Author's Son Shaken by 8-Foot Bigfoot in Alabama

Alabama isn't typically the first place that comes to mind when folks think about Bigfoot country, but down in the southern part of the state, there's a whole community of people who've had experiences that would shake even the most hardened skeptic. I recently came across a fascinating episode of The Cryptid Crew Podcast that dives deep into this very topic, and it's worth every minute of your time. The episode features Ashley McFall, author of "Lower Alabama Bigfoot: No Longer Myth," and her story is one of those that really sticks with you. Ashley grew up fascinated by the subject, sneaking her mom's books and looking at the Patterson-Gimlin film photos. But like many people, she figured Bigfoot was a northwest thing—Oregon, Washington, maybe northern California. Never in a million years did she think there was something roaming the Alabama woods. That all changed when she started having experiences while hunting. But the encounter that really sealed it for her happened when her son was just 12 years old. Picture this: a young boy sitting in a shooting house made from trampoline bars, waiting for a deer, and something comes up behind him. He hears limbs breaking, what sounds like bones crunching—later Ashley figured it was popping its teeth, something only hogs or black bears do around there, and neither were known to be in that area at the time. Then the whole shooting house starts shaking. Hard. The kid almost falls out of his chair. He bolts, runs down the road, and when he looks back, he sees something massive standing over the shooting house. Its head was above the roof—and Ashley estimates that roof was 8 to 9 feet up. This thing was looking inside, turned toward her son, and the poor kid was so terrified he left the four-wheeler and ran all the way down the road to get to safety. When Ashley and her uncle went back to investigate, they found footprints. Not the giant 17-inchers you sometimes hear about, but 11 to 13 inches—still bigger than any black bear on record in Alabama. And there were tracks going down the road, suggesting at least two of them were present. The trail led down to a branch where limbs were snapped off 8 feet up, just broken all the way through. But the vocalizations might be the most compelling part of the whole story. Ashley describes a sound that isn't quite a howl or a roar—something that would make a believer out of anyone who heard it. She used to have an 800-pound bull, and even that couldn't produce anything like what came out of those Alabama woods. When you hear something like that, there's really no other explanation. What makes this whole story even more interesting is the pattern Ashley noticed. After she started talking about these encounters on her hunting and fishing radio show, the calls started pouring in. People from all over the area had stories, and when she started plotting them on a map, they clustered—especially around Burnt Corn Creek. Almost everyone she talked to either had an experience themselves or knew someone who did. The area around Pine Orchard in Monroe County seems to be a real hotspot. Ashley mentions there's a lot of lore and strange phenomena in that area that she's uncovered over the years of research. There's even a friend of hers named Tommy who had his own experiences in that same shooting house two years later but never told anyone about it until Ashley started putting the book together. If you're interested in the subject, especially the southern reports that don't get nearly enough attention, this episode is a must-watch. Ashley's book "Lower Alabama Bigfoot: No Longer Myth" sounds like it's packed with encounters and personal experiences that would satisfy anyone curious about what's roaming those Alabama woods. The Cryptid Crew Podcast did a great job letting her tell her story, and you can really feel the emotion when she talks about what her son went through. Check out the full episode when you get a chance—it's the kind of interview that reminds you why this subject continues to captivate so many of us.