Report Received From: The GCBRO Online Report Submission Form.
 
Report Posted To GCBRO Web Site On:   January 1, 2008

DATE:   July 10, 1981?
 

TIME:     2:00 AM 
 

LOCATION:   Columbus County, North Carolina 
 

TERRAIN:    Residential 
 

OBSERVED:    First, some background on the location.  My family is from Lake Waccamaw, NC.  This is a small town in southeastern NC of about 1000 people in Columbus County, which, even now, is largely rural/agricultural.  The town is little more than a ring of houses on and around Lake Waccamaw, which is (I believe) the largest natural freshwater lake on the East Coast.  It is an absolutely beautiful lake, with a sandy bottom and relatively clear water.  The lake is partially fed by a large creek that comes out of the swamp with black water that becomes that color from the Cypress roots.  It's also spring-fed, so the water in the lake really looks about the color of tea.  Interestingly enough, there are limestone formations on the north side of the lake, and somehow this causes the lake to have a neutral PH, which is apparently unusual. Lake Waccamaw is the headwaters of the Waccamaw River, which by the time it gets closer to the beach only about 45 miles away, is quite large.  It also borders the Green Swamp, a very large swamp that you could hide anything in....I meaning there may be parts of that swamp where no humans have EVER been.  I spent as much time down there during summers as I could growing up.  My grandfather's house was on Lake Shore Drive on the north side of the lake.  The houses on this road are actually across the road from the lake, so you sort of had your yard, and then part of the yard on the lake side of the road.  I do not remember exactly when this happened but I think it was the summer I was 14 years old, which would have been 1981.  My best friend down there was Randy, he lived in SC but stayed with his aunt in the summers, and her house was close to my grandfather's house.  Since we couldn't drive yet, we were pretty much allowed to be out as late as we wanted...Actually, we were barely supervised at all....Of course we could really only go so far without driving, and we were usually not very far from home.  Most nights we'd be down
on one of our piers until 1 or 2:00 AM and then sleep at whoever's house we'd decided to stay at that night.  We could manage to get into either his aunt's house or my grandfather's without waking anyone, so it really didn't matter what time we finally came in for the night as long as we were quiet and went to our room.

This night was really no different than any other, except that some people whose parents were apparently away were having a party.  They were maybe in their early 20's, just older enough than us that we didn't really know them.  My house was actually on the lake, and Randy's house was on a side road maybe 1000 feet away from the lake.  The house where they had this party was between our 2 houses, and we had to pass it to get to Randy's, which is where we were going.  I'm really not sure what time this was, but I'm guessing it was probably between midnight and 2 AM, late enough so that people were beginning to leave the party.  I guess this was a clear night, and in July in southeastern NC it may still have been over 80 degrees outside.  This was a pretty big party, with loud music inside and out, and cars lining the road.  They were not close enough to any other houses to bother anyone, but if you were anywhere outside in that area, you would certainly notice this party.  When we passed that house, some people were just getting ready to leave, and they had the engine of their car started at the end of the driveway.  This was a real throw-down party and the people leaving were obviously drunk, which I guess just wasn't all that big a deal back then.  (This would make more sense with a diagram)  We walked past the road to the party and saw this car, a big old station wagon, getting ready to leave.  We continued on to Randy's house.  At this point we were walking past a section of woods between the party house and Randy's.  Suddenly, we heard the engine of that car open up, the tires squealing, and then what must have been the car plowing down and running into trees.  (Everything very normal up to now.......)  And then a split second later, it sounded as though that car was coming towards us THROUGH the woods.....(Had we had time to think about this we would have realized that this was impossible, and that there was no way a car was going to be able to make it through those woods.)  There was maybe 200 feet of woods between us and that car.  The weird thing was that it sounded like it was about 40 feet away and coming closer FAST.  But no headlights, no engine noise, just the sound of something coming through the woods directly towards us, and plowing down everything in it's path.  We both yelled "Run".....And we did....As fast as we could to his driveway, only maybe 50 feet away.  At this point we saw/heard the car come out onto the road we were on, from the other road, not the woods, take the corner on 2 wheels, and keep going.  We both had thought that that car was IN the woods about to run us down, and we both commented on how weird that was.....Even discussing if it could have been some previously unnoticed trick of sound that had made us think that.  But we quickly just dismissed it as something kinda weird, but no big deal.  The next day we saw that car again.....And it had BADLY sideswiped the trees.....The drivers' side was really messed up down the entire length of the car, but there was no damage to the front.  (We really examined this car, lol)  I didn't think anything more about this whole incident for about 25 years, until I became more interested in Bigfoot and began reading the reports on this web site.  I was shocked to read reports in North Carolina.....I have always kinda believed in Bigfoot, but since I just associated them with the Pacific Northwest I had never really even considered that I might have been near one.  (This is a whole lot of writing to tell you that I heard a weird noise in the woods, lol).....What I noticed in these reports, again and again, was people's descriptions of the noise these animals make when running through the woods...Sounding like a bulldozer, or car, without an engine...Well, we thought this WAS a car.....What I think may have happened is that IF these animals live around the lake, one may have been attracted to this party, and may have just been sitting in the woods across the road from this house watching the people outside.  And then when this car took off and fishtailed and began hitting the trees RIGHT in front of this animal it panicked (just as we did, lol) and began running through the woods to get away, not really thinking/noticing or caring for that matter that he was running straight towards us.  We never saw anything, or even thought we heard anything other than a trick of sound, and of course that may be all that it was......But this noise sounded like it was JUST inside the woods, and about to come out right on top of us! Anyway, after reading those descriptions, I thought that that might explain that incident.  This lake would be an absolutely ideal location for these animals.....Fish in the lake, LOTS of deer, even black bears live there.  Now right where WE lived would not be a good location....Too many houses, but at night, a large animal could easily roam around there without bothering anyone if it made any effort to be stealthy at all.  The houses are not really that far apart but enough so that something large would have some cover if it had to hide.  And surrounding this lake is miles of woods, swampland, etc.  You could travel all the way from the lake to Myrtle Beach and never have to leave the woods/swamp if you followed the river.  And there's no development at all on that part of that river really.  This may not really be of enough interest to anyone to even post but I have just been thinking about this for awhile so I thought I'd write.  I never actually saw, smelled, or heard any kind of vocalization that I couldn't explain there, so make of it what you will.  I don't think I've seen any reports from that immediate area, but I did read of one on Fort Bragg, which is only about an hour away, and one on Camp Lejeune, which is maybe an hour and a half away in the other direction. 
 

Activities of Witness:   Randy and I were just walking back to his house from the pier.  It's really not very far and though it's not WELL-lit, it's also not pitch-dark either.  Not exactly a lonely road. Some woods, but also some large open lawns....Our lawn was very open and there is a church across the road which also has a big open lawn. 
 

Description of Creature:  No description of the 'creature' from my grandfather other than it was a bear.  I never actually SAW anything during my experience..I'm not sure I could even call it an encounter. 
 

Other Notes:    The only other thing that I can think of is something my grandfather told me.  He used to live in this big old house up on the farm, maybe a mile away from the lake, and he always had vegetables planted.  One summer he kept finding piles of corn (6 or 7 ears of corn) in his garden.  (This would have had to have been sometime prior to 1970)  Sometimes 3 or 4 piles in the same row.  Then, once from an upstairs window of the house, which was at least 4-500 feet from the very closest part of the garden, he said he saw a bear in the garden picking corn.  The bear was standing on his hind legs, and walking down the row picking corn and holding it in the crook of his arm "just like a person would."  That's exactly what he said....And if the bear dropped an ear of corn, he would promptly dump all the others along with it and just start over.???  Now my grandfather spent most of his life hunting and fishing, all over the United States, but esp in the Southeast, so he does know what a bear looks like, and he was familiar with wildlife, esp on his own land.  But that doesn't sound like a bear to me. He just laughed at the situation and thought nothing more of it than it being a bear that had a funny habit of picking his corn.  He never acted like it was anything all that weird.  I continually read about all these people who are scared to talk about their experiences and I can't imagine why, but I know my grandfather would have told everyone he knew (5 times) had he even suspected something weird. (I know I must have heard the bear story 6 or 7 times.) 
 

Other (Informational or Encounter History in the General Area) Notes:    Nothing that I can recall......But as far as odors go there is a paper mill in a nearby town....If the breeze is right you can smell that.  It's not overpowering, but that could conceivably cover another bad odor....My point being that if anyone at the lake smelled something like that it would just be attributed to the paper mill at Reigelwood.  Also.....A lot of land down there is either owned or leased by paper companies.  This is a very shallow lake....A person could walk across 2/3 of it....And it's about 5 1/2 miles X 7 miles, the shape of it looks like a red potato from the air.
 

Additional Notes and or Follow up Comments:  N/A