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Monsters of North Carolina: Mysterious Creatures in the Tar Heel State
Monsters of North Carolina: Mysterious Creatures in the Tar Heel State
Monsters of North Carolina: Mysterious Creatures in the Tar Heel State
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Monsters of North Carolina: Mysterious Creatures in the Tar Heel State

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Bizarre beasts of the Tar Heel State featured in this volume include Skunk Ape, Mystery Primates, Santers and Vampire Beasts, Monstrous Snakes, Giant Insects, Mermaids and Mermen, and Sea Serpents.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 1, 2013
ISBN9780811753098
Monsters of North Carolina: Mysterious Creatures in the Tar Heel State

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    Monsters of North Carolina - John Hairr

    INTRODUCTION

    North Carolina is known for its high mountain peaks, deep river gorges, and wide sandy beaches. But it is also a land where strange animals lurk—giant snakes that are not supposed to be here, mysterious cats prowling just on the edge of civilization, odd creatures swimming in the water, and vampire beasts draining blood from their victims. All are a part of the colorful folklore of the Tar Heel State.

    Thanks to North Carolina’s diverse ecosystem, there are scores of places where unusual animals and strange beasts can thrive. At one extreme are the high mountain peaks in the west, where elusive hominids can seek refuge from the incursions of modern man. Off the east coast are the abyssal depths of the Atlantic Ocean, where strange creatures yet to be discovered survive in conditions as foreign as any terrestrial realm. In between are forests, swamps, lakes, pocosins, rivers, and even urban habitats where all manner of creatures live.

    Native American folklore is full of tales of encounters with strange beasts and mythic creatures. Some of the stories passed down were merely parables used to teach important values and lessons. Others were no doubt based on real-life encounters with some of the animals that were present in the area when humans first migrated into the region. What wonders those first settlers must have beheld!

    The Paleoindians who settled in this area more than ten thousand years ago saw a land that was much different from what we see today. Boreal forests, much like those found today in northern Canada or on the highest peaks of the Blue Ridge, predominated. There were no skyscrapers, hydroelectric dams, freeways, airports, or cell phone towers. The fauna of the land was much different back then as well, with large beasts such as wooly mammoths, mastodons, bison, and elk still roaming the land. The skies were full of birds of every description.

    As time passed, the climate warmed and the ecosystem changed. The boreal forest retreated to the north. The large mammals died out and new species took their place. The Native Americans shifted their lifestyle to take advantage of the new conditions found in the hardwood forests and prairies of the Piedmont, as well as the longleaf pine forests of the southern coastal plain.

    There are still some amazing creatures inhabiting the land we now call North Carolina. In addition to native fauna as diverse as anywhere along the East Coast, there are many newcomers. Some were only brief visitors just passing through, while others have set up a more permanent presence. In addition to the animals we know about, there are others that are mysterious for a variety of reasons. Some are new species heretofore unknown to science. Others are fierce, cryptic creatures that somehow made their way into the region, sometimes causing consternation among the inhabitants.

    Many of the animals described in this book are real-life animals, observed by scores of people and in some cases even studied by scientists. A few are mythical creatures, accounts of which have been handed down from generation to generation, perhaps as a lesson in understanding a more complex problem or idea. Others walk a fine line between officially accepted species and legendary creature. Many of those who study the latter category sometimes refer to themselves as cryptozoologists, and they attempt to bring mysterious animals from the realm of myth into the realm of science.

    There are some who would argue that this book is, for the most part, an attempt to catalogue the strange creatures of North Carolina, both the known and the unknown, and thus a work of cryptozoology and not a study of the supernatural. This is a valid assessment, as there is no mention of supernatural beings, ghosts, haints, or hobgoblins within this book. But this is more than just a catalogue of monstrous animals. It is also an examination of the folklore of the region, and how people have dealt with unfamiliar creatures down through the years, from the earliest aboriginal inhabitants who painted representations of animals on nearly inaccessible cliff faces, down to the technological savants of the modern era who comb the woods stalking mysterious creatures with the latest gadgets and wonders of modern science. Instead of using ochre to paint rocks, these modern hunters take digital photos and infrared images to post on the Internet or on television. All of these people, both ancient and modern, share in their desire to learn more about the animals and natural phenomena they have yet to fully understand.

    This book takes a look at many of these creatures, from the more familiar Sasquatch-type monsters that permeate the media to reports of unexplained creatures from obscure news sources. There are even folkloric accounts from both Native Americans and settlers from Europe and Africa, which help illustrate how people down through the ages have incorporated stories of mysterious animals into their own folklore and views of the natural world.

    Sasquatch, Skunk Ape, and Related Creatures

    On a cold Saturday in February 2011, a crowd of more than three hundred people gathered at the Eldorado Outpost in Montgomery County. Some had driven hours to be a part of the action. Others were locals just seeing what all of the commotion was about. In addition to the participants, there were news reporters, cameramen, and even a helicopter flying overhead. This was perhaps the largest crowd ever assembled in this small community in central North Carolina’s Uwharrie Mountains, at least since the days when the nearby gold mines were active. But these people were not looking for gold. They were looking for Bigfoot.

    The people at Eldorado were participating in a hunt for Bigfoot that was filmed for an episode the Animal Planet television series Finding Bigfoot. The show’s producers were drawn to this area by Salisbury resident Michael Green, who claimed to have gathered evidence, including thermal images, that Bigfoot-type creatures inhabit the Uwharrie Mountains.

    At first glance, it might seem a little odd to be hunting for Bigfoot here amongst the ancient peaks of the Uwharries. Has the hairy hominid packed up and moved across the country, leaving its more familiar haunts in the Pacific Northwest? Not exactly. Few people realize it, but the stories of large, elusive humanoid creatures in North Carolina predate accounts from California, Oregon, or anywhere else along the Pacific Coast.

    The mere existence of a Sasquatch-type creature is a hotly debated topic. Creatures known alternately as Wild Man of the Woods, Abominable Snowman, Yahoo, Yeti, Sasquatch, Big-foot, or other local variations are part of the folklore of people all over the world. There is some very interesting circumstantial evidence supporting the existence of these animals, including footprints, blurry photographs, and video footage. But so far, no one has brought in one of these creatures to be studied by zoologists or primatologists, so in many people’s minds these animals remain creatures of legend instead of science.

    Primatologists maintain that apes, gorillas, and chimps are native to the Old World, where they lived for millions of years, not arriving in North or South America until the very recent past. Thus, all apes that are currently found in the New World are descended from animals brought here within the last five hundred years by humans. There are some who would challenge this theory, and who believe that there is a species of apelike creature that is indigenous to North America, including North Carolina and the eastern United States. Far from being an extinct species that vanished into remote antiquity, these large humanoids still inhabit remote parts of the continent into the present day. These animals are known in popular vernacular as Bigfoot, Skunk Ape, or Sasquatch.

    The most recognized name for these creatures in North America is Sasquatch, which is an Anglicization of a word from the Stalo dialect of the Halkolmen language, popularized thanks to the work of John Burns, a schoolteacher on the Chehalis Indian Reservation. He collected several stories about these creatures from the Indians living along the Fraser River in British Columbia, and used them in an article he wrote for MacLean’s Magazine, Introducing B.C.’s Hairy-Giants, which was published on April 1, 1929. Some point to the date of publication as an indication that the story was an April Fools’ joke, but Burns was quite serious.

    Because the term Sasquatch comes from the Pacific Northwest, and because popular films about these creatures are set in the rugged mountains of northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, most people think of these creatures as being confined to that region of the world. But that is not the case. In fact, there are accounts of similar creatures from all across North America, even from the southeastern part of the continent.

    Some would contend that this widespread knowledge of Bigfoot has more to do with television and the Internet than with the physical presence of these large animals, and there is some merit to such claims. After all, most people today who know of Bigfoot most likely first saw him battling the Bionic Man on television during the 1970s, or perhaps saw a documentary on public television containing some of the controversial Patterson–Gimlin footage filmed in northern California in the late 1960s. Thus, the local version of a Pacific Northwest legend has found its way into the nation’s folklore, including North Carolina’s. But humanoid creatures have been mentioned in legends and lore of people in what is today the southeastern United States since long before the advent of movies and television. You might be surprised to learn just how old these legends really are.

    One such legend of an elusive giant living in the woods was preserved by the Cherokee Indians and dates back to the days shortly after their arrival in the Southern Appalachians. The Cherokee are believed by most ethnologists to be relative newcomers to the region, having migrated here after being driven out of their homeland in the vicinity of Lake Erie and the headwaters of the Ohio River. They found refuge in the mountains of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee less than a thousand years ago. Little is known of the people they dispossessed, but a few landmarks and pictographs left behind give a brief glimpse into their lives. The most famous of these is Judaculla’s Rock, a 230-square-foot soapstone boulder that rests in a field approximately five miles east of Cullowhee in Jackson County, near a tributary of the Tuckasegee River called Caney Fork.

    Archeologists have counted more than fifteen hundred separate markings etched into the soapstone. Some were made as the result of quarrying the stone, but others are clearly pictographs that were carved to represent something. Their meaning is unclear, and no one has yet been able to decipher the strange markings.

    The rock was there when the Cherokee arrived, and they were unable to read the pictographs. But even though the

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