encounters of the twentieth century.

In May 2024, Florida television station WKMG published a review of reported sightings that included comments from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and interviews with Dave Shealy.

The agency acknowledged receiving reports while emphasizing the absence of direct evidence for the creature.

The Skunk Ape remains part of Florida tourism and popular culture, appearing in documentaries, local attractions and continuing eyewitness accounts. Its long history also places it among America's most recognizable regional Bigfoot legends.

The Mystery That Refuses to Leave the Swamp

Florida's Skunk Ape has left an unusually rich paper trail. Newspapers documented a hunt in 1971, legislators proposed protecting the creature in 1978, witnesses reported a cluster of encounters in 1997, and the anonymous Myakka photographs introduced another mystery in 2000.

None of that establishes an unknown ape species living in Florida. But the records preserve something more interesting than a simple collection of monster stories.

They reveal searchers entering the swamp, tourists watching a strange figure from a bus, a fire chief photographing something he suspected was a prank, and an anonymous correspondent who feared an escaped orangutan might be visiting the backyard.

Decades later, the central question remains unanswered: what inspired the encounters that made the Florida Skunk Ape famous?