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Shots Fired At Intruder In Fairview
Fleming County, Kentucky; Mason County, Kentucky and Vinton County, Ohio

From THE FLEMINGSBURG TIMES DEMOCRAT, Kentucky
By Dean Muse of Flemingsburg, Kentucky Dated: Wednesday, October 15, 1980

BIGFOOT TALES ALARM AND AMUSE COUNTY

Has Bigfoot invaded Fleming County, Kentucky? Well, something definitely broke into J.L. Tumey's back porch last Friday night in Fairview.  Tumey had just sat down to watch the baseball game on TV at about 8:15pm when he heard a noise on the back porch of the trailer. "At first I just thought that a dog had gotten in to the porch but then it knocked something over," said Tumey.  "That's when I grabbed my pistol. I ran out the front door and ran around to the back.  That is when I saw what looked like a big man running towards the woods.  I emptied my pistol at it as it ran."

Tumey said that he then ran back into the trailer to get more bullets.   When he approached and old stable behind the trailer, the creature ran out and started towards the woods.  He fired two more times at it, but didn't hit it.  "It was very dark, so I really couldn't tell exactly what it was.  It stood up like a man and it was big, but it was so dark, about all I could see was a big shadow.  It made a thumping noise as it ran," he said.

Just after this, Mrs. Tumey came home.  When her husband told her what had just happened, she called Sheriff G.W. White.  He and some of his deputies soon arrived, along with a crowd of people who had heard about it on their police scanners.   According to Mrs. Tumey, "about half of Ewing and Fairview showed up with their guns to hunt the creature.  It's a wonder somebody didn't get hurt."

People stayed on the scene until about 3:00 am scouring the woods for clues.  There was a freezer on the back porch, and pieces of frozen meat were found lying around the porch and in the back yard.  Sheriff White found a package near the stable.   "I don't know if it was any Bigfoot or not.  It looked like a big man.   It was dark and I couldn't see very well," Tumey said.
No clues were found that night, but the next day, Johnny Burke and Estill Helphenstine found some unusual tracks. They found some tracks where something had slid down a bank and some more going up the side of another bank.  They followed the prints along a gully deep into the woods.  That is when they found some clear prints in the wet sand.   The tracks were described as being about l4 inches long and about 6 inches wide.   They still were not clear enough to tell whether they were human or animal tracks although the pair said the tracks weren't made by a boot or shoe, but were more like a track left someone barefoot.

When the Tumey family started straightening up their back porch they found another clue, some long white hairs left on the doorknob and the freezer.  The Sheriff's department sent them off for analysis.  Nobody seems to know what is was.  Some think it was a man, others say it was an animal, while still others said it was Bigfoot.

Mason County, Kentucky:
There was a similar sighting in Mason County the previous week. Charles Fulton opened his door and looked out on what he described as a large white, hairy creature holding a chicken.  Fulton fired two shots, but the creature ran off into the night.  The incident occurred on October 4th.

Vinton County, Ohio:
A similar sighting took place in Vinton County, Ohio the week before.  A hunter apparently saw a creature in the woods and fired a number of shots at it. 

Is it for real? Something or somebody did enter Tumey's back porch. Two loaves of bread, a frozen chicken and a package of hotdogs were missing from his freezer.  But was the thief man or beast?  "If it was a man, he must have been awfully hungry to break in while I was in the house," Tumey said. "A regular animal like a bear or a dog couldn't have opened up the back door or the freezer and carried those packages." 

Some people have said that Bigfoot is nothing more than a product of the imagination and fears.  A teen-age girl said she thought it was just something made up by parents to keep their kids from going out and parking.  Others have taken it more seriously. [End article]

Credit: Sasquatch cartoonist Rob Butler, Milwaukee, Oregon May, '99

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