Late at night in the depths of the Honey Island Swamp, a piercing and unforgettable cry heralds the movement of the creature. Known to rip out the throats of wild boar and tear elevated hunting camps from their pilings, the Honey Island Swamp Monster serves as a powerful image of what lurks in the marshes, waiting for unsuspecting prey. Legends of a giant beast terrorizing the region stretch back to Native American lore, but modern sightings began in 1963, when two FAA air traffic controlmen and local outdoorsmen set up camp in the interior of the marsh’s seventy thousand acres.
Harlan Ford and friend Billy D. Mills, Sr. noticed the potential campsite while flying over a remote area of the swamp outside Slidell, Louisiana. “It was prime hunting territory, and in an isolated area that few people had traveled,” said Dana Holyfield, Ford’s granddaughter and swamp monster advocate. “After he retired, he spent a lot of time at the camp documenting wildlife and eventually the creature we call the Honey Island Swamp Monster.”
Ford appeared on a 1970s television series called In Search Of… and described an unkempt behemoth, over seven feet tall, with scraggly black hair covering its body from head to toe and piercing amber eyes looking out from a surprisingly human-like face. “I thought it might be a bear, and then it turned around,” said Ford. Along with his physical descriptions, Ford produced a plaster cast of an impression of the creature’s foot—a four-toed, web-footed cross between that of a primate and a large alligator.
Because Ford’s account aired nationally, the local legend reached a new audience. “It was monster-mania around here,” said Holyfield. Other area residents came forward to challenge Ford, claiming he and his friends created the swamp monster to secure their hunting territory. Maybe they were bored or wanted to boost the local economy. “Someone had a shoe with a [swamp monster] track glued on the bottom and said they [Ford and his friends] walked around the swamp making the footprints,” said Holyfield.
Ford never stopped searching for the monster but retreated from the public eye following the criticism. His wife Yvonne found a video he recorded in the attic after his death in 1980, grainy 8 mm footage of what looks like a large man covered in hair, walking behind rows of trees in the foreground. The family also found a letter Ford wrote describing his encounters, clearly meant for publication but boxed up along with plaster casts and the video footage. If Ford invented the swamp monster for notoriety or hunting rights, why did he hide the majority of his evidence?
***
“I don’t care whether or not people believe in the Honey Island Swamp Monster,” said Neil Benson, owner of Pearl River Eco Tours. “There are a lot of things in life that we believe in that we haven’t seen—like God. I don’t know what it was; I just know I saw something that day.”
Benson doesn’t claim he saw “what people call the Honey Island Swamp Monster,” but he described something similar. “I was 16 years old paddling away from my duck blind in a pirogue. I saw something tall moving, unlike any creature I have seen move on two legs through water, unimpeded. It wasn’t a bear. It wasn’t like any man I’ve seen,” he said.
Benson tells the story on his swamp tours when people ask and also keeps a plaster cast of Harlan’s swamp-monster footprint impression, given to him by Dana. The casts have made their way around St. Tammany Parish, gifts from Holyfield to enthusiasts and fellow believers. Another is on display at the Abita Mystery House in Abita Springs, Louisiana.
Museum owner John Preble likens the swamp monster to the ivory-billed woodpecker, a species that hasn’t been formally observed or documented for years and is considered by experts to be extinct. “People tell me they’ve seen the swamp monster and that they’ve seen the ivory-billed woodpecker. The swamp is huge, and there are places where things can hide,” said Preble. “And Dana’s the real deal. When you meet her and hear her story, you believe it.”
Holyfield has spent most of her life searching for the same creature as her grandfather. She has written books and produced documentaries detailing encounters across the Honey Island Swamp. “I do this work because I believe my grandfather’s story. It matters whether or not it’s real because, if it weren’t real, a lot of people living around here would be crazy and have seen things that aren’t there,” she said.
***
Before Harlan Ford met the Honey Island Swamp Monster, Cajun legends about the werewolf loup-garou and ghostly trickster Lutin were whispered around the swamps for centuries. Many of these tales took their inspiration from earlier Native American legends. Chitimacha and Attakapas tribes in the region spoke of “wolf-walkers”: man–eating creatures, part human and part beast.
But when the sun shines over the Honey Island Swamp, it’s hard to imagine running afoul of a man-eating beast. Bound by the East and West Pearl Rivers, slender, curving waterways branch away from those main channels and comprise the interior marshes, tangling around endless elephant ears, water hyacinth, cypress, and willow. Whatever mysterious creatures may reside here in the dark deserve to reign undisturbed.
Details. Details. Details.
Pearl River Eco Tours
55050 US-90
Slidell, La.
(504) 581-3395 • pearlriverecotours.com
Abita Mystery House
22275 LA-36
Abita Springs, La.
(985) 892-2624 • abitamysteryhouse.com
