Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller
Date: August 7, 2022
Crypto Zoologists are very familiar with this creature. This small Indiana town of 1,700 considers itself Turtletown USA and to celebrate its lake horror, holds a Turtle Days Festival every June. The actual story of this cryptoid (which is often called the Beast of Busco) is much more intriguing than the current statues of the alleged giant prehistoric turtle displayed at the city park.
Rosie and I were driving back from Michigan where we celebrated our 40th anniversary with the kids. Churubusco was along State Route 33, so I had to check out the creature legend. Locals named him Oscar the Monster Turtle, after farmer Oscar Fulk who owned the land that included the seven-acre lake. Fulk spotted the turtle in 1898. The creature was spotted again in 1948 by two adults fishing at Fulk Lake. Several other adults saw the giant turtle as well. Witnesses describe the turtle as being prehistoric and as large as a car or boat. The eyewitness reporting’s became a national news story. The community was so frightened that they had the small lake drained but found no giant turtle. Today, locals believe that Oscar resurfaces during rainy nights to eat geese and ducks. All the witnesses are long gone. To me, this has the makings of an urban legend, but the town embraces their history of this giant prehistoric turtle. The Turtle Days Festival is the longest running continuous festival in all of Indiana. The Fulk Lake Horror sort of reminds me of two other crypids, one reported in Waynesville, Ohio and one reported in Loveland, Ohio.
