The boy later told Western Illinois University researchers that his report was a hoax "to tease Mr. M and have fun with an out of town newsman.
"[citation needed] A search party including WWKI's news director Rick Rainbow[3] explored the area later that day, and reported observing an "apelike"[2] creature standing in an abandoned building near McDaniel's house.
[5] Two days later, a day after McDaniel was interviewed on local radio, the local press reported that police were called to investigate reports of gunfire and arrested five young men from out of town who had come to Enfield in order to photograph the creature, carrying shotguns and rifles "for protection", the men having claimed to have sighted the creature.
There were earlier articles in the Carmi Times,[1] and an updated summary of the events appeared in Pennsylvania's Reading Eagle in August 1973.
[3] After the arrest of the five men who had arrived to hunt the creature, residents of Enfield expressed fears that press coverage would lead to further "monster hunters", who might inadvertently shoot citizens or livestock.
[3] A few days after the event, United Press International quoted an anthropology student who suggested that the creature may have been a wild ape, noting that such animals had been reported throughout the Mississippi area since 1941.
[2] In 1978, researchers at Western Illinois University headed by David L. Miller investigated and analyzed the incident, publishing it as a case study in social contagion.
The researchers found there were no more than three firsthand reports that had subsequently been exaggerated by news stories and local gossip into an "epidemic.