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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.