Mike Conley's Tales of the Weird: Hairy creature roaming Virginia mountains?

By: Mike Conley | McDowell News
Published: February 17, 2010

Located in the southwestern corner of Virginia, Grayson County is home to some of the most beautiful and highest mountains in the Blue Ridge. Mount Rogers, the tallest peak in Virginia, is located in this county and the Blue Ridge Parkway winds through there. This proud and scenic area is also well known for its music festivals which feature old-time fiddling and some of the best in mountain picking and singing.
In short, Grayson County, Va. is a lot like McDowell County.
But lately, folks in Grayson County have been talking about a large hairy upright creature that's been spotted walking near the Parkway. They think it might be a Bigfoot.
The Grayson County Sheriff's Department got a call at 9:30 p.m. on the night of Jan. 28 about a creature sighting. Sheriff Richard Vaughan said his office heard from a local man who said his wife, another woman and a young boy were traveling north on Route 89, according to a Web site.
The caller reported that he and the others spotted a large hairy creature while they were traveling between the Blue Ridge Parkway's bridge and Edmonds Road in Grayson County. It was about 7 feet tall with black hair all over.
The unknown creature reportedly walked upright to the edge of the road. When it saw the car lights, the creature disappeared into some nearby pine trees.
Vaughan said he reported the weird incident to two officers with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. The two officers, Jason Harris and George Shupe, went to the scene to check it out but didn't turn up anything, according to the Web site.
For many years, folks in the Blue Ridge Mountains have talked about seeing or hearing the creature known as Bigfoot or Sasquatch. There's even been sightings right here in McDowell and nearby counties.
Perhaps this one was hiking through the mountains or was hoping someone would give it a ride on the Parkway on a cold winter's night.
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Last week's column about the strange tale of Scottish forester Robert Taylor and his encounter with a UFO resulted in some good comments from my readers.
One person wanted to know what happened to Taylor's dog during the close encounter.
I am glad someone inquired about that because I wondered about it myself. When I wrote the column, I tried to find more information about the fate of Taylor's dog on the morning of Nov. 9, 1979. The Web site that I used as the source for my column made no mention whatsoever about the red setter's fate. Taylor was unable to speak and could not even stand for some time after the weird UFO he saw at Dechmont Law Hill near Livingtson, Scotland knocked him unconscious for about 20 minutes.
But another Web site I found since last week contains even more information about the incident and some good photos. It states that when he came to his red setter was still there. The dog was acting panicky and running around and barking. Taylor tried to calm his dog down but he found out that he couldn't talk. He managed to crawl and drag himself back to his pickup truck and presumably his faithful companion made it home too.
Apparently, the aliens or whoever was piloting that UFO were not interested in four-legged creatures, only two-legged ones.
Another reader, who claims to have lived in Scotland, points out that Dechmont Law Hill is not in the country's highlands, as I mistakenly wrote. The hill is actually in the central lowlands, according to the reader who was there just before Christmas.
I truly appreciate the correction. This column is called "Tales of the Weird." It doesn't need to become "Tales of the Wrong."