The Darlington Project

by  Christine Bruun

The Darlington Project was created from an original report taken from the BFRO website. We ran across the sighting report that occurred in 2006 in the Darlington County area in South Carolina. Their report number is: #14154 (Class A). It is from a region of the state that is called the "low country".  Fortunately for us, it was within two hours of our base of operation. 

Our Roadside Research Project began on January 22, 2010. As with most projects, we try to stage them at times when we are going to be in an area for one reason or another. For this project, Florence, South Carolina was the target area.

My husband needed to return to the area to have his dentures redone. He had gone to the Sexton Dental Clinic in Florence, South Carolina where he had his teeth pulled and temporary dentures made all in a one day procedure three months earlier. Sexton Dental Clinic is nationally known and people come from all over the United States to have the one day procedure. (It is one of the least costly clinics in the United States).

It is an all-day procedure starting at 6:00 am so we decided that rather than spend all day sitting in a waiting room, we would use that time to scout the area and visit the Chamber of Commerce and the local newspaper where we placed an ad for reports.

The Chamber was very helpful. We bought a map of the county and picked up a free phone book. This important because you can track down local gun and sporting goods shops where you can place fliers. They gave us directions to the local newspaper. This is where we learned a lot about newspaper ads.  It had been a long time since I had placed an ad in a newspaper and costs have skyrocketed.  Deciding under what category to place the ad was another problem.  Each category was priced differently.  The person we were working with suggested the "ad" section of the newspaper.  After figuring up the price by the number of lines and by how many weeks it would appear, she absently quoted the price.  "That will be $613.00.  I almost choked. 

I quickly took out my copy and scratched a line here and a line there and cut out these words and that word until I thought I had it condensed enough to make it affordable.  We then changed the category to the classifieds under "announcements".

Once again she quoted me a price that threatened to give me a coronary event.  Once again I started scratching here and reducing the number of times that it would appear.  Finally we settled on an amount I could afford.  It would appear twice.  The cost was $100.00  Gasp.  Yes, I gasped.

I looked at my husband and saw the shock on his face.  This was going to be one experiment we were not going to be able to repeat very often at these prices.  We decided to go ahead with the ad to see what kind of response we would get. We placed the ad for two days, which also gave us a two day ad in their online newspaper. However, we began brainstorming to come up with alternative options. 

What we came up with was the use of fliers.  We would target our market more carefully.  Obviously, there would be certain places that people, who might actually have a chance of seeing a Bigfoot, would frequent.  We decided to target gun shops, hunting and fishing supply stores, farm supply stores, hardware stores, home improvement stores, and army surplus stores .  Those will become our primary targets. 

Once we had recovered from the ad shock, we headed for a local restaurant for lunch.  While there we discovered two free newspapers that the restaurant provided for their customers.  We grabbed them and will investigate the possibility of using them to place our ads.  Cost is everything.  We will need to locate the places that the local residents frequent in order to get the most bang for our buck.  Marketing is one lesson I learned the hard way when I was the owner of a retail business. 

Right now I will tell you we have heard nothing from the ad. We will not make the mistake again. Next time we will place them under a classification in the want ads, probably under trucks, farm equipment, or misc for sale. This would be so much cheaper and probably reach those who would have more opportunity to actually be out where they could see a Bigfoot. We will also rely more on fliers that we can place in strategic spots in the area, such as sporting goods, farm supply stores, gun and hunting shops and army surplus businesses.

We left the busy city of Florence and almost immediately we arrived into the rural outskirts that led us towards our target location. It had been a long day, but once Jim's dental work was completed we headed to I-20 towards the location of the sighting.

It looked like turkey and chicken farms and cotton fields. There were some tree farms mixed in among a few houses and corn fields. We noticed fresh produce signs touting apples and other fresh goodies. There were cabbages and winter crops abounding in the area. Luckily we used our GPS to find our way. At one point we got lost, but soon found our way back to the right road and headed for our destination which took us past Lee State Park on our right.

At the intersection where US 15 turned north we also turned north. Using our odometer we drove the three miles north on US 15 as the report mentioned. It is sometimes difficult for the witness to gauge the distances correctly, especially at night and when they are frightened.  Right away, we sensed something was wrong.  The mileage didn't ad up.  We found the cotton fields on both sides of the road.  Then we drove to Bobo Newsome highway.  It wasn't three miles between the sighting and the turn onto US 15 coming from Bishopville either.  It was only 2.9 miles. The difference could have been whether the measurement took place in the middle of the field, or at the north or south end of the field.  We have no way of knowing exactly, from one end of the field to the other exactly where the creature was crossing the road. There is no mile marker or visual marker mentioned, except for the ditch.

We saw two cotton fields but the distance wasn't right. We continued until we had reached the designated three miles. That took us to the intersection of BoBo Newsome Highway. We turned around at an abandoned restaurant parking lot on the southeastern corner of the intersection. We sat there a moment while we tried to get our bearings. The coordinates for that parking lot was 34 degrees 20.163 min. N. and 80 degrees 4.402 min. W. It was only one mile from Bobo Newsome highway to the sighting location rather than the two miles as reported.  It was a small discrepancy, but important when doing any research, especially if someone wants to revisit the location of the sighting. In a more rural area with few visual markers, a mile can make a big difference, especially if you are looking for physical evidence such as footprints.

We drove back south towards the two cotton fields. We discovered that the distance was only 2 miles from the turn onto US 15 north and only one mile from the BoBo Newsome intersection. We were unable to stop to get coordinates because of the heavy traffic along that road at 4:00 PM. There was no place to pull off or park because of the soft shoulder and wet conditions caused by the continuous rains that had been falling this spring. All our pictures were from a moving car. Hopefully, during the summer, we will be able to drive back and get better pictures and explore more.

The first photo shows the eastern field. That was the direction that the creature had come from. You can see that it is an open field rimmed with woods. In the report the driver of the car mentioned that she had slowed down to let the animal cross. Therefore it was coming from her passenger side across the road to her left, which would have been her driver's side.

She then sees what it is and is frightened. She speeds up to get past before it has crossed the road completely. As she passes very near, it turns and reaches out toward her “as if to push the car away”. At that point she says that if filled her window completely and that had she been an inch nearer, he could have taken the mirror off.

If we are to gain any important information from the encounter, it would seem that the creature did not seem afraid of the vehicle, but more angry at it.  It was aggressive toward the car as it passed, not trying to get away from it.  It did not seem to comprehend it's precarious situation or view itself in danger from the vehicle. The animal's reaction was as if it saw the vehicle as simply impeding its way.  The vehicle had entered into its space.  It was reacting in a typical manner expected by a creature used to living in remote areas.  It did not know what a car was or that it needed to be wary or afraid of it.  However it did show annoyance, probably from the noise of the engine and the close proximity of the car as it passed. It did not cower or race away. Nor did it try to avoid the car. It aggressively reached out to confront it. All kinds of assumptions can be gleaned from this encounter.

This is the western field. Again it is open and ringed by woods. Just before you reach the fields, a road called High Point goes off the the west and borders the western field on its northern side. There seemed to be farm houses down the road and fields. We were unable to investigate it further as darkness was setting in. We did manage to pick out a small metal building on the eastern field property and to the south just past the tree line an old farmhouse that may have belonged to the farmer who was using the field. There were no other roads off US 15 besides the intersection and High Point. Our goal next time we are in the area is to investigate the roads and land surrounding this sighting.

While sitting at BoBo Newsome road intersection we noticed that the northeastern corner may have been a gas station at one time, but was now a car dealership. The northwestern corner was a gas station as well as the southwestern corner. As we watched the traffic, it was congested with logging trucks and going home traffic. At 2:00 in the morning, it probably was pretty empty—a good time for Bigfoot to cross without being seen.

This picture was taken in a swampy area of Darlington County as we drove towards the sighting spot. You can see the swampy conditions. The fields were inundated by water standing everywhere. Water was everywhere because of the rains that have saturated the ground to the maximum. The rivers were overflowing their banks everywhere.

The road from Bishopville was a rural two lane road. It remained that way up to BoBo Newsome road. We did not get to follow it further. However, some burning questions were brought to the forefront as a result of this Roadside Research.

Where was the creature coming from? Where was it going? Why did it pick this particular route? Since it was alone, (as most reports state), is it nomadic? Was it a male pushed from the group to be left on its own to find mates and make its way, or was it heading towards home or away from home base? Since 95%-99% of the sightings are of individuals, where are the females and the children? Is it hunting or simply traveling from one point to another? Are there places where they congregate or are they solitary? Do the females and children travel with them or do they stay in the same area? Are their alpha males, as in the Primate family, who have harems and fight for dominance over the younger ones, or are the female solitary with only occasional dalliances for the purpose of mating? And, finally, the big question is: Where was it going an where did it come from?

Until we can answer these questions we know very little about this creature. Most of the information is only anecdotal and speculative. It makes the witness's memories of the details very important and it mean that witnesses need to contact us immediately so that we can get the most up-to-date information we can.

We may have to go back several times and investigate further.  We may never get the answers to our questions. If more of us were traveling to these locations and doing our own roadside investigations, perhaps we would be able to answer a few more of the questions that linger.   At the very least the information we gather and the questions that come as a result of more information will perhaps create a dialog that we can share and discuss.

Finally, how has the encroachment of human civilization impacted these creatures?  Part of our ongoing research will be to see how the changes since the sighting may have impacted the area. We need to find out what changes have taken place since 2006 and how this may have affected the wildlife in the area. We definitely know that in 2006 we were in the midst of a drought that had started back around 1996. I can remember people commenting that for the first time for as long as they can remember the farmers were having to use irrigation and sprinkler methods to grow their crops. What impact would this have on Bigfoot? Only time and science will solve this puzzle.

Footnote:  Since I am writing about a South Carolina sighting, it is important to understand a bit about this region of the country. Please click on this link to learn more.