CARROLTON, Ga. — A Georgia hunter had a bizarre encounter in the woods in south Fulton County and caught it all on camera.
Casey Sanders had just arrived at his hunting stand and set down his gear when he heard a sound nearby.
“On the way to the game camera, I hear a, ‘hey’,” said Sanders. “Of course, me being by myself in the woods not thinking anybody else is anywhere around, it startled me, shocked me.”
Sanders’ shock turned to confusion when he realized where the voice was coming from.
“I hear, ‘I’m naked,’ and I looked down and he’s standing there in the middle of the creek. He’s not wearing anything at all,” said Sanders.
Not sure if the man was alone or if he was a threat, Sanders began recording the encounter with his cell phone.
After a couple of minutes questioning the man, trying to determine if his mental state was stable enough to approach, the man told Sanders he had been drinking creek water and eating rotten crab apples. He then asked the hunter if he had anything to drink.
At this point in the video, Sanders is somewhat satisfied that the man isn’t going to attack him and does need help.
“I got something to eat for you, just don’t do nothing stupid right now,” said Sanders.
For the next hour, Sanders helped the man out of the woods. It was the end of his strange encounter, but only the beginning of a wild tale.
“I had told it 10 times in two days and I was just like, ‘I’ll just put it on Facebook, everybody will see it, and it is a cool story,’” said Sanders.
Little did he know, the video would spread like wildfire. In just a few days, it has been viewed more than 1,000,000 times on YouTube. And with those views came criticism.
“A lot of people were saying, ‘You’ve got a weapon. He was completely naked. Why wouldn’t you just run up and help him,’” said Sanders. “I’m not just going to run up and approach, no questions asked. I want to assess the situation for my safety and for his because if he would have just started running at me, just needing help, I wouldn’t have known what to do. I wouldn’t have known how to react.”
Sanders was armed with a knife at the time. His bow was several feet away when the encounter began.
He says, there is little chance he would have shot the man because he would have waited to identify the source of the noise before preparing the fire.
However, Sanders admits, not all hunters are as diligent about that procedure as he is.
And while he was too shaken up to continue his hunt that day, he will be back out there again soon. And at least for a little while, he will be bringing someone with him when he goes.
The man who was found at the creek claimed to have been at the Tomorrow World Music Festival days beforehand.
