WGBH, hello. I stole my laptop back because while I don't have anything else to add to what I saw, earlier today as David was reading the threads, I was reminded of something that at first I asked him to post, but decided I should probably do it myself, so as to not confuse who is saying what.
This may interest everyone, and I do think it is a reasonable possibility (though I doubt very many would agree...to some it seems the only possibilities are hunters or bears or hallucinations, but I'll throw this in the mix anyway).
The WV thread is what brought this to mind, because as some of you may know, I'm originally a WV gal. Born and raised, still there often. I can stand and look at it across the river.
Anyway, the only relatives I have left close from my mom's family are my grandmother and my great aunt. They are both now in their 80's, though they still get around very well. First of all, neither of them "believe" in "woo" of any sort. Very practical women, and they raised me, so I like to think I take after them. At any rate, I admire them deeply.
They grew up out at East Lynn, in Wayne County, WV. A small cabin (I have a picture of it somewhere), and they raised their own food and my great grandmother (Mamaw) was on the school board and midwifed to support her kids (her husband died young).
As I said, both are in their 80's now, so going back to their childhood takes us back quite a few years. They grew up in poverty (and their ability to get out of that position never ceases to amaze me). Serious poverty, as did what few neighbors they had.
Anyway, how this relates to the topic...our family cemetery now (it's called the Osburne Cemetery, and is probably listed online somewhere I'm pretty sure), is across the road that now exists and up a hill from where their original little cabin stood. We drive out there often, and have to walk up the hill most of the time (the road is steep and washes out quite often...the men left in the family usually work on it a couple of times a year, before reunions).
My grandmother and great aunt talk a lot about their childhood, and one of the things they talk about every time we go out there together is the boy that was "wild". When we cross the creek, they'll point out where he would sometimes be, and when we get to the top of the hill, they'll show us places he could often be seen. They "knew" this boy (who grew into a man), or at least his family, which was poorer than they were, which must have meant they had nothing but crude shelter really. My mamaw took them food, as she did with most of their neighbors (a few miles apart). Those who had back then out there shared what they had, just to try to keep everyone alive.
Anyway, this family's children were severely malnourished (as many out there were at that time). They had one child that my grandmother and aunt describe as "not right". As this child got older, they say that he was, basically, "wild", and eventually everyone gave up trying to "catch" him and take him home, because he just left again and stayed up in the woods or down in the creek.
They talk about how filthy he was, how he was always naked, except for the times someone could "catch" him and take him home to be cleaned up...but it was never long before he was filthy and naked again. They said that he was harmless, but he couldn't talk for whatever reason (they say because he "wasn't right") and while he wouldn't run away as soon as he saw them, he would run away up the hill if they tried to get too close to him.
Now, I know this sounds bizarre, but...I've spent a lot of my life in rural areas. Big cities exist for me to find a way to drive through or around, except for when we're taking a relative to a specialist of some kind. I don't find it too far-fetched, if there was a well known "wild" boy (who eventually grew into a man, nobody knows what happened to him though. They assume he died somewhere in the woods or in one of the old mines...there's an old mine, in fact, that goes under our family cemetery) with a name and a family when they were growing up, it would still be possible today. Particularly in very poor, very rural areas.
To me, this would be a reasonable explanation (though I admit the sizes of reported creatures would kind of nullify that). As reasonable as hunters, and at certain times of the year, MORE reasonable than hunters. The filth they described...well, if it was as bad as they say, I could imagine how caked with grime this boy must have been, and who knows? It's certainly possible, at least in some cases, that there are humans who for whatever reason choose, or just end up, living more like animals and away from "society". As a matter of fact, up in our family cemetery we have found at different times nasty/filthy sleeping bags and other evidence of someone staying up there on and under the small shelter erected for church service. It's kind of weird...it doesn't make me nervous, because obviously a sleeping bag means at least it is a person, and we're never up there after dark anyway...but it's just...eh, strange.
Anyway, I just felt a want to share that. It will probably be dismissed as irrelevant, because most people probably couldn't conceive of anyone living that way...but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Given the sheer population in the US, a few hundred or thousand people like that wouldn't, to me, be surprising at all.
