Florida is already a place where the strange can feel completely believable.

Alligators disappear beneath black water. Panthers move through forests without most people ever seeing them. Wild monkeys live in parts of the state. Burmese pythons have established themselves in the Everglades. And once you get far enough into places like Big Cypress, the highways, subdivisions and theme parks begin to feel very far away.

So maybe it makes sense that Florida would have its own Bigfoot.

They call it the Skunk Ape.

For decades, people across the state have reported seeing something large, upright and covered in hair moving through the swamps, forests and mangroves. Some witnesses describe a creature six or seven feet tall. Others have claimed eight feet or more. And almost all of the classic Skunk Ape stories seem to include one additional detail that separates Florida’s monster from its better-known cousin in the Pacific Northwest.

The smell.

Rotten eggs. Sewage. Decaying vegetation. A dead animal.

One witness compared it to a filthy wet dog.

And during the 1970s, it sometimes seemed as though the thing was everywhere.

One of the strangest encounters came in January 1974, when Richard Lee Smith claimed his car struck something large and hairy along U.S. 27 near the Everglades. Smith said the creature got back up and moved toward him. Even stranger, other motorists reported seeing a large figure in the same area that night, with some saying it appeared to be limping.

A few years later, the Skunk Ape story came frighteningly close to home for one family in Key Largo.

In the summer of 1977, Charles Stoeckman and his thirteen-year-old son encountered something enormous near the mangroves behind their house. Charles described a hairy figure, an awful smell and strange activity that continued around the property for days.

Eventually, Charles’s wife Leslie woke in the middle of the night and saw the silhouette of something massive outside the bedroom window.

Police became involved, and the family became frightened enough that Leslie eventually took the children and left Key Largo.

By then, the Skunk Ape had become such a Florida phenomenon that it even reached the state legislature. Representative Hugh Paul Nuckolls introduced legislation aimed at protecting an unidentified “anthropoid or humanoid animal” if one were ever discovered. His second attempt, House Bill 58 in 1978, became known as the Florida Skunk Ape Protection Act.

It never became law.

But the legend certainly survived.

Dave Shealy and Big Cypress

No one has become more closely associated with the modern Skunk Ape than Dave Shealy.

Shealy grew up around Ochopee and Big Cypress and says he first encountered the creature as a child. Over the decades that followed, searching for it became a major part of his life.

His family’s Trail Lakes Campground eventually became home to the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters, where visitors can find footprint casts, photographs, newspaper clippings and plenty of Skunk Ape history.

Shealy has photographed what he believes was the creature, recorded one of the best-known Skunk Ape videos and even developed his own unusual methods for attracting one.

Apparently, Skunk Apes like lima beans.

At least according to Dave.

The Myakka Photographs

Then, in December 2000, two photographs arrived at the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office along with an anonymous letter.

The images showed a large, reddish, primate-like creature standing among palmettos.

Interestingly, the woman who sent them did not claim she had photographed Bigfoot. She thought an orangutan might be loose near her home.

Those images became known as the Myakka Skunk Ape photographs, and they remain some of the strangest photographs associated with any American cryptid.

An escaped primate?

Someone in a costume?

Or something else?

Nobody has ever definitively answered that question.

Is the Skunk Ape Real?

There are plenty of possible explanations for the sightings.

Florida black bears can stand upright. Exotic primates have escaped into the state. Darkness, distance and expectations can turn familiar animals into something much stranger.

And after decades of searching, there is still no confirmed Skunk Ape body, skeleton or DNA evidence.

But people keep reporting them.

And that is what makes the story so much fun.

Maybe the Skunk Ape is a collection of bears, escaped animals, old stories and honest mistakes that slowly became one great Florida monster.

Or maybe there really is something wandering around Big Cypress.

In Episode 24 of The Southern Blueprint Podcast, we go deep into the sightings, police encounters, photographs, folklore and people behind Florida’s answer to Bigfoot.

Listen to “The Skunk Ape: Florida’s Bigfoot in the Swamp” now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Go Deeper on Patreon

And if you want to go deeper after the episode, I put together a Skunk Ape Podcast Companion for members of The Hidden Pine Lodge.

We take a closer look at Dave Shealy, his alleged sightings, footprint casts, famous video, the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters, the Myakka photographs and several strange details that did not make the final episode.

The Hidden Pine Lodge is $4/month and also includes our private Discord, Book Club, Bird Club and additional Southern Blueprint content.

And after you listen, let me know:

Are you a skeptic — or do you think there really might be something out there in the Florida swamp?