Bigfoot found in Littleton

Photos by Henry Haggart, writing by Jake Sheridan

This story was originally written for a class (and not accepted for publication) in February 2019.

Bigfoot’s in Littleton, NC, lurking behind the door of a haunted, three story colonial.

A statue of the hairy beast is, at least. Bulking and six feet tall, it’s hard to miss in Littleton’s Cryptozoology and Paranormal Museum. It’s past the ouija board doormat, next to the shriveled shrunken heads.

The museum, dedicated to oft-doubted creatures and spirits, takes up three rooms in the front of Stephen Barcelo’s home. Outside the museum, silhouette cutouts of Sasquatches hug white wooden siding, beckoning those who believe in the unbelievable to enter. On the inside, obscure oddities battle for attention. None of them beat the resin cast Bigfoot, which sits on a pedestal and is bathed in green light.

“He’s gorgeous,” said Barcelo, the museum’s owner and operator. He is a cryptozoologist, which means he’s interested in things not yet proven by science.

“Like Bigfoot. Things in the gray area still.”

Bigfoot hasn’t always been in the foyer. Barcelo offered ghost hunts when he first moved to Littleton. Then, he caught his big break: a woman down the street saw Bigfoot. The news cameras came, and Littleton became a cryptozoological hotbed.

At that point, Barcelo turned his attention toward hairy ape-man creatures: Yetis, Sasquatches, Bigfoots. He began collecting footprint castings until part of his house became a museum. Those tan cement castings sit on shelves around the Bigfoot statue, among a map pinpointing all the latest sightings in NC, two shrunken heads and a mock-taxidermy creature that most closely resembles a baby bunny with goat horns. In addition to his original ghost hunts, Barcelo offers Bigfoot hunts now, too.

In the corner opposite Bigfoot’s, a sign reads “Bigfoot Sez: Vote Stephen Barcelo Commissioner” sits by the door. The sign must have worked. Despite arriving in 2015, Barcelo was elected commissioner of Littleton, a town between Richmond and Durham and far from both.

The town is rural and, like many rural spots in America, struggling. But things are looking up in the Cryptozoology and Paranormal Museum.

“We’re putting Littleton on the map,” said Barcelo.

The museum is the hottest tourist attraction in a town that had a population of 1,200 in the 1940 census and a population of 674 in 2010. The county gave the museum two billboards.

“What this town, what this area really needs is good promotion,” said Barcelo.

He knows good promotion. Before he was a cryptozoologist, a paranormal investigator, and a town commissioner, Barcelo took pictures and reported for the New York Daily News tabloid newspaper.

“Alec Baldwin is a real pain in the ass,” reminisced Barcelo, who covered celebrities and crime.

As the news industry changed, Barcelo’s career changed too, and he chased a job to Littleton. When tools allegedly disappeared from his new home, Barcelo, who has “caught too many things putzing around” to not believe in the paranormal, concluded that the house was haunted.

“Basically, life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. It gives you a haunted house, you do ghost hunts,” said Barcelo.

Haunted house

In the paranormal-themed room on the left of the house, a pre-recorded Barcelo gives the same lemons to lemonade quote in a looping video.

Under the T.V. sits Mrs. Beasley, a blonde doll with blue eyes that, according to Barcelo, has moved itself almost a dozen times. Cameras are trained on Mrs. Beasley’s locked box. On the shelf next to the doll lie a set of ancient toys — a train, a pin, a block, some puzzle pieces — that Barcelo claimed to find upstairs. The spirit of a boy who once lived in the house helped him find the lot in the attic, he said.

Among scattered reading materials about ectoplasm and extraterrestrials, a mummified fish-monkey creature with a sign that says “Feejee Mermaid” sits above another locked doll. The doll, a clown, brought nightmares to its owner, Barcelo said. The rosary sitting atop its box keeps breaking for some reason, he added. He hasn’t gotten around to putting a camera on that sneaky rosary.

Church of the strange

He gets up to 200 visitors a day, he added. A family of three clad in camo shirts that read “I believe” left as the sun set. The guestbook showed that five couples came on Valentine’s day 2019.

In the gift shop, Bigfoot t-shirts, Bigfoot coffee and Bigfoot hot sauce were scattered among other Bigfoot memorabilia. There was sage too. Barcelo claimed it clears the air for spirits.

“We sell the hell out of it. People love it,” he said.

Also in the gift shop are two repurposed wooden pews, where Barcelo likes to sit visitors and present his evidence to them: a video of a ghost cat prancing across the hall of a haunted hotel, then another of a local American Indian woman sharing tales of hairy ape-like creatures causing chaos years ago, a picture he took on a hike nearby and that allegedly shows a dark-and-moving something far away between trees

Many people won’t buy it, Barcelo admitted. Many don’t buy global warming either, he pointed out. He wants to be taken seriously.

“If you’re not into it, then don’t come,” said Barcelo. “If you’re not religious, don’t go to a church.”

Barcelo knows how most people would describe a ghost hunting Bigfoot investigator: “looney”. But he doesn’t think he’s crazy. He’s seen crazy, like the visitor that told him she saw Sasquatch in the bathroom of a Dollar General.

Even with half of his house invested in and infested by the strange, he’s a little less sure than her.

“There’s something going on there,” said Barcelo. “Have I seen it? No. We just follow up on things.”

Note from Jake — I’m publishing this old story, written in February 2019, as part of an effort to share stories I invested time in but never put out. I haven’t changed these stories (they are as I left them, save a few fixed typos). If you want to see more, check out my twitter @jakesheridan_ :)