The Bardin Booger

As mythological creatures go, the "Bardin Booger" is unfortunately at the bottom of the ladder of success. It has a stupid name - doesn't have a cool ring to it like "The Loch Ness Monster" or "The Abominable Snowman". And unlike Nessie, Yeti, and Sarasota's Skunk Ape, we don't even have an alleged photo of it. Sucks. Even the Weekly World News, who escalated "Bat Boy" into national fame, tried and failed to turn the Bardin Booger into a thing.

So what do we have? Well... some guy in Bardin, FL said he saw a Bigfoot-like creature, way too tall and huge to have been a misidentified macaque. It has been described as having nine toes on each foot, which is a bit improbable but I think I can flog my suspension of disbelief into accepting it.

Some versions of the story have the critter carrying a lantern, though.

Hunh. Well now. Hmmmm. *cough*

If that's the case, then this is likely not a cryptid but a feral human, perhaps. (The attentive reader may be aware I once toyed with authoring a book on the subject of feral humans, and may toy with it again one day, and was a guest on Art Bell's Coast To Coast show discussing said phenomenon.)

After the first sighting of the Bardin Booger became public, some other guy emerged and said he saw it too. And after the media picked up on the story, suddenly everybody and their brother popped up to get on the bandwagon and report a sighting. I can forgive denizens of the 70s and 80s for not having a camera on them, but in this modern space-age smartphone world, by now I would have expected some sort of blurry digital approximation of a blob that could be our man.

That hasn't stopped locals from merchandising the concept to death, of course. I applaud their efforts, but I'd rather have a Skunk Ape t-shirt instead, thanks.