Georgia is a US state located in the Southeastern Region of the United States and is bordered with the US states of Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Alabama and also has a small coast along the Atlantic Ocean, the state was one of the original Thirteen Colonies, with Alabama and Mississippi later splitting off from it. The state capital and largest city is Atlanta.
The state’s geography includes two mountainous areas which are the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians in the north-west tip and the Blue Ridge Mountains in the north-east, both areas includes forests and valleys, then there is the Piedmont plateau that stretches centrally through the state, the area is hilly but less rugged than the two mountainous regions already mentioned and then the rest of the south of the state lies in the Atlantic Coastal plain which is low lying land. There are four barrier islands called the Golden Isles of Georgia that lay off its coast and the islands include natural beaches, marshland, maritime forests, historical sites and wildlife all of which makes them a major tourist attraction.
Georgia has a fairly diversified economy, with the capital playing a large part into the state economy, such as through the growth of finance, insurance, technology, manufacturing, real estate, service, logistics, transportation, film, communications and more. The state also hosts the world’s rated busiest airport Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and the fourth largest seaport and fastest growing container port in North America. The state is rated as having one of the best business and labour climates. Agriculture, mining and tourism also pay largely into the state economy among more.
Several major companies are also headquartered in the state including coco-cola, USPS and Delta Airlines among others.
Now with that done let’s get into the weird and the unexplained of the US state of Georgia!
First of all, I am going to start with a very much localized legend or even likely some kind of local joke as well. It is called the Beavershark and is said to be found in the Callaway lakes of Pine Mountain, Georgia, in the deepest areas of the lake. They are described as having the front-half of a shark and the back-end of a beaver and apparently subsist on a diet of large fish and turtles and also won’t hesitate to bite a human child who happens to get too close, so it could be it is also used as some kind of bogeyman.
Although they are said to mostly hang out in the deeper areas of the lakes, it is said they can be sighted near to shore either in the dusk or dawn… but make sure to not get too close! The beavershark can apparently reach lengths of up to 3-feet. Is it a joke? Most probably. Could they be real? Most likely not. Nonetheless, I thought it’d be a funny little edition to start this off.
Next up we are going to take a look at a more serious lake serpent that is known as the Altamaha-ha or also called Altie as a nickname. It’s another water serpent that looks rather similar to the well-known Loch Ness Monster and Altie is said to reside in the Altamaha River in southeastern Georgia with sightings particularly common in small streams and abandoned rice fields near to the river’s mouth, with many sightings coming out of McIntosh County, specifically from the city of Darien.
The Altamaha is a major river in the state that is formed by the confluence of the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers and flows eastwards for 137 miles and drains into the Atlantic Ocean. The creature itself is described often looking like a large sturgeon-like shaped creature with bony ridges that run along the top of its body, it has two flippers on its front but no hind limbs and its snout looks similar to that of a crocodile, it has two big eyes on its head with long sharp teeth in its mouth, its head sits on a long neck, although seemingly not as long as the Loch Ness Monster’s neck, and it has a long swooshing tail which it uses to swim in a similar fashion to that of a dolphin.
The creature has vastly a grayish-green colour on its body but with a light-yellow underbelly. It is estimated to be anywhere from 20-30 feet in length. It is believed the creature may have originated from a Native American legend in the area of a snake-like creature that inhabited the river.
Recorded reports of the Altamaha-ha itself go as far back as the 1830s. One such sighting was reported by the Savannah Georgia newspaper among a plethora of sightings at the time in April 1830, with one such sighting being reported by a Captain Delano of a schooner called Eagle near to St. Simon’s Island, according to him it was a monstrous 70ft in length with a barrel shaped body and crocodile-like head, several crew members and also planters on the nearby island corroborated the sighting as well.
There have been numerous other sightings over the years of the creature including still to the present day, with some even reporting the creature basking in the sun on the shores of the River and it apparently also isn’t afraid to put up a fight if it feels threatened by nearby boaters.
Something interesting of note is that original settlers to the area in and around the city of Darien and McIntosh County were from Scotland and so it leaves one to wonder if they have brought the legend of the Loch Ness Monster with them.
Outside of the above, Georgia genuinely doesn’t seem to really have any other cryptids or much other unexplained things that I have been able to find, it seems to be altogether a rather ordinary state, I am sure it has plenty of haunted places like any area would, but as I am doing now I am saving such stuff for a different series. I have probably missed some other things as well.
Bigfoot does appear to have some sightings in various parts of the state, but again it is something I don’t really like to include in these sorts of blogposts as I feel that most the time a bigfoot in itself isn’t really localized, specifically if it is referred to as a Sasquatch rather than having a localized name and differing description that makes it more fitting for this post.
That being said I am going to include this next mystery of something known as The Wog, the reason I would not normally include something like this as it seems more like deep rooted folklore rather than a genuine cryptid, there is a lot of spirituality and religion associated with it.
The Wog is described as some kind of large black demonic beast, looking canine-like and is said to exist in Jackson County in the state. The legend of the creature goes back to early settlement of the county and is recorded down by G. J. N. Wilson in his book “The Early History of Jackson County, Georgia”.
In the book the wog is described as a jet-black, long-haired creature estimated to be about the size of a small horse but with very short legs, although with an oddity that has its front legs being longer than its hind legs, the book says this trait can give it the look of a large dog sitting on its tail. The book goes on to say that the beasts tail was very large with white hair at the end of it that was even larger in diameter, and was one of the only ways to see the creature in the dark of night. The creature also has great red eyes and a forked tongue that may sometimes come in and out of its mouth like a snake, it also has great white teeth that it constantly bared.
It certainly sounds like something you would not want to come across. The creature is also said to sometimes be found in Barrow County as well in the Nodorac Site near the town of Winder where it defends an old mud volcano, where there are legends abound of native American’s executing criminals in the area and throwing them into the bog.
That shall be it for Georgia and next up we will be heading to the US state of Florida to see what they have in the realm of the unexplained.
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