Honey Island Swamp monster

Description

The creature is commonly described by alleged witnesses as a large, bipedal humanoid, about 7 ft tall, covered with gray hair, having yellow or red eyes and accompanied by a putrid odor. Other local names for the creature include the Louisiana Wookiee, and The Thing. Alleged plaster casts of footprints said to be from the creature showcase four toes; not a natural trait found in primates, who possess five.

Claims of its existence are generally not considered credible, including by scientists familiar with the area like ecologist Paul Wagner and his wife Sue. Neither they nor their Cajun guide, Robbie Charbonnet, report having seen any valid evidence beyond anecdotes and possible forgeries.

History

The first claimed sighting was in 1963 by Harlan Ford, a retired air traffic controller who had taken up wildlife photography. After his death in 1980, a reel of Super 8 film showing the creature was found among his belongings.

In 1974, Ford and his friend Billy Mills claimed to have found unusual footprints in the area, as well as the body of a wild boar whose throat had been gashed.

Today, the creature is still purported to inhabit the swamp and the bayous along the Pearl River. Local lore tells of a train crash that occurred near the swamp in the early 20th century in which a traveling circus lost chimpanzees who adapted to the environment and offer a potential explanation as to the creature's origins.

Popular culture

• The Honey Island Swamp monster was the subject of The Secret Saturdays episode "Ghost in the Machine" with its vocal effects provided by Dee Bradley Baker. The animated monster resembled a Bigfoot-like creature with crab-like claws and crocodilia feet.
• The creature was featured in an episode of Lost Tapes, "Swamp Creature."
• It was the subject of an episode of In Search of..., "The Swamp Monster."
• It was a subject of an episode of Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files, "Bayou Beast/River Ghost," showing Mr. Ford's original film. The investigators were able to recreate Ford's footage with a man dressed in a camouflage ghillie suit used by hunters. They deduced the film could simply be mistaken identity on Ford's part, but didn't rule out that such a creature could exist.
• An episode of Swamp People, "Full Moon Fever," includes a segment in which a group of people, Harlan Ford's granddaughter among them, are searching for the monster.
• The creature was featured in a segment of the series Monsters and Mysteries in America, "The Swamp." Super 8 footage of the monster was shown in the segment.
• It was featured in a segment of a 2012 episode of Mysteries at the Museum.
• On July 20, 2013, Mattel introduced the Monster High character Honey Swamp as the daughter of Honey Island Swamp monster at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con.
• In 2019, an episode of America Unearthed titled "Bigfoot in the Bayou" investigated possible sightings. Presenter Scott Wolter concluded that the smell attributed to the creature was most likely methane produced by decomposing plants.
• Eoin Colfer drew inspiration from the Honey Island Swamp monster for the character Vern in his novel Highfire.
• A version of the Honey Island Swamp monster is included in the role-playing game supplement GURPS Monsters.
• The Honey Island Swamp Monster is featured in the video game South of Midnight. It is depicted as a gentle golem made of leaves, vines and branches. The main character, Hazel, encounters Honey on her way through an abandoned settlement that used to house plantation slave refugees. Hazel later finds out that he was once a baby of a slave woman named Ayotunde who escaped her captors by jumping out of a paddle boat and runs into a swamp, she eventually hides Honey in an old tree, where he was magically transformed into the monster he is now. Meanwhile, Ayotunde searched endlessly for Honey by believing she had lost him in the swamp, where she is turned into a siren-like creature known as Altamaha-ha and killed the paddle boat's crew, continually searching for her missing child.

References

References

1. (22 January 2014). "Cajun Sasquatch? Here's Where to Look for Him". [[WDGG]].
2. "Honey Island Swamp Monster".
3. "Big Foot".
4. (December 2003). "The Honey Island Swamp Monster: The Development and Maintenance of Folk and Commodified Belief Tradition". Memorial University of Newfoundland.
5. "Honey Island Swamp Monster Footprint". Abita Mystery House.
6. Nickell, Joe. (July–August 2001). "Tracking the Swamp Monsters". [[Committee for Skeptical Inquiry]].
7. Wolter, Scott. (9 July 2019). "Bigfoot in the Bayou".
8. "Swamp Creature". [[Animal Planet]].
9. "Honey Island Swamp Monster".
10. (23 September 2020). "Honey Island Swamp Monster".
11. "Ghost in the Machine".
12. "Swamp Creature".
13. "The Swamp Monster".
14. "Full Moon Fever".
15. "The Swamp".
16. "Mysteries at the Museum {{!}} Exorcism, Honey Island Swamp Monster, the Real James Bond, La Belle Shipwereck, Sgt. Stubby".
17. (11 February 2020). "From Artemis Fowl to a vodka-guzzling dragon".
18. (2001). "GURPS Monsters". Steve Jackson Games.