Monkey Boy of Lake George

The year was 1990. My brother and I were canoeing on Lake George in New York. As we paddled down a small stretch in the water, we came into an area where enormous boulders and cliffs covered each side of the bank. That’s when something caught my eye about 30 yards away on the opposing bank. It looked like a small man standing upright with its arms at his sides. But it had no clothes and was covered in light brown fur. It was also extremely skinny, like what an adolescent boy would look.

It was staring off down the river, looking away from us. My brother immediately stopped chatting, so I knew he had seen it, too. We just sat there, watching it as the current slowly carried us closer. Suddenly, the creature, or whatever it was, turned its head and looked directly at us, as if it had known we were watching it all along. I must say, this have me a chill. The features on this thing was like one I have never seen before. It had enormous yellow eyes — biggest eyes I’ve ever seen on a mammal ever. The nose was like you’d see on a meerkat or lemur, and it had this big, crazed grin on its face.

With the sun setting and dusk rapidly approaching, I couldn’t tell if the fur had markings that just looked like it was “grinning” at us or if that’s what it really was doing. It was quite eerie, let me tell you.

This five-foot-tall creature, standing at the edge of the bank, with its head cocked over its left shoulder, just SMILING at us. We must’ve stared at one another for over ten minutes when suddenly without any sort of warning, this creature slowly turned and began climbing sloth-like up an old pine tree to its right. When it reached the first and biggest branch, it scooted into the crook of it and perched there a minute to give us one last icy stare.

The current had drifted us past it at this point, so we paddled back around, all the while staring back at this thing with wonder. The creature eventually broke the stare and bent its chin down into itself, almost becoming invisible. The setting sun made everything look dark on the bank and we had to strain our eyes and probe the darkness to try to figure out where exactly the creature sat. Its fur blended perfectly with the surrounding tree. You wouldn’t even have known it was there if you hadn’t seen the face first.

Tired from paddling and feeling a bit apprehensive about what we had just witnessed, my brother and I opted to head home. So we did, but I must say this: a couple of weeks later, I caught some news that two girls who had been swimming at Lake George saw something they called “Monkey Boy” jumping from tree to tree. I wonder if it was the same creature we saw… or there is perhaps a whole colony of these things living among us?