Back in the early 60’s there was a story going around about a Bigfoot that attacked a young girl, and her mother while they were driving in a rural section of Monroe, Michigan. A friend of mine who is currently retired but has many years of law enforcement, recently went behind  the scenes, to dig up more of what actually happened. Here is his story, and what he found out.

I believe she is referring to the “Monroe Monster,” encounter that took place down there in Frenchtown Twp, Monroe County in the mid 1960s. I did extensive background on the event and provided Loren Coleman a photo copy of the vehicle she was driving that day.
I pulled in some favors and had a historical archivist pull up all the news articles of the case and I learned more the episode than I previously thought.
16-year-old Christine Van Acker was driving while accompanied by her mother. She was a new driver and back in those days parents would routinely take their children out to some remote back country road and teach them how to drive.
It was a nice Cheverolet, but it had no air condition and it was a hot humid evening with storms threatening all day so, leaving the windows even at dusk wouldn’t provide that much relief. In fact, it stormed terribly after the incident which prevented searchers from locating foot tracks. Word of this spread like a common cold and everyone from miles around turned out to hunt and find Bigfoot.
As a new young driver something came across the field into the headlights and both girls screamed. The first thing young Christine does when faced with this startling encounter is to lay on the breaks. She did and it stalls with the windows down.
The Bigfoot screams and reaches inside grabbing the terrified girl jerking the left side of her face toward the open driver door window where she is slammed against the door post thus, the black or reddening of the eye area.
The two hysterical women are left on the dark gravel roads screaming hysterical as the Bigfoot wonders off through some neighboring yards. The county sheriff’s department finally received calls of gunshots and bedlam and take their time getting out there to the scene of the women in the car.
Either some distant neighbors heard the commotion or were worked by the animal intruding on their land and yards the girls make their way down the road to the grand parent’s house.
I learned that before this incident there about 12-13 similar incidents in Monroe County and that authorities struggled to keep them secret.
In one news article a state police trooper was quoted as saying they tried to keep it quiet.
There was similar attack on a young girl before the Van Aker incident in the southern county area near the Ohio stateline.
The entire scare lasted for some time but finally died out when the state police put her and her mother to a lie detector examination and determined she was lying and newspapers published that. The problem with the cover-up was that a radio personality from Ohio bought and paid for an independent lie detector test and the examiner was trained and certified by the institution that the state trooper was and he stated the women were truthful.
Later somebody steals a large caveman statue from some recreation park and the sheriff’s department dispatch deputies to pick it up and bring it in to the department until it could be claimed by the owner. One of those deputies took the stolen caveman and it re-appeared out in the field where the Christine Van Acker event took place.
It was a real Mayberry RFD comedy act where authorities struggled to deny the event and even took part in creating some ridicule and humor. Please share this others on this mail list so they understand what I am referring to.