A 35-foot-long creature allegedly spotted along the St. Johns River in Astor sparked widespread rumors of a mysterious beast lurking in Central Florida waters. Boaters who encountered the so-called St. Johns River Monster described it as grey, horned, four-legged, and with an appetite for hyacinths. Witness accounts from 1953 reported seeing the creature both in the river and on land, with sightings ranging from Lake Monroe up to Lake George.
Buck Dillard, a longtime Astor resident and river guide, was the first to report seeing the monster while taking a Missouri couple fishing in Lake Dexter. “He looked at us for about a minute, then he went under the water and swam underwater away from us,” Dillard told The Orlando Sentinel. “We waited about two hours in that same spot to see if he would come up again, but he didn’t.”
The creature sightings spread beyond the initial location, with similar reports emerging from Blue Creek and the Astor Bridge among several other locations throughout the region. Homer Wright, then-president of the Astor Chamber of Commerce, lent credibility to the accounts. “That thing has been seen by many reliable persons,” Wright said. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if in the wilds of Florida, there weren’t some creature like that monster.”
Several news outlets reported a noticeable decrease in hyacinths along the river during 1953, which further fueled the myths surrounding the monster’s alleged plant-eating habits. The creature was theorized by some witnesses to be a prehistoric animal that had somehow survived to modern times. Reports of the beast’s appearance varied slightly among witnesses, but consistently described it as a large, grey, four-legged creature with distinctive horns.
The monster sightings reached as far north as Jacksonville, where one woman described encountering an “ugly thing” that was pink “like a boiled shrimp.” A Kissimmee resident also reported an encounter with a similar creature. The widespread nature of the reports across multiple Central Florida waterways added to the mystery and public fascination with the alleged St. Johns River Monster during that period.