Did a Bigfoot save a guy’s life in 2000? And how about the guy who didn’t go into the woods for five years after seeing one?
David Bakara was 12 years old when he saw 1972’s “The Legend of Boggy Creek.”
That movie focused on a Bigfoot stalking an area of Arkansas. “And it was portrayed as a real thing. It wasn’t like a joke,” says Bakara, 56.
“At that time, I thought, ‘There are a lot of people that were seeing this thing.’ And it just amazed me to think there were eight-nine-10-foot-tall hairy giants, families of them, living on the outskirts of civilization or hiding from us. I just found that fascinating.”
Bakara later became a Bigfoot researcher while living in Florida, and, he says, he saw or heard two Bigfoots while in the Sunshine State at Alva. One, he says, was about seven feet tall, about 60 feet away, hiding behind a tree. Another, he says, “just sounded like a German tank in the woods.”
Five years ago, Bakara moved to the mountains of Georgia to be “closer to the woods” and, in 2016, opened Expedition: Bigfoot! The Sasquatch Museum at Cherry Log, just off Ga. 515, between Ellijay and Blue Ridge.
Since then, he says, people “from every walk of life” have come to share stories of sightings. “Sunday, within 15 minutes, we had four witnesses come in,” he says.
One man told of how a Bigfoot saved his life in 2000.
Others relate stories of fear.
“The phenomenon itself is frightening,” Bakara says. “We’re not just chasing some monkey. When you see one of these things, there is nothing humorous about it.”
Yet the museum’s exhibits and videos are family-friendly. “We try not to make this place frightening. Every single bit of it is science,” Bakara says. “We inject art and decoration into it to engage the kids’ minds.”
Bakara also enlists an army of helpers, including Sybilla Irwin, a witness sketch artist for the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.
“No one’s much of an advocate for witnesses,” Irwin says. “So I work with people one-on-one. Some have been traumatized by what they’ve seen.”
In the spring of 2018, Irwin collected the report of a hunter who said he had seen a Bigfoot at a distance of 250 yards. “It scared him to death,” Irwin says. “And he didn’t hunt for five-and-a-half years. He didn’t tell people. He just stopped hunting.”
Then, finally, he started talking about it.
That hunter said the creature appeared twice the size of a human. “And it moved so fast,” Irwin says.
Today, push-pins on the museum’s wall map note the location of Sasquatch sightings, many in the Chattahoochee National Forest. “These are people who have walked in,” Irwin says. “So, look at all the activity around the museum.”
One report says, “Large footprint found on property.” Another details, “Bigfoot spotted crossing Yukon Road.”
“My contention is the government knows all about these things,” Irwin says. “They just can’t manage a population of these things. It kind of follows the parallel course to the whole UFO thing. They deny because they don’t want to be responsible for having to manage these things, because they’re not always nice, and they’re not all warm and fuzzy.”
Who is not—the government or the Bigfoot?
“Both,” Irwin says with smile. “Although, the Bigfoot are probably more honest.”
Expedition: Bigfoot!
The Sasquatch Museum
1934 GA-515, Blue Ridge, Georgia
706-946-2601
