My name is Stacy and I grew up in a little holler near the North Carolina Tennessee border in North Georgia.

My childhood home is at the dead end of an old dirt road, 10 miles

from town and surrounded by mountain wilderness. At least 300 uninhabited acres wraps around the backside of my parents property,

bordered by mountains, a good-sized creek, and several

generations of family have lived in this area

over the span of decades.

Most of the current inhabitants of the neighborhood over the span of decades.

Most of the current inhabitants of the neighborhood are my relatives.

It's beautiful and peaceful and remote.

A good bit of the area is densely forested with a few old fields near the creek and largely

untouched by man since the 1940s.

There are still remnants of a barn in a couple of old farmsteads built in the 1800s, so long, unlived in that they never had electricity.

Complete with rock and mud-dob chimneys, they are a testament to the skill of the old

natives and mountaineers that settled this area of the Appalachian foothills long ago.

I guess you could tell I'm proud to be from this area, but enough about that.

I'll get on with my story and tell you about my first strange experience with Bigfoot.

It was late fall 1998.

I was 19 years old.

It was dark 30 one night, and I had stepped out onto the porch to smoke a cigarette.

The air was cool, but there were still a few stray crickets, hollering,

and other soft sounds of the usual night creatures that I was familiar with hearing at the time.

I had been outside a couple of minutes when I noticed a sudden silence.

...