Could Citizens of This Indiana Town Have Seen a 500-Pound Turtle?

The Beast of Busco emerged one day out of the blue. A farmer named Oscar Fulk spotted it in a seven-acre lake on his northern Indiana property in 1898: a massive turtle, Fulk swore, the size of a small dinosaur. When he ran to tell others in his small town of Churubusco, no one believed him, and the beast disappeared for 50 years. In July 1948, two men, Ora Blue and Charley Wilson, were fishing in the same lake when they saw an implausibly giant turtle gliding across the water’s surface.

The two would later describe the creature as a massive snapping turtle with a spiked shell the size of a large dining table. They estimated the turtle must have weighed over 500 pounds and went off to tell Gale Harris, who now owned the lake and the farmland around it. Eight months later, national newspapers finally picked up the story, and the turtle gained its epithet, the “Beast of Busco.” Waves of wonder-seekers descended on the town and its lake. Harris swore to them all that he’d capture the monster or bust—and he very nearly did the latter. He conceived and executed a variety of colorful attempts at trapping the turtle, sending in divers and even draining the lake. Each gambit failed, and together they almost led to his bankruptcy. Though the beast was never seen or heard from again, to this day you’ll find locals happy to argue that the monster was real.

On the other hand, historians have done their best to arrive at less mythological explanations for this elusive creature. Some believe the turtle was a case of mistaken identity; specifically, it could plausibly have been an alligator snapping turtle, the largest species of freshwater turtle on the continent, typically found throughout the southeastern United States. The possibility is appealing, as the species fits the description from Blue and Wilson: Alligator snapping turtles have large shells with three rows of spikes, giving them a spooky, prehistoric look. The species can also grow huge—up to 250 pounds, though not up to 500.

Yet the question of whether the animals could have ever inhabited Indiana presents its own sub-debate. Some natural historians say alligator turtles may have lived in far southwest Indiana, the northernmost band of their habitat in the southeastern U.S. And some modern-day sightings support this notion, as when a live specimen appeared in 1991 near the White River in Morgan County. The state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) considers the alligator snapping turtle to be one of the state’s endangered species.

But other experts aren’t so sure. Nate Engbrecht, herpetologist at Indiana’s DNR, says a recent study examining likely habitats in southwest Indiana found nothing, while Bruce Kingsbury, a biologist and director of the Environmental Resources Center at Purdue University Fort Wayne, considers it “very unlikely” that the animals were ever in the state. As for that 1991 instance recorded by the DNR, Kingsbury says: “It’s more likely that it was a pet that had been released, based on its growth patterns,” adding, “There are no reliable records showing the species ever existed in Indiana.”

Furthermore, the species is reliant on swamps and large rivers—environments you’d be hard-pressed to find in Indiana, even 100 years ago. And since then, the state has lost about 85 percent of its wetlands.

What seems most likely—if less thrillingly monstrous—is that the real Beast of Busco was a spiny soft-shell turtle, or even a common snapping turtle. “A really big snapping turtle might be around 30 pounds,” Kingsbury says. “It doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you see it, it is pretty impressive.” He notes it’s common for people to miscalculate a reptile or amphibian’s size, especially if they’re afraid of the animals. “I’ve gotten phone calls from people saying they have captured a giant turtle that looks about 100 pounds,” he says. When he weighed the animal in question, he found it was just a regular 30-pound adult turtle.

Yet while it isn’t supernatural, the common snapping turtle deserves our attention as much as any cryptid does, not least because it’s now more at risk than ever. In 2021, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed a bill removing environmental safeguards by recategorizing certain of the state’s wetlands into a less protected class. This move left many wetlands newly open to development, resulting in the swift loss of around 75 percent of the wetlands covered by the new bill, according to the Hoosier Environmental Council, an environmental advocacy group. On top of these encroachments, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that federal protections for wetlands under the Clean Water Act will no longer apply to isolated wetlands.

“The protection of isolated wetlands has been basically removed at this point. So, the losses continue,” Kingsbury says.

In further dim news for the snapping turtle, geoengineers have not yet found a way to replicate a wetland through artificial structures. And if you try to relocate animals from an existing wetland, Kingsbury says, the creatures often can’t cope. Working with copperbelly water snakes, Kingsbury found that they wouldn’t hibernate in the new land they had been moved to. “The snakes would instead travel back to the old remnants of the prior habitat.”

In the end, the true story behind the Beast of Busco reminds us that reptiles are less fearsome than people might assume. Churubusco, now known as Turtle Town, USA, has taken that lesson to heart. Each June, locals and tourists gather to commemorate the Beast of Busco—now affectionately called Oscar, possibly after the first man to own the lake—at Turtle Days, where folks enjoy a fish fry, a parade and the crowning of Miss Turtle Days. People even bring their pet turtles, which get to spend the afternoon hanging out together, doing turtle stuff. The Whitley County Historical Museum still has a few items from the original sightings on display, including gear used in the dives way back when Gale Harris was looking for the beast.

Speaking of which, it feels only fair to give Harris the final word. Back in 1948, he did eventually capture one turtle from the lake. It weighed all of 14 pounds. The farmer assured reporters at the time that the animal must have been a descendant of the great turtle, since the monster he’d spotted before had a head “as big as three fists.”

Michelle Mastro | READ MORE