The Mtstery Chronicles

by Joe Nickell

  Searching for Evidence

  Intrigued by the monster reports, which I pursued on a trip to New Orleans (to speak to local skeptics at the planetarium in Kenner), I determined to visit the alleged creature’s habitat. The Honey Island Swamp (FIGURE 20-1) comprises nearly 70,000 acres between the East Pearl and West Pearl Rivers. I signed on with Honey Island Swamp Tours, which is operated out of Slidell, Louisiana, by wetlands ecologist Dr. Paul Wagner and his wife, Sue. Their “small, personalized nature tours” live up to their billing as explorations of “the deeper, harder-to-reach small bayous and sloughs” of “one of the wildest and most pristine river swamps in America” (“Dr. Wagner’s” n.d.).

  FIGURE 20-1. Louisiana’s pristine Honey Island Swamp is the alleged habitat of a manlike monster. (Photograph by Joe Nickell.)

  The Wagners are ambivalent about the existence of the supposed swamp monster. They have seen alligators, deer, otters, bobcats, and numerous other species, but not a trace of the legendary creature (Wagner 2000). The same is true of the Wagners’ Cajun guide, Captain Robbie Charbonnet. Beginning at age 8, he has had 45 years’ experience (18 as a guide) in the Honey Island Swamp. He told me he had “never seen or heard” something he could not identify, certainly nothing that could be attributed to a monster (Charbonnet 2000).

  Suiting action to words throughout our tour, Charbonnet repeatedly identified species after species in the remote swampland, as he the mystery chronicles skillfully threaded his boat through the cypresses and tupelos hung with Spanish moss. Although the cool weather had pushed alligators to the depths, he heralded turtles, great blue herons, and other wildlife. From only a glimpse of its silhouetted form, he spotted a barred owl, then carefully maneuvered for a closer view. He called attention to the singing of robins, which were gathering in the swamp for the winter, and pointed to signs of other creatures, including branches freshly cut by beavers and tracks left in the mud by a wild boar. But there was not a trace of any swamp monster. (The closest I came was passing an idle boat at Indian Village Landing emblazoned “Swamp Monster Tours.”)

  Another who is skeptical of monster claims is naturalist John V. Dennis. In his comprehensive book, The Great Cypress Swamps (1988, 27, 108-9), he writes: “Honey Island has achieved fame of sorts because of the real or imagined presence of a creature that fits the description of the Big Foot of movie renown. Known as the Thing, the creature is sometimes seen by fishermen.” However, he says, “For my part, let me say that in my many years of visiting swamps, many of them as wild or wilder than Honey Island, I have never obtained a glimpse of anything vaguely resembling Big Foot, nor have I ever seen suspicious-looking footprints.” He concludes, “Honey Island, in my experience, does not live up to its reputation as a scary place.”

  In contrast to the swamp experts’ lack of monster experiences are the encounters reported by Harlan Ford and Billy Mills. Those alleged eyewitnesses are, in investigators’ parlance, “repeaters”—people who claim unusual experiences on multiple occasions. (Take Bigfoot hunter Roger Patterson, for example. Before shooting his controversial film sequence of a hairy man-beast in 1967, Patterson was a longtime Bigfoot buff who had “discovered” the alleged creature’s tracks on several occasions [Bord and Bord 1982, 80].) Ford’s and Mills’s multiple sightings and discoveries seem suspiciously lucky, and suspicions are increased by other evidence, including the tracks.

  FIGURE 20-2. This plaster cast preserves an alleged Honey Island Swamp Monster track.

  From Dana Holyfield I obtained a plaster copy of one of the several track casts made by her grandfather (FIGURE 20-2). It is clearly not the track of a stereotypical Bigfoot (or sasquatch), whose footprints are “roughly human in design,” according to anthropologist and pro-Big-foot theorist Grover Krantz (1992, 17). Instead, Ford’s monster tracks are webbed-toe imprints that appear to be “a cross between a primate and a large alligator” (Holyfield 1999a, 9). The track is also surprisingly small: only about 9.75 inches long. Compare this to alleged Bigfoot tracks, which average about 14 to 16 inches (Coleman and Clark 1999, 14), with tracks of 20 inches and more reported (Coleman and Huyghe 1999, 14-19).

  Monsterlands

  Clearly, the Honey Island Swamp Monster is not a Bigfoot, a fact that robs Ford’s and Mills’s story of any credibility it might have gained from that association. Monster popularizers instead equate the Honey Island reports with other “North American ‘Creatures of the Black Lagoon’ cases” in which there is purported evidence of cryptozoological entities, dubbed “freshwater Merbeings” (Coleman and Huyghe 1999, 39, 62). These cases are supposedly linked by tracks with three toes, although Ford’s casts actually exhibit four (again see FIGURE 20-2). In short, this alleged monster is unique, rare even among creatures whose existence is unproven and unlikely.

  Footprints and other specific details aside, the Honey Island Swamp Monster seems part of a genre of mythic swamp-dwelling “beastmen” or “manimals.” They include the smelly Skunk Ape and the hybrid Gator-man of the Florida Everglades and other southern swamps; the Scape Ore Swamp Lizardman of South Carolina; Momo, the Missouri Monster; and, among others, the Fouke Monster, which peeked in the window of a home in Fouke, Arkansas, one night in 1971 and set off a rash of monster sightings (Blackman 1998, 23-25, 30-33, 166-68; Bord and Bord 1982, 104-5; Coleman and Clark 1999, 224-26; Coleman and Huyghe 1999, 39,56).

  Considering this genre, we must ask: Why swamps and why monsters? Swamps represent remote, unexplored regions, which traditionally are the domain of legendary creatures. As the noted Smithsonian Institution biologist John Napier (1973, 23) sagely observed, monsters “hail from uncharted territory: inaccessible mountains, impenetrable forests, remote Pacific islands, the depths of loch or ocean. . . . The essential element of the monster myth is remoteness.”

  Echoing Napier in discussing one reported Honey Island Swamp encounter, John V. Dennis (1988) states: “In many cases, sightings such as this one are inspired by traditions that go back as far as Indian days. If a region is wild and inaccessible and has a history of encounters with strange forms of life, chances are that similar encounters will occur again—or at least be reported.” Although the major purported domain of Bigfoot is the Pacific Northwest, Krantz (1992,199) observes: “Many of the more persistent eastern reports come from low-lying and/ or swampy lands of the lower Mississippi and other major river basins.”

  But why does belief in monsters persist? According to one source, monsters appear in every culture and are “born out of the unknown and nurtured by the unexplained” (Guenette and Guenette 1975). Many alleged paranormal entities appear to stem either from mankind’s hopes or fears, and thus are envisioned as angels and demons; some entities may evoke a range of responses. Monsters, for example, may both intrigue us with their unknown, mysterious aspects and provoke terror. We may be especially interested in man-beasts, given what psychologist Robert A. Baker (1995) observes is our strong tendency to impute human characteristics to nonhuman things and entities. Hence, angels are basically our better selves with wings; extraterrestrials are humanoids from futuristic worlds; and Bigfoot and his ilk seem linked to our evolutionary past.

  Monsters may play various roles in our lives. My Cajun guide, Robbie Charbonnet, offered some interesting ideas about the Honey Island Swamp Monster and similar entities. He thought that frightening stories might have been concocted on occasion to keep outsiders away— perhaps to protect prime hunting areas or even help safeguard moonshine stills. He also theorized that such tales might have served, in a sort of bogeyman fashion, to frighten children enough to keep them from wandering into remote, dangerous areas. (Indeed, he mentioned that when he was a youngster in the 1950s, an uncle would tell him about a frightening figure—a sort of horror-movie type with one leg, a mutilated face, and so on—that would “get” him if he strayed into the swampy wilderness.)

  Like any such bogeyman, the Honey Island Swamp Monster is also good for gratuitous campfire chills. “A group of men were sitting ar
ound the campfire along the edge of the Pearl River,” begins one narrative, “telling stories about that thing in the swamp ...” (Holyfield 1999b). A song, “The Honey Island Swamp Monster” (written by Perry Ford and quoted in Holyfield 1999b, 13), is in a similar vein: “Late at night by a dim fire light, / You people best beware. / He’s standing in the shadows, / Lurking around out there . . . .” The monster has even been referred to specifically as “The boogie man” and “that booger” (Holyfield 1992a, 14). “Booger” is a dialect form of bogey, and deliberately scary stories are sometimes known as “’booger’ tales” (Cassidy 1985, 333-34).

  Suitable subjects for booger tales are the numerous Louisiana swamp and bayou terrors, many of which are the products of Cajun folklore. One is the Letiche, a ghoulish creature that was supposedly an abandoned, illegitimate child who was reared by alligators, and now has scaly skin, webbed hands and feet, and luminous green eyes. Then there is Jack O’Lantern, a malevolent spirit who lures humans into dangerous swampland with his mesmerizing lantern, as well as the loup garou (a werewolf) and zombies (not the relatively harmless “Voodoo Zombies” but the horrific “Flesh Eaters”) (Blackman 1998, 171-209).

  By extension, swamp creatures are also ideal subjects for horror fiction. The Fouke monster sightings, for example, inspired the horror movie The Legend of Boggy Creek. That 1972 thriller became a box-office hit, spawning a sequel and many imitations. At about the same time (1972), there emerged a popular comic book series titled Swamp Thing, featuring a metamorphosing man-monster from a Louisiana swamp. Interestingly, these popularized monsters predated the 1974 claims of Ford and Mills. (Recall that their alleged earlier encounter of 1963 had not been reported until after the second encounter in 1974.)

  The Track Makers

  Although swamp monsters and other man-beasts have not been proven to exist, hoaxers certainly have. Take, for example, the Bigfoot tracks reported by berry pickers near Mount St. Helens, Washington, in 1930. Nearly half a century later, a retired logger came forward to pose with a set of “bigfeet” that he had carved and that a friend had worn to produce the fake monster tracks (Dennett 1982). Among many similar hoaxes were at least seven perpetrated in the early 1970s by one Ray Pickens of Chehalis, Washington. He carved primitive seven-by-eighteen-inch feet and attached them to hiking boots. Pickens (1975) said he was motivated “not to fool the scientists, but to fool the monster-hunters,” whom he felt regarded people like him as “hicks” (Guenette and Guen-ette 1975, 80). Other motivation, according to monster hunter Peter Byrne, stems from the “extraordinary psychology of people wanting to get their names in the paper, people wanting a little publicity, wanting to be noticed.” (Guenette and Guenette 1975, 81).

  Were Harlan Ford’s and Billy Mills’s monster claims similarly motivated? Dana Holyfield (1999a, 5-6) says of her grandfather: “Harlan wasn’t a man to make up something like that. He was down to earth and honest and told it the way it was and didn’t care if people believed him or not.” But even a basically honest person, who would not do something overtly dastardly or criminal, might engage in a prank or hoax that he considered relatively harmless and that would add zest to life. I believe the evidence strongly indicates that Ford and Mills did just that. To sum up, there are the men’s suspiciously repeated reports or sightings and their alleged track discoveries, together with the incongruent mixing of a Bigfoot-type creature with most un-Bigfootlike feet, plus the fact that the proffered evidence is of a type that can easily be faked and often has been. In addition, the men’s claims exist in a context of swamp-manimal mythology that has numerous antecedent elements in folklore and fiction. Taken together, the evidence suggests a common hoax.

  Certainly, in the wake of the monster mania Ford helped inspire, much hoaxing resulted. States Holyfield (1999a, 11):

  Then there were the monster impersonators who made fake bigfoot shoes and tromped through the swamp. This went on for years. Harlan didn’t worry about the jokers because he knew the difference.

  Be that as it may, swamp-monster hoaxes—and apparent hoaxes—continue.

  A few months before I arrived in Louisiana, two loggers, Earl Whits tine and Carl Dubois, reported sighting a hairy man-beast in a cypress swamp called Boggy Bayou in the central part of the state. Giant four-toed tracks and hair samples were discovered at the site, and soon others came forward to say that they too had seen a similar creature. However, there were grounds for suspicion: 25 years earlier (i.e., not long after the 1974 Honey Island Swamp Monster reports), Whitstine’s father and some friends had sawed giant foot shapes from plywood and produced fake monster tracks in the woods of a nearby parish.

  On September 13, 2000, laboratory tests of the hair from the Boggy Bayou creature revealed that it was not from a Gigantopithecus blacki (a scientific name for the sasquatch proposed by Krantz [1992, 193]), but much closer to Booger louisiani (my term for the legendary swamp bogeyman). It proved actually to be from Equus caballus (a horse)—whereupon the local sheriffs department promptly ended its investigation (Blanchard 2000, Burdeau 2000).

  Reportedly, Harlan Ford believed the swamp monsters “were probably on the verge of extinction” (Holyfield 1999a, 10). Certainly he did much to further their cause. It seems likely that as long as there are suitably remote habitats and other essentials (such as campfires around which to tell tales, and good ol’ boys looking for their 15 minutes of fame), the legendary creatures will continue to proliferate.

  NOTE

  1. Although Harlan Ford obtained tracks of various sizes, a photo of his mounted casts (Holyfield 1999a, 10) makes it possible to compare them with his open hand, which touches the display and thus gives an approximate scale. This shows that all are relatively small. The one I obtained from Holyfield is consistent with the larger ones.

  REFERENCES

  Baker, Robert A. 1995. Afterword. In Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings, by Joe Nickell, 275-85. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

  Blackman, W. Haden. 1998. The Field Guide to North American Monsters. New York: Three Rivers Press.

  Blanchard, Kevin. 2000. Bigfoot sighting in La.? The Advocate (Baton Rouge, La.), 29 August.

  Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord. 1982. The Bigfoot Casebook. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books.

  Burdeau, Cain. 2000. Many in central La. fear Bigfoot. The Advocate (Baton Rouge, La.), 15 September. Cassidy, Frederick G., ed. 1985. Dictionary of American Regional English, vol. 1.

  Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press. Charbonnet, Robbie. 2000. Interview by Joe Nickell, 4 December. Coleman, Loren, and Jerome Clark. 1999. Cryptozoology A to Z. New York:

  Fireside (Simon & Schuster). Coleman, Loren, and Patrick Huyghe. 1999. The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide. New York: Avon. Dennett, Michael. 1982. Bigfoot jokester reveals punchline—finally. Skeptical

  Inquirer 7, no. 1 (Fall): 8-9. Dennis, John V. 1988. The Great Cypress Swamps. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Staten University Press.

  “Dr. Wagner’s Honey Island Swamp Tours, Inc.” N.d. Advertising flyer. Slidell, La.

  Guenette, Robert, and Frances Guenette. 1975. The Mysterious Monsters. Los Angeles, Cal: Sun Classic Pictures.

  Holyfield, Dana. 1999a. Encounters with the Honey Island Swamp Monster. Pearl River, La.: Honey Island Swamp Books.

  ———— . 1999b. More Swamp Cookin’ with the River People. Pearl River, La.: Honey Island Swamp Books.

  Krantz, Grover. 1992. Big Footprints: A Scientific Inquiry into the Reality of Sasquatch. Boulder, Colo.: Johnson Books.

  Napier, John. 1973. Bigfoot: The Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.

  Wagner, Sue. 2000. Interview by Joe Nickell, 4 December.

  21

  John Edward

  Talking to the Dead?

  Superstar “psychic medium” John Edward is a stand-up guy. Unlike the spiritualists of yore, who typically plied their trade in dark-room seances, Edward and his ilk often perform before live audience
s and even under the glare of television lights. Indeed, Edward has his own popular show on the SciFi channel, called Crossing Over. I was asked by Dateline NBC to study Edward’s act and find out if he was really talking to the dead.

  The Old Spiritualism

  Today’s spiritualism traces its roots to the mid-nineteenth century, when the craze spread across the United States, Europe, and beyond. In darkened seance rooms, lecture halls, and theaters, various “spirit” phenomena occurred. For example, the Davenport Brothers conjured up spirit entities to play musical instruments while the two mediums were, apparently, securely tied in a special “spirit cabinet.” Unfortunately, the Davenports were exposed many times, once by a local printer. He visited their spook show and volunteered as part of an audience committee to help secure the two mediums. He took that opportunity to surreptitiously place some printer’s ink on the a violin; after the séance, one of the spiritualist duo was besmeared with the black substance (Nickell 1999).

  The great magician Harry Houdini (1874-1926) crusaded against phony spiritualists, seeking out elderly mediums who taught him the tricks of the trade. For example, although sitters touched hands around the seance table, mediums had clever ways of regaining the use of one hand. (One method was to slowly move the hands close together so that the fingers of one hand could be substituted for those of the other.) This allowed the production of special effects, such as causing a tin trumpet to appear to be levitating. Houdini gave public demonstrations of the deceptions. “Do Spirits Return?” asked one of his posters. “Houdini Says No—and Proves It” (Gibson 1977, 157).

  Continuing in the tradition of Houdini, I have investigated various mediums, sometimes attending seances undercover and once obtaining police warrants against a fraudulent medium from the notorious Camp Chesterfield spiritualist center (Nickell 1998). (For more on Camp Chesterfield, see chapter 5, “Undercover Among the Spirits.”)