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Bigfoot aficionados are buzzing over a reported Sasquatch sighting in rural South Carolina earlier this month.
According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) – which logs and categorizes Sasquatch sightings across North America – this sighting took place on private land just west of Peak, S.C. on Saturday, November 2, 2024 at approximately 6:30 a.m. EDT. Peak is a town of 64 people located on the banks of the Broad River in Newberry County – approximately 25 miles northwest of the state capital of Columbia, S.C.
The witness – a law enforcement officer who was identified only as “J.M.” – said he was “deer hunting” on land owned by his family when the sighting occurred.
“While sitting in a ground blind I heard a loud deep-toned grunt and a stomp at the same time,” J.M. stated. “(I) turned around to look and (saw an) approximately seven to seven-and-a-half foot tall brown human-like shape through all the brush.”
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The shape the officer saw “had long brown hair, (an) ape- like face and long arms,” according to his statement, which was submitted to the Bigfoot tracking website on November 6, 2024, four days after the alleged encounter.
“We watched each other for probably thirty seconds but felt like forever before it turned and walked off,” the witness continued. “I’m a police officer and had no clue what to make of it. At this point as much as I didn’t want to admit it I am convinced it was a Bigfoot.”
Popular in North American folklore, Sasquatches are mythical humanoids which reportedly tower as high as fifteen feet. They are rumored to have glowing eyes, massive feet and deadly bear-like claws.
“I spoke with the witness at length,” Bigfoot hunter Matthew Moneymaker noted in a follow-up report. “He is indeed a police officer for a jurisdiction on the west side of South Carolina. He is very credible.”
Moneymaker assigned the sighting a “Class A” designation – the highest and most credible listing reserved for “clear sightings in circumstances where misinterpretation or misidentification of other animals can be ruled out with greater confidence.”
“He has hunted on the same property since he was a child,” Moneymaker wrote of J.M. ” This was the first time he had an encounter like this. As he mentions in his report, (the witness) heard a huff-stomp combo behind him as he was concealed in a ground blind on the edge of a power line route.”
Neither the original account of the alleged encounter – or Moneymaker’s recap of it – referenced any evidence to support it other than J.M.’s testimony. Also, no one was present with J.M. at the time of the alleged sighting.
Here is an image of the area in question posted to the BFRO website…
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Launched in 1995, BFRO bills itself as “the only collection of Bigfoot reports from across North America that have actually been investigated by researchers to determine credibility.”
“BFRO has a large network of experienced volunteer investigators across the U.S. and Canada who use various methods to determine the credibility of reports,” the group noted on its history page. “They spend a great deal of time and effort sorting through and investigating sighting reports to determine which are credible enough to display to the public.”
The sighting in Newberry County is the first reported Sasquatch encounter in South Carolina since February 2023, when a Union County resident reported “repeat visits” by a rumored Bigfoot to their rural home “not far from the city limits of Union, S.C.”
A total of 57 Sasquatch sightings have been reported in South Carolina dating back to 1964, according to BFRO records.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.
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7 comments
Kudos for choosing not to shoot it! Too many idiots would have.
Somebody might have a random drug test this week.
18 Rhesus Macaque monkeys in a 2XL Halloween bear suit? About as likely as a Big Foot…
The biggest factor that I can’t intellectually get around is why there has never been a carcass/corpse of these alleged creatures in all of North America, with thousands of reports in the US and Canada going back 300+ years among westerners and much further back than that among the indigenous people. One would think if these things truly existed, somewhere in the last 400+ years someone would have found bones, etc. that would substantiate these claims. Of course there ae the more wacko claims that the creatures can traverse through interdimensional portals, put I haven’t taken enough drugs to give that consideration.
with the bones folk lore from my tribe said that when one dies they take the bones and put in a cave or bury them but if they die aloe the bones my also be brittle and dcompse with the body and maybe the
with the bones folk lore from my tribe said that when one dies they take the bones and put in a cave or bury them but if they die aloe the bones my also be brittle and dcompse with the body and maybe
Logically, the witness has no motivation to make up his story. He has everything to lose and really nothing to gain by making up a story like this. As a police officer, his reputation is at stake especially because people who aren’t capable of comprehending something outside their belief system are going to ridicule him, say he’s on drugs or discredit him in another way. Who would put themselves through all of that if it wasn’t a true sighting?
Before folks pass judgment and make cruel attacks on the witness, perhaps they should ask themselves if they would like the same treatment if the shoe was on the other foot.