Hidden within the highlands of the Upper-Cumberland region of Tennessee, Red Boiling Springs is a retromantic and mysterious destination for anyone seeking some Victorian era nostalgia, delicious wine and perhaps even an encounter with the unexplained.
Looking for an escape from the mundane, Angela and I booked a suite at the Thomas House, one of three bed-and breakfast style hotels in the small town. Before arriving at our intended destination we first stopped in for a visit at the Red Barn Winery a few miles away. The narrow lane which leads to the quaint vineyard epitomizes the rural Tennessee landscape that many who live in the urbanized areas surrounding Nashville forget exists.
The Red Bard Winery
Inside the Red Barn we found a welcoming atmosphere for tasting and a wide selection of wines that are made on site. This isn’t Napa Valley of course, nor is it trying to be. Tennessee wines have their own unique history and distinct taste. In fact, winemaking in Tennessee was purely a bootlegging industry after prohibition laws were in place after commercial wine production ceased. Not until recent decades have wineries begun to produce native varieties again for commercial sale. After my second time coming to Red Barn, I can confirm that it offers some of the best in Tennessee.
Leaving the picturesque vineyard, we then ventured to our final destination. The history of the Thomas House is interlaced with that of Red Boiling Springs which began as a resort town during the Victorian era. The location owed its popularity to the belief that local mineral springs had curative properties and restorative health benefits. Once boasting more than a dozen hotels, dance halls and an amusement park, it's popularity continued to roar through the 20's and 30's as a get-away for the well-to-do of society. However, the postwar era brought its decline as transportation to other places became easier with the new interstate system. Except for a small resurgence in the 1950’s its decay was steady until a flood all but destroyed the town in 1969.
Thomas House
The Thomas House is intriguing to say the least. It’s widely known for its paranormal activity, making it a frequent destination for researchers of the paranormal. It was even the location for an investigation which was featured in an episode of Sy Fi Channel’s Paranormal State. The building itself dates to 1890 and exists on the site of a previous hotel. An all brick structure, it has two floors and countless rooms to explore, mostly decorated in the flamboyant style of the Victorian era. Several rooms are also dedicated to various themes like ‘Gone with the Wind’, one full of antique Christmas decorations, still another one is full of children’s toys.
Gone with the Wind Room
We made reservations on a night when they were hosting a group of swing dancers which contributed to the timeless atmosphere of the hotel. After dancing we sat and talked with the Cole family who has owned the hotel since 1993. They relayed to us a number of strange encounters with apparitions that appeared to be living people only to disappear from sight. Unfortunately we had no experiences ourselves that could be characterized as paranormal.
This sort of destination isn’t for everyone. If you are too easily freaked out, require five star accommodations or enjoy the music of Ke$ha and Lil’ Wayne then you probably won’t get the beauty of this place. But the adventurer, the wine connoisseur or the artist will all find something here that captivates and refreshes them, much as it did for those who were looking for an escape more than a century ago.
The Bigfoot phenomenon is all the rage right now and is the subject of numerous websites, documentaries and even a reality TV series called Finding Bigfoot featured on the Animal Planet.
I may not have my own investigative reality TV series but what I do have is a wild curiosity for the unknown and a camera. In September of 2012 I traveled to Newton County, Arkansas, after learning my relatives own property in a mountainous area bordering a national park that is known to be a hotspot for Bigfoot. What I found on my solo camping adventure was eye-opening.
Wishing at first to avoid contact with locals I made camp in an isolated hollow with no cell phone service and 10 miles from any paved roads. It was prime squatching territory with a myriad of indicators that nightfall would be interesting. However, after a day of exploring, a storm forced me to move my camp early. My vehicle barely made it up the rocky hill. The rain was making the trail muddy and almost left me stranded. So I continued my search elsewhere for signs of Sasquatch.
Between hikes through the dense forest I explored the nearby community asking questions at opportune moments. Having a connection to the area helped open conversations and I was able to get a handful of witnesses to speak to me about their experiences with Bigfoot. What I uncovered was a surprise. One couple I spoke with has owned real estate in the area for 30 years. They said that on several occasions they saw a 9-foot “person” covered in hair but didn't report it. Several of their guests had also seen the creature. Two gentlemen I met at a local café said they had seen it cross the river last winter. Whenever I asked about reporting these incidents a fascinating theme emerged. They didn’t fail to report out of fear of being ridiculed. Instead they believed that if the authorities were to find out, life would change.
Would recognition by mainstream science of a large primate in North America force unwanted changes on Americans? Once Bigfoot is found, we cannot lose him. In order to manage and protect Bigfoot’s natural habitat land in many regions where Sasquatch lives could be taken using the Endangered Species Act through eminent domain as has been the case for thousands of Americans in the past. Furthermore, a beast having characteristics so similar to that of humans you might even have some trying to put it on food stamps and section 8 housing.
To make matters more interesting, it was suggested by one witness that spoke with me that enough photo evidence has been suppressed that if revealed it would “make a believer out of anyone.” I have no reason to doubt what I was being told and the attitude of this particular witness seemed pretty indifferent to whether or not I believed the tale or not.
Thus it seems the tendency on the part of some locals to avoid the topic, suppress information or simply not report sightings serves as a bulwark to change. Add to this the commercial interests like the logging industry which might be impacted. The result is a coalition of silence working against official discovery.
On the hunt...
What I have uncovered here isn't news to the Bigfoot research community. But the public needs to know that there are many credible eyewitnesses who don’t come forward because the discovery of a new species where they live isn't a good thing for them. Since I have family who could also be affected by this discovery I understand the complexity somewhat better than some who are unconnected. It may just be a horrible Pandora's box that society can never shut. The fact of the matter is that once we find Bigfoot, we won't lose him again. We will be forced to reckon with a host of implications which will be both costly and controversial. What will it cost the taxpayer? What will be the laws that govern human-Bigfoot interaction?
The price of finally acknowledging Bigfoot as a species will be high in many regards. That being said the recognition of Bigfoot is inevitable and some say overdue. In any case it must coincide with protection for the little guys. By little guys of course I mean homo sapiens . The 9-foot super-primate with night vision has the proven ability to protect themselves without government help or food stamps.
Links to other Bigfoot articles:
Size Matters: Why Sasquatches might have made good lovers 15,000 years ago
Nazi Explorers of the Amazon in 3-D is title I would have preferred, but I wish I could say this were just a pulp adventure story turned B-film. It isn't.
On a tiny island situated on a tributary of the Rio Jari of Northern Brazil stands a nine-foot high wooden cross decorated with a Swastika, the unmistakable symbol of the 3rd Reich. The memorial in the photo above states that Joseph Greiner “died of fever in the service of German Research Work.” This was three years before WWII officially began in 1939 and over a decade before Nazi’s began making their infamous exodus to South America to escape prosecution for war-crimes. So what were the Nazi's doing so deep in the Brazilian jungle in 1936? Well, it just so happens that the Nazi's were up to all kinds of stuff in many parts of the world before they made any military efforts at world domination. In fact the exploratory mission in 1935 by Nazi Germany to the Amazon region of Brazil serves as a testament to just how expansive the Nazi’s imagined the Reich would become.
The expedition was lead by S.S. officer Otto Schulz-Kampfhenkel and his staff which included a significant number of hired locals who participated in the endeavor. Secretly it was known as the Guayana Project and was a highly classified effort by SS intelligence. However, the project which was actually a study on how the 3rd Reich could establish a bridgehead against American influence in the region was conducted under the auspices of collecting samples of the indigenous flora and fauna of the region. Kampfhenkel even produced a film about his adventures called Rätsel der Urwaldhölle, but the secret project was of course not mentioned.
At the conclusion of the study Kampfhenkel submitted a report with details about how the Nazi’s might infiltrate and begin colonizing the country for themselves. He included details on how German soldiers should live and adapt to the environment. It was suggested that since there was already a significant German population in several South American countries, it was feasible to establish a South American extension of the Third Reich's Empire.
‘The two largest scantly populated, but rich in resources, areas on earth are in Siberia and South America. ‘They alone offer spacious immigration and settlement possibilities for the Nordic peoples… For the more advanced white race it offers outstanding possibilities for exploitation.’ Like a dedicated Nazi who believed in the ideals of racial purity As one might expect from an S.S. man who believed in the ideals of Nazi racial purity, his report said the people who lived there 'cannot be measured in civilized terms as we known them in Germany.'
The mission was overall less successful than it's leader had hoped. Greiner, another S.S. officer died of malaria while on the expedition and after review of Kampfhenkel's report by his superiors, the plans to expand into Brazil were shelved because of bureaucratic obstacles, and a lack of immediate interest. ‘Given time, the plan may be submitted again” wrote Heinrich Himmler in response to Kampfhenkel's report.
Very little physical evidence remains of this ambitious effort to colonize the jungles of Brazil. There are the graves of those who died in pursuit of this goal and some bricks from an old building that bare swastikas. However, the true economic and psychological impact of the Nazi foray into the jungle may be incalculable. According to local accounts it appears as though the project employed a significant number of slave laborers obtained from local orphanages. Some of these former slaves are still alive and seeking acknowledged of what occurred and even restitution for this sinister legacy left behind by the Nazi cohort.
I find this story to be highly fascinating and worthy of additional research. Even today we continue to unearth secret Nazi projects from around the world and remnants of their various exploits. It obvious that S.S. Intelligence were even interested in exploring Siberia too judging by the statements in Kampfhenkel's report and it's well known their efforts to colonize Antarctica in the years before WW2. What else were they up to that has not yet been uncovered?
We made reservations on a night when they were hosting a group of swing dancers which contributed to the timeless atmosphere of the hotel. After dancing we sat and talked with the Cole family who has owned the hotel since 1993. They relayed to us a number of strange encounters with apparitions that appeared to be living people only to disappear from sight. Unfortunately we had no experiences ourselves that could be characterized as paranormal. 
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