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Friday, September 06, 2019

Appalachian Tennessee Bigfoot


I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains. Completely rural, in a Tennessee valley community. My house was surrounded by forest and mountains.

When I was about 14, my dad started to hear strange sounds coming from the hills behind our house. Knocking sounds, as if something was hitting a tree, and the occasional unhuman yell. My dog, a rough and tough outside boy, was very drawn to those hills at random times. His ears would shoot up and he'd quickly run up to the forest and stay for a while. (him going up in the hills wasn't uncommon, but at the time he started acting particularly suspicious about them. and don't worry, nothing bad happens to him in this story.)

Anyways, the noises started to become more frequent. My brother and his friend used to hunt for Ginseng up in the hills and they heard the noises too, much louder of course since they were near the source. One day, the noises wouldn't stop. They progressed louder and louder, and there was growling. My brother was pretty much sick of it by now and wanted to know what the f**k was up there after about a year of wondering.

It's evening time, about to get dark, so he takes a flashlight and a shotgun and heads up into the hills. He sees a creature that looked like what he said could be a Sasquatch. It was tall, broad shoulders wider than its torso. He saw its silhouette because of the darkness that came. He chased it off, came back to the house, told me what happened and drew a sketch of what it looked like.

The noises had stopped after that day. they never came back.

Oh, and a couple weeks later, a new bigfoot special came on TV. a witness sketch of an alleged bigfoot, looked almost identical to the one my brother made. To this day, we're still convinced bigfoot lived there. Val

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I grew up in the Southern Appalachians, Crab Orchard Mountains in Tennessee to be precise. My much older brother and his best friend saw a Bigfoot in the 60's, while camping on the Obed River. No "guessing" about it. I always believed him.

A buddy and I were back there in the early 2000's. Late January, we're camping and riding ATVs, and it's staying around -8 degrees F that night.

We were back at the camp, warming around the fire, quietly talking. All of a sudden, the most ear piercing bellowing/shrieking of a sort that I have never heard anywhere on this planet. It had the volume of an elephant it seemed.

It moved around our campsite in the dark, staying out of the glow of the campfire. Jerry shined his big flashlight all around, and we didn't see anything, but it screamed at us another three times. Then we heard what sounded like a damn moose running through the woods. There aren't any moose around there, let me tell ya.

Jerry and I kept our handguns handy for a couple more hours, talking about what just happened. I asked him, "you know what it had to be, don't you?" And he said the words, but to this day, he doesn't even like to talk about it with me. It changed his perception of what is out in those woods though. Before that, he was Mr. Nothinscaresme. He doesn't even go out in the boonies anywhere near as much as he did before that night.

If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'. Well, you know what I'm saying. It's the truth. G

The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac: A Novel

The Bigfoot Book: The Encyclopedia of Sasquatch, Yeti and Cryptid Primates

Strangers from the Meadow: A Bigfoot Frightening Encounter

Bigfoot and Eastern Cousins

The Best of Sasquatch Bigfoot

Lon's Suggested Reading List - Books & Films / DVDs