Searching For Bigfoot: LOUISIANA FOLLOWUP 01-08

LOUISIANA_FOLLOWUP_01-08

After investigating our friend in Alabama, we received a call from our associates down in Louisiana. After a short drive we arrived at the famous Honey Island. We are planning to spend a little more quality time back in the swamp attempting to verify that the "swamp ape" has the means, habitat, and enough isolated space to survive un-molested over the years. We will spend the next week here in the swamp isolated on an island just across the river, from the now famous Honey Island. Most of our research will be done in this remote and isolated Louisiana bayou. We will attempt to learn the rivers and sloughs here to get us in and out safely.
Thanks to Terral and Dana hosting us with all we need i.e. boat, camp, and map we will be spending most of out time outdoors looking for signs of our elusive quarry.
TJ

On this visit to Slidell Louisian, we visited with Dana and Terral of the Honey Island Monster fame. The following is from the website; http://www.angelfire.com/la2/SwampMonster/

A site that promotes their new movie by the same name, HONEY ISLAND SWAMP MONSTER:

“My Grandfather, Harlan Ford, who retired from the FAA, was the first man to report a sighting after he poured plaster casts of tracks believed to be made by a man-like, hairy creature that walked upright in the swamp. After Ford was interviewed by the local media and then on, "In Search Of", the creature he described became known as the legendary Honey Island Swamp Monster.

What many who watched that segment, do not know, is that Ford was not alone on that encounter in 1963. He was with Billy Mills, also a retired Federal Air-Traffic Controller. Ford and Mills were on a hunting trip together when they came face to face with the large, hairy creature.

Ford passed away in 1980, but while filming this documentary, we located Billy Mills out of state and he agreed to talk about the encounter on camera for the first time.

In my documentary film, we went by boat deep into the heart of Honey Island Swamp where few humans tread to the area that Ford and Mills came face to face with the man-like bigfoot beast. That is when we discovered fresh tracks.

Also included in this film, is an old Super-8 movie reel that my grandmother came across in a box of my grandfather's belongings. She claimed that he he had taken up wildlife photography -- instead of killing wild game, he decided to photograph them. The reel was labeled, "Honey Island Swamp Monster". On the reel, from a treeblind where Ford kept watch, he filmed a large, hairy, bigfoot-like creature walking upright through the swamp. So, I included the reel in this documentary so you can see for yourself the way I saw it for the first time.”

Slidell, Louisiana was founded around 1882 during construction of a major new railroad from New Orleans to Meridian, Mississippi, connecting there with Cincinnati, Ohio and eventually with New York, NY. The New Orleans and Northeastern (n.o.n.e.) Railroad established a building camp at first high ground north of Lake Pontchartrain which eventually grew into the city. Slidell was chartered as a town in 1888 by the Louisiana legislature.

The Pearl River rises in the historic area of the Nanih Waiya Indian Mounds of Winston County where it is formed by the confluence of Nanawaya and Tallahaga Creeks. It flows southwesterly through Neshoba, Leake, Scott, Rankin and Hinds Counties, bringing with it the vast potential of an abundant water supply. Continuing through Mississippi’s capital city of Jackson, the Pearl flows through Copiah, Simpson, Lawrence, Marion, Pearl River and Hancock Counties before it empties into the Gulf of Mexico through Lake Borgne and the Mississippi sound.

The basin of the Pearl River contains seven million acres and drains an area of 8,760 square miles, draining all or parts of 23 counties in Mississippi and 3 parishes in Louisiana. It is the third largest drainage basin in the state, meandering approximately 421 miles through the central portion of Mississippi and a small part of southeastern Louisiana. Over two trillion gallons of water pass along her banks each year.

We found the area to be vast and full of islands and bayou that would make ideal habitat for a creature similar to our elusive friend. We interviewed many locals who spoke of encounters and sightings of a large man like creature in these sloughs and back islands. Many spoke of large prints that they did not recognize nor could explain. We even heard about a local hunter who thought she had shot some kind of monkey out of a tree. She brought it home and called the local Fish and Game agent. The agents told her to wrap it in newspaper and put it into the deep freeze until they got there. They were there later that day and looked at the animal she had shot. They said it was unlike any other animal they had ever seen, took the animal away with them when they left, and never gave any other information to the person who had originally shot it. This was just one more local mystery from down here in the bayou!

TJ pilots our boat in the bayou

After meeting with our hosts, Dana Holyfield Evans and her husband Terral Evans. They showed us to the boat that they would let us use and gave us the key to the cabin in the bayous that we would be staying in. We were all very tired and headed into the bayous to set up our cabin.

The view at sunrise, from the front door of our cabin in the swamps.. Honey Island is just across the river.

We settled in and after a couple of trips back and forth to our truck, we ferried over all of our supplies and equipment. Exhausted, we slept until early the next morning before preparing for our extended stay out in the swamp. We spent the next day, Saturday the 26th, preparing the equipment, buying groceries, and attempting to learn our way around the bayous in our boat. We knew that being prepared was our best way to remain safe. Many people have been lost to this maize of waterways and islands, and we did not want to become another statistic!

On Sunday the 27th, we began our investigations seriously. We wanted to know all we could about the “Honey Island Swamp Monster” and any other sightings or experiences the local people may have had with these or any other unknown primate like animals. We met with a man who many of the local look to as an expert “River Rat”, Denty Crawford. Denty is a man who knows the swamps and the history of the area better than anyone else in the area. Denty spent all day with us just talking and showing us around. It took this long to gain his confidence and trust, but it was worth every minute of our time. We knew that these local people lived within a different culture than we are used to and we would need to work at their pace if we were to be successful.

We spent the next two days searching the bayous for any signs of the creature, and talking to as many locals as possible. We found that a few locals were not comfortable with the story of the “Honey Island Swamp Monster”, but those same people spoke to us very matter of factly about “Big Foot”. They told us that many of them had seen the creature and the tracks that it left, but usually only during the months of October, November, and December, when it was migrating through! Something that Tom has been telling us for a long time. This helps to verify Tom’s theory of the creatures being migratory. They also told us that the creature they had seen was smaller than the ones they can find on the web from the Pacific North West. This also conforms to our findings from Texas and other Southern states! Most of the eyewitnesses also talked about a reddish color. There was even a credible sounding story about a woman who shot some kind of animal that appeared to her to be a type of monkey. When she called the Fish and Game department to come and identify it, they confiscated the body and never got back to her about it! The stories we heard were all very similar and consistent enough for us to suspect that there must be something to them. It became clear to us that there must be something in these swamps but we are probably not here at the right time. We spent until the 29th before picking up Tom at the airport, on our way back to Alabama to check back in with Chuck Creel and Mike Sims before heading out to the Four Corners area in New Mexico.

This is some of the typical area we were attempting to investigate and some of the remains from Katrina

A shot of one of Denty’s houses..............Denty Crawford...............Some of Denty’s friends

Written by JavaBob and TJ Biscardi -- posted by JavaBob

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