The Skunk Ape is the name given to a cryptid similar to a Sasquatch except local to the American southeast. Sightings of this beast date back to the mid-1800s in Arkansas when mountain men in the Ozarks reported witnessing them. Reports of the period say the creature is gigantic in stature, hairy, with an incredible stride able to quickly flee when sighted. Footprints found measure an incredible 14 inches long.

Then, in 1974, the old myth was brought into the present when multiple sighting occurred in suburban Dade County in Florida. Witnesses described a large, ape-like creature walking on two legs. Its eyes glowed and it had a stench on it that induced nausea to anyone downwind. Plenty of photos have been presented over the years and most easily explained away as misidentifications or outright hoaxes.

Then, in 2000, an anonymous woman in Florida mailed two photographs to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department. The photographs were accompanied by a letter from the woman where she reported that there was an ape loose in the area. She wrote that on three different nights, this ape crept into her backyard and took apples that she had left on her back porch. One of those nights she photographed it before it hurried out of the area. The woman didn’t know anything about a Skunk Ape, but was convinced it was a huge, escaped orangutan. The photo above is a close-up of one of the photos. What do you think? Experts are unsure but are for certain that whatever it is, it was really in her backyard!