CREATIVE EDITION: Exponent Unsolved investigates the yeti of the Wabash

State Street is a rather foreign participant to the supernatural, but hiding in plain sight, it features its very own campus cryptid. McDonald's customers may be unaware that while they order their limited-time bacon cajun ranch McCrispy, they are secretly under the gaze of a beast that looms just behind them. Several feet away from the McDonald's lies the mural of a beast that may lurk along the banks of the Wabash, perhaps waiting for anyone foolish enough to walk by to become its dinner.

This is the story of those foolish enough; this is the Exponent Unsolved’s investigation of the Yeti of the Wabash.Kennedi Walsh and Wil Courtney walk away form the Davis Ferry Bridge empty handed, but filled with a new sense of purpose.

The mural and the beast

Beside the McDonald's on State Street and behind Town & Gown lies the “Mythic Wabash” mural. The mural depicts a mysterious creature with glowing red eyes, thick shrubbery and ferns growing on it and a tattered cowboy hat. The mural was created by Caleb Martin, director of the Purdue Galleries, in 2010 and was intended to provoke “the imaginations of the community,” according to the Lafayette-West Lafayette website.

"It's really something that has grown from beginning to end,” Martin said on the website. “I never imagined it would get so much attention and so many people would stop by to share their appreciation.”

The origins and identity of the creature are disputed quite heavily.

Kitti Carriker, a local blogger, described the creature as the “Mythic Wabash Man” in 2018, which prompted a response from Martin to identify the creature.

“The title of the mural is “Mythic Wabash” but the character is in fact the “Celery Bog Man,” Martin said on Facebook.

But if the creature hails from celery bog, why is its title “Mythic Wabash?”

Off the coattails of its mysterious origins, the Exponent Unsolved desk was left with a tough choice. Explore the Wabash River or the Celery Bog for its alleged cryptids?

They chose to pursue the Wabash on a Wednesday night, but choosing the Wabash led to a cavalcade of history and lore of not only the river, but of the story of a family whose origins in Tippecanoe County go back nearly 200 years.

The lore

The tale of the Wabash Yeti begins in 1820 with the settling of the Burnett family along the Wabash River in what is now known as Lafayette, Indiana.

The Burnett family was like any typical settler family with high hopes of getting rich in the West.

The father, William, hailed from Boston and was the son of Benedict Burnett.

Benedict, the patriarch, was a man who supported the separation of the colonies from Britain but believed the dumping of perfectly good tea into a harbor was a waste. Burnett decided he didn’t want the precious substance to go to waste and jumped into the harbor in an attempt to drink it all.

Benedict forgot he didn’t know how to swim and drowned in the harbor, leaving William to be raised by his mother Mary, who was embarrassed of his father’s foolish death and wished William was born a girl.

William left his home at 18 after a large fight with his mother where she threw a bread pan at him. He began a career in carpentry, building memorial benches across the greater Boston area.

One day, William was walking past a bench he recently finished when he saw a woman crying on it. He sat beside her and asked why she was sad. Between raspy breaths and as tears fell onto her pale blue apron, she admitted her sorrows.
“My dad died in the massacre,” she said.

William saw this as an opportunity to make a move on an emotionally vulnerable woman and gave her a shoulder to cry on. Once she finished crying, she said her name was Mary and the pair found a church to be married in so William could fix his mommy issues.

In 1792 the couple had their first child, a baby girl they named Annabeth and by 1818, the family had grown to four children: two girls and two boys.

In May of 1818, William heard rumors of gold out west and decided it was time for the family to start a new life. In August they began their journey to the gold-rich hills of California.

Then … disaster struck.

The family’s wagon broke down, causing them to be stranded on an unclaimed section of what is now known as the Wabash River.

Down on their luck and with three children dying of starvation and dysentery, the family began eating dirt.

The Burnett family would sit in a circle every night and eat the cleanest dirt that stuck to the bottoms of their feet.

Until one night when William developed a hungry look in his eyes. His feverish stare fell upon the youngest child, Jericho.

He sprung at his child but tripped and fell on a hard rocklike substance. Mary sprang to her feet to shine a light on the rock to find it was no rock … it was gold.
Within a few months, the family was more rich than they could ever dream of, building a mansion right where they found their gold and funding the building of the surrounding town now known as Lafayette.

Life was peaceful for the Burnett family until one autumn night in 1823.

Now 7-year-old Jericho slept peacefully in his bed until he was awoken by a bright green light and an eerie ringing sound. Jericho awoke his 12-year-old sister Mary and the two went into their backyard and found a large silver saucer landing on their lawn.

Emerging from the unidentified flying object was a tall, hairy figure. His eyes glowed blue and his lanky limbs sloped with an awkward, sheepish shrug.

The children ran into the house screaming, awaking their parents. Startled, William grabbed his bedside rifle and nearly broke the backdoor off its hinges.
The scared and naive creature from another world released a guttural and loud roar, prompting the elder Burnett to fire at the beast. But he missed, hitting the beast’s vessel.

The beast knew now that his ship was ruined and he could never return to his home world. With nowhere to go, he jumped to the nearest escape … a cold and vast river.

He swam and swam until he reached a small piece of brush-covered land in the middle of the river.

The creature shook in fear as he thought about what had just happened to him and this strange new violent place he was in.

This fear soon turned into anger. The creature’s eyes shone a blood red and he began to pull off the brush from the Wabash. With no one around and no way to return home, the beast roared, its shout echoing miles down the river.

The rumors spread like wildfire throughout town; whispers of a beast, of the devil, the unknown.

As the creature built his new home near a bridge, he would feel the eyes of locals peering through bushes trying to catch a glimpse. During these moments he would live up to his name as a violent demon.

On a cold winter day in 1824, the creature was going about his day, weaving together intricate patterns of leaves near a fire when he heard a rustle in the brush.

The creature stood with a rock, ready to throw at the intruder until he saw what emerged.

There was a small human in a pink flowing dress and ringlet pigtails.

From atop her head, she took off an oversized, tattered, pointy cowboy hat, extending it out to the creature.

“I heard you were out here and I didn’t want you to get cold. I’m sorry it’s so beat up, I stole it from my grandparents,” the girl said.

The creature smiled and put on the hat as the girl walked away.

Two uneventful centuries passed for the creator as he went about his days alluding watchers, building new structures and protecting his first love … the river.

On a rainy spring day in 2022, the creature took a hike along the river but stopped in his tracks when he saw a flyer advertising a project that would remove water from his precious river.

The creature became enraged again when he saw a name he hadn’t seen since his arrival … William Burnett VI would be funding the project.

The creature was forced to live in this rage only being able to send signs to local legislators and citizens to stop the projects.

No one saw these signs until the Exponent Unsolved desk arrived at the Davis Ferry Bridge on April 23, 2024.

The Davis Ferry Bridge

The first stop on the investigation was a ferry bridge based deep into the history of Lafayette, known as the “Davis Ferry Bridge.” The bridge, just off of North 9th Street Road, was originally used by a ferry until 1912 when the bridge was built, according to the DHPA Historic Bridge survey.

Today, the bridge is hardly acknowledged, rusted over and mostly hidden from Lafayette, except for those who see it from the neighboring bridge that cars drive across every day.

The Unsolved desk made its way to the entrance of Davis Ferry Park. The investigators, reporter Wil Courtney, assistant digital editor Kennedi Thomas and photographer Ella Moss left their vehicles and walked toward the bridge.

The soil on the small trail was a muddy sludge leading up to the bridge itself. In its dampness, imprints small and large made out the shapes of footprints of unknown origins, ranging from shapes that looked like they came from a bunny to larger sizes that could be a yeti.

The bridge is 540 feet long and its old architecture and departure from civilization made it wholly unique as the investigators walked over it. The only sound they heard was their footsteps or the gentle sound of the slow-moving water.

In the center of the bridge and about 100 feet down were dozens of destroyed sticks, tree stumps, leaves and an entire tree stuck to one of the legs of the bridge. Lafayette has been under several flood warning watches over the past month, the likely origin of much of the mess.

An entire tree making its way into the river is certainly suspicious though. Flood water could have uprooted a weak tree, but perhaps this one was torn out of its base by a beast with almost supernatural strength.

As they made their way farther down the bridge, they came across two drawings etched into the ground. The drawings were near the edge of the bridge and stood alone, with no other marks significant enough for the investigators to notice.
The drawings were a pride flag and several feet above it, a UFO.

These drawings could have been nothing, etched from college students or local residents.

Or they could be hints at the origins of the yeti. Is the yeti a gay alien? A “gaylien?”
The investigators reached the end of the bridge and made their way back, coating Courtney’s Converse in the process. In one last attempt, he made a hooping howl to the ancient forest spirit, but got no response.

Shoes ruined and more investigation ahead, Moss, Thomas and Courtney had more questions than answers swirling through their minds.

While Courtney and Moss drove, Thomas sat in the car and thought … puzzling together the pieces of how the origins of the bridge connect with the tale of the Yeti of the Wabash, whether it was true or not.

Aviary assault at Launch

The Exponent Unsolved team made way for their next stop, the “Wabash Island.” Behind the Launch apartment parking lot is a steep drop-off straight into the Wabash, filled with jagged rocks, trees and thick shrubbery down to its small beach.

The desk went in pursuit to reach the “island,” but was completely unaware of the steep drop off. There was almost no visible viewpoint to see the island, but there was one very strange viewpoint of the Wabash itself.

A park bench stood solemnly between a cutout in the tree line, giving way to the slow, rushing water of the Wabash on one side, the skyline of Lafayette on the other and a hazy dark blue sky filling the background of a rising orange moon.

But looking at the base of the park bench, it was clear something happened to make the cutout between the trees.

The soil was uprooted and jagged, with dozens of loose rocks and a shattered pipe still in the dirt leading to the edge of the cutout and the steep drop.

The investigators stood at the edge of the lookout, watching as the moon turned red as it rose from behind the trees in the horizon. But what they should have been looking at was their surroundings.

The sound of birds trilling loomed from the surrounding skies, not an unfamiliar chirp after being in nature for an hour now, but worrisome nonetheless as it grew louder and more aggressive.

Two birds were swooping beside each other before they dove hard into tree branches above Moss, just above her head, and then swerved away and flew off into the distance.

Though nature attacked, something far worse hung behind the team, especially for one member.

As the Unsolved desk began gathering themselves after the encounter, they turned and noticed two people behind them.

Moss and Thomas shrugged it off, not thinking anything of it, but Courtney froze.
What he looked at was far worse than any foul beast.

Behind him was a woman that made a chill run up his spine from memories he wished he could forget.

“Okay, let’s go,” Courtney said, rushing to his Prius.

Brown Street Overlook

On the final stretch of the investigation, nightfall had entirely taken over the town, leaving only the shine of Courtney’s flashlight to guide the team to their destination.

Hidden behind piles of rubble and construction on Brown Street is the Brown Street Overlook, an unsuspecting platform decorated with hearts and initials etched into the cool stone railing.

A typical traveler would view this destination as nothing but a dead end, a creepy trail with certainly no remnants of a mythical creature.

The investigators had almost given up, walking slowly down a forgotten trail to see if maybe there was a sliver of mythicality hiding somewhere.

The end of the trail was simply a patch of grass and the exterior of the Purdue Crew Boathouse.

But below the image of the warehouse were four creatures staring directly at the desk. Resting in the patch, lit only by streetlights with a hazy orange hue, sat four bunnies.

Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe it was a sign from the Yeti.

Or maybe, it was a lot of bunnies all in one place for no reason at all.

Conclusions

As Courtney drove back to his apartment from the Brown Street Overlook, he couldn’t scratch the feeling off the back of his neck that he hadn’t yet left the gaze of the Yeti.

But why? Something about the strange number of bunnies at the lookout didn’t sit right, sure, but that was all, no?

He parked his Prius and stepped out of the car, walking to the door when he looked to his right and was met with a set of eyes, albeit much lower and not nearly as red.

Right next to the entrance of the apartment was a bunny, staring right at him, unmoving and unblinking.

Maybe the Yeti of the Wabash isn’t real. It probably isn’t.

Maybe the Celery Bog Man was the real monster they should have been looking for, but perhaps that was also just a shot in the dark.

Regardless of the reality of these hypothetical beasts, the Wabash River revealed a few of its secrets on that Wednesday night.

Maybe the real Yeti of the Wabash were the friends they made along the way.

About Exponent Unsolved

Exponent Unsolved is the newest desk at the Purdue Exponent, organized by assistant digital editor Kennedi Thomas and staff reporter Wil Courtney. Exponent Unsolved is on the front lines of reporting the strange, mysterious and most importantly, unsolved happenings on and off campus.
For the investigation of the Yeti of the Wabash, Exponent Unsolved was joined by photographer Ella Moss.