Blue Ridge Bigfoot

I suppose I should have anticipated this−there was a Bigfoot sighting, complete with video, in Fannin County this summer. Check it out on YouTube: Bigfoot video.

The video is supposed to have been taken about five miles north of Blue Ridge, which would make it within a mile or two of my property. According to a website devoted to “true tales of the paranormal, the fortean, and the just plain weird,” Fannin County is “an absolute hotbed of Bigfoot sightings.” Fortean means pertaining to extraordinary and strange phenomenon and happenings. I had to look it up.

Well, that’s just great. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate this summer with my pending retirement, selling my Clearwater house, getting my youngest off to college, and moving to Georgia, now I have to contemplate the possibility that there may be an eight foot tall, hairy ape man on the loose.

Personally, I think the video is a fake. I think Dwight, Bubba, and Billy Joe drank a few too many PBRs and decided to film themselves running around in a gorilla costume. It’s something I’d do. Hell, it’s something I may have done, but I just don’t remember.

I find it hard to believe that a creature that big and that hairy could survive one deer hunting season in north Georgia. This is a place where they sell guns in a drugstore. People here believe in full submersion baptism and membership in the NRA. You hear the sound of gunfire in the hills all the time. Hunting season is as anticipated as the start of football season. In fact, because there are so many hunters prowling the hills, I am thinking about wearing fluorescent orange bib overalls when I’m working on my property during hunting season. I know I may look like a giant orange safety cone, but that’s better than being mistaken for a deer or a Bigfoot.

Even though I’m skeptical, I have to consider the possibility there may be Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) in the area. It’s certainly wild enough. Seventy percent of Fannin County is national forest.

If a Bigfoot does live in the area, I hope there is more than one and that the other one is female. The last thing I need is a horny eight foot tall ape man running around. I can see the headline now: Former Florida Lawyer Violated by Sasquatch in Gay Tryst. The thought of it gives new meaning to the phrase “watch your backside.” I bet the story would make the front page of the Blue Ridge News Observer and the National Enquirer. It might even make National Geographic. I’d hate to see my face on one of those newspapers you see in the checkout lanes at supermarkets, the ones that have headlines like “Ghost of Elvis Haunts Cheesecake Factory” and “Nancy Pelosi’s Lips Fall off in Tragic Accident.”

What does a Bigfoot eat? I know it’s not going through the drive-through at McDonalds. If memory serves me right, gorillas are vegetarians. Since I plan on having a large vegetable garden that means I will be creating a Bigfoot smorgasbord. Which leads to my next question: what type of scarecrow would frighten a Bigfoot? I’m thinking a life-sized cutout of Rosie O’Donnell or Hillary Clinton would do the trick.

As I said, I think it’s a hoax, and two can play that game. But I would be more creative and come up with something really frightening. A giant squirrel would be silly. A giant lizard would be seen as an advertisement for car insurance. Then it came to me—a giant naked mole rat, probably the ugliest creature in the animal kingdom. I know it would scare the hell out of me to see an eight foot long naked mole rat crawling through the woods.

The Bigfoot story got me thinking about what other strange things I have to worry about in the north Georgia hills. Sure enough, there have been sightings of UFOs in the area. The following is an account from the website for the Mutual UFO Network of Georgia:

27 September 2009, approx. 10:18 PM, Fannin County – A small-business owner who lives south of McCaysville, GA, reports that he was standing at his kitchen sink preparing breakfast when he looked up and something in the sky caught his eye. A thin, oval- or cigar-shaped, shiny silver something” was moving across the sky. Moving to his back door and then out, he watched it and listened for any sound. Hearing none, he went back inside and grabbed a pair of binoculars. Outside, he got a good look at it, or as he put it “my first UFO.” The witness states, “isn't it funny how when something like this happens your camera isn't right beside you.”

Here’s a link to a YouTube video of a UFO sighting in north Georgia: UFO video.

I’m not sure why, but I do not find aliens and UFOs to be frightening. Frankly, I’m more concerned about the members of the Mutual UFO Network of Georgia. I bet they are a little on the weird side.

This can only get better. I'm waiting for the chupacabra sighting. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on the news of Bigfoot, aliens, UFOs and other fortean events from this neck of the woods.