But a major flood in 1916 changed that theory. Geological Society investigated, determining that the Brown Mountain Lights were really just the headlights of cars or passing trains. Sightings continued, and in 1922 the U.S. The first reported sighting of the Brown Mountain Lights was in 1913 by a fisherman who claimed to see odd red lights dancing above the horizon. To many eyewitnesses, the lights appear as glowing orbs that hover in the sky above the mountain before suddenly disappearing or soundlessly exploding. In the dark skies above Brown Mountain, North Carolina, eerie ghost lights have been spotted in the night sky for over a century. Needless to say, I made a hasty departure home.” Illustration by Craig Snodgrass. “The moonlight was shining through its hair. “It was leaning forward making a hump where its neck and back join,” says Smith. “I had to,” he says, and there beside the grapevines was a seven-foot creature. As he rode past the grapevines, he heard something moving through the brush behind him. When I stop, it stops.” Spooked, Smith took a shortcut home through his grandparent’s backyard. “He was out of breath and anxious,” remembers Smith. Smith says that one cold November night he was riding his bike home after dark when he heard a friend run up behind him. When Smith was a boy, he says he had his own run-in with Bigfoot. Smith of Gate City, Virginia, is co-founder of the Blue Ridge Monsters and Legends Facebook Group where members come to share their stories of unexplained encounters with the hairy bi-pedal. There’s no doubt about Bigfoot’s existence in Phil Smith’s eyes. Jane Goodall has even weighed in on Bigfoot’s existence, telling reporters that she wants to believe that Bigfoot is real. Stories of Bigfoot also abound in Native American oral tradition, and the unexplained ape has been studied by scientists and scrutinized on the Internet. The Wild Man can be found in literature as early as the second century BC. The tale of Bigfoot has been traced back to the European Wild Man, a mythical figure that had hair all over his body and lived like a beast. Known around the world as Sasquatch or Yeti and locally as Wood Booger or Boojum, Bigfoot is an ape-like creature that conceals itself in the deep, dark forest, leaving behind footprints so large they could not belong to any man. Suddenly, you’re certain of what you saw, and it definitely wasn’t a black bear. On the ground, there’s an imprint-like a human foot but much larger, nearly two feet long and eight inches wide. Your heart pounds in your chest and you realize, jarringly, that the sounds of the forest have died. Is it a bear? You stand frozen in place, eyes locked to that shadowy spot in the woods, waiting for the animal to move. The animal-or whatever it is-is large and covered in dark fur. Imagine you’re deep in the woods when you spot a sudden movement through the trees. ![]() We took a look at six of the most popular legends in our region. ![]() Whether our collective imaginations are running wild or we’re really sensing something otherworldly, stories of ghosts, UFOs, terrifying man-sized animals, and other hair-raising tales abound in these Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s just that your imagination and your emotions can fool you.” “Or you happen to catch something out of the corner of your eye and you swear it’s a ghost. “If you hear things that go bump in the night and you swear you don’t have a pipe rattling or anything like that, you think it’s a spirit,” he says. “Your psyche has a tendency to get away from you,” says Rivers. ![]() Though it’s hard to say why stories of unexplained phenomena pop up in these mountains, Rivers says that fear can easily get the best of people. Michael Rivers, lead investigator of the Smoky Mountain Ghost Trackers and an author who has written extensively about Appalachian folklore, says that the Appalachian Mountains are ripe with paranormal activity. Some scholars believe that the danger and isolation of early mountain life gave birth to many of the legends that still exist today, banging around in our brains and compelling us to take an extra look over our shoulder should we find ourselves alone in a dusky forest or a creaky old cabin. It’s not surprising that a 480-million-year-old mountain range would inspire legends of unexplained animals darting through the darkened forest or strange and ghostly apparitions appearing in the night sky.įor generations, myths and superstitions have been passed down through the oral traditions of native tribes and early settlers, gaining a foothold in our Appalachian culture. Bigfoot, Brown Mountain Lights, and the Bell Witch.
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