Witness: The North Georgia Mothman

Last December I received an email from a woman (who I will refer to as 'EW') from north Georgia who thought she had encountered a Mothman. After many months of correspondence, the witness has agreed to allow me to post the event but only under strict circumstances. She has reviewed this post and has agreed to the following content being published:

Hello - I am hoping you can shed some light on an incident I had a few years ago. I was twenty-five at the time and was driving to my friend CW's house. It was quiet at 11:30 pm as I drove south on an old country road off of (redacted) highway near (redacted) in north Georgia. Very few people pass this way because it leads to nothing but a small group of houses. I turned on the radio but nothing came on. I figured it was a blown fuse but then I started to heard weird scratching sounds coming through the speakers. It sounded like a distant voice but I couldn't understand what it was saying.

Suddenly, something flew in front of the car and hit the windshield with enough size and force that it totally mangled the grill and hood. I immediately stopped the car. I heard what sounded like wings flapping on the roof, but then something rolled down the back window onto the trunk then eventually on to the road. I thought I killed whatever it was. A woman in a truck had pulled up from behind and said she saw the thing hit the road. She said that it's eyes were glaring bright red. As we looked more closely at this thing it resembled a man with large bat-like wings. The woman walked back to her truck and pulled a shotgun from the back and pointed it at this bat-like creature.

The creature 'EW' claims she encountered

It was starting to move and we backed off. It slowly stood up on two large raptor-like claws, turned and stared directly at us with those terrible bright red eyes. The woman pumped the shotgun. It slowly levitated off the ground with wings spread until it was about 10 foot up then instantly, it let out a deafening screech as it just disappeared with a loud 'swoosh'. The woman (who I found out later was CW's aunt) and I just looked at each other.

This thing had the body of a well-built man. It had no feathers but charcoal gray skin like that of a bat with some hair on the shoulders and around the eyes and legs. When it spread it's wings, it had the span of 12 foot or more. I estimate it was about 8 foot tall. It had no head however, just the eyes embedded on the shoulders that had brows. I didn't noticed a mouth or nose. There is no way I was going to report this and CW's aunt totally agreed. We both drove off to CW's house. I was so shook up I stayed the night.

The next morning, I went outside to inspect the car. There was a huge crack in the windshield and the grill was mangled beyond repair. The hood also had a deep 25 inch dent. I started to walk back to the house when I noticed something laying in the grass beside the garage. It was CW's Golden Retriever lying dead from massive lacerations up and down it's back. I just knew that thing did it.

That was 3 years ago and I constantly dream of this creature. I was told by a friend that I had encountered a Mothman. It looked more like a Batman to be honest. I decided to look up a few of the sightings by others and saw your name and blog. Many of the images on Google were very similar to what I saw. I wrote to someone else about a year ago but they never got back to me. I have included 2 of the images I think look the most like the creature I hit with my car that night. Could you contact me at this email? Thank you for your time. EW

NOTE: I contacted EW and tried to answer her questions. I have no doubt she witnessed a winged humanoid and most likely a Mothman. She agreed to let me post the incident provided I leave out several of the more personal points from the original email. I will say that EW has experienced many of the same anomalous events claimed by a few of the original Point Pleasant, WV witnesses...including some I discovered myself through research and witness interviews. Lon

Stalking Altie: More On Altamaha-ha, Georgia's Loch Ness Monster

Curt Holman of Creative Loafing Atlanta has posted an entertaining article referencing Altamaha-ha and other cryptids...though, mostly tongue-in-cheek:

An alligator spies on my family as we stand on a midden heap on a muddy bank of the South Altamaha River. Our flip-flops crunch on the jagged oyster shells and pottery shards cast off by Native Americans a couple of centuries ago. Our guide points out their importance to the history of coastal Georgia, but I can't pay proper attention. I've brought my family to Darien in search of a monster.

Squinting in the midday sun, I can see the alligator's eyes and snout protruding from the water about 50 yards away. Our guide, Danny Grissette, says it's 8 to 9 feet long, making it no match for my potential prey, an aquatic beast alleged to be at least 20 feet in length. Wait, could that be the creature's famed ridged hump? No, it's just a stump sticking out of the brown river water. What about that mysterious turbulence about 25 yards away? It could be the wake of an unseen ship or a school of fish. But can we prove that it's not the tell-tale sign of the legendary entity known as the Altamaha-ha?

The Altamaha-ha, known more casually as "Altie," defies scientific explanation. Even before European settlement, the Tama tribes people told stories of a giant, snake-like river animal that hissed and bellowed. Over the past century, fishermen, lumberjacks and boy scouts have reported sightings of a creature in the tributaries and marshes of the Altamaha River, which feeds one of the largest river basins on the Atlantic Coast. The eyewitness consensus holds that the Altamaha-ha has a dark, smooth hide, apart from the tire-tread-like ridges on its back, as well as a narrow neck, prominent snout and flat, porpoise-like tail.

Could it be a sturgeon on steroids? A throwback to marine reptiles like the toothy plesiosaur? Maybe the Loch Ness Monster's cousin from across the pond? I'm skeptical about cryptids, the kind of famous beings like Bigfoot unrecognized by the scientific establishment, but the Altamaha-ha called me with a siren song, despite the likelihood of a search turning into a snipe hunt. But even if the Altamaha-ha isn't real, it could still have significance.

I grew up in Georgia and totally dug on Leonard Nimoy's "In Search of...," The Legend of Boggy Creek, and Sasquatch's guest appearances on "The Six Million Dollar Man." Somehow, I missed the Weekly World News story from 1981, "Monster Serpent Lurks in Murky American River." I never dreamed that a monster reportedly lived in our backyard — or at least a five-hour drive from our backyard.

I first heard of the Altamaha-ha earlier this year, when my daughter checked out the library book Tales of the Cryptids: Mysterious Creatures That May or May Not Exist. There, alongside the likes of Bigfoot, Mothman and the Chupacabra, was Altamaha-ha. The "Reality Index" declares the native creature as "Leaning Toward Real," as opposed to being real, like the rediscovered prehistoric fish the coelacanth, or a hoax, like P.T. Barnum's Fiji Mermaid, which turned out to be a monkey's torso attached to a fish carcass.

Founded in 1736, Darien, population 1,719, turns out to be a nexus of Altamaha-ha hot spots. The relaxed little town, 30 miles north of Brunswick on the South Georgia coast, boasts considerable history as the state's second-oldest planned city and the location of Fort King George. During a visit in early May, I also found Altie's flippered likeness all over it. A dinosaur-like creature paddles gracefully across a billboard that reads, "Welcome to Darien & McIntosh County: A Certified Work Ready Community." In the business district, several large murals feature the familiar twisty sea monster unobtrusively among historical tableau and images of local flora and fauna.

Most prominently, the Darien welcome center boasts a model of the "life-sized" creature, alongside a sign that reads, "Photo opportunity. No rides." The 20-foot-long statue sports a Mona Lisa smile and friendly demeanor, possibly because a local leviathan with kraken-like hostility would be bad for tourism.

"Altie" loses a little of its mystique when you learn that a market research company contributed to its recent presence. Wally Orrel, president of the Darien Chamber of Commerce, says, "About two-and-a-half years ago, we moved the welcome center to the outlet mall and picked up some extra space. We hired a marketing company to research McIntosh County. I'd never heard of the Altamaha-ha, but they discovered sightings going back 250 years — and some of those people had not been drinking!"

Two years ago, the Darien Chamber hired Rick Spears, illustrator of Tales of the Cryptids, to build the life-size Altie model. Spears, an exhibit designer at the Fernbank Science Center, built a smaller, "immature" Altamaha-ha for the Eagle Rock 4-H Center in 2001, using eyewitness accounts as his source material.

Spears says he had to extrapolate the creature's appearance based on limited descriptions. "You don't have any hard evidence like fossils, which can indicate the placement of muscles. They say it undulates up and down, but fish and reptiles move from side to side, so it's mammalian," he says. "And some people say it breathes steam or warm air, which suggests that it has lungs. Things like that have a basis in reality."

One of Spears' primary resources was author Ann R. Davis, who wrote a short book called The Legend of the Altamaha "Monster" and playfully suggested that the creature literally followed 18th century settlers from a Scottish Loch. Davis also compiled a website of Altie sightings from 1969 to 2002. I visited some of those places, like the Butler Island Bridge, where a terrified motorist saw a creature wallowing in the mud in 1988, or Two-Way Fish Camp, a busy dock that's received mysterious sub-aquatic visits over the years. Many proved to be within the same 10-mile radius, so it was unnervingly easy to envision an animal roaming around the same territory.

Darien natives treat Altie like the town's unofficial mascot, comparable to leprechauns on St. Patrick's Day. "He lays low, but he's beloved," says Kathleen Russell, the feisty, silver-haired editor of the Darien News, who maintains a thick folder of Altie sightings, letters and other news accounts. "I've seen him a couple of times. Once, a couple of years ago, in Doboy Sound, I saw a wake coming up the river, and there's nothing that could make a wake like that."

Hale, laid-back Danny Grissette of Altamaha Coastal Tours says, "I see it at least once a year. We hear it a lot, too. It seems to know where your back is — you can hear it splash behind you, never in front of you." You get the impression he's joshing around about that, because he also claims to be a skeptic. "If you go looking for monsters, eventually you're going to see one."

The power of suggestion proved to be a heady brew. When my family put our kayaks in the water near the Champney Bridge, it was easy to imagine a creature cruising just below the surface, or that every bump under our hull hinted that a creature out of time was about to capsize us for kicks.

But maybe we don't need to worry about a behemoth from the briny deep. Kennesaw-based cryptozoological researcher Blake Smith points out the challenges for creatures like Altie or the Loch Ness Monster to exist undetected. "It isn't explicitly impossible for Altie to be a surviving relic of the Mesozoic, but it would have to be part of a large population," says Smith. "There would likely be many more sightings since such creatures had to surface for air. And despite the many classic descriptions of lake monsters with swan-like or serpent-like necks, actual plesiosaurs didn't have that kind of neck flexibility."

Since 2009, Smith has co-hosted the podcast "Monster Talk," which considers cryptid lore and so-called evidence through a skeptical lens. He suggests that the natural world holds far more likely explanations. "The common river otter sometimes exhibits a following behavior, where several of the animals will swim in a line surfacing and dipping, creating a very compelling illusion of a single undulating creature," says Smith. "Dolphins and, presumably, manatees or dugongs could also exhibit the same kind of behavior."

Altie could still be real, even if it's not confined to Southeast Georgia. Similar serpentine beasts have been spotted in the Carolinas and North Florida, including a rash of sea monster sightings in Florida's St. Johns River in the 1970s and amateur video of an Altie-like beast near Jacksonville, investigated by the "MonsterQuest" TV show in 2009.

Dallas Tanner, Greenville, S.C.-based author of the novel Wake of the Lake Monster, researched the legends and believes they could all be the same creature, possibly some kind of large, migratory seal ancestor that follows its food supply of fish. "It's been sighted often as many times as people have seen real seals in the same waters," Tanner says.

He asserts that cryptids have some basis in reality. "Myths and legends are what history and science become when they're ignored," he says. "Megafauna are those huge mammals that evolved huge-sized to survive the last ice age, and I don't think they all died off. We've only discovered 10 percent of earth's animals live on 10 percent of earth."

On the river, I kept my eyes peeled for the beast while we floated our kayaks calmly with the current and, later, paddled strenuously against the tide. We saw an eagle's nest in the trees and could hear a wild pig snuffling in the brush, but the highways and heavily trafficked fishing channels were just around the corner. The chance that a monstrous marine animal existed in such a heavily populated area seems ridiculously improbable — but not straight-up impossible.

The closer I came to places where Altie was allegedly seen, the more ambivalent I felt about finding it. Sure, it would be interesting for marine biologists to finally identify some kind of presumed-extinct seal-giraffe. Altie could become the celebrity host of that exhibit Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids still running at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History. But the gargantuan, possibly man-eating sea serpent of my imagination seemed immeasurably more awesome. If caught, the real Altamaha-ha could never live up to our collective idea of it.

I kept scanning the rise and fall of the green-brown waters, barely giving the passing herons a glance, hoping I'd spot the Altamaha-ha — and sort of hoping that I wouldn't.

I want to believe. - by Curt Holman - clatl

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11/15/2010

Altamaha-ha: An American River Monster

One of the largest rivers in the state of Georgia is the Altamaha River in the southeast portion of the state The river actually empties in to the Atlantic Ocean off the coast. It is said to be one of the largest river basins in the country, and as such, there are a lot of tributaries to this river.

According to legend, in the waters of the Altamaha, near the city of Darien, there is a strange creature. It appears ever so often and sightings of this creature go back to the times before whites settled the area. The Tama Indians from that area first told tales of a huge water serpent that hissed and bellowed. In the 1920s, timbermen who rode the river reported sighting something that fits the description of 'Altamaha-ha', also known as 'Altie'. Other sightings include a Boy Scout troop from the 1940s and two officials from the Reidsville State Prison from the 1950s.

The Altamaha River basin and tributaries

Cryptofiction novelist Dallas Tanner wrote the following narrative:

For the last forty years…the Altamaha-ha has been sighted basking itself on the shore, trolling casually along the river in plain sight of eyewitnesses, and even reacted defensively to the presence of boaters.

Perhaps I should begin with a brief description of the river itself. The second largest river basin in the United States, second only to the Mississippi, it extends some 137 miles before joining up with its three major tributaries. These include the confluence of the Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers near Lumberton City, and joined further downriver by the Ohoopee. Where it empties out into Altamaha Sound above Brunswick, it is joined by the Darien, Butler and Champney rivers.

All of these tributaries and secondary rivers have reported sightings of the creature also known as the Alty. The Altamaha is home to over 50,000 species of migratory and non-migratory birds, as well as manatees, sturgeon and alligators. In fact, it is known as ‘The Little Amazon,’ due to the plethora of wildlife and the diversity of its ecology and topography.

The Altamaha River near Darien, Georgia

Recently, in 2002, a man who was pulling a boat up the river near Brunswick reported seeing something over twenty feet in length and six feet wide break the water. The man reported that the animal seemed to emerge from the water to get air and then submerge again beneath the depths. Others who have seen the animal say that it has dull gray skin and looks to be spotted in some places.

On a night in July, Donny Manning and his brother embarked on his boat on the Altamaha River at Clark’s Bluff. The lights on the house boat allowed them to see for some distance. Fishing for catfish, Donny decided to use an old trick he had learned as a kid which was oatmeal and soda mixed on a three pronged hook. They were fishing in a little depression outside the rough water when something took the hook. It did not act like a regular catfish after a catch. Most catfish would take the hook, run and stop, and turn; instead it ran with the hook. Every once in a while it would come out of the water where they could see it.

They say it measured about ten to twelve feet long and at first they thought it resembled a sturgeon, but after a few more jumps, they could tell it wasn’t. Donny claims it had a snout almost like an alligator, or, he thought, of a duck-billed platypus. He says it had a horizontal tail, instead of a fish like vertical one, and it also had a spiny kind of bony triangular ridge along the top of its body. The dorsal fin that was down, but he could see it on the back. The teeth were shining in the light were sharp pointed. The Creature was gun-metal gray on the top and oyster white-yellow on the bottom. It didn’t move along side to side like a snake either, but it moved up and down like a dolphin.”

Mr. Manning says he has lived on the water all his life and has seen all kinds of creatures, but this was the most amazing thing he had ever seen. He also claims he was using a salt water rig with a 40 lb. test line and the creature snapped it like it was nothing. Mr. Manning estimates from the way it felt on the line and the way that it snapped it that it was at least 75 lbs.

During the summer of 1980, Andy Greene and Barry Prescott reportedly saw Altamaha-ha stranded on a mud bank near Cathead Creek. The creature lay halfway in the water, thrashing and trying to free itself from the bank. They described it as a dark coloured, with a rough skin and that it moved like nothing they had ever seen before. The creature was very large, three to four feet thick (1 meter) and twenty feet long( 6/7 meters). They observed the creature for ten minutes, before it freed itself, submerged, and disappeared.

In December of 1980, Larry Gwin spotted what he thought was Altamaha-ha in Smith Lake, located up the Altamaha River, while eel fishing. He described the creature has a fifteen to twenty foot long and snake-like, with two brown humps that protruded from the water. It disappeared and did not resurface. The creature was spotted several more times in the early 1980s, particularly near Two-Way Fish camp. One eyewitness, Ralph Dewitt, a crab fisherman of fourteen years, described Altamaha-ha as "the world's biggest eel".

The Altamaha River is also known for very large catfish as described here. As well, there are other creatures that have made their way into the river including alligator gars and manatees. Perhaps this is just an urban legend, but the Altamaha-ha has been a mysterious creature along the Altamaha River for many years.

Sources:
www.altamahariverkeeper.org
paranormal.about.com
www.glynn.k12.ga.us
www.gon.com
www.mendhak.com
Tanner, Dallas - 'Wake Of The Lake Monster'
www.unexplained-mysteries.com

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'I am Jimmy Hoffa, I am Jimmy Hoffa' - The Dawson UFO Encounter / Abduction

Drawing by Billy Norris as described by the witness

August 6, 1977, near Pelham, Georgia (20 miles north of Thomasville), in Mitchell County. At 10:30 a.m., retired automobile salesman Tom Dawson (sixty-three years old, at the time) took a walk down to his favorite pond to see how it looked for fishing later that day.

Just as he got inside the fence surrounding the pond, a circular space ship zipped right in between the trees and hovered just a few feet above the ground. At the same time he found himself, his two dogs and twenty head of cattle, frozen in place by an unseen force.

Dawson said the craft was about 15 feet high and 50 feet in diameter. It had portholes all around and a dome on top. It made no sound and changed colors rapidly from one to another. Suddenly, a ramp came down and out came seven hairless, snow-white beings, about 5 feet tall, with pointed ears and noses.

Some had on tight-fitting one-piece suits while others wore nothing. They talked in a high-pitched' gibberish he could not understand.

They conducted what he thought to be a medical exam of some kind. They placed a skullcap-like device on his head and a large hula hoop-shaped thing (connected to a box) around his midsection. After they had collected "some leaves and stuff," they got back on the ship and were gone in the blink of an eye.

Once free, Mr. Dawson ran uphill (about 300 yards) to his trailer. He was having trouble breathing and talking, so he was taken to the Mitchell County Hospital, where the doctor said he had been shaken both mentally and physically from his encounter with the UFO and its occupants. He was treated for hysteria (given something to calm him down) and later released. Dawson said he believed that if he had been a younger man the extraterrestrials would have taken him away. - Billy J. Rachels / Billy Norris - UFO Bureau of Georgia

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The following is another version of the original report that includes other information:

Location: Pelham, Georgia
Date/Time: August 6, 1977 - 10:30 am local time

"I AM JIMMY HOFFA"

Jimmy Hoffa

Tom Dawson, 63 and retired, was walking with his two dogs from his trailer home to a nearby farm when a "circular shaped space ship" with a dome and portholes, 40-50 ft in diameter and 12-14 ft high, hovered several feet off the ground in a field in front of him. He immediately noticed that he was unable to move a muscle as well as his dogs and the cattle in the field seemed likewise to be immobilized.

A hatch in the object opened, a ramp was extended, and 7 strange looking humanoids 5 ft tall emerged, five men and two women. The first stepped down cautiously, as if to test the solidity of the ground; then the rest followed, with two taking up sentry positions at the hatch. They were all hairless, with skin "as white as a flour sack," their noses were sharp and turned up, their ears were pointed, and they had no necks. One of the men and one of the women were completely nude. The clothing of the rest, male and female alike, was very beautiful with silk like shoes with pointed, turned up toes.

The humanoids cautiously approached Dawson and gave him a kind of physical examination, placing on his head a skullcap with cords connecting it to a hoop bearing dials. They dropped his trousers and lifted his shirt for the examination, passing the hoop over his body. While the examination was in progress, a loud voice came from the object, shouting three times "I am Jimmy Hoffa" (!) a fourth repetition was cut off, and the voice was not heard again.

After completing the examination, all returned to the craft except two men, who walked about 10 feet away and "went into a conference." They had very shrill voices, and although Dawson was unable to comprehend what it was they said, he thought he heard the word "Jupiter." He had the impression they were debating whether or not to take him on board; at any rate, they did not, and the leader passed his palm across his chest as though to signal good-bye. They reentered the ship, closed the hatch, and took off. He saw the object rise to 75 feet then, in a wink, it was out of sight. Dawson was then freed of his paralysis; he ran directly to his next-door neighbor, but was so excited he could say nothing more than "space ship!" He was taken to a hospital and treated for hysteria. - Billy J. Rachels - UFO Bureau of Georgia

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6 August 1977 10:30
Pelham, Georgia, USA

Paralysis, 5 beings with sharp noses, pointed ears, no necks, pale white skin, removed his shirt and pants in pasture, placed skull cap on his head, heard voice in head, something about "Jimmy Hoffa". Explanation: Hoax.

An abduction of a witness was reported. One disc was observed by one male 63-year-old witness in a pasture for two minutes (Dawson, T). Five pallid beings were seen.

Tom Dawson, 63 and retired, was walking with his two dogs from his trailer home to a nearby farm when a "circular shaped space ship" with a dome and portholes, 40-50 ft in diameter and 12-14 ft high, set down in a field in front of him, hovering several feet off the ground. He found he was unable to move a muscle, and his dogs, as well as the cattle in the field, seemed likewise to be immobilized. A hatch in the object opened, a ramp was extended, and 7 strange looking humans 5 ft tall emerged, five men and two women. The first to leave stepped down cautiously, as if to test the solidity of the ground; then the rest followed, with two taking up sentry positions at the hatch. They were all hairless, with skin "as white as a flour sack," their noses were sharp and turned up, their ears were pointed, and they had no necks. One of the men and one of the women were completely nude. The clothing of the rest-males and females alike-was very beautiful with silk like shoes with pointed, turned up toes. The humanoids cautiously approached Dawson, and gave him a kind of physical examination, placing on his head a skullcap with cords connecting it to a hoop bearing dials. They dropped his trousers and lifted his shirt for the examination, passing the hoop over his body. While the examination was in progress, a loud voice came from the object, shouting three times " I am Jimmy Hoffa" (!) a fourth repetition was cut off, and the voice was not heard again. After completing the examination, all returned to the craft except two men, who walked about 10 feet away and "went into a conference." They had very shrill voices, and although Dawson was unable to comprehend what it was they said, he thought he heard the word "Jupiter." He had the impression they were debating whether or not to take him onboard; at any rate, they did not, and the leader passed his palm across his chest as though to signal good-bye. They reentered the ship, closed the hatch, and took off. He saw the object rise to 75 feet, and then in a wink it was out of sight. Dawson was then freed of his paralysis; he ran directly to his next-door neighbor, but was so excited he could say nothing more than "space ship!" He was taken to a hospital and treated for hysteria. - www.ufodna.com

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Tom Dawson at the spot where he was paralyzed by a UFO and subjected to a medical inspection by alien beings.  (Courtesy of the Camilla Enterprise)

Tom Dawson made his living selling cars in Florida, then retired to the peaceful community of Pelham. He was 63 years old on August 6, 1977, living in a mobile home park on Vada Road with his wife and daughter. He arose early that Saturday morning, then took his girl to visit Linda Kolbie, who owned a house adjacent to the mobile homes. Dawson was a frequent visitor to the Kolbie home, where he enjoyed playing with their infant son.

After chatting with Linda for a few minutes, Dawson decided to walk to a nearby pond and see if conditions looked right for fishing. He set out accompanied by his two dogs, walking through a pasture occupied by 50 cows to approach the fishing hole, located in a grove of trees.

It was a beautiful day, the countryside quiet as Dawson neared the water. When he was 100 feet from the water, a circular space ship instantly appeared and hovered four feet above the ground in front of him. It was 40 to 50 feet in diameter and 12 to 14 feet high. A protrusion like a cabin was on top of the craft, which seemed to be colored shades of several different hues.

Dawson was frozen in place-he could not move a muscle. The cattle in his field of vision were also frozen, as were his dogs-one had a leg suspended in the air, stilled as it took a step.

A hatch opened on the ship and a figure emerged that Dawson dubbed the "leader." He seemed hesitant to disembark and his first step was tentative, but then he motioned four more aliens to join him. At the same moment, two "sentries" appeared on top of the craft.

Of the five humanoids that approached Dawson, three were men and two were women. All were beautiful and shapely, their skin a bloodless, powder-puff white. Their ears were sharp their small noses upturned. They had no neck-their heads sat directly on their shoulders. Their heads were hairless, as were the rest of their bodies. Dawson knew because a male and a female alien were naked.

The other three wore identical clothing, beautiful and with a texture and color that defied description. Their shoes, of the same material, ended in sharp, one inch high turned up toes.

After hesitantly approaching Dawson, the aliens preceded to conduct a medical examination. A device similar to a skullcap was placed on his head. It was connected by cords to a hula hoop sized ring which contained an extensive series of dials. During the electronic survey, the creatures stepped up to Dawson and dropped his pants, apparently to check his sex.

At this point Tom Dawson was transported to Oz. From the interior of the ship a human voice announced: "I am Jimmy Hoffa. I am Jimmy Hoffa. I am Jimmy Hoffa and I'm in this ship. I am..." and the voice was abruptly silenced and not heard again.
Hoffa was a notorious labor leader who had disappeared several years earlier and never reappeared.

As each alien completed their part of the exam, they reentered the ship. The last two removed the headset from Dawson, then conferred. They had appeared to communicate during the medical tests, emitting a shrill, high pitched sound that struck Dawson as gibberish. One of the females kept repeating a word that sounded to Dawson like "Jupiter."

Dawson thought the creatures were debating whether they should take him with them. They declined to kidnap Dawson and the leader "waved" goodbye by crossing his open palm across his chest, then they boarded the ship. Within seconds the ship quickly rose to 75 feet and vanished soundlessly.

Man and animals were instantly released from the force that had immobilized them. Dawson hastily secured his clothing and ran to the Kolbie house, where Linda was working in the yard about 9:15 a.m.

"He was in bad shape," Linda told a reporter. "He couldn't talk at all. I looked up to see him waving his arms and struggling for breath."

She sat Dawson down and fetched a cool rag to help calm him. The man was "wheezing and rocking, wild-eyed," she said.

Linda attempted to learn what had happened, but all Dawson could choke out was "space ship." Fearing for his life, Kolbie called an ambulance, which rushed him to the hospital.

Dawson recovered, but the experience had him shaken for days. Despite experiencing the disbelief of others, he stuck to his story, saying: "I don't care what they say. This is the truth...I'm not crazy. I wasn't drinking. I've never had a mental condition.

"The whole time it happened, my mind was alert. I knew what was happening...I do know what I've seen. I do know what happened."

Several months later I traveled to Pelham and spent a Saturday with Dawson, interviewing him, the neighbors, and the paramedics (the doctor told me to leave him the hell alone). Everybody accepted Dawson's story, and none thought a person could fake that degree of distress. This remains Georgia's most bizarre story, and I know something happened to Dawson-I'm just not certain what. - 'Weird Georgia' - Jim Miles - 2006

The Slap-Happy Spectre

The following email was sent to me this morning:

Hi Lon, I have been receiving your newsletter for a few months. I am writing you about personal experiences and would like you to contact me to discuss. You have my permission to publish with a few conditions.

I grew up in a large two story house in Georgia (I want to keep the location private). I lived there from the time I was three years old until I was in my late twenties. As long as I could remember I experienced plenty of weird things. Many times I heard my name being called nearby and at a distance as well as being touched.

My family also experienced a variety of strange events. My mother told me that her and my father would hear doors slam downstairs at night. When they would go and investigate all the doors were wide open just as they had left them before they went to bed.

One night just before bedtime, my sister and I were in the living room listening to music when I noticed my sister get up from her chair and walk towards the stairs. Suddenly she started to scream and ran to our mother in the kitchen. I quickly ran after her. She said that a "pale old man" was gliding down the stairway. My sister was absolutely terrified, so much so that she urinated on herself and could not stop shaking. Not long after this incident I started experiencing strange phenomena.

One night I had a particular dream in which I was standing at the bottom of the stairs next to an elderly man. He was wearing overalls and a blue flannel shirt. His hair and face were very neat but his skin was a very pale gray. He was staring straight ahead and didn't seem to notice I was standing there. My next impression was me standing at the top of the stairs when I started to hear footsteps going towards my bedroom door. Suddenly I woke up and realized that I had been dreaming, but I continued to hear the footsteps getting closer to my bedroom door. I know for a fact that I was awake. I waited for whatever it was that was getting closer to my door to open it. Then suddenly something picked up my long hair and tossed it over my right shoulder. I jumped out of bed just stared at the bed. There was a voice calling my name and fading as I heard the same footsteps move away from my bedroom. I went to the door and slowly opened it. There was a terrible stench in the hallway so I closed the door and went back to bed.

A few years later my boyfriend at the time needed a place to stay so he moved in with us and slept in my old bedroom. One day I was downstairs in the living room watching TV. My boyfriend, who was in his bedroom, came running downstairs. He came into the living room and quickly dropped to his knees. As he looked up at me he appeared to be in shock. His hands then covered his face and he started to shake violently. After a few minutes of me prodding him for an explanation he finally told me that he had been sitting on the bed watching TV when a young woman with long blond hair wearing a white shroud-like dress appeared and sat next to him on the bed.

He froze and looked at her as she continued to look back and smile. He asked her what she wanted and she said "you...I want you", then she vanished. I never witnessed anyone so scared before. He grabbed me by the hand and led the way back up to his room. I walked into the room first and hoped I wouldn't see a ghost or anything else unusual. He abruptly pulled his belongings out of the drawings, threw it in a laundry bag and stormed out of the house. It may sound cliche but, honestly, I never saw him again.

A few years later, I moved out of the house and got married. We currently live in northwest Ohio. A few months ago we took a trip back to Georgia and to the old house. My mother still lived there.

We decided to stay for a few days not expecting any problems. My mother said that she had not experienced any weird activity for those several years after I had moved out. The week seemed to go smoothly.

A few days after we returned home, my 8-year-old daughter asked me if someone had died in Grandma's house. I looked back at her and said that I wasn't sure and asked "why?" She said that on the last day of the visit, when we were getting ready to leave, she went upstairs to my old bedroom to get something. As she was about to walk out of the room she heard her name being called...when all of a sudden she felt a hard slap on her right leg. She said it hurt so bad that it brought tears to her eyes. She ran down the steps as fast as she could and stayed on the porch until it was time to leave.

Last week I received a telephone call from my mother letting me know that she had decided to sell the house and move in with her friend. I asked if I should come back to Georgia and help her pack and move. She paused a bit, then said not to bother. She had already left the house and was going to sell everything in it. I was somewhat surprised by her statement and asked her why she was doing this. That's when I found out the real story of the house.

When I was three years old, we had moved into the house. At the time, my parents had little money and needed a cheap place to live. My father's employer had recently placed a house up for sale and offered it to my parents at a very reasonable price. The employer provided the financing as well.

A few days after we moved in there was a knock at the door. The elderly gentleman introduced himself to my mother and asked if he could look around because he had grown up there. She agreed and offered the elderly man a cup of coffee or tea but he just shook his head. My mother said he walked to the stairway landing, looked up the stairs, stared for a few seconds....then disappeared! My knees suddenly went weak. My mother never told anyone about the incident and said that she didn't see him again until the day after our visit.

The night after we had left for home, my mother was in the upstairs hallway about to enter my old bedroom to do some cleaning. As she grabbed the doorknob she felt a hard slap on her backside. She flung the door open and stumbled into the bedroom. As she looked around she heard a faint voice that started to getting stronger. Sitting on the bed something touched her hair...then a female voice whispered in her ear "he wants you." She hurried out of the bedroom into the hallway and towards the stairs when she noticed the elderly man, smiling and staring back at her.

Within the hour, my mother collected everything she wanted and left the house forever. Samantha

NOTE: I contacted Sam after receiving the email. The house has not yet been listed for sale...her mother is trying to sell it outright. I offered the services of SRI if needed though, I suspect, Sam and her mother are apprehensive since there is currently an interested buyer...Lon

Recent Bigfoot News / Claims - Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia

"On December 28th, I was hiking with two friends in the Cheaha Wilderness in Alabama and came upon this footprint in the snow. We were all skeptical of what it might be, but kept following tracks down the trail. We didn't know what to think. This isn't an area associated with Bigfoot and you really don't find many people trying to fake them around here. The heel looked a little small to me to be an actual Bigfoot, so we were perplexed." - Cryptozoology Online

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The following videos were made in the yard of a birdwatcher in Kentucky:


Click for video - 1

"Video footage of Bigfoot Foot prints in my yard .This video was uploaded from an Android phone."


Click for video - 2

"On Christmas eve I found foot print in the snow and am sure they are from Bigfoot tonight I put a security camera out and if you watch closely in full screen he walks from left to right behind the big oak tree an you can see him stay tuned for what may be one of the most exciting discoveries yet."

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Bigfoot ‘sighting' lures TV network

thedahloneganugget - Although it's not writ in stone, Animal Planet is making plans to visit Lumpkin and Union counties (Georgia). They are stalking the legend of Bigfoot.

The Discovery Channel, which produces Animal Planet, called local resident Mary Scott, requesting an interview with her. Scott, as well as a Lumpkin County Sheriff's Office deputy with whom she was riding during a Citizens Law Enforcement Academy ride-along, reportedly saw a Bigfoot about a year-and-a-half ago and captured it on the dashboard cam.

Scott said they were out in the Frogtown area when the sighting occurred.

“We were going about 55 mph on a curvy road. It was really late-after midnight, I think. We hadn't passed any other cars, and this thing came out of nowhere,” Scott says. “The officer hit the brakes and we both jumped out. We looked on both sides of the road but didn't see anything, and we looked at each other kind-of like, ‘You saw that, didn't you? I saw that.'”

Realizing the event had been recorded by the patrol car's dash cam, Scott and the officer returned to the Sheriff's Office where they viewed the happening on a larger screen.

“We were both just shocked,” Scott says. “It was really tall, and it really looked like the pictures you've seen of Bigfoot.”

The film found it's way onto the Internet, and that's how the Discovery Channel tracked Scott down, she says.

“I told them it all happened in seconds. It just came and went,” she says.

The TV representative told Scott they are planning to visit the area in February and plan to camp out in the area where she and the deputy made the sighting.

They may change their minds, however, when they learn that Sheriff Stacy Jarrard claims to have proven the sighting to be a hoax. Jarrard said he went out the next day to question homeowners in the area. At the first house he stopped at, he says, there were two young men, students at North Georgia College & State University, who were “acting really nervous. You could see their hearts were beating really fast,” he says.

The two did not admit to the prank right away, but later in the week they copped to one of them donning a gorilla suit and running across the road in front of vehicles on the night in question. Jarrard says he even has a photograph of the two boys with the gorilla suit.

If Animal Planet does decide to not to visit Lumpkin, they will probably still most likely visit the North Georgia area.

“They sent us a letter requesting to film at Track Rock in Union County,” said John Campbell with the National Forest Ranger Station in Blairesville. “The area is an archeological site, and is purported to have the footprint on Bigfoot.”


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