Tales of Bigfoot in the UK-The Shug Monkey (Suffolk)

The ‘Shug Monkey’ is a curious hairy biped, often said to combine the characteristics of both a large shaggy dog and a huge monkey. Variations on the theme are common throughout the folklore of eastern England, with the Monkey Creatures frequently being confused with their altogether more spectral canine cousin known as Black Shuck.

The Suffolk Shug Monkey, however, has a particular association with Rendlesham Forest. The six square mile Forest, situated some eight miles east of Ipswich, is largely comprised of coniferous plantation, heathland, and wetland. Owned by the Forestry Commission, Rendlesham Forest has long been a magnet for conspiracy theorists and mystery hunters due to its reputation as the ‘British Roswell,’ a title earned following a widely publicized incident in 1980 when US Airmen and locals reported an apparent UFO encounter near the then-USAF base on the edge of the forest.

In 2009 a flurry of reports suggested that some kind of large creature was loose in the Forest. Witness reports and video imagery which surfaced online and in the national media suggested that the creature was a brown bear, and the legend quickly developed a life of its own. It later transpired, however, that this was an elaborately designed internet hoax, set up as part of a viral advertising campaign staged to promote a production by a local theatre company.

However, not all such tales are so easily explained away.

At the end of August in 1992, accountant Brian McDougall and his wife Felicity were camping at Tangham in the heart of the forest. Their tent was pitched immediately adjacent to the tree line, and in the early hours of the morning they were disturbed by a snuffling and grunting coming from outside their tent. Quietly checking, hoping to spy a wild pig or one of the numerous species of deer which inhabit the forest, they saw a huge creature which they initially took to be a skinny bear rooting around their camp-kitchen. Shining a torch on the beast, Brian and his wife were shocked to discover that it was no skinny bear, nor – for that matter – anything else immediately recognisable. The creature reared up onto its hind legs, growled at them, and then shuffled off into the treeline, quickly disappearing from view.

The creature was said to be some seven to eight feet tall and immensely shaggy, with long dark hair covering its whole body. The monster had a curiously hunched appearance, with long powerful looking arms and a face reminiscent of a snouted monkey, such as a baboon. The couple reported the incident to the campsite management, only to be told that similar encounters had been noted by other campers over the past few years. They drew the couple’s attention to the locks on the campsite bins, and reminded them to keep their camp kitchen clean and free of leftover food: precautions similar to those routinely taken in bear-infested regions of the United States of America.

This sighting is similar in some respects to that of a man who claimed to have seen a ten foot long creature in 1956, which he thought resembled a silver-back gorilla