Painting of the Blue Fugates of Kentucky (Contributed/Wikipedia)

Today, we’re leaving East Tennessee but still staying in Appalachia, heading up north to Eastern Kentucky. While there are dozens of different supernatural tales that we have gone through and will continue to cover today, we’re going to be discussing a family that really lived, but whose story was so odd that many didn’t believe it to be true: the Fugates.

The Fugates were a family that presided in Kentucky for many years. They lived in a very rural area in the 19th and 20th centuries, completely isolated from others, which led to a rare genetic disorder occurring within them. 

The Fugates, often referred to as the Blue Fugates, got this nickname due to the fact that many of them had blue-tinted skin that was caused by a blood disorder. This blood disorder is extremely rare and, in this case, was caused by the intense isolation of the family that led to inbreeding. 

This blood disorder is a recessive gene mutation that doesn’t allow blood in a person’s body to carry oxygen the correct way, and often carries a lot less of it, which turns the blood a different color, usually into a very dark brown, which in turn makes a person’s skin appear blue.

When Martin Fugate and Elizabeth Smith had their children, they were both carriers of this gene. They, of course, did not know this, and four out of their seven children were born blue. This condition was passed down due to the fact that so many of the other people in the area were family members, mostly first cousins to the family. 

Although these different family members lived their lives being blue in 1960, a hematologist studied the family and came up with a cure to use methylene blue, which turned their skin into a completely normal color. While the hematologist was studying the family. He found out that besides the blue-tinted skin, these individuals were extremely healthy, often living into their 90s. 

The blue skin was officially resolved within the family, though it did cause a lot of whispers around the area about the family and whether or not they were even human. At the time, it wasn’t known that this occurrence was the result of a gene mutation, and so locals came up with answers for themselves. Although there was talk, the family never really cared. It’s said that they just kept to themselves and their isolation, and rarely even addressed people about the mutation.

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