Pope Lick Monster featured on the small screen in new paranormal Hulu series

A mythical creature tied to an east Louisville urban legend is the subject in an episode of a new supernatural TV series that premiered on Hulu and Disney+ Tuesday.

The third installment in the first season of the "Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal" features the Pope Lick Monster — a supposed half-man, half-goat also known as Goatman thought to reside near a train trestle at South Pope Lick and Taylorsville roads.

Legend has it the monster "hypnotizes trespassers into venturing out onto the trestle, thus luring them to their death before an oncoming train," according to an entry from the Encyclopedia of Louisville.

Other accounts supposedly claim the monster jumps down onto passing cars or lures people onto the tracks by mimicking familiar voices before attacking its victims with a blood-stained axe. Another legend states the creature is so horrible to behold that people jump from the trestle in fear to escape it.

More: Just Askin' | What is the Pope Lick Monster? What to know about the Louisville urban legend

Where did the Pope Lick Monster come from?

Various accounts about the beast's origin differ. Some claim that the monster was originally a circus worker who swore to take revenge after being mistreated, while others claim it's a twisted reincarnation of a farmer that sacrificed animals to gain supernatural powers.

The myth gained some notoriety when Louisville-based filmmaker Ron Schildknecht released a 16-minute film in December 1988 titled "The Legend of the Pope Lick Monster." In the film, a group of teenagers go to the trestle as part of a rite of passage and one of the characters comes face-to-face with the title beast just before a train comes into view. The teen barely survives by managing to hold on to a railroad tie while the train rumbles above him.

Concerns about the film influencing children to attempt to cross the 90-foot high trestle prompted Schildknecht to submit a letter to the editor to The Courier Journal in 1989, in which he stated teenagers crossing the trestle had been a common occurrence in Louisville for generations, but little had been done by parents and teachers to discourage them from avoiding the dangers.

"My interest in producing this film was to examine the reasons for such behavior and place them in the proper sociological context in hopes of dealing with the problem with a deeper understanding of the factors involved," he wrote. "In depicting high school students engaged in rowdy behavior, I am saying that this is how it happens, these are the circumstances and this is what it can lead to."

Has anyone been hurt trying to walk the train trestle?

Yes, in fact at least two people have been struck and killed by a train since 2016 — a 26-year-old Ohio woman and a 15-year-old from Louisville .

How can I watch the "Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal"

Hulu and Disney+ subscribers will be able to watch all eight episodes of the series starting Tuesday. The third episode is titled "The Pope Lick Goatman." Other episodes feature investigations of a supposed UFO crash in Long Island and ghosts believed to haunt San Francisco's Chinatown.

"Out There" was produced by the creative team behind the "Sasquatch" series, also available on Hulu.

Reach reporter Leo Bertucci at lbertucci@gannett.com or @leober2chee on X, formerly known as Twitter

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Pope Lick Monster featured on the small screen in new paranormal Hulu series