Boogers, Bush Apes & The Tall Man

Michael Dumont said he saw a "booger" crossing a dirt road near Tupelo, Mississippi, on a hot summer night in 1996. 

"It was really big, covered with grayish fur, walking on two legs but slumped over. It looked like a gorilla or something," Dumont said.

According to Dumont, this particular "booger" showed up in the area several times, including once by his father a year previous.

"That is how I knew it was a booger. He saw this thing and then told us about it. He said it was a booger, a kind of creature people see around here occasionally."

If that is not strange enough, Leslie Vance saw a "wild man" near the Lance Rosier Unit of the Big Thicket National Preserve in Southeast Texas in 1991. 

"I was hiking and saw this thing standing by a tree. At first, it looked like the tree had fur on one side, but after looking at it for a few seconds, it bounded away on two legs," she said. 

Elroy Fields saw a similar creature he called a "devil" bounding across a dirt county road one night near Mobile, Alabama, in 1983.

"It turned my way, and I could see its glowing red eyes. They looked about the size of the bottom of a soda can. This thing was big. Really big," Fields said.

Had these reports come from the Pacific Northwest region, people would have filed them in the "Bigfoot" category. After all, it is that region that many believe houses an as-yet-discovered bipedal primate that leaves large, human-like footprints in its wake. 

Many people label that region "Bigfoot Country."

What about sightings of such animals in the Southern United States? Are there "wild men," "boogers," and "devils" stalking the woods, or are they things simply figments of people's overactive imaginations?

Some might say that is the case, but the answer is simple to those who have thoroughly researched the issue.

The animals people report seeing in the Pacific Northwest and the rest of the United States are the same animal or at least a close relative. We will leave space for perhaps a couple of creatures or subspecies here.

Scanning old newspaper clippings for mentions of Bigfoot creatures would be a fruitless way of investigating the phenomenon in the East and South. Broaden the search to include such terms as "wild man," "booger," "wookie," "devil monkey," "skunk ape," "swamp ape," and "brush ape." However, you come up with reports of strange, apelike creatures haunting the region's forests and swamplands. 

It is essential to remember that the term "Bigfoot" first appeared in the 1950s to describe the maker of large footprints found around a logging camp in northern California.

The reason for so many different names for these creatures throughout their range is because of the isolation of people living in rural areas. People in these areas typically keep to themselves, so coming across different names for the same thing is common. 

Examples include names given for fish species such as Promix nigromaculatus. On the Texas side of the Sabine River, that species is known as "crappie," whereas just across the border in Louisiana, Cajuns call the fish "sac-a-lait." Yet in northern Texas, anglers call the fish "white perch." The bird known as Fulica americana to scientists is called a coot in Texas, "mud hen" in Mississippi, and "pool d'eau" in Louisiana.  

People in rural areas tend to refer to things in ways they can understand even more than people in cities. The word Sac-a-lait, for example, comes from the fine-eating flesh of the fish. It is French for "sack of milk".

Calling a frightening-looking creature a "booger" is a way for people in the region to give what they saw or heard a relatable name. The term "booger" has its roots in the 19th-century word "boogeyman," which is defined by the Encarta World English Dictionary as "a real or imaginary person or monster that causes fear or is invoked to cause fear." 

Even First Nation people had their names, like the Louisiana Choctaw's Nalusa Fayala (long, evil being) and the Seminole's Esti Capcaki (Tall Man).

Do you see where I am going here?

(This is an excerpt from the forthcoming re-release of Bigfoot South)

Written by: The Wildlife Journalist®

www.bigfootsouth.com