The Kinderhook Creature and Beyond: A Personal Reminiscence

by Bruce G. Hallenbeck

Bigfoot stalks the Hudson Valley. The little town of Kinderhook, New York is steeped in history and scary stories. Near the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, it’s where Martin Van Buren is buried and what inspired Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow. Kinderhook residents should be familiar with spooky tales of headless horsemen, ghosts, and fairies. But in the 1980s, the town became home for a new type of fright – the Kinderhook Creature, a bigfoot-type hominid that terrorized families and was reported all over the county and beyond. Bruce G. Hallenbeck’s The Kinderhook Creature and A Personal Reminiscence is the story of those times, delving into the history of its author and his numerous paranormal and cryptozoological encounters, as well as those of his family and other residents of the.Kinderhook area. The encounters within these pages include the “Kinderhook Blob,” UFO sightings, ghosts, “little people” and much, much more.

182 pages, Paperback

Published October 24, 2022

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The town of Kinderhook, New York is where The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was born, it turns out that Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman isn’t the only supernatural or mysterious local in the area. The Kinderhook Creature and Beyond: A Personal Reminiscence by Bruce G. Hallenbeck details the unusual phenomena that his hometown, his family, and himself experience in a very interesting start to the 1980s.

The term “high strangeness” truly applies to the incidents and events that Hallenbeck relates from his life, that of his family, and from others who have contacted him over the years but specially during the early 1980s. The first half of the book covers such unique phenomena as ghosts, supernatural entities like fairies or something similar, and UFOs all happening in the Hudson River valley but several on Hallenbeck’s family property that he and or members of his family encountered or witnessed. But Hallenbeck also relates similar incidents that have been reported to him over the years as he investigates all types of strange occurrences over the decades. The second half of the book concentrates on the sightings and vocalizations of sasquatch that locals began calling the ‘Kinderhook Creature’ even though several times more than one was witnessed at the same time. Hallenbeck himself never saw ‘the creature’, however his grandmother and cousin had multiple encounters which both wished they had never had. During the peak years of the creature’s time in the area numerous people outside of Hallenbeck’s family had their own incidents which eventually came Hallenbeck’s way, adding to his collection of everything he could find to figure out what was going on. Overall, this 180-page book is an easy-to-read account of the strange 1980s in a small town in New York state.

The Kinderhook Creature and Beyond: A Person Reminiscence relates strange times in the 1980s in not only Kinderhook, New York but all along the Hudson River valley mostly from the personal recollections of Bruce G. Hallenbeck along with reports from his family and complete strangers.

[Christine Best · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book interesting for the stories of high strangeness told by the author, in particular the Kinderhook Blob and the Digging Man, but if you’re interested in folklore, legend or the paranormal you would enjoy it. Not a long read but thoughtfully put together by someone with an obvious love of the area.