Voices in Marion County, Florida

Newspaper article: Sentinel Star (Orlando, Florida), October 5, 1977 LURKING BIGFOOT TRICK OR THREAT? Halloween is still three weeks away but strange creatures are already being seen around Central Florida this week. A 22-year-old hitchhiker reported sighting the legendary Bigfoot, saying the beast was tall, dark and stinky. It lurked in the darkness in a lightly forested area off U.S. 441 half a mile south of Belleview, he said. "I've got some information about Bigfoot," the tremulous voice on the telephone said. "I think I just saw it." Monday morning a security guard for an Apopka nursery told police a 10-foot-tall hairy animal with a chestful of reddish- gray fur and small ears attacked him, ripping off the terrified guard's shirt. Donnie Hall, 27, said he fired several gunshots at the creature in vain. The Bigfoot sighter - a Belleview welder who didn't want his name known - said the beast was brown and black. "I'm six feet tall and it was bigger than me. It smelled horrible, like garbage." Neither of the two creature sightings was substantiated. A Florida Game and Fresh Water Commission agent who examined tracks at John's Nursery in Apopka said they all appeared to be man-made. Marion County Sheriff Don Moreland chuckled about the Bigfoot report. "I've been in law enforcement for 20 years here and I don't remember any reports of monsters. Flying saucers, yes, but I don't recall any monsters."