The Moon-Eyed People of the Appalachian Mountains

Origin

Stories of the Moon-Eyed People date back centuries in the Southern Appalachians, especially around North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. The Cherokee told of these strange, light-averse people long before European settlers came.

One of the earliest written mentions came from Benjamin Smith Barton in 1797, who recorded that the Cherokee described a pale race that "could not see in the daytime." Some say they built the ancient Fort Mountain stone wall in Georgia before disappearing underground or fleeing west. Others think they might have been Welsh explorers - descendants of Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd - who sailed across the Atlantic centuries before Columbus.

That Welsh-language theory took hold because of descriptions of their pale features and supposed foreign tongue, though there’s never been proof. Most Appalachian tellings still tie the story squarely to Cherokee oral tradition - a legend of a people made of mist and moonlight, who vanished into the hills before recorded history.