Lou’s View – March 26, 2015
The Honey Island Swamp Monster
by Lou Bernard
So for “Travel Month,” which I’ve unilaterally declared March to be, I’ve written about some cool stuff in other states. I’ve hunted the Altamaha-Ha monster in Georgia, and I’ve looked into the Sheriff’s Curse in Salem. I’ve even checked into South Carolina’s Lizard Man.
Now, to close out the month, I wanted to write about New Orleans, Louisiana.
My son, Paul Matthew, was born in New Orleans last July. I’d never been down there before, but my wife and I drove down for the adoption. We stayed in a succession of hospitals and hotels while the legal stuff progressed. And I got to hold my son for the first time.
And quietly, in the night, I explained to him about all the cool ghosts and monsters that are out there, because it’s best to start early. The first photo ever taken of me and my son was while we were exploring a cemetery together. They keep their dead people in vaults above ground, did you know that? Because of the swampiness of the land, they can’t effectively bury them underground.
But one of the cool legends I looked into while I was down there (with the help of the two-week-old baby) was the Honey Island Swamp Monster.
The Honey Island Swamp Monster could be somewhat accurately described as “Louisiana Bigfoot.” It tends to inhabit the Honey Island Swamp, a huge, swampy area just north of New Orleans, so it’s rarely seen. My wife wouldn’t let me take the baby into a swamp, so I had to hope that maybe I’d get a glimpse of the Honey Island Swamp Monster in town, buying some jambalaya and a beer or something. You never know.
It would be pretty noticeable, even for New Orleans. The Honey Island Swamp Monster is said to be over seven feet tall, with shaggy gray hair and red or yellow eyes. People have reported seeing the creature’s footprints, which are webbed—You’d expect that, what with it living in a swamp and all. The prints are said to have either three toes, or four—Accounts vary. (What can I say? Swamp monsters are weird.)
One legend, which strikes me as somewhat weirder than most, is that a circus train crashed in the area back in the sixties, and the chimpanzees aboard escaped and interbred with the alligators in the swamp, creating the Honey Island Swamp Monster. I’ll give you a moment to get that image out of your head.
The monster was first spotted in 1963—Like all of these stories, there are legends dating back to the Native Americans, but the first documented sighting was in 1963. Retired air traffic controller Harlan Ford, who had the most masculine name known to man, claimed to have seen the creature while exploring the swamp. He and his friend Billy Mills continued to search for it until Ford’s death in 1980, and there are reports of them finding footprints and getting some film footage of the monster, though neither one of these facts is exactly carved in stone.
I didn’t personally see the Honey Island Swamp Monster either. I was hoping for a glimpse, but the adoption of your child is not exactly the right moment to go jetting off into a swamp on a full-scale cryptozoological expedition. (Not if you want to stay married for much longer, it’s not.) I had some fun exploring the Metairie Cemetery, and we saw some pretty cool places, and had some good meals down there. Everyone was very pleasant, even the drug dealers, who were excessively friendly and welcoming. (“And you just come see me for all your heroin needs, okay?”) But no Honey Island Swamp Monster.
As we left town, we drove over Lake Pontchartrain on the Causeway Bridge, which is the longest in the world at over twenty-three miles long. I kept an eye out for the monster, in case he decided to swim, and also because there’s not a whole lot else to do in the middle of that bridge. No luck. But we have to go back this summer to finalize the adoption, so maybe I’ll get another chance. Maybe Paul Matthew can help me. He’ll be one year old….That’s old enough to hear all about scary monsters who live in swamps, right?
