This day in history: ‘Hair-covered human-like creatures’ seen in Montana. Bum the cat, pet at Spokane’s Great Northern station, disappeared

From 1976: Strange and alarming reports of “hair-covered human-like creatures” and eerie airborne lights were coming out of Montana – and the Cascade County sheriff was taking those things seriously.

“We figure there are quite a few people that have stories to tell and won’t because of fear of ridicule,” said the sheriff, who claimed to have watched some of the hovering lights himself for two hours.

Two young women claimed to have seen three hairy creatures emerge from some brush and walk into a field near Great Falls. One of the women fired a rifle over their heads, and the creatures fled back into the brush.

The creatures were described as between 5 and 7 feet tall, and resembling the elusive Sasquatch.

Nobody knew whether the weird lights and the weird creatures were related.

From 1926: “Bum,” a black-and-white kitten, made the front page of the Spokane Daily Chronicle because the cat had been “bumming” train rides for over a week.

Bum was a “pet” of the workers at the Great Northern station in Spokane, but the cat mysteriously disappeared one day.

After several days, the train men had given up hope of finding Bum again. But then, when a train pulled in from Leavenworth, they heard a familiar meow.

They found Bum in one of the coaches. They believed the cat had probably made several trips between Bonners Ferry and Leavenworth over a week’s time.

A Great Northern engineer took the cat home, to keep it from further excursions.