Monday, February 15, 2010

Georgia Bigfoot Shot and Killed in 1943?


In my recent correspondence with Wayne Ford, the journalist at the Athens Banner-Herald about which I wrote in my Bigfoot in Georgia book, I learned that there was a mysterious story about a Bigfoot in Georgia that was shot and killed. This story appears in John Green's book, Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us, published in 1978.

According to the story, which appears on page 370-371 of the book, the story of this killing was told to a man named Rich Grumley, who was with a bigfoot research group based in California. This was not the BFRO, as the BFRO was not founded until the 1990s. A man told this story to Grumley. Rich Grumley has since passed away, according to an article in The Bigfoot Times from July 2009. Nevertheless, the story goes that in 1943, a county in Georgia experienced the mysterious slaughtering of sheep and calves. The animals had been attacked by something that was pulling their legs off. The county must have been in the North Georgia Mountains, for it was said that local men chased the perpetrator onto a small mountain where they shot it 60 times, one slug hitting it in the eye and piercing the brain. The men collected the dead carcass, loading it on back of a pickup truck and bringing it back in to a nearby town. The man who reported this story to Grumley said that the animal was so large that its torso was wider than the back of the pickup and its feet dragged the ground due to it being so long. The animal was covered with reddish-brown hair, but the palms of the hand, face, and soles of its feet were bare. There was minimal hair on its head and chest, and like so many Bigfoot sightings, there was a terrible stench associated with the creature. The report goes on to mention that the animal was buried under a pile of rocks.

Like Wayne Ford, I speculate that the story may be more legend than fact. Granted, as Ford stated in a letter to me, a small mountain town newspaper might not have had access to a national wire service to report such an event, but most surely this incident would have been plastered all over the front page of the local paper. The problem here is that noone associated with this report knows in what town this took place, or supposedly took place. Nothing comes up in a news search. It would have been the talk of the area had it happened. However, as I cannot confirm this report, I cannot in good conscience totally deny that it happened. Afterall, 1943 was smack dab in the middle of World War II. The biggest "boogers" out there to most people, especially in the South, were the Nazis, Facists, and Japanese. Many boys were fighting overseas, and reports from the war front would more than likely have dominated the news at that time-local and state, not to mention national. Perhaps this was an isolated rural incident that took place in a town with NO local paper, so the residents of the community had to rely on a paper from another place. With so much going on-war, depression, Communist scare-perhaps there was not much attention paid to this by news reporters at the time.

If anyone has ever heard this story in their locality, please email me. I would love to find out more about it. John Green was contacted by Wayne Ford, and Green knew no more than what was printed in his book. Grumley has died, and noone knows the name of the man who reported to Grumley. Stumped, I am!!!

Reese Christian, Author of Ghosts of Atlanta, To Appear at Bell, Book and Candle


Reese Christian, the author of Ghosts of Atlanta, will be doing a book signing and book discussion at Bell Book and Candle in McDonough on Saturday, February 20th starting at 1:30. She will sign copies of her book, as well as copies of the 25th anniversary DVD of the movie Poltergeist, on which she was a guest commentator for the special bonus footage on that anniversary edition.

She will also be the guest speaker on the McDonough Haunted History Tour, and will be leading an investigation at Bell, Book and Candle, as well as other "haunted" locations in downtown McDonough later that evening.

Reese's website can be located at www.reesechristian.com.
For more information, call Bell Book and Candle at 770-957-1880 or email them at bellbooksandcandle@hotmail.com.

Friday, February 5, 2010

More Good Reviews for Bigfoot in Georgia: This one from the Southeast Sasquatch Association

I just saw where the owner of the blog, Southeast Sasquatch Association, reviewed my book today. Here is his post on his website. Click on the title of this article to see the website. Here is a clipping and pasting of his comments:

Taken from the Southeast Sasquatch Society Website:

"Friday, February 05, 2010
Book Review: Bigfoot In Georgia by Jeffery Wells

Really good book on reports from the Peach State

This book, written by the social sciences and education department chairman for Georgia Military College's Atlanta campus, is a really terrific treatise of reports from the southern state. It covers reports mainly from a logical area, the North Georgia Mountains, mainly the northern counties in the Peach State. There are also reports from the metro Atlanta area near the town of Newnan, the same area the movie Deliverance was filmed in. Sightings from southern Georgia are also profiled, more particularly the Georgia/north Florida border. There is also an entire chapter devoted to the fairly famous Elkins Creek cast, which was examined by Jeff Meldrum and Jimmy Chilcutt and given the stamp of approval. Names such as the Belk/Belt Road Booger and the Happy Valley Horror are given to localized Sasquatch creatures, and frightening encounters are also recounted. Organizations such as the Georgia Bigfoot group are profiled, along with a reporter, Wayne Ford, who not only writes about Sasquatch, he investigates them as well. The recent infamous hoax is skimmed over very quickly and hardly mentioned, which is a good thing, because the book is really good and informative enough without it. I highly recommend this book, which from what I understand is the first in a series highlighting reports from all 50 states. **** out of *****
Posted by bf2006 at 9:45:00 AM"