Alabama and Cleburne County have not been known for "hotbeds" of strange activity including UFO and Bigfoot sightings - despite the fact that National Forests seem to be a big factor in appearances of the latter. However, some quick Internet searches turn up some strange activity over the years right here in Cleburne County including several sightings of strange lights and one reported incident of large footprints in the Talladega National Forest. The "bigfoot" reports comes from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization at www.bfro.net Dated September, 1994 at Sweetwater Lake in the Talladega National Forest, the report states, "About seven years ago my wife and I were at a lake in the middle of the Talladega National Forest in Alabama. The lake was Sweet water Lake. We were fishing in a small boat at the end of a slew early in the morning, we were the only ones at the lake, I think it was on a Wednesday and we were all alone. We heard something scream, it started out as a howl and turned into a long high pitched scream and it was so loud it echoed through the mountains. It made the hair stand up on the back of our necks. But that is not all. About a year before that my stepfather and I were hiking around the same lake, we liked to fish at a spillway way on the backside of the lake, and about 1/2 mile into the hike we crossed a fire brake about 20 feet wide, now keep in mind that we are a pretty good way back in the woods, we have crossed rocks thorns and briars and all kinds of rough ground. And right there across the dried mud in the fire brake is a set of foot prints dried into the mud. They were not huge, they were about the size of a full grown man but they did look human, I just couldn’t understand why a man would be this far back in the woods without shoes on. And over the years there is one thing I have thought about a bigfoot would have to grow up, so maybe it was a young Bigfoot." The man had another story which he relates, "I once worked with a man in Alabama that after we became friends, told me he and his whole family were picking huckleberries at Sweetwater Lake, the huckleberries grow wild all over the area. He and his wife and two children were picking away when they all heard something in the trees. They all turned around to see a hairy man standing there. He said it was a little taller than a man and as soon as it saw them it ran off into the woods. It scared them so bad that they left." The National UFO Reporting Center at www.nuforc.org has this report of a church van being followed by a sphere of light as it passed through the Hollis Crossroads area in the fall of 1995. The report states, "The multiple witnesses were all Georgia residents of that area, and attended the same church. The occasion leading to the event was a church trip to Anniston Alabama by this small group of church ladies. They were being driven in a large van by a male member of the congregation who was a prominent local businessman, and also known as a trusted community leader in that African-American neighborhood. Accounts vary, but there may have been 10+ total witnesses on this trip, this investigator interviewing six of them. This harrowing account was held confidential by these witnesses for about two years, only being discussed among their small group of friends. . . . PW (one witness) stated that on the night in question, she and her church friends were riding up to nearby Anniston Alabama to play bingo. They were seated to the rear of their friend, the van driver, and as usual talking and having a nice ride, enjoying the nice clear weather. "(Note......the driving route was determined as follows; west out of Lagrange and across the adjacent state line into Alabama, then turning north on Alabama Hwy 431 which carries them to I-20 which is about 35-40 miles distant to the north.) "As the van approached the vicinity of Wedowee Alabama on Hwy 431, the witnesses decided to roll up all of the windows because of the poultry plant located just off the highway (Braswell’s Farms). PW indicated that the odor of the production there was pretty strong, and this was something they normally did enroute to Anniston. "As the van approached and passed the plant, PW and some others noticed what they thought was a large new light over the top of the building (which is located on a rise). It was large enough that they commented on it being newly nstalled. One witness stated that it was not a light, but some “flying thing”. "Another witness commenting that no, it was just a new light. Then the other witness replying something to effect of “Well if that’s so, here it comes”! The light flew down from over the plant and approached the moving van and then began to pace it as it drove north. The light was described as being round like a globe, about the size of a “dishpan” in diameter (bigger than a basketball). The light was described as being “yellowish”, with the brightness of a lightbulb or street light. It continued to pace the van, with descriptions of the light varying it’s distance and altitude to as low as about 12 feet and then back up to 100 feet or treetop level; .......sometimes over the van, sometimes beside it, but always pacing it. This episode began near Wedowee on Hwy 431. . . During this wild ride, the ladies became frightened, trying to get down below the window level and still taking an occasional peek. The driver stated that he was trying to drive and look at the same time which he found difficult. He verified that the light appeared to be about 100 feet over the poultry plant before it swooped down and began following them. . . . During this ride up to I-20, the PW at one time saw what she described as a shape within the light, a shape very similar to a “human embryo”, which she indicated in her sketch. Further that it seemed to be “moving around” within the light. At another point, she recalled something like a beam projecting out that hurt her eyes, and those of her friend. Adding that they both later developed watery and sore eyes. Another witness did not describe a beam, but told of a “sparkling effect. Another witness described a “bad glare” that beamed through the window.....just suddenly clicking on. "This activity continued as the van moved northwards closer to I-20, passing through the small Alabama “hill country”. At one point, the vehicle drove through an underpass, finding the globe of light waiting on the other side. "This light also demonstrated terrain avoidance maneuvers and continuously adjusted it’s speed to that of the van. "As this group finally reached the area of the intersection of Hwy 431 and I-20, the light flew off over a field, then accelerated steeply upwards, leaving a streak, then became the size of a star and vanished." Thus ends Toms Sheets, State Director MUFON of Georgia's report. This reporter has discovered that in the summer of 2003 two Cleburne County Sheriff's deputies were out shortly after midnight along Alabama 46 in the Trickum Valley area when their patrol car was suddenly bathed in bright light as if they were parked inside a well-lit football stadium. The officer driving attempted to outrun the light but it continued to hover over them and finally they pulled off the road to get a better look. After a few minutes the UFO departed but all of the electronics in the car were fouled. The vehicle would crank and run but the lights and other electrical equipment would not work. In the process of leaving the scene the two officers ran upon some teenagers who were out camping and they also saw the mysterious light. The previous year, around the same time period, on of the officer and his son saw some type of object fly over them leaving a lot of wind in it's wake but no sound. A year prior, all in the Trickum area, the officer had seen a strange looking object move slowly from behind some trees, stop, back up as if trying to hide and then swiftly moving forward, rising, banking and flying off toward a nearby mountain. When the odd shaped object moved from behind the trees the first time, the officer saw what appeared to be a man sitting inside a bubble-type "cockpit". I later interviewed a resident of the area who said there has been a lot of large "cargo-type" planes which regularly fly through the area at almost treetop level (you can see the pilots in them he said). He said there had always been reports of "unusual lights" and visible sightings of a lot of helicopters suspected of "hunting dope". Another Ranburne resident said an unusual aircraft began flying over their home in 1997 and continued for many months - always at the same time. She said she assumed the aircraft was involved in drug interdiction work or practicing low level flying. She said the craft was very unusual looking with what appeared to be a massive wide-screen television in the middle of its underside. She said the craft made an extremely loud noise - far louder than any jet, bomber or cargo plane. The National UFO Reporting Center has this report of a sighting in the Talladega National Forest near Oak Level which lasted about three hours. "On the morning of January 31,1996 my husband was unable to get back to sleep and left home shortly after 1 a.m. He arrived at his preferred hunting spot in the Oak Level area of Cleburne Co. . . . He planned to sleep in the truck until daybreak. When parked at the top of the mountain and facing west the glow of lights from the cities of Anniston (S.W.), Jacksonville (due west) and Piedmont (N.W.) are visible on a clear night which this was. Shortly after arriving he reclined the seat to nap but noticed a bright light over the city of Jacksonville. This he passed off as a bright star or the planet Venus. That is until the “star” started to move. He passed this off as a helicopter training flight from Ft. McClellan which lay just to the south of Jacksonville in the Anniston glow of lights. His assumption of a training flight was suddenly changed when this light darted at a humanly impossible speed to the north toward Piedmont. In less than a second the light hovered in the glow of Piedmont’s lights having covered a distance of about 15 miles almost instantaneously. After a few minutes the craft darted back so that it was again over Jacksonville. This time he witnessed a beam flash downward. . . . He observed the movements of this light for quite some time and in fact became bored and eventually drifted off to sleep. After dozing for and an hour or so he awoke to the same activity in the skies to the west This soon after changed when the light was approached by a larger and brighter one which came from the west. The smaller began moving around it in a way that is most easily compared to insects flitting around a light. This seemed to have served to convey some type of message because at that point the smaller light headed straight in my husband’s direction. The larger light faded backward! in the direction from which it had come (that of Sand Mtn. approx. 40 miles WNW of Jacksonville.) As the craft continued in his direction my husband chambered a shell into his deer rifle. This done the light almost instantly began backing away in the same direction taken by the larger as if it sensed danger." And another report from NUFORC files concerning a huge ball of light observed for half an hour near Sweetwater Lake in the TNF. "The exact location of the sighting was across from a dirt boat ramp on Sweetwater Lake, which our hiking trail passed by. As we broke into the field that runs along the lake and watershed, the fog was very thick. This is when we first noticed flashing that we assumed to be heat lighting or something similar. By the time we reached the boat ramp, we were away from the field and completely out of the fog. The flashes were coming from three points. Two points were far away enough that the source could not be seen. The 3rd flashing was across the lake and only a short distance inland (I guessed around 100 yards at the most). The light was flashing at various intensity, length, and time. Ranging from a very small fraction of a second to nearly a second. The intensity also ranged from: just enough of a flash to see the low level clouds light up with a white ambient light, to a bizarre ball of light that peaked over the tree line by many feet. When the ball of light was large enough, it resembled plasma. The colors were red, yellow, white, purple, etc. The ball also appeared to move around, by maybe 30 yards to the left or right. "I should also note that the “ball of light” as I’ve called it, was only 300 yards away at most, and completely silent. We watched the three flashes for about 30 minutes until they became quite infrequent.
And a third NUFORC report from Hollis concerning a triangle shaped object. "Me and three friends were on our way to Anniston in two seperate vehicles. It was around 6 and it was dusk. There was still light in the sky and we could see an outline of the object we saw soon after. We had just turned at Hollis Crossroads and were driving down the road when we saw what was either a very low flying object, or an enormous object at a higher altitude. It was trianglular with a flashing green light on it. It moved slowly, or slower than a plane would, across our field of vision, which was the windshield since it was almost directly above us. We called our friends in the other vehicle to ask them if they saw it, and they said they had and described it like we did."
About Wayne Ruple
Cleburne News editor Wayne Ruple is a native of Ashville. Before coming to Heflin, he worked for three years as a computer systems manager in Birmingham. Ruple has worked for The Sand Mountain Reporter in Albertville, and was the editor of The Independent in Robertsdale. He has also worked for the Shades Valley Sun, the St. Clair News-Aegis and The Daily Home in Talladega.
