Mothman and Other Curious Encounters by Loren L. Coleman

Author:Loren L. Coleman [Coleman, Loren L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781931044349
Amazon: 1931044341
Publisher: Paraview Press
Published: 2002-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

The Spawn of Mothman

The sun was just coming up when I left New Orleans, Louisiana, to travel to Honey Island Swamp. The friendly woman driving the mini-van that brings you deeper into the swamp before you use a shallow-bottomed boat said that just the week before Kevin Costner had sat where I was now sitting. I think I was supposed to be happy about the fact that our bottoms had warmed the same cushion. Nevertheless, even though I was struck with the fact that the star ofJFK andWaterworld had traveled the same path I was now taking, I wasn’t seeking celebrities. I’d come to hunt a monster, or at least learn more about one–an ogre that left pointed, three-toed prints.

The Honey Island Monster led a quiet life until filmmaker Alan Landsburg and on-camera host Leonard Nimoy featured the creature in their 1970s series “In Search Of.” Big, biped and as frightening as any beast you’ve heard about, sightings of the Honey Island Monster have been drifting out of the bayous for years. When I visited, however, none of the swamp’s nature center guides, nor even the woman selling alligator burgers knew anything about the critter. One boatman said he thought that it “sort of looked like Bigfoot.” And elements of the creature’s fame were in evidence, as I noticed one of the swamp boats was named “Wookie,” after the giant hairy Star Wars character.

Thanks to the Honey Island Swamp Tours, my excursion into the bayou was uneventful. There was talk of the monster and I was able to examine its habitat, but you can’t expect much else from such tourist-oriented rambles. The New Orleans Zoo had an exhibit of a giant Bigfootlike Honey Island Monster, near their white alligator enclosure. But the Honey Island Monster today lives deeper into the swamps than where these tour boats go. Kevin Costner and I didn’t see any monsters, nor many animals, I must admit. Indeed, I was able to get closer to alligators and other wildlife in my canoe trips into the Everglades, Okefenokee, and other southern swamps I have journeyed to alone and with a few associates. That’s the way it should be, I suppose. Monsters are for dark nights and campfires, not tourists.

The Honey Island critter left evidence of itself behind, nevertheless. The footprint casts of the creature I had been shown years earlier, indicated that the incorrect name had been given to the swamp boat–the Honey Island Monster is not a Bigfoot. Maybe the footprints are those of alligators, maybe not. In any case, they match what people say the Honey Island Swamp Monsters feet look like.

Today you can even buy copies of these casts online. Local folk author Dana Holyfield sells them along with her small privately bound book entitledEncounters with the Honey Island Swamp Monster (1999). In this booklet, she explains that her grandfather, Harlan E. Ford, was the first man to report a sighting of a mysterious creature lurking in Louisiana’s Honey Island Swamp. Ford was also the first to get plaster casts of the creature’s three and four-toed footprints.

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