By Stephen D. Bowling

It was after midnight when Mayor Frankie Noble’s phone rang for the first time on June 15, 1985. Half asleep, he answered.  The caller on the other end said in a hurried tone, “An awful-looking monster is being observed on Panbowl Lake.”

He hung up convinced it was just another prank caller, but this time there was no Prince Albert in a can and refrigerator-running questions.  Just a straightforward statement informing him that something had been seen on the lake.  Noble later said he was sure someone was “pulling his leg.”

As he tried to settle back in, another call shook the night.  Then another and another, reporting basically the same thing.

After the tenth or eleventh call, he got dressed and headed out to see for himself.

It was a short walk to the edge of the water.

The phone at the Jackson Police Station had kept pace with the rings at the mayor’s house.  The night dispatcher had recorded many calls from Lakeside residents who had seen the strange sight.  Officers were dispatched to Panbowl Road and Lakeside Drive to look for the creature.

Callers reported that the strange creature “crept or swam along the shoreline of the lake, hardly making any noise at all.” The creature’s eyes, “widely-spaced like a cat’s eyes,” seemed to “reflect the distant street and security lights as the creature surveyed its surroundings.”     

The late 1970s and early 1980s saw a rash of unexplained sightings throughout much of eastern Kentucky, including in Breathitt County, where reports described strange and unusual lights in the sky and flying, engineless objects. These sightings were reported by “reputable people” who were not known to “exaggerate or to enhance stories.”

Mayor Noble and a swarm of JPD officers were looking for another possible sighting of something inexplicable.

 Noble jumped into a motorboat and headed up the lake, and then he spotted it.

On the side of the lake were the two large, glowing eyes that the witnesses had reported.  Noble said they were bright and “shining.”

He slowed the engine for just a second and then drove on straight toward the creature.  As he got closer, he noticed the object’s silhouette reflected in the dim moonlight on the water.  Then he saw it.

Between the two ominous eyes stood a man whom Noble thought he recognized.  As the mayor got closer, he called out, “Is that you, Pug?”

The man fishing on the boat answered, “Yes, it’s me.”

Mayor Noble slowed his boat and talked for a minute with Charles “Pug” Williams, a well-known and successful Panbowl Lake fisherman.  Noble and Williams had a good laugh when Noble told him about the phone calls and the reports of the monster on the lake.

Noble returned to his launch site and informed the officers that Williams was night fishing and using a new technique that required two black lights mounted on his boat. 

With one light on the front and one mounted to the back of the boat, the reflection of the water gave the impression of two glowing eyes that were moving as Williams eased slowly along the shoreline with his trolling motor.  The movement and glow caught the attention of the concerned callers, who were unfamiliar with using black lights to fish.

He went back to bed after informing the officers, the neighbors, and the dispatcher of what he had found.

By the next morning, the news had spread throughout Jackson, and the stories of the Panbowl Lake monster were shared over hundreds of cups of coffee.  One version was shared with local writer and Family Diner regular McCreary Roberts, who put it to paper to cement the story’s place in Jackson lore.

Many years later, Noble would always smile and shake his head when asked about the monster.  On one occasion, all he would say was, “That was a night.”  

The version of the story Roberts preserved and later printed in The Jackson Times does not provide any information about the success of Williams’ black-light fishing experiment. No report on how many he caught or how many bites he got that night. It did, however, ensure that the legend of the glowing-eyed monster of Panbowl Lake would never be forgotten.

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© 2026 Stephen D. Bowling