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In the American South
where the wilderness stretches wide
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and the land holds its secrets close,
stories of strange encounters
have been passed down for generations.
From the Appalachian mountains of Georgia
to the shadowy swamps of Florida,
these places harbor mysteries that defy explanation.
Bigfoot, an ancient legend in the Appalachian woods,
the skunk ape lurking in Florida swamps,
the strange tale of the Georgia Werewolf Girl,
the ghostly white thing of Alabama.
And in Arkansas, the massive shadowy Fouke monster.
These creatures glimpse by only a few challenge the line
between myth and reality.
Are these encounters mere legend
or could there be a truth hidden deep in the wild?
Mysteries of the southern wild, Bigfoot and beyond.
The unknown is out there waiting to be discovered.
The first European
in the new world to talk about
what might have been Sasquatch or Bigfoot was Lee Erickson.
There were giant hairy men that were supposedly peaceful,
but very strange.
And every culture has fed into that somewhat
with unexplained stories.
It's when history can't capture it,
when religion can't capture it,
and when science can't capture it,
then folklore and legend does.
Dr. Jeffery Wells is an eighth generation Georgian.
He received his bachelor's degree in history
from the University of Georgia.
He graduated cum laude.
He received his master's degree in history
from Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville,
and he earned his doctors of education
from the American College of Education in Leadership.
Dr. Wells is the author of "Bigfoot in Georgia"
and "The Atlanta Ripper."
Some of the most frightening stories
that have ever been told have been told about encounters
with what people now call the skunk ape.
You could tell automatically, and they call it that
because of the foul odor, but that's also a characteristic
that you find in all of the literature.
And even when you go back into history
and look at the history of folklore
and legend, especially in the South, they smell really bad.
The skunk ape has been cited
primarily in Florida swamps
and is often described as a tall,
hairy creature resembling an ape with a distinct foul odor.
Local lore and eyewitness accounts depict the skunk ape
as a reclusive nocturnal being.
Despite skepticism, a collection of video
and photographic evidence continues to fuel the debate,
offering tantalizing glimpses
of what might lurk in the shadows of Florida's wilderness.
Some of the best video and photographs that we have
of these alleged creatures and this phenomenon
are of the skunk ape
and some of the most frightening stories
that have ever been told have been told about encounters
with what people now call the skunk ape.
You could tell automatically, and they call it that
because of the foul odor, but that's also a characteristic
that you find in all of the literature.
And I could tell a lot of the people who come close to them,
I could tell why, because they say
that they're covered in long hair.
You know, I don't necessarily think
that they have truck stops with showers where, you know,
Bigfoot Sasquatch, the skunk ape can get a key go in
and take a shower, you know what I mean?
So living in the environments
in which they have been reportedly sighted,
I can imagine that they smell bad.
And most of your wild animals out there
carry a certain odor,
even white-tailed deer are not the most pleasant-smelling
when you get right up to them.
But the skunk ape is said to be a little smaller.
I've read some of the stuff that some of the,
I would call scholars in the field
when they talk about this, such as Dr. Jeff Meldrum
and others who've investigated this,
have said there is some variation in size.
Southern Sasquatches, the Southern phenomenon
tends to be a little different.
There's some issues with toes and the morphology,
and of course, the environment in which they live.
In Georgia, a lot of the sightings
tend to happen in the mountainous regions of Georgia.
And we know in Florida, there are just are no mountains.
So this would be more of a swamp animal
if this animal does exist.
This is a creature that has been born and bred
and still lives and breeds in the swamp.
Now, these animals, according to those
who investigate deeply, like my friend Matt Pruitt, say
that they do travel along waterways
because that naturally is where they're going to be able
to drink and find food.
But they also tromp into places
that might not necessarily be that close to water,
such as farmland and places like that
because they can find plants
and things like that, some subsistence there.
The skunk ape also tends to scare the living you know what
out of people who see it because of its appearance.
And some have even said
that it has a very distinctly primate type appearance.
Some people have described it almost like a giant baboon.
Some people have described it almost like a giant orangutan.
Don't know specifically if any of that's valid.
The one of the scariest stories, I think
that was told about an encounter
with the skunk ape was a family that went out
basically looking for this animal,
just I guess you would call, not for kicks,
but just out of just true curiosity.
And they got separated
and the young man actually was out in the swampy area,
in the densely forested area of where they were traveling
and where they were looking.
And he came face to face with this animal.
It stood up and there it was.
And so he got so frightened, he yells and runs
and the father tries to find where he is.
And for a few minutes, the father said
that he didn't really think his son would survive that,
because if that's what it was,
these animals have been said to be territorial
and very dangerous.
And that's something else
that I've read a lot about sightings.
And some of the experts, like Dr. Meldrum
and others have said that, you know,
they are territorial in the sense that they will try
to move you away from where they are.
They do not want that encroachment.
They do not want competition for food sources.
They do not..
They just don't wanna be bothered.
And so in a lot of instances, they will do things
to scare you rather than attack.
But the skunk ape is not the only beast
that's been spotted in the south.
In the heart of Southern Arkansas.
Near the small town of Fouke,
a legend has lingered for decades.
The Fouke monster, also known as the Boggy Creek Monster,
is said to roam the swamps
and dense woods surrounding the town.
Described as a massive ape-like creature covered
in dark shaggy hair,
the Fouke monster has become one of the most
well-known cryptics in the South.
First gaining national attention In 1971,
the creature was thrust into the spotlight
when a local family claimed to have been attacked
by something terrifying.
The family described a seven foot tall humanoid figure
with glowing eyes and an overpowering stench
that stalked their property.
Rattling the windows,
and even attempting to break into their house.
When they fled, the creature reportedly
left behind large three towed tracks.
This was not the first sighting.
For years, residents of Fouke
had spoken in hushed tones about encounters in the woods.
And along the banks of Boggy Creek.
Hunters, fishermen, and travelers alike
had all claimed to see the creature, always at dusk
just before dawn, as it moves silently through the trees.
Despite the numerous sightings, no one has ever been able
to capture the Fouke monster.
Still, the legend grew, especially
after the release of the 1972 Cult Classic film,
"The Legend of Boggy Creek," which dramatized the events
and sparked nationwide interest in the mysterious creature.
While skeptic dismiss it as a misidentified bear
or a figment of the imagination, many who have lived
in Fouke swear there is something still moves in the shadows
of Boggy Creek.
An elusive creature that has managed
to stay just out of reach.
The Crompton Booger is one
that is quite unique in Georgia.
So the way the story goes,
and a good friend of mine, Matt Pruitt, who used to be
with the BFRO, I don't know if he is anymore or not,
and he's written extensively
and done lots of guest appearances about his research
into this phenomenon that he grew up
and was raised in that area, white county
and that vicinity where you have Sasquatch sightings,
you have reports coming in from something weird
in those woods up there in the mountains.
So he was kind of raised around the corner
from Bigfoot country or right in the middle of it.
I don't know, it depends on where he was.
But he left that area
and moved to the Pacific Northwest just to do more research.
That's ground zero for American Sasquatch tree.
But what happened in 1961, according to the report,
is some children were playing in the yard.
The mother had moved in back in with her parents
and brought her children along,
I can't remember if she'd gone through a divorce
or the father had passed.
But at any rate, the father was not with them
and was not present in the home during that time.
Well, this home, like a lot of homes
that were built in the early 1900s,
and during the World War II era,
it was built up on bricks.
And so there was a big area underneath the home.
My great-grandmother's house was the same way.
The difference is my great-grandmother
didn't have a basement.
This house did.
Well, the basement was somewhat open,
and from the report, apparently you could see
from the bottom in through to the basement.
There was an opening of some sorts where you could see.
So these kids were out playing out and about,
and one day underneath the house, several of them noticed
that there was a gorilla-like animal underneath,
and it was smiling at them.
And then when it got darker
or it went into the dark, it had red glowing eyes.
So they were a little frightened,
but the smile tended to calm them down a little bit.
But one of the things
that happened later on was they found tracks
near the home.
And this was in a rural area,
so I imagine there was probably some farmland around it.
Well, apparently, it had been stealing apples
off their apple tree on that farm or in that area,
and they found the core of the apple near the footprints.
So on my blog, I actually said, you know,
"How dare he not at least reimburse them for their apples?
You know, they're hard to grow in many places."
So the other thing is, is it would steal eggs.
And it stayed under the house off and on.
There were multiple sightings,
and they called it the Crompton Booger.
Booger is the name that was assigned back in those days
to anything that might scare you
that looked like a wooly animal.
They would call it a wooly booger,
or they would call it a devil,
or a hant, a demon.
If you go all around the south, it's so interesting.
You're going to find roads called,
or areas called Booger holler
or booger run, booger road or demon run, or devil's hollow.
And a lot of times it's because of this phenomenon,
it's what people have seen.
And so I suspect those kids probably got a fright
and a good time all in one summer.
I can tell you that the most frightening part of this
is that these children would tell the mother
and the grandparents
that it would look in the window at night in their bedrooms
and in parts of the house.
Although they never said that it tried to break in
or do them any harm, I would imagine
that based on what I've read here in this report,
it was probably just curious.
One thing to note that I have pulled out
of some of these reports is that in a lot of instances,
these animals tend to be amused by children
or either protective of them.
So I don't necessarily know
if they were any in any true danger
if this is all authentic, but if I were a parent,
I certainly wouldn't take my chances.
Now, Mr. Pruitt, who investigated this, was able to talk
to one of those children about 10 or 12 years ago
as an adult.
And he said that the gentleman still had a very good memory
and was able to talk about it
as if it just happened recently.
The South is a land rich with his history
and lore where stories are passed down
from generation to generation.
For every legend of Bigfoot or the skunk ape,
there are true encounters that continue
to haunt those who've lived through them.
One such account comes from the remote mountains
of North Georgia in the early 1970s
where a lone woodsman claimed he came face-to-face
with something unexplainable.
He was no stranger to the wilderness,
spending his days working in the forest.
Logging, hunting, and surviving off the land.
But one evening, just before dusk, while returning
to his cabin near the Chattahoochee National Forest,
he noticed movement in the trees.
What he saw next left him frozen in place,
a massive hair covered figure standing upright
silently watching from the shadows.
The creature stood over seven feet tall,
its eyes gleaming faintly in the dying light.
The woodsman clutching his rifle, watched as a creature,
simply turned and melted back into the forest,
leaving behind only a trail of enormous footprints
in the soft dirt.
When he reported the encounter, it was met with doubt,
but he wasn't the only one
who had seen something unusual in those woods.
Over the years, others had reported strange sightings
in the same area, mysterious figures seen at dusk,
never fully understood and never quite forgotten.
These stories, whether believed or not,
remind us that the south holds secrets,
secrets that linger in the spaces
between the known and the unknown.
For those who experience such moments, they become part
of the landscape just as real as the mountains
and the forest themselves.
So this is called the Legend of the Georgia Werewolf Girl,
and her name was Emily Isabella Burt, B-U-R-T.
And this takes place down in southwest Georgia
in a county called Talbot County.
The county seat is Talbotton.
It's a small rural area of Georgia,
and was even more so back in the mid-1800s,
the mid-19th century.
Now, this community today has about 5,500 people.
But it's right next door, not far from Columbus, Georgia.
And that's one of your larger cities in Georgia
of about 200,000 people, roughly the size, if you will,
of Montgomery, Alabama.
And the metropolitan area in Columbus
spills over into Phoenix City, Alabama
and gets you up pretty close to Talbot, Georgia.
So about 300,000 people live in that area.
But back in that day, it was sparsely populated
and the Burt family was a well-to-do family,
they owned a lot of farmland, they had means.
But in 1847, the patriarch of that family,
Joel Burt passed away in his 40s.
Well, he left a widow who was 37 years old,
and her name was Mildred Burt.
And he left four children.
There was Joel, who was named after him, the only son.
There was Emily, also called Emmie, E-M-M-I-E.
There was Sarah,
and then there was Mildred named after her mother.
There are some conflicting stories
about what all this family did.
There's one story that says that all of those children,
Joel, Mildred, Sarah, and Emmie
were sent to Europe for school.
Another part of the story says only Emmie was sent to Europe
to Paris because she suffered from lycanthrope
which is like werewolf-like syndromes.
Banging at the moon, large canine teeth,
some hairy issues, problems with hair,
and prowling around in the midst of the night
attacking things you ought not to attack.
So you see how the legend in folklore
kinda rocks back and forth.
Well, about the middle of the 1800s when Emily was,
or Emmie was a young woman, one of her sisters' beaus,
boyfriend, whose name was George,
came and told the family that he was having some problems
with his sheep, that some animal was attacking his sheep
in the middle of the night and he was losing livestock.
Now, that would be almost like taking our cars
where we could not get to work
or our technology where we could not remote in.
Back in the day, if you stole a man's horse,
that was almost like taking his livelihood.
So now something is directly attacking the actual livestock.
And eventually over time, the story unfolded
where it was not only sheep being attacked, it was cattle.
So as he talked to the Burt family,
and now keep in mind the father's dead.
Emmie was only like six or seven years old
when her father died.
And she was not the oldest
nor the youngest in the family of the siblings.
They all got very concerned.
As a matter of fact, the matriarch Mildred Burt wondered
what was this animal that was causing all this problems?
And in her estate, in her husband's estate,
he had also bequeathed her a fair amount of firearms,
which I mean in the south and in the 1800s sure, I mean,
farmers and hunters, it's pretty common.
So she decided to arm herself
and figure this thing out as well.
Meanwhile, Emmie, Emily Burt,
had an uncanny interest in reading about the supernatural.
And she enjoyed all of the stories that were told
and was very curious about what this animal was herself.
She also suffered from long canine teeth, bushy eyebrows,
very dark hair which they said she inherited
from her father.
The sharp canine teeth, which I believe
to be an exaggeration, that not withstanding,
but bushy eyebrows and dark colored hair,
very common, very common.
And I've seen a picture of her as a young woman,
and I can't really make out bushy eyebrows.
And the hair doesn't look extraordinarily dark.
But we do know that in the south, you know,
there was a lot of mixed ancestry with Native Americans,
and you have mixed ancestry
amongst it with African Americans, dark hair
amongst whites was not all that uncommon.
And they just said, you know,
the folklores tell us that she inherited that
from her father,
but she also suffered from something else that was strange.
She suffered from restless nights where she liked to get up
and wander around in the dark, in the woods.
So her mother gave her an elixir that was filled with opium,
but that didn't cure everything.
So over the next few months,
they got together, the boyfriend,
the sister's beau, got together a local posse.
They're all armed and they're going out to stop
whatever this is, is killing livestock.
Because it begins to happen to other farmers.
Now, none of them suspect at that time, from what I've read,
that it was anything supernatural
or that there was a werewolf in the woods.
So one night, apparently,
they're out hunting whatever this is,
tracking it, and in the midst they see this large upright
wolf-like character creature
with a human-like face growling, standing
and towering, you know, above the landscape.
So they open fire.
Two stories here.
One, the hand gets blown off.
I believe it's the left hand,
the other one the hand is just injured.
Well, it howls and screams loudly, runs off.
But later that day when the sun comes up,
Mrs. Mildred Burt, her mother, finds Emily
with two stories here, a missing left hand,
which in my mind is probably not true
because she would have bled to death, more than likely.
The other story, which sounds more plausible,
just bullet wounds.
So they wrap it up, take her to a local doctor.
And he tells them supposedly about a doctor in Europe,
in Paris who could treat like lycanthrope.
Now keep in mind that Mrs. Mildred Burt
had taken her child, Emily Burt previously
to a local dentist, according to the story,
to see what he could do about those canine teeth.
And he told them there was really nothing
they could do about them.
So the medical community
seems to kind of have been involved in this too.
So all of a sudden Emily goes missing.
And when people ask,
she's in Paris visiting French relatives.
Now I taught with a young man
who was a distant cousin of the Burke family.
And he said, this legend has been told
for years in their family.
And it's the legend of Emily Burt,
the Georgia Werewolf Girl.
She lived to be about 70 years old.
She comes back from Europe, from Paris, her mother dies
in the late 1800s
And a couple of her siblings die before she dies.
And so she moves in with her sister in Marietta,
the widowed Mildred, the namesake of the mother.
And there she dies and they bring her home
back to Talbot County, near Woodland, Georgia,
between two communities out in the rural area
and they bury her in a family cemetery
where, well there are several families in that cemetery.
Now, you know as well as I do in the south,
cemeteries are considered to be sacred ground.
Anyone who's cursed, vampires, werewolves,
demonic possession, they can't be buried in those places.
But she certainly was.
And she was a woman of means owned about 300 acres of land.
When she died, her estate was fairly sizable.
And her monument, you can tell they spent money.
So they were fairly well off she was when she died.
So they brought her back from Marietta
and buried her on sacred ground.
And nowhere has there ever been any mention
that Emily Burt was a mean vicious person
or that she was not well respected in that community.
Every report that we've read, all of the obituaries,
the news articles, she was very well-rounded.
She was very well-read and she was very well-respected.
Another part of the story goes
that when the posse was out hunting,
they actually went to an old man.
It's always an old man who was from Eastern Europe.
Now that's where Transylvania is from in Romania, right?
So you already got the vampires in this thing
and supposedly, he knew what this was.
And he said, "This is a lichen trope
and here's how you deal with it.
Take some of your silverware
and your silver jewelry, melt it down."
Stephen King would've loved it.
"Melt it down, create silver bullets, shoot,
and you've got him."
It'll kill the person and it'll kill the animal two in one.
So what do we have to make of this story?
Have no idea how this started, none whatsoever,
but it has become somewhat injurious to the Burt family.
In the early 2000s, a group
called the Southeastern Paranormal Research Institute, SPRI,
they investigated and pretty much came to the conclusion
that this was all pure myth and legend,
that none of this was true.
There's no evidence of Emily Burt being a werewolf.
And they've even adopted the Owen's Cemetery
where she's buried and cleaned it up.
And I don't know if they still has have a presence there
or not, but they did a good deed.
But after researching this,
they concluded, there's nothing to see here.
We'll move along.
People still continue to question
that conclusion because they wanna know,
why did she go missing for a certain period of time,
who would've created a story about werewolves?
Back in that day, werewolves in the American South,
werewolf folklore, it didn't quite saturate the landscape
like other tall tales did.
Yes, you do have some creatures of the night,
creatures in the woods, and as we've said before,
you have Sasquatch and Bigfoot sightings
that go all the way back
into that area of time and in that area of space.
But you know, where did that come from?
You know, why all of a sudden did this take place
and envelop the life of Emily Isabella Burt?
What happened in that family to give rise
to this kind of legend?
Was there actually some sort of creature,
supernatural or natural, it doesn't matter.
Stealing and maiming the livestock?
The cemetery today is on private property.
So if you go to try to visit, be aware of the fact
that is it's private property and be respectful.
But that is one of the most enduring legends
in Georgia folklore.
In the quiet backwoods of Northern Alabama,
there's a story that has been for generations.
It's a tale of something that haunts the forest and hills.
Something too strange to fit neatly into local folklore.
They call it the white thing.
A creature so elusive that its existence has been debated
for over a century.
Reports of the white thing stretch back
as far as anyone can remember.
Some say it's an animal,
others claim it's more human-like
covered in thick snow, white fur.
It's always seen from a distance darting through the trees
or standing motionless at the edge
of the forest disappearing before anyone can get too close.
The first documented encounters
came from the late 1800s.
Farmers in the hills of northern Alabama would tell stories
of a large ghostly figure that moved like a predator,
yet was eerily silent.
Livestock would go missing
and strange howls would echo through the night.
In one particularly chilling account from the early 1900s,
a farmer claimed to have come face-to-face
with a creature while hunting near his property.
He described it as over seven feet tall, standing upright
and covered with fur.
So white it was almost blended into the moonlight,
but it wasn't just the size that frightened him,
it was the way it moved.
Over the years, sightings have continued.
Each as frightening as the last,
and each adding a new layer to the mystery.
Some describe the white thing
as an oversized wolf standing on all fours,
but moving with unnatural speed in silence.
Others say it walks upright like a man,
but with features far too animalistic to be human.
There are even those who claim
to have heard the white things howl.
A high pitch scream that cuts
through the night air sending shivers down the spine
of anyone unlucky enough to hear it.
Witnesses described it as the scream of a woman twisted
and distorted into something unnatural.
But when search parties follow the sound
into the woods, they find nothing.
Despite the ongoing reports,
the white thing has never been caught or photographed.
It remains a creature of shadows seen only in brief moments
and always just out of reach.
Some locals believe it's a spirit, a ghostly figure
that protects the woods.
Others think it's a rare unknown species that has managed
to avoid detection for all these years.
Whatever it is, the white thing has cemented itself
in folklore of northern Alabama.
It's more than just a cryptid, it's part of the landscape.
It's much a part of these woods as the trees and the hills.
As long as there are people living in these quiet corners
of the south, the stories will continue.
Whispers of a creature that roams the night always seen
but never fully understood.
The south is full of mysteries,
but fewer is enduring as a white thing.
Whether a ghost an animal or something else entirely,
it remains one of the most elusive figures
in southern folklore.
Seen, heard, and feared by generations
who call this place home.
Bigfoot.
Long whispered to roam the shadowy forest
of the Pacific Northwest has also been spotted
in the wilderness of Georgia
deep in the heart of the peach state where the pines tower
and the river's murmur secrets,
a new chapter in the Bigfoot saga emerges
In the rural part of Georgia in Macon County
and the county seat there is Montezuma
and it's over in the southwest portion
of the state going toward Albany and Columbus
and that region of Georgia.
There comes a sighting, there comes a report.
A gentleman and his father and the owner of the property
where the sighting took place are involved.
And this was also on the Bigfoot field research
organization, otherwise known as BFRO website.
And it was researched by another gentleman that I know,
David Bakara who actually owns the Bigfoot Museum,
Bigfoot Expedition Museum up in Cherry Log, Georgia,
in the North Georgia Mountains
not far from Blue Ridge and Ellijay.
And David researched this, spoke with the individual
who was there and first saw it.
So this man and his father
and the property owner were barbecuing a hog
in mid-afternoon.
And this gentleman who made the report looks up
and in up on the ridge, he sees
what looks like a creature that he would later on describe
as a bigfoot-like creature.
So he signals to his father
and he signals to the property owner and he points it out
and the property owner basically says, "Oh yeah,
I see him on the property all the time."
And as they start talking about it
and get kind of distracted by what they're doing there,
and then they look back up, it's gone.
The report also goes on to say
that they didn't hear it come up,
nor did they hear it leave.
And the area where he was was surrounded by pasture
and fields where livestock are raised.
And so it's kind of interesting,
they were barbecuing a hug, which is a very common thing
to do in Georgia and in the south, we love our barbecue pork
and a lot of people have raised livestock
like that raise swine and they'll kill one and then clean it
and barbecue it up for family reunions or church gatherings
or just to have.
And so with all that livestock being near,
it makes you wonder if he was attracted this animal,
if it were true and this is the creature that it was,
if he were attracted by the smell
of the pork being barbecued.
There's a picture.
You can actually go to the report and you can see a picture.
If this were a bigfoot-like creature, it looked
to be pretty big, and it looks very broad,
but I can't make much out of the photographs,
so I'd rather the viewers actually judge for themselves.
In the summer of 1988, the quiet town
of Bishopville, South Carolina became the center of one
of the strangest cryptid sightings in the south.
The legend of the lizard man of escape or swamp.
A 17-year-old was driving home late at night when his car
broke down near the edge of escapee or swamp.
While changing a flat tire,
he claimed he saw something emerge from the shadows,
something large and unlike anything he had ever seen before.
The creature as he described it, was seven feet tall,
covered in green, scaly skin, and had glowing red eyes.
In a panic, Davis jumped into his car,
but the creature reportedly attacked, scratching the vehicle
and trying to tear it apart as he sped away.
When Davis finally reached home, the side
of his car was covered with deep claw marks
and the side mirrors had been ripped off.
The story of the lizard man quickly spread
and it wasn't long before other locals came forward
with their own sightings.
People claim to see the lizard man stalking the swamps
in nearby roads, moving swiftly
through the thick underbrush,
leaving behind strange three toed footprints in the mud.
Local law enforcement even investigated the reports,
but no definitive evidence of the creature was ever found.
Despite the lack of physical proof,
the legend continued to grow.
And for months, bishopville
was overrun with media attention.
Cryptid hunters and curious tourist eager to catch a glimpse
of the mysterious creature.
Those sightings have tapered off in recent years.
The story of the lizard man remains a fixture
of local folklore.
Some believe it was nothing more
than a misidentified animal.
While others are convinced there is something truly unusual
hiding in the swamps of South Carolina.
Whether it's myth or reality, the lizard man of escape
or swamp continues to capture the imagination of those
who hear the tale reminding us
that sometimes, the unexplained is never far from home.
In Georgia, another hotbed of strange activity
that does give me pause and make me a little nervous
because I've been there to the actual locations.
In the '70s and '80s,
there's a phenomenon called the Belt Road Booger
and the Happy Valley Horror.
But quickly with the Fayetteville episode,
there was a young woman who was driving home in the dark,
wasn't raining, there was nothing that inhibited her sight,
of course the darkness.
But she was driving with her headlights on.
This large beast-like grayish haired animal
just walks across the road
in front of her as she's moving along.
And it didn't turn around and look at her,
but it was frightening enough where she decided
that she'd better report it to the BFRO.
And I believe she actually reported it
to her local authorities.
Very little evidence other than the sighting,
but it's an area of Georgia that it was an
and may still be a hotbed of activity
for these reports and sightings.
Back in the 1970s, Coweta County
and the Newnan area in an area called Happy Valley
and in an area called the Belt Road, experienced
what was called the Belt Road Booger Phenomenon
and the Happy Valley Horror Phenomenon.
And what this is,
and it actually got into the local papers.
And a journalist down there, a local journalist,
did quite a few stories on this and pursued it.
And I was able to talk to him.
I was able to use a lot of his news reports,
pulled those out of the Coweta County
Historical Society's records
when I was writing my book
and was able to make contact with him by phone.
And he could remember things very clearly
because he said it had such a drastic impact
on that community and him as a journalist.
But people were experiencing things like a creature,
an animal, a large upright bipedal creature, hairy,
very human-like features, but also ape-like features.
What does that sound like?
Coming up on their porches,
chasing their livestock on their farms,
walking across front yards and backyards
and tromping through the woods on the Belt Road,
crossing the Belt Road
and over in what they call Happy Valley.
And there are some streams
and creeks that run through those areas.
And back in those days, it was pretty good farmland.
You didn't have the urban sprawl
and the suburban sprawl
that you see down in those areas today.
So a friend of mine who happened
to be the librarian at the campus at which I taught
at that time, writing the book,
she's familiar with all of that
'cause she was born and raised in that area,
but she lived over in Fayette County.
So I followed her, I had her take me to these areas.
She said, "I can tell you right where all this happened."
And she said, "If you give me a little bit more time,
I'll see if I can get the people up
that some of this happened to
and they might be able to talk to you."
Well, I really didn't necessarily need that
because the journalist
that I mentioned had done such a thorough job.
Every detail I needed was right there.
So we went down and took some pictures
and I believe some of them are in the book.
It's a beautiful area.
But one in particular, a lady said that she's home
and on her front porch, which was, you know, wooden,
most front porches in that day were,
she could hear something coming up the steps.
And she went to the window and looked
and there was this huge tall,
hairy creature on the front porch.
And it destroyed her plants, her potted plants
and her hanging baskets.
Some people down in that area
also reported missing livestock, missing pets,
college students coming home for the summer
out and about having a good time during the summer.
I mean, you gotta get it in during the summer at home
because you're gonna go back to college and study
and work hard during the rest of the school year, right?
So you don't have time to party.
So they're hanging out during the summer
and at night they come in late
and some of them reported seeing something strange
cross the road and hanging out in the woods
as they're driving home.
Again, it's rural.
Elderly people are coming in at night
from being out and about and visiting with friends.
Some of them report seeing the very same thing.
And it all tends to match up.
The same description runs through everyone,
It's a common thread through those reports.
So Fayetteville, Coweta County,
those areas right in their South Fulton
with the Crompton booger, that's an area that tended
to have somewhat of a more than usual amount
of reports from the late '60s
which I know the Crompton Booger was a little earlier than
that all the way up into the mid-'80s.
And some still come in from that area from time to time
For centuries, the Altamaha River has been a lifeline
for the coastal communities of Georgia,
stretching over 130 miles through marshes forest and swamps.
It's home to a variety of wildlife,
but hidden deep beneath the surface,
some say lurk something much larger and far more mysterious.
The Altamaha, as many call it, or Alti.
First mentioned by early settlers
of the Native Muskogee people,
Altamaha has become George's version
of the Loch Ness monster.
Described as a massive serpent-like creature
with long flat body and large flippers.
Alti has reportedly been seen swimming
through the rivers dark water since the 18th century.
When timberman and fishermen reported strange sightings,
they spoke of a creature 20 to 30 feet long moving swiftly
through the water, sometimes surfacing just long enough
to reveal its grayish green skin and snake-like form
before disappearing into the depths.
And more recent years sightings have continued,
particularly near Darien,
where the Altamaha River meets the coastal marshes.
One local describes seeing a large hump moving
against the tide, the water rippling in a way, no fish
or gator could have caused.
Another claims to have seen Alti in broad daylight.
Its head resembling that of a seal watching from a distance
before slowly sinking below the water.
Though there are no definitive photographs
or physical evidence of the Altamaha,
the legend persists fueled by the stories
passed through generations of locals.
Some say Alti is nothing more than a myth,
a tale born from the south's love of storytelling.
But there's believe that somewhere beneath the murky waters
of the Altamaha, the creature still swims waiting to be seen
by those brave enough to look.
In the south, some mysteries are larger than life.
Tales of strange creatures lurking in the shadows.
But not all southern legends are born in the deep woods
or murky swamps.
Sometimes, they come from the most unexpected places
like a tail of a sitting US president
and a strange encounter on a quiet Georgia Lake.
It's the story of Jimmy Carter
and the infamous Killer Rabbit.
An odd piece of history
that has left many scratching their heads
wondering just what happened that day.
Well, probably the most famous president,
the most Georgians is gonna be Jimmy Carter.
He served as governor, state senator.
He was an all around good guy down in Plains, Georgia.
So he hails from the southwestern portion
of the state in 1979 on April the 20th, 1979,
President Carter, and he was sitting president in the midst
of a very tough reelection battle that he eventually lost,
was home in plains.
And he was on a pond in a rowboat
or canoe, whatever you wanna call it,
doing his thing fishing, having a good time
in a, you know, nice spring climate down in Plains, Georgia.
And all of a sudden, and he had his paddle,
he had his boat paddle with him.
He looks out across the water
and here comes a rabbit swimming toward him
and it's not something you see every day.
So President Carter actually said that it was hissing
and baring its teeth
and just absolutely looked strange and weird.
So he takes the paddle and hits the water
and then that doesn't work.
It doesn't scare the rabbit away.
And so he takes the paddle
and he, you know, pushes water out toward it
to try to direct it somewhere else.
And it did, it went somewhere else and disappeared.
I mean, this was kinda fantasized
or you know, sensationalized.
When it gets retold that it actually jumped in the boat
and attacked him
and that he had to beat it to death with the paddle.
That's not true.
I mean, he just would've had to have done that,
I imagine if it jumped into the boat
'cause he was a little frightened of this.
And I would have been too.
That's not normal behavior for rabbits.
I mean, in April is traditionally Easter season,
so all of a sudden, you see the Easter Bunny coming
across the pond.
I'm sure that's going to elicit a little bit of nervousness,
especially when you have the press over
behind the wood line, they can see
that they can't get close enough.
So the press really didn't know what was going on.
But when he gets back to Washington,
he tells some of the White House staff,
they're standing out on a balcony at the White House
and you know, just kind of having good casual conversation.
And he tells some of the White House staff,
his close personnel about what happened.
Well, they didn't believe him.
So he got the picture and showed it to them.
And the first picture
where you see President Carter in the boat,
you see his back, but you know that it's Jimmy, you can tell
and he's got on a cap, I think it's green.
And then you see something coming along the water,
but you can't quite make out what it is.
So President Carter had, you know, this blown up
and zeroed in a good bit.
And you can definitely tell
that that is a bunny, it's a rabbit.
So they all believed him.
Well, some of his White House staff thinking
that it was no big deal at all, shared it with White House,
some of the members of the White House Press Corps.
Big mistake.
So one of them actually talked about it
to other members of the press.
And all of a sudden in what apparently
was a very dead news cycle,
began to put it out there front and center.
This turned into what was called Rabbit Gate.
And his political opponents
and what he thought were his friends in the press,
began to criticize him for being somewhat of a weakling.
I mean, President Carter can't defend the nation,
can't even defend himself against a rabid rabbit.
Interestingly enough, as that story got out,
a zoologist actually
at the University of Maryland commented on that.
And he said that the president
really misunderstood what was going on.
The rabbit wasn't trying to attack him, he was just trying
to find the most convenient dry place.
I mean, rabbits don't belong in water.
And other scientists said they felt like
that it might be that the rabbit was trying
to get away from some prey
or some predator that the rabbit
might have been prey.
Scared, yeah.
And was afraid and needed to jump
in the boat with the president of the United States,
whom I would imagine,
the rabbit would think would be the safest place to be.
But unfortunately, the president of the United States
wasn't looking for fishing company that day.
The American South, where the land is old
and the stories are older still.
For generations, people have shared tales of creatures
that defy explanation from the towering forest of Georgia
to the quiet swamps of South Carolina.
These wild places hold secrets that slip
just beyond our reach.
Bigfoot, the skunk ape, the white thing, the Fouke monster.
These aren't just legends.
They're encounters passed down by those
who have felt something in the wild.
Could these creatures be relics of a forgotten time?
Or are they reflections of our fear given life
by the shadows?
As long as the wilds of the south endure
so too will the stories of these encounters,
challenging what we think we know about the world?
These are the mysteries of the southern wild,
bigfoot and beyond, the truth may remain hidden,
but it's always out there waiting
for those brave enough to seek it.