Hear first hand about the only documented Bigfoot encounters in Pike County history as James P. Akin gives a presentation and signs his book ‘Elkins Creek’ at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13 at the J. Joel Edwards Public Library. Books are available on Amazon while supplies last. The city of Molena will also host an all-day Bigfoot Festival on Saturday, Nov. 12, including the Bigfoot Fest and Elkins Creek 5K and one-mile fun walk to the creek where a casting was made of a giant foot.
As a deputy with the Pike County Sheriff’s Office in 1994, Akin made an impression of a Bigfoot print that measured 17.5 inches long and 8.5 inches wide after responding to many calls and complaints filed by an older couple and investigating the incidents further. Akin was working the night shift in Pike and a farmer would call frequently about an intruder on his property. He and his wife had a small dog who was scared to go out of their house around dark and some of their animals had been killed, including their chickens. Akin often responded to the reports of the intruder from around midnight to
2 a.m. and the homeowners said they could smell him, thinking he was a person who might be living in the woods nearby. Over a period of several weeks in the summer of 1994, the elderly homeowners called the sheriff’s office many times, claiming strange noises were heard outside at night, something banging on their trailer in the middle of the night and that outside dogs and even livestock were missing. The couple’s storage shed door was even ripped off its hinges one night and only bags of corn and dog food were missing instead of the expensive equipment inside.
Akin suspected that moonshiners or someone living nearby was trying to scare the family so one day after his shift ended and the sun was up, he asked the homeowners to search for prints on the property. He was walking along Elkins Creek with the homeowner when he found five huge footprints on the bank. Four of the prints were totally submerged in the water but one was in the fine silt next to the water’s edge. Deputy Akin’s casting of that print is considered to be one of the best ever captured in Georgia by Bigfoot enthusiasts.
“I have examined a lot of material from casts of the Rock Mountains and have found little to really catch my attention as this cast did,” said Dr. Jeff Meldrum. “This particular footprint, immediately upon looking at it, was very consistent with the proportions and anatomy that I have examined with other tracks that are as reasonably credible as one can establish.”
He said a “quite stunning” fact about the Elkins Creek Print is that the dermal ridges lacked particular tension creases that show up on human prints but are absent on the feet of apes.
Akin says he was a sceptic on the existence of Bigfoot until that day he found the prints in the bank of Elkins Creek after so many unusual reports at the property.
Akin left the PCSO several years after the casting was made and worked as a law enforcement officer in Spalding County, focusing on criminal street gangs in his later career.
Akin later left law enforcement and became a teacher at Spalding County schools. His post-secondary education includes a bachelor of science degree in history and anthropology from Georgia Southwestern State University and masters degrees in public administration and education from Columbus State University.
Be First to Comment