The RFP Research Project
Clarke County, AL Studies Area
Field Investigation Report
August 10, 2006
Background: On August 2, 2006, THB (Tal) received a phone call from an adult resident of Clarke County who said that four people had recently seen a large hirsute primate in a particular area of the county during the past few weeks. The caller supplied the names of one of the parties, and THB was able to contact two of the witnesses by phone. During the next few days several other people from Clarke County also called to volunteer additional information about the sightings and the people involved, and Tal was able to contact the relatives of the witnesses who live in the same area. Two of the witnesses finally agreed to discuss the events as long as the location of the encounter was not revealed. The relatives had their own stories of unusual events, and agreed to discuss them with our investigators under the same condition. Local members of The RFP Research Project were notified of the events, and CMM (Mike) was able to meet with the family on Sunday afternoon August 6. The businessman whose wife and daughter had seen the animal very graciously gave Mike a guided tour of the large tracts of private land surrounding the sighting area.
Site: Actual location not disclosed. The site is within a few miles of the City of Jackson, AL, and within a few miles of both the Alabama and the Tombigbee Rivers..
Initial RFP Report Reference: See report dated August 6, 2006.
Introduction: On Monday August 7, 2006 THB made the 9 hour drive from central Arkansas to Jackson, Alabama. After obtaining a room at a local motel, Tal arranged to meet Mike and both went to the home of the two witnesses. At the home were the mother & daughter, the husband/father, the daughter’s grandmother (her father’s mother) and a female cousin of the daughter of about the same age.
After the introductions, the daughter grinned and quickly told Tal that, “You should have been here a little earlier! When he asked why, she told him she had seen the animal near the same spot about 4:00pm that day - about 2 hours earlier. It seems that she and her mother were on their way home and the girl spotted the animal standing behind a pipe gate on a narrow dirt road leading to a nearby deer camp. She immediately told her mother to look out the driver’s side widow at the animal, but her mother refused, saying she did not want to see the animal again. (Her mother explained that after she had seen the animal on the way to work one morning she had a severe migraine headache all day. She thought the headache was the result of seeing the animal, and having to work with people all day who might not believe her if she had told them about the sighting.)
In describing her latest sighting the girl said that the animal she saw was “a lot bigger than the first one.” Although she said it was larger than the first, its color and shape were the same.
Field Observations & Comments: With permission from the family, the two girls accompanied Mike and Tal to both the sighting locations. Tal’s parked his truck at an open area along the sandy county road where the girl’s father had previous dumped the fish remains mentioned in the original report. That area was checked closely, but no unusual tracks were noted, although it was obvious that coyotes and buzzards had fed on the remains.
We walked the sandy road to the first sighting location, and the girl pointed out the exact spot the animal had been standing when seen. After being assured by the young witness that she was certain of the location, it became apparent that the initial report contained some erroneous estimates that may have affected her judgement about the animal’s size.
The roadway embankment on which the animal was standing was measured to be 5 feet above the roadbed. The two witnesses originally stated they thought the bank was about 2 feet high, but stated they were not sure. Mike and Tal later determined that if the girl was seated in the small car, the top part of the embankment would have blocked her view of about 2 or 3 feet of the animal’s legs. Measurements showed that the girl would have been about 10 feet from the concealed portions of the animal’s legs.
The spot on which the animal was reportedly standing was closely inspected but no impressions were noted. Two old and indistinct humanoid-like feet impressions in the thick layer of duff were noted about 6 feet from that spot.
We then walked a few hundred yards to the spot the girl had seen the animal earlier that day. At that location there is a narrow road that is blocked by a two-piece gate made of metal pipe. The top of the gate is about 4 feet above the ground. The road near the gate is hard-packed sand mixed with alluvial gravel. The girl stated the animal was standing on the road just inside the gate when she first saw it, but that it wheeled and started to run off the road as the car passed.
We closely inspected the old road for unusual tracks but saw none, but we did find tracks a few yards from the gate in softer sand that some of the family members had made shortly after the girl saw the animal when they came to inspect the road.. Dense thickets with small deer trails bordered the road near the gate. No large tracks nor hair samples were noted.
The girl stated that because the animal was standing behind the pipe gate, she could see that it was a lot taller than the one she saw in July.
It should be noted that Tal and one of the girls detected and mentioned a particularly foul odor about 100 yards from the gate. The smell quickly faded, and the actual source was not determined.
It appears the girl probably saw the same animal twice. It is believed she misinterpreted the animal’s height the first time because she could not actually see a large part of the animal’s legs.
During the first encounter both witnesses were impressed by the enormous size of the animal’s thighs. Its thighs may have appeared oversized for its visible height when in fact much of the lower legs would have been blocked from view by the road bank and their perspective seated in the car.
A sketch of the animal that the girl saw the first time was created by the girl’s grandmother under the girl’s directions . The sketch was modified several times, but the girl stated the sketch still did not accurately depict the animal’s nose and mouth. She did say that the nose was somewhat flat, but similar to a human’s. She also said the lips were fuller than shown in the photo, but not as human-like as drawn.
Notes: Sketch “A” is as drawn.
Sketch “B” had color added to better reflect hair and skin colors as described by the witness.
After these sketches had been completed, the girl was shown a series of other depictions of Bigfoot faces that Mike had printed off the Internet. The girl quickly picked one of the pictures she said more closely matched the one she saw.
Early Tuesday morning (Aug.8) Tal drove to the area and walked to the top of the ridge in the clear cut where the animal reportedly left the wooded area when the timber cutters begin work. There is a graded fire-break lane which runs parallel to the county road, and about 150 yards from it, which passes the end of the wooded area where it comes to a point across the road from the large area that is being harvested. At the crest of the ridge the fire lane was cut across the top of a bed of highly compacted grey sand which barely shows the tracks of deer that have crossed it. At this point Tal noticed two faint, fresh and smudged imprints of what appeared to be the forefoot and toes of a large humanoid. The imprints were about five feet apart and were headed away from the cutting area. (Although a video was made of the tracks for Tal’s own files, the video shows nothing that would be considered evidence in any legal or scientific inquiry.)
Tal remained concealed near the fire lane until the log trucks began hauling along the nearby road, but nothing of interest was seen or heard.
Environmental Notes: The area in which the family lives is somewhat remote with few residences. There are only three homes in the immediate area, and all those are owned by extended family members. The homes of the family members are only a few hundred yards apart, although the property owned and leased by the family apparently consists of a few thousand acres. Nearly all of the property is devoted to timber production. Much of the timber was damaged by Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina and salvaged afterwards. At present the remaining pine timber in the area is being harvested.
Shortly after the latest harvesting began on another’s adjoining property, one of the timber workers reportedly found a large, stacked pile of hog and deer carcasses and bones alongside a creek and near a limestone cave or bluff overhang. Reportedly the timber worker mentioned the bones to the property owner who came to look at them. The owner then had the bone pile moved and covered with dirt by a dozer. According to second-hand accounts of the situation, most of the deer carcasses were of large bucks with trophy-sized racks still attached. Reportedly some of the deer and hog carcasses were stripped clean of flesh, while others were only partially consumed. (The property owner reportedly wanted the remains hidden so that other timer workers would not see them. He reportedly stated he did not want a bunch of people on his property trying to kill the animal that had stacked and fed off the carcasses. Although the property owner’s name and telephone is known, area residents said he would not talk to outsiders about the matter.)
The surface soils are predominately ancient beach sands thoroughly mixed with red clay from ocean sediments. The area has steep hills and ravines with karst outcrops that contain small caves in some faces of the limestone cliffs. In nearby areas there are numerous underground stream channels in the limestone that produce winding caves large enough for human passage. The creeks in the area discharge into one of the major rivers a few miles away. The Tombigbee joins the Alabama River at the southern tip of Clarke County and the combined flow discharges into Mobile Bay via the Mobile River (or the Tensaw). The research site is approximately 60 miles north of Mobile Bay. The karst ridges and ravines were thickly forested with large cedars, pines, hickory and upland oak until the hurricanes and subsequent timber salvaging operations began.. The creek basins are in places swampy in nature, and in previous years were heavily forested throughout with lowland oaks, gums, elm, hickory, and cypress being predominate.
The area produces many wild fruits and berries such as blackberry, huckleberry, wild cherry, elderberries, muscadine, wild plums and persimmon.
The area hosts a sizeable population of deer and turkey. There are wild hogs in the general area, and some occasional forage near the residences. The general area is prime habitat for raccoon, opossum, squirrel, rabbit, turkey, armadillo and some beaver. The area is also known for its large rattlesnakes.
There are three ponds in the area, one of which is large, spring feed, and, according to the owner, contains large bream and trophy-size bass.
The area is typically warm and humid during most of the year, with occasional freezing temperatures and freezing precipitation during the late winter months.
Interesting Comments and Accounts From Other Area Residents:
The young girl’s grandmother’s home is about a hundred yards or so from her own, and across the county road. The grandmother stated that during the year 2000 her mother was staying with her. One day while the older woman was at the home alone she spent some time sitting on the porch. When her daughter returned home from work, she asked her mother how her day had gone. The older woman told her she had seen a gorilla come out of the woods walking on two legs. She said the gorilla was extremely tall. She said that when the gorilla saw her on the porch it turned and walked back into the woods. The older woman also told another daughter about the incident the next day. Both daughters believed at the time that their mother was “seeing things”. The daughter that lives there is now convinced that her mother saw the same type animal that her granddaughter and daughter-in-law encountered.
The girl’s grandmother has apple and pear trees in her large front yard. The fruit of one of the apple trees matures in late July. This year the tree - which is about 25 feet tall - was loaded with fruit, and people in the area stopped and asked if they could have some to the fruit. She told them they could as soon as the apples were ripe. She stated that during one night’s time when the apples reached maturity, every apple was removed from the tree and taken away. She is certain that no human stripped the tree at night.
This woman’s cousin - a retired man - and his wife live nearby and are building a new home behind the one they are living in. In early July (possibly the last of June) the man hired two carpenters from Mobile to do some of the work on the house. After their last day on the job they were driving out of the area and reportedly saw a large, hairy ape-looking primate run across the road on two feet just in front of their vehicle. The incident reportedly occurred within a few yards of the entrance to the gated road previously described. The men reportedly told area residents later that the animal they saw was 9 feet or more in height and running at great speed as it left the woods and entered an overgrown clear-cut. (One of the men reportedly told the person he had done the work for that he would never return to the area without a gun.) Tal contacted the carpenter by phone at his home in Mobile on August 4, 2006. The man stated he had seen such an animal in the area about that time, and would go into more detail about the incident if Tal would call him after 5pm the next day. Tal called the residence at that time the next day, and several times later, but never got an answer. We will continue to try to contact the reported witness. We were never able to determine the name of the other carpenter that was with this “witness”.)
OTHER PICTURES OF THE AREA
THE ROAD IN
LIME ROCK LIKE THIS IS EVERYWHERE
BIG HILL