Historical Witness

Bobby Ford

Arkansas1971
Location archiveArkansas
Profile overview

At a glance

Encounter period1971
RegionArkansas
Direct visualYes
Repeat / ongoingRepeat activity around house reported
Co-witness / corroborationYes – brother and hunting companion; wife separate
Primary sourceEncyclopedia of Arkansas / contemporary press
Exact locators1
Media / transcript records0
Encounter & observations

The encounter

Context

Rural resident / hunter context; outdoor experience: Moderate.

1971-05-02 · Fouke, Arkansas

Fouke 1971

Household and companion reports that became the Fouke Monster case, with contemporary press and law-enforcement response.

Open case →

What the witness reported

LOC-0007

Source-linked observations — LOC-0007

  • ~7 ft
  • ~3 ft chest width
  • upright locomotion
  • very fast movement

Original source ↗ Open locator →

Sources & changes

Key source passages

LOC-0007

Texarkana Gazette original story reproduced in The Fouke Monster: A look at the media

Ford described the reported creature as about 7 ft tall and about 3 ft across the chest, moving upright and very fast.

Exact locator → Original source ↗

Source chronology

1971

Reported encounter period

Arkansas. ~7 ft man-like hairy creature; rapid movement; physical confrontation claimed

Open source/record →
1971-05-03

Recovered source

Firsthand/source record

2001 retrospective journalism

Recovered source

Firsthand/source record

Changes over time

Stable / recurrent

  • Multiple source layers are present; source-by-source comparison should remain chronological.
Research assessment

Research assessment

Corroboration & evidence

Reported co-witness / corroboration

Yes – brother and hunting companion; wife separate. This is not coded as independent testimony unless the co-witness's own source is recovered.

Evidence mentioned in source matrix

Hospital treatment; sheriff search; tracks/scratches reported. Evidence authenticity and testimony are evaluated separately.

Documentary strengths

  • Already qualified for the Observatory's public baseline witness corpus.
  • Recoverable source URL is preserved.
  • 1 exact source locator record(s) currently recovered.
  • Multiple source layers are available for chronology comparison.
  • The source matrix codes a reported direct visual.

Limitations / controls

  • Reported co-witness information is not automatically independent corroboration.

What would improve the record

  • Recover the co-witness's own statement where possible.
Source-linked testimony

Witness dossier

Only explicitly recorded relationships appear here. Links and recordings document attributed material; they do not independently corroborate an encounter.

Documentation at a glance

Linked media records
1
Named media providers
1
Associated case records
1

These are documented catalog links, not a confidence score or a count of independent corroborating accounts.

Associated cases

Testimony and related media

Source-backed account summaries

No source-verified narrative summaries are currently available for the linked media. Witness claims will not be reconstructed from titles or search snippets.

Media source audit

Bobby Ford — Groups source document
Rights: Rights status unresolved; Transcript: Transcript status unresolved; Original publisher/source ↗

Documented source chronology

No exact publication dates are established in the currently linked canonical media. The chronology remains unresolved rather than inferred.

Research limits

Chronology, verification and source interpretation remain governed by each canonical record. No additional claim is inferred from the relationship graph.