The Local Bigfoots

Kentucky Bigfoot

Above, afacial reconstruction artwork from a Kentucky Bigfoot site on the internet.

At Left, A Kentucky Bigfoot Reconstruction Drawing from Bigfoot researcher Steven Devert Dismore 's Facebook page. At right, a sketch of the Bullitt Bigfoot report.

Bigfoot and the Cherokee Hill

A journey into sacred lands where the creature has been known for generations

By Stephen Wagner, About.com Guide

http://paranormal.about.com/od/bigfootsasquatch/a/aa040907.htm



According to one witness, this is what the Hebbardsville creatures look like. Described as averaging 8 feet tall, 400 lbs. with black skin and long arms that hang below the knees which they use in order to run swiftly. Flat, bearded face with receding chin-line, broad nose, thin lips and dark brown eyes beneath a prominent brow ridge. Covered in short hair with longer fringes about the beard, back of head and genital areas. Low forehead with hair “like a man’s combed straight back” (sketch by B.M.Nunnelly, 2006).
(The report and all photographs are by Kentucky Bigfoot researcher Barton Nunnelly).


Click on image for full-size version

Click on image for full-size version

Bart Nunnelly is convinced that Bigfoot exists, and may even be thriving in the many remote wilderness areas of North America. He has good reason to think so. As co-owner and co-creator of Kentucky Bigfoot (with fellow Bigfoot researcher Charlie Raymond), Bart devotes a great deal of his time researching sightings and examining evidence of these remarkable forest giants in the Bluegrass State. And the evidence he’s gathered is both fascinating and compelling. Bart recently met with an eyewitness to these creatures, a Cherokee elder who took Bart on a journey into the heart of Bigfoot territory and provided detailed information about the giant from his own experiences as well as the age-old traditions of the Cherokee people, who know these creatures well. This is Bart's story....
(Note: The names of the locations in this report have been intentionally altered for the privacy of those involved.)
After learning from a local paranormal investigator friend of mine about an old Cherokee fellow who also claimed to be a Hebbardsville, Kentucky Bigfoot witness, a phone interview was arranged and conducted in November, 2006. The information proved correct. Not only did the witness describe repeated (often at will) sightings of groups of these hairy creatures since his childhood, he also claimed to be in possession of what he was convinced was an actual tooth, which he described as a canine, from one of these creatures. Moreover, he could describe, in great detail, the physiological features, general attitudes and predictable behavior of these mysterious “hillbillies” known to the rest of the world as Bigfoot.
The alleged Bigfoot tooth which resembles a human canine, only much larger. Throughout the 19th and early parts of the 20th centuries many many sources cite the discovery of giant human-like skeletal remains in the Bluegrass state, the vast majority having been found buried in Native American Indian burial grounds or mounds. The witness’ mother related to him before her death that she had personally witnessed the excavation of one such grave In Beals, Ky., between Spottsville and Reed, back in the 1920’s. It was discovered during the process of building a bridge over a large creek. The bones were measured and found to be nearly 12 ft. tall! The giants remains passed into private ownership and their whereabouts went unrecorded, (photo by B.M.Nunnelly, 2006).

Click on image for full-size version
Location in Hebbardsville, where witnesses reportedly regularly observed Bigfoot creatures eating roots and grass. This creek, which runs along the Green River, was a primary route of travel for the creatures according to witnesses, (photo by B.M.Nunnelly, 2006).


 After several more phone interviews a meeting was arranged and, under the promise of strict anonymity, M.F. (not his real initials) agreed to allow me to photograph the alleged Bigfoot canine for possible identification. I arrived on the 17th of Dec., 2006. M. F. Lived only a short drive from the Hebbardsville area, only a twenty minute drive from my own doorstep. I found the gentleman to be pleasant, friendly, down to earth and of obvious intelligence. He immediately pulled the tooth out of his pocket. It did resemble a human canine, or eye, tooth, only about three times as large. I examined it and noted the obvious authenticity and great antiquity of the object, taking several photographs. It was complete with root system still attached. He would allow no DNA testing, he had told me during one of our phone conversations, because to do this would mean that at least a partial destruction of the tooth would occur. Nor would he allow it to depart his possession in any way. As a matter of fact, he didn’t really care at all to try and prove the existence of these things to anyone. They had always been a fact of life to his own people. Evidence of his Cherokee heritage was strewn about his yard, flower beds and doorsteps, and worn proudly around his neck. They were the ‘Old People of the Forest’, he told me, and their reality caused no controversy except to the whites. It would be amusing if not for the fact that , in their ignorance, the logging and mining of the white man was causing the rapid desecration and destruction of the Bigfoot’s habitat. Land considered sacred by the Indians since the beginning of history. There was daylight left. He asked me if I cared to take a ride. M. F.’s story was an interesting one. He had first been exposed to the creatures while growing up in the Spottsville, Reed areas, although at least two earlier generations of his family had their own tales of sightings and strange happenings. He remembered his great grandfather recounting how he had run outside one night after he’d heard some kind of commotion to see one of the old people carrying off two of his full grown sows, one under each arm like they were piglets. It swiftly made its escape even though the pigs weighed about 200 lbs. each! Around the time of the “Spottsville Monster” events his brother was finding strangely mutilated dead cattle. He had lost six head that year. Literally. All six carcasses were found with their heads torn off and missing. They only found one head, he claimed, and it was stripped to the bone and missing the lower mandible. None of the other meat on the carcasses was consumed. When the family moved across the Green River to Hebbardsville the sightings continued. In fact, he claimed that from the late 1960’s until the early to mid 70’s hardly any weekend went by when he and a car load of friends didn’t park near the intersection of Ash Flats and Old Bell roads and observe groups of these creatures, ranging in number from four individuals up to as many as fifteen or better, engaged in the act of eating bitter roots and grass. Countless sightings, he claimed, by dozens of different individuals. “Were they hairy Indians?” I asked. No, he said. They were not Indians of any type. They had black skin and an average size of eight to ten feet tall, although he had seen one awhile back that was at least a twelve footer. Their eyes were a dark brown color with no visible whites or irises. They were bearded, had thin lips, a weak chin and a flat, wide nose like individuals of African descent. They had normal looking hands of a large size with pale colored palms, but their feet had an opposing toe sticking out at an angle away from the other four toes, like an ape’s or chimp’s. They had extremely long arms which hung down past their knees and could run quadrupedally 35 to 40 mph. The females also possessed beards, though shorter than the males. They were of more stocky build, had furry breasts and carried their young beneath them clinging to their bellies. He described the males as being covered with short, straight, usually dark hair, with longer areas of about six inches at the beard, backs of the head and genital areas. “Pull over here”. He said as we approached a medium sized muddy creek at the Old Bell, Ash Flats location. I pulled over and we got out. This was the location, he told me, that he and scores of friends had witnessed these creatures feeding countless times. They didn’t seem to mind being watched, he said. Unless someone got out of the car. Then they would all rush into the creek and be gone in an instant. They traveled the creeks, he claimed. The water would wash away the tracks and they were excellent swimmers if the water was up. After photographing the location I asked him if he could take me to where he found the tooth. He would take me there, he replied, if I promised never to disclose the location. It was a sacred place, he explained. A burial place of the Cherokee people and home to other powerful legendary beings as well as the old people. I agreed and we got back into my four wheel drive. We traveled a short distance from the Pleasant Hill area and stopped. “Follow me…” he said, and started up a thickly forested ridge. Although he was nearly 60 years old he ascended the steep terrain as nimbly as a jack rabbit and, after a short but vigorous trek, we crested another large hill and stopped. “Look freely.” he said. “Take pictures, but nothing else”. I looked around. We stood at the rim of a forested ridge which wound around the area like a dark circle, forming an impressive natural amphitheater. The bottom of the ‘bowl’ formation was mostly clear and somehow comfortable looking even now. All around me were graves, stacked in layers. Some ancient beyond reckoning. Many were marked with stones onto which Cherokee pictographs and letters were carved. I had hunted Indian artifacts nearly all my life but had never seen a single stone in Henderson county bearing intact Native American images or writing. Now I was surrounded by them. “This place is called “The Great Hill” by my people.” The Great Hill. Here was buried the bodies of the famous Cherokee chieftain, Double Head, his daughter, Corn Blossom and countless others. I snapped pictures one after another while the sunlight faded much too swiftly. Daniel Boone, pioneer hero of old, had written of this place. Twice he was held captive here and twice he was freed or escaped. Two heavily weathered stones still bore his name and short messages, carved there by Boone’s own hand during his captivity. Still other stones were carven with images of corn stalks, deer and sun. Three stones contained the likenesses of strange faces. No one knew who most of the graves belonged to. Great chiefs of antiquity whose names were lost forever. Stone circles were present. Raking back the dead leaves revealed a wealth of flint artifacts still lying where their makers had placed them generations ago. During heavy rains some of the graves would wash out, M. F. told me. He had needed to re-inter some of the bones on occasion. He had found the tooth several years ago here, at the foot of the hill, washed up by the rushing water. No other creature of this area had teeth like it, he felt sure. With his help I was able to sketch a facial study of these particular humanoid’s features for all to view. I would like to express my gratitude to this man for agreeing to speak with me, sharing some secrets and showing
me such interesting, and historically significant locations. Locations unlike any other that I have ever personally witnessed.
The “Hebbardsville Hillbillies” – Investigated by B. M. Nunnelly on 12-19-06On Sunday, Dec. 17th, 2006 I headed out to investigate rumors that large, hirsute, bipedal humanoids were still being seen in Hebbardsville, Ky. Henderson County. In the early winter of 2004 witnesses in a parked vehicle at a place called Negro Hill, Pleasant Valley Rd. reportedly observed two large, hairy, manlike creatures in a field below in the act of pulling up and eating the roots of old corn stalks. One was a dark brown color, they claimed, while the other appeared to have white hair. Though shaken, they returned the next day to find trace evidence in the form of uprooted stalks and prints. The area, just across the Green River from Reed and Spottsville Ky., has a long history of hairy monster sightings and the creature was dubbed the ‘Hebbardsville Hillbilly’ by the local press and residents of Hebbardsville. It was also claimed that a strange bed, made of grass and Switch Cane plants, was discovered in an old, abandoned dwelling in the woods at the end of Pleasant Hill Rd. I planned to visit said locations to have a look around and take pictures and, with the help of my guide, Greg Tackett, family friend and one time Hebbardsville resident, was able to arrive at Pleasant Hill Rd. in an expeditious manner. He knew both the area and the story well, he claimed, and promised to lead me to the exact locations in question with no trouble at all. Moreover, I had been given the contact info by a mutual friend of another Hebbardsville Bigfoot witness who had made some startling claims to me regarding Bigfoot in the area and had scheduled an interview with him for later that afternoon. I had visited the area the previous day to reconnoiter, parking at the old church on Negro Hill and looking down at the many fields, creeks, wind-breaks and forests of the Green River bottomlands. The entire area, known as the ‘county ditch’ as it takes on all the water that the highlands shed, is littered with Indian artifacts and ancient burial mounds, mute testimony to the two Native American tribes that once called this place home; the peaceful Cherokee and the war hungry Shawnee just across the river. The Shawnee, I’m told, would often steal across the river in their canoes under cover of darkness, to raid the Cherokee, stealing their women and children and murdering the warriors. The particularly violent history of much of Western Kentucky is startling, and it is easy to see how such a place, once called ‘the dark and bloody ground’, could give birth to many dark legends which still cause locals to shudder even now. We would have to take the long way around, Greg informed me, as the woods where the old house was located at the far end of Negro Hill was owned by a local logging/mining co. and posted. We planned to come in from the bottom field where the creatures were initially sighted and work our way eastward to the old home site, which was located on Book Lane, a part of what is known locally as the “Ash Flats’. We found the lane under 2 ft. of mud and water and realized that the only way to continue was on foot. Greg, however, was undaunted and as eager to carry on as I was and I am very grateful for his stern resolve to make good on a promise that he had made to me months earlier. After a few minutes trek we were in the field below the wooded hill and I was able to take photos of the old church from below. We walked for another hour before we made it to the house site, but, unfortunately, it was no longer there. Evidently the logging co. had torn it down and bull-dozed the entire area several months before, turning the once verdant forests into nothing more than rolling grassland, a fate that still awaits much of the Hebbardsville river bottoms. My only regret was that I had arrived too late to investigate and photograph the alleged Bigfoot nesting place.

Bart Nunnelly is the author of Mysterious Kentucky, scheduled for publication in Summer 2007.

This was a story that was posted in my yahoo group Frontiers of Zoology and on the site Cryptomundo at about the same time in December of 2006 or 2007. There was some discussion about the tooth at the Cryptomundo site including the additional information that the tooth was a premolar and not a canine: our discussion went a little further and specified that the tooth had characteristic NEANDERTHAL traits and was not only "a big Indian's tooth"
Neanderthal teeth often show the feature called Taurodontism, in which the pulp cavity of the tooth is expanded and as a result the root tends more and more to form a tube shape. Below are asome unwarn Neanderthal teeth and the Hebbardsville tooth on the right, showing the expanded pulp cavity, and the line drawing under that illustrates the degree to which the Taurodont trait can be expressed in different individuals.

The skull of the Hebbardsville Hillbilly once again has more points in common with the Neanderthals than with the more usual types of modern humans. The size and the shape of the skull in the Hebbardsville Hillbilly also look to be a fair match for the Gardar skull in Greenland.

The tracks are once again typical Eastern Bigfoot tracks and are Neanderthal-like but larger, Similar tracks are found in Tennessee and the other adjoining states, up to Pennsylvania and including also Georgia and the Carolinas.

Alabama track in winter snow, in the mountains, and adjoining the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee.This track has a definite heel-skid making the heel of the track appear more pointed and elongated

A Kentucky Caveman
(photo Mock-up)

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Kentucky Cryptids

http://kentuckycryptids.blogspot.com/2010/10/pope-lick-monster.html

The Pope Lick Monster

Norfolk Southern Railway trestle, Louisville, KY

It’s not as likely that you’ve ever seen or heard about this particular cryptid, either because there aren’t any cases on file about the Pope Lick Monster (named after the Pope Lick Creek below the Pope Lick Train Trestle), or because sightings of this creature began in late 1940s to early 1950s and have faded since then. All the same, the Pope Lick Monster is an interesting character: a human-goat hybrid appearing to have the body build like a man with fur covering the legs, translucent skin, and a hooked nose like a goat. Also, the goat-man has short, sharp horns protruding from the forehead, situated by long, greasy hair. It’s said he mimics voices of a loved one asking for help on the train trestle at night. The victim will be so drawn to the voice, they’ll barely notice the oncoming train and will either be ran over or plunge the 100 foot drop off of the bridge.

The only known incidents involving the monster that I’ve heard of where: a group of Boy Scouts camping on a hillside near the trestle driven from their camp late at night by a creature that screamed and threw stones at them, but keep in mind this is also Bigfoot behavior. In 2000, a man at the age of 19 died from falling off the trestle – which could have had something to do with the Pope Lick Monster.

One woman recalls in her youth hearing stories about the Pope Lick Monster: “It was part of a senior tradition,” Mary Ruckriegel, wife of Jeffersontown Mayor Daniel Ruckriegel. “They would go out there to see if they could see it; it was a sign of bravery,” she added. “The boys would take the girls out there to try to scare them. It was something really scary.” (Kendall, 2001.)

And still, the origin of the Pope Lick Monster has never been confirmed. There are several views that the monster was a reincarnated form of a farmer who sacrificed goats in exchange for satanic powers. Others have said that the monster was a circus ‘freak’ out for revenge to the people who were cruel to him, the story here as follows: “In the late 1800s there were rumors of a wild animal roaming the Canadian wilderness. Locals called it The Pope Lick Monster. Stories about the creature caught the attention of a circus owner by the name of Silus Garner. He offered a generous reward to anyone who could capture the mysterious monster. Finally someone tracked the creature down, captured it and claimed the reward. Garner began to exhibit the Goat Monster in his circus freak show. He travelled by train from town to town and the monster was one of his star attractions. But Garner mistreated the monster and it grew to hate its captor and all other humans. One fateful night, as the travelling circus was bound for Louisville, lightning struck the train tracks, derailing the train and causing a fatal accident. All the passengers aboard the train were killed, all except for one – the Pope Lick Monster” (“Pope Lick”.)

Local police are constantly trying to keep teenagers from climbing up to the dangerous heights of the trestle, and have fenced off certain portions from the general public to try and prevent future death/injury, especially since trains go over this bridge many times on a daily basis, and it’s hard to (safely) escape the bridge from an oncoming train. So, it’s important for police officials to monitor the area (Pope Lick Monster, 2010.)

Picture #1: Wikipedia, "Pope Lick Monster" Picture #2: credited to B.M. Nunnelly 

 [-In this case again I think the "Satyr" or goatman is a Wendigo wearing an animal skin as a disguise, keeping the animal's horns and goatlike legs intact in the hide The hide could well be a deerskin unrecognised. I have other reports seeming to describe the same thing from New Jersey and other parts of the US and Canada.-DD]

Monsterquest photo for an Ohio "Grassman" dwelling covered by a rofing of grass or shrubs. Such structures are also reported in Indiana, Kentucky and the surrounding states. I have ibnspected some such structures in Indiana that are about twenty feet in diameter with a scooped-out floor area.)

 In the case of Kentucky also, one of the purported "Bigfoot" photos seems to me to be instead one of the clearer representations of a Skunk Ape (as they are called in Florida) Not only are the face and head a close match for an orangutan, the long furry arms as indicated have a distinctly orangutan like look to them

Reconstructed-representation of a "Skunk Ape", also similar to a young orangutan.This looks like it is redrawn off of a Native mask.