Missouri Man Claims He Saw a Spider the Size of His Head Fishing

Imagine you're fishing and suddenly you see something that your eyes cannot believe. It's a spider that is so large that it appears as large as your head. That allegedly happened to a Missouri man while fishing and he's not the only one in the Show Me State to claim there are mammoth arachnids hiding in the woods.

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This is a fun tale to revisit courtesy of the Unexplained Mysteries YouTube channel. It's the story of a fisherman near the Missouri River who saw the unthinkable - a spider the size of his head. Here's the brief video description:

This man claimed they encountered giant spiders in the Missouri river. Today, we take a look at the report that giant spiders were encountered around the Missouri River.

This is his story.

If you explore the comments on the video of the Missouri fisherman's story, you'll notice he's not alone. Check out Adam's story:

Adam - "I'm from joplin MO. When I was a child (7-8) I was running around in the back woods of our 150 acres, I happened upon a tree with a large hole and a huge single web. Not many little ones together, but one giant web connecting the tree to the ground to the hole. I thought maybe an armadillo? Well I poked the web with a thin tree branch, the damn spider came out it was the size of my head, I fell on my a** trying to run the hell away. My mother didn't believe me but I showed my cousins. These spiders are out there guys. They really are."

It's common knowledge that tarantulas are present south of the Missouri River in the Show Me State, but they're generally not large. Wolf spiders are also big, but not the size of a human head.

What could it be? The largest spider in the world as shared by USA Today is the Goliath Birdeater which can grow up to 11 inches in diameter. While not native to Missouri or anywhere close, is it possible that someone brought one into the state as a pet and it's now part of the ecosystem? Let's hope not.

Could it be that this Missouri fisherman just shared a whopper of a spider story or is there really a beast like this loose in the woods and/or rivers? If he is just telling a story, he's not the only one.