THE PHANTOM KANGAROOS OF CHICAGO
Sightings of Kangaroos in the United States has been a continuing phenomena in the last 100 years, with most of the cases being in the Midwest. Many times the creatures exhibit unusual behavior, from extreme aggressiveness to apparition-like qualities, including disappearing in front of a large group of people or simply hopping thru a wall. Kangaroos & wallabies are obviously not an aboriginal animal, so why are and what are people seeing?
Wisconsin was the first state to have phantom kangaroo sightings in the late 1800’s, but they were soon apparently all over the mid-west and beyond. The most famous out-of-place-kanagroo story is probably the 1934 Tenneesee Killer Kangaroo tale, where the ghostly, lightning-fast creature was not only hostile around humans but allegedly attacked and devoured a couple geese, rabbits and police dogs.
The creature(s) seemed especially found of Chicago in the 1970’s, with multiple sightings in the years of 1974 and 1975. The beginning of the Chicago sightings occurred in the early morning of October 18, 1974, when two police officers were called by a local man who claimed a kangaroo was sitting on his front porch. When they arrived and nothing could be found, the police laughed the whole matter off, and headed back on patrol. A few hours later, the police actually found the 5-foot tall kangaroo in question in an alley, downtown. When one the officers decided it would be wise to handcuff the cornered animal, the kangaroo proceeded to punch, kick and scream at the officers until they were knocked down, then escaped and seemed to simply vanish.
Chicago sightings continued until the summer of July 1975, but in that short time kangaroos were seen in Oak Park, Schiller Woods, Cook County, hopping down Belmont street downtown, and as far south as Decatur. Kangaroo “flaps” continued throughout Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Iowa, and Tennessee. Some investigators have even went as far to say that phantom kangaroos may be responsible for the New Jersey Devil and Chupacabra legends.
In these cases, the first thing authorities are driven to do is call all the surrounding zoos, circuses and collectors to take any “missing or escaped kangaroos” into consideration. They are almost always told that all local kangaroos & wallabies are accounted for, so the phantom marsupial sightings are just filed under the always popular “mass hysteria” group.
As for myself, I’m pretty sure Charles Fort could sum all this up in one word, perhaps.
Teleportation?
