Bigfoot hunter Wesley Acreman with map of Conecuh County. |
Last Thursday afternoon, I got the chance to attend and
witness one of the most unique meetings I’ve ever been to, the organizational
meeting of the Southwest Alabama Bigfoot Hunters.
Spearheaded by Bigfoot enthusiast Wesley Acreman, the
meeting was held last Thursday at 4 p.m. under Pavilion 1 at Evergreen
Municipal Park. I wanted to attend just to observe the meeting, and I was more
than a little surprised by how it went.
Wesley, a minister who claims to have seen a Bigfoot-like
creature in the Pine Orchard community, was the only one there when I got there
a few minutes before four. It was a little cool, and I began to wonder if maybe
the weather and the four o’clock start time had kept others from attending.
Not long after that, a car with Escambia County plates
pulled up and out stepped Vince Lauria, who lives near Brewton. Vince, a
75-year-old native of Pennsylvania, got wind of the meeting after a Brewton
attorney friend told him about it after reading about it in last week’s
Courant.
Vince is one of the most interesting people I’ve met in a
long time. He told me that he’s been investigating reports of Bigfoot and UFOs
for decades and has had all sorts of unusual encounters. Vince also told me
about an old newspaper story he ran across from Escambia County that told about
how citizens there captured a “wild man” in the woods in the 1890s.
Vince is supposed to be sending me a copy of the story, and I plan to share it with
readers soon.
As things rocked on at last Thursday’s meeting, several more
people started to show up, including a husband and wife couple who couldn’t
stay for long. Others came and asked that I not put their name in the
newspaper, mainly because they don’t want to be made fun of.
There were a couple of interesting aspects about everyone at
the meeting. Everyone seemed to have a different reason for being there, and
everyone seemed to have a different outlook or explanation for the Bigfoot
phenomenon. The group included true believers like Wesley and skeptics like me.
Most of the meeting consisted of informal discussions about Bigfoot
sightings, Bigfoot TV shows, “Bigfoot hunts” and even black panthers. One thing
that became apparent during these talks was the fact that just about everyone
there knew of someone else who should have been there. Absent due to work from
last Thursday’s meeting were Wesley’s brothers, Virgil and Roman, who have both
seen the “Pine Orchard Bigfoot,” and Ashley McPhaul, one of the biggest Bigfoot
enthusiasts in Southwest Alabama.
In the end, the meeting lasted for about an hour and plans
are in the works to have another meeting next month, mostly likely at a
different time and location. There’s also talk of an organized “Bigfoot hunt”
after hunting season ends and a possible meeting with Don McDonald, from the TV
show “Killing Bigfoot,” when he comes to Evergreen next month for the Collard
Green Festival.
was that a one time thing or are there meetings on a regular basis?
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