The media can't get enough of a North Carolina mountain man's bigfoot story from earlier this week. Describing the sasquatch he believes he saw going after his dogs, Tim Peeler describes the cryptid as being 10-foot tall with beautiful blonde hair and six fingers.And we laughed and laughed ... although some more than others.
Peeler, a Cleveland County resident, has become the latest quirky backwoods Southerner to go viral because of his funny accent and possible tall tale. So far every media personality and blogger wants to weigh in on the story and turn it into paranormal pop culture - including MSNBC, Jimmy Fallon, Keith Olbermann, the Los Angeles Times and even TV Squad - because it's good for cheap laughs.
Painted as unsophisticated, uneducated and inbred, rednecks are easy punchlines who all describe tornadoes as sounding like locomotives plowing through their trailer parks - so of course it makes sense that one would be chasing off an imaginary beast with a big stick.
Unfortunately, with all the yuks we're getting at Peeler's expense, no one is bothering to wonder what this guy really saw. Admittedly, Peeler sounds like he's been living in a jug of moonshine in his 911 call, but I don't want to completely discount his story because I think he saw something - especially since stories of a blondish sasquatch in North Carolina go back for decades.
Did he actually see a sasquatch, was it another kind of animal or was he just drunk and conjuring up a regional myth that's been with him since childhood? I don't know, but I hope somebody believes this guy enough to actually look into it.
OK, and because I don't want to take all the fun out of it, embedded below are Peeler's 911 call, his local news segment, and the Olbermann and Fallon treatments - along with a video of purported bigfoot photos and noises.