This Paranormal Life - #356 LOST Cryptid Footage Found in Attic - The Honey Island Swamp Monster

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

In 1963, two retired air traffic controllers were exploring a Louisiana swamp called 'Honey Island'. Despite sounding like somewhere Winnie the Pooh would live, the swamp is actually home to an array of deadly and dangerous wildlife... NONE more dangerous than the Honey Island Swamp Monster - an ancient BEAST unknown to science that's lived in the swamp for hundreds of years (or it might just be an escaped monkey convict)Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunitySupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeIntro music by www.purple-planet.comEdited by Philip Shacklady Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If there are wormholes in space, what other bug-type holes are there out there? Could a monkey play basketball if we gave it enough Gatorade? All of these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week we investigate a brand new paranormal tale, came, clay, tail, I can, why do I keep messing this up these days? Brother, you slipped into the language of Proxima B there for a second, so you might want to do that in English again. Tale, claim, case or beast to come to a conclusion at the end

as to whether or not that thing is truly paranormal. There we go. My name is Roy Powers. Across from me sits Kit Greer. The only podcast where we don't do reruns. We do one take, mother effer. That's right. And it doesn't matter how badly things go wrong.

I don't know if you heard last week's episode, listeners. I realized I had a dentist appointment halfway through. Had to leave, drive 30 minutes across town. We just kept the tape rolling. Oh, yeah. That's the great thing about podcasts. There's like no, you know, we used to have tape and that was a problem.

Now we could just keep going for as long as we want. Half of our episodes last week actually had to be recorded in court because I was in the middle of an indecent exposure case that I really couldn't get out of and it was the only time Kit was in London to record. So it was kind of like, you know, it'd be like, so this is where the monster was first sighted.

What do you think about this, Your Honor? And he was like, you are going to prison. You are going to prison, sir. It's like he's wearing a wire, but weirdly it's just connected to a podcast mic. Like he's just wearing a Bluetooth headset. Your Honor, you know who else was indecently exposed? Bigfoot.

He didn't wear a lot of clothes and people are looking for him. Actually pretty keen to find him. He's like, I slammed the gavel eight minutes ago. You just weren't listening. You're already guilty and charged. But hey, today on this podcast, we have a very very exciting case i'm going to go ahead and say it's a bit of a classic one kit oh interesting okay so in the same way that you've got um classic movies classic records classic cars this bears all the hallmarks of a kind of og original beautiful

vintage case oh yeah because we do like to experiment. We like to do alien stories. We like to do psychological stories, disappearances, paranormal mysteries. But today, we are dealing with a beast. Ooh, okay. The last one on the list that you mentioned at the beginning. We actually haven't done probably that many cryptids lately.

It's been a lot of aliens. It's true, yeah some uh some mysteries but uh yeah a good old-fashioned beast you're gonna keep your eyes on the beasts because if you don't they'll team up yeah they'll start banging each other and making more beasts i don't know if you uh notice as well not a lot of natural predators to the old beasts to keep them in check. Because we've mentioned before in the UK, our biggest predator we have, aside from child predators, is foxes. Physically, foxes are the biggest one. Yes. Yeah, of course. Does nothing eat a fox in the UK?

Nope. Really? Not even a very angry badger? Yeah, badgers do get very angry. But I don't think anything does. I think it's farmers shoot foxes. But just in this part of the world, we don't have a lot of large natural predators. So if the beast of Gévardin turns up in London...

Oh my God. It's me and you, brother. He would dominate. It's true. Whereas, you know, other countries across the world, like South America or Australia, for heaven's sake, if you so much as step on a beetle instant death yeah if you so much as look in the eyes of a fly instant death there's a lot going on out there that you have to be weary of as you said here not so bad animal wise yeah that's why we're here

that's the only reason that kit and i have been able to survive for so long. Kit and I are kind of the equivalent of like the two monkeys you see at the zoo and the little placard outside of their cage says, these monkeys would die in a heartbeat if they were left out in the jungle. They can't fend for themselves. They have no idea how to survive in the wilderness. All they'll eat is Annie's mac and cheese. We can't make them eat a single vegetable.

They're so domesticated. Right. So with that in mind, from the comfort of our podcast studio, we are going to be investigating a swamp in Louisiana. Ooh, okay. Now, Louisiana is known for being a pretty swampy place. In fact, there's almost 300 different swamps in the state. Jesus, it's more swamp than state. But today, we're in the most dangerous swamp of all, a place known as Honey Island Swamp. These folks need to decide

what they are. Is it a swamp? Is it made of sludge or is it made of honey? Yeah, a bit weird to name your most dangerous swamp Honey Island. America is really great for these kinds of names, isn't it? Nowhere else on earth do you have these kinds of names. It's a real like new world phenomenon. We've said before that here in Britain, there's a lot of like, you know, piddles, bottom lanes.

Sure, sure. And of course, over in Ireland, you know, it was a different language a while back. So everything's kind of Celtic and that's different. But in America, it's so new. It's like you could live on Xbox Street. Game Boy Avenue. It also feels like a bad idea if you definitely want people to be wary of these locations to name them something so delicious.

Like if you have to tell your children before they leave the house not to go to the gumdrop forest or rainbow candy island, they're going to go to rainbow candy island. Not even Winnie the Pooh lived on Honey Island. He lived in the 100 acre wood as far as I recall. Right, quite a mundane named location.

He used to dream of Honey Island. Yes, I will admit, the swamp doesn't sound too dangerous, but it's not the swamp itself that people have to be afraid of. It's about the creature that lives inside. That's the creature we're going to be investigating on today's episode. Just after, a quick word from today's sponsors and a reminder you can get every episode

of This Paranormal Life ad-free over on patreon.com forward slash This Paranormal Life. All right, kids, settle in and get your swamp boots ready because we are diving into the case. Swampboot.store. Get your latest season's boots available now. In 1963, two retired air traffic controllers named Harlan Ford and Billy Mills decided to venture into the swamp. Ford had recently become passionate about wildlife photography,

and was there that day to explore the exotic marshlands of Honey Island Swamp. And sure, maybe do a little bit of hunting too. Two passions that seem like they shouldn't go hand in hand. I know, but I suppose a wildlife photographer does specialize in shooting wildlife, literally. Right, yeah. So, you know, you're already shooting them with a camera, why not get the photo

and then make sure no one else will ever get the same photo yeah you know what's kind of like the lens of a photo a red dot sight so you might as well look at the beautiful creature and then pull the trigger and keep that memory forever on your mantelpiece yeah it is more 3d than a photo i think i've told you before on the podcast that uh you know some children dream of being an astronaut some dream these days of being a youtuber my personal dream as a young lad was to be a wildlife photographer was it actually yeah i even read wildlife photographer magazine when i could and uh i think it generally makes even though it's a bit left field i think it generally makes sense, even though it's a bit left field, I think it generally makes sense.

You know, whenever you're a kid, you get excited when you find out about jobs you didn't know existed. And whenever you get told that it's some dude's job to just go out and take a Pokemon Snap all day long. That's what I was going to say. As two kids raised on Pokemon, the idea of traveling the world

and essentially capturing exotic creatures, that's pretty juicy. That's a cool career. I still want that job. I'm going to quit whatever this is and go do that. How far along did the passion get? Did you ever go out with a camera? Not very.

Mostly reading the magazine. I think I was too young to even be gifted a joke camera. Kit went out with a Game Boy picture, took one photo of a rat and called it a day because i think nowadays like kids would be very familiar with like you could give your kid like a little shitty digital they even make digital cameras for kids um but back then it wasn't so much of a thing otherwise i probably would have got really into it but just to be a nerd for a second it's pretty cool if you ever look up like wildlife photographer of the year competition,

the photos are kind of unbelievable. Yeah, it really is incredible. You know, the only time I've ever been involved in it is when I kind of, I got the definition of a little bit confused. I actually thought to win the competition, you had to take photos of yourself having a wild life. Wild life. I'm here for. You had to take photos of yourself having a wild life. Wild life. I'm here for the wild life competition. How's this for some wildlife photography?

And I took a selfie of myself snorting cocaine while skydiving without a parachute. I was like, doesn't get more wilder than this, brother. Rory turned up looking like Steve-O in the Wild Boys. Just a Tarzan loincloth, mud all over his face. Yeah, I live a pretty wild life. The two men quietly trudged through the thick swamp water of the Pearl River, careful not to frighten the local wildlife.

Careful where you walk, Billy. These swamp waters are so thick, it would be easy to accidentally step on a river snake. Of course, you wouldn't want to go on the land, unless you want to step on a land snake. Is there any part of this swamp that isn't covered in snakes? Nope. Best hope we have is finding a predator that eats snakes. Of course, the snake's main predator is other snakes. Wait, what's that up ahead?

In front of them, there was a rustling in the bushes. Ford and Mills paused in their tracks, listening to the crackling of sticks and grunting noises coming from the cover of the mossy swamp trees. Ford was excited. This sounded like it was about to be the biggest snake he'd ever seen. But as the shadowy creature emerged from the tree line, the two men couldn't believe their eyes. This was nothing like they'd ever seen before. The men claimed to see a towering creature, cloaked in greyish-brown hair, almost like a towering baboon, but with human eyes. Human eyes, god.

They said that the creature was digging around on all fours searching in the ground before it quickly stood up and sprinted off into the forest neither man knew it but what they had just seen was the honey island swamp monster oh wow i mean we saw this thing yeah pretty quickly into their uh adventure this was a pretty stark kind of a, they hadn't heard of it beforehand necessarily. I mean, have you? The Honey Island Swamp Monster? And we're going looking and, you know, and so that's maybe, that maybe makes it more interesting. They seem to be pretty caught off guard by this thing.

Is that fair to say? Yes. Before this point, I don't believe it was common knowledge at all that there was a monster in the swamp yeah that anything like this ever existed even myself i was like hey i know this is kind of similar to creatures we've investigated bigfoot sasquatch skunk ape but this one is unique enough which you'll hear uh to warrant its own investigation for sure cool it didn't take much with the skunk ape uh because he was i seem to remember just a smelly bigfoot yeah didn't stop

him being a double yes either that was embarrassing i will be honest with you i think after about 350 episodes you do feel like a bit of an expert in the paranormal you do feel like a bit of professional that takes this stuff seriously and then we said double yes to the skunk ape i spiked i was lunch i was wondering i was wondering what happened that day but believe it or not this wasn't the only time the two men would see this creature whoa because from this point onward it seems like they became borderline obsessed with finding it again. Ford and Mills would regularly take expeditions out into the swamp. Sure, yes, for some nature photography and a little bit of hunting, but also to try and catch another glimpse

of this mysterious creature known as the Honey Island Swamp Monster. Just to revisit the shooting with a camera versus shooting with a gun actually makes complete sense because really this is a kind of capture dead or alive type situation you know yeah you're going into a deadly situation you're going into a dangerous situation you want to get the photo because maybe you know because you need to get evidence of the beast but then what if it turns on you you need the gun so you know exactly i understand and then you have a nice thing where you're like you go to the pub later and you're like hey everyone i did it i got i got a picture of the thing you know hey check it out and you show them the the picture and they're like oh yeah real convincing oh your body's out there

in the woods in a gorilla suit you really thought that was gonna prove to us it's real and you're like oh yeah i guess uh oh checkmate oh you got me guys oh i get here's his head oh here's you throw it down on the table he's like because i shot him in the brains yeah and they're like that's now we can see it clearly it is it's a baby bear you're like you know it's a beast it's like that's that looks like it's wearing a wildlife protection tag reservation tag uh i can tell by the size of the paws it's a beast it's like that's that looks like it's wearing a tag it's wearing a wildlife protection tag reservation tag uh i can tell by the size of the paws it's no older than three weeks and you're like okay all right you you killed an endangered they're actually having a really hard winter too they're having a really hard winter there's a lot of conditions that are making it difficult for them can i can i just uh look at the fur of the creature yes so this is the infamous

uh hugging bear no known for known for how kind and gentle they are it doesn't maul people to death no no they actually have to be protected because they're so welcoming to humans they don't know any better they're so helpless yeah their blood also when they're alive their blood makes children live forever so i think there's one there was one left and it was in this guy in the bar is a scientist you show him the picture first and you're like what do you think about that and it's like my god you found the missing link yeah i've been searching my entire life for the the appellation white snow bear grabs his coat he must take me there he must take me there right now oh so okay no so that's right that's not a a mythical beast the geographical

society will be you'll win the nobel prize man you'll win the nobel prize oh there's like blood seeping from your backpack see See, there was some complications. He fell. He fell and I tried to save him. Luckily, that didn't happen. The men didn't get a shot off on the creature. I think for the most part, they were more interested in documenting it rather than killing it, which is nice. A nice change for once in these stories. Which is nice. A nice change for once in these stories.

Despite their best efforts to hunt the creature down, it wasn't until 1974 that they came across the creature again. Nine years after the first sighting. I was gonna say, yeah, wow. While wandering in the swamp, Ford and Mill came across a wild boar slumped over the ground. Hey! We got a cold hog over here! I wonder if another hunter beat us to it. I'm not sure. I don't think many hunters would do this.

Ford lifted the boar to reveal the creature's neck and throat had been ripped apart. But not by a hunter's blade, but with what looked like a set of claws. Yeah, I mean, hunters, they will get desperate out there, they will get hungry out there,

but they do usually stop short of just eating the boar raw. Yeah. Neck first. Unless they're going full predator mode, you know, mud on the face, popping out of a swamp and just strangling things. Yeah, going Northman berserker mode which i think is an insult to the craft of hunting you know you don't use that fancy bow and

arrow you don't use that fancy rifle you gotta take all your clothes off except for a tiny little loincloth attach a rock to a stick and run out there swinging yeah that's real hunting yeah what's the like our grand grand grand grand grandpappies did help me out here is this just a movie or is this a real thing but i'm sure i've seen in like a documentary where they're like hey here's something like say the maasai warriors in af, they're like, hey, these guys are, they're not an uncontacted peoples, but they have like kept their shit real, you know? They still wear the traditional clothes. They do all the traditional shit.

I see. And like, I'm pretty sure I've seen one of those where like, when you turn 16 in our tribe, you have to kill a lion. You have to go out into the wilderness and come back with a lion's head. I just think we need to bring that back. That's intense.

Do you think the lions are being like, when you turn nine, you have to go fight a child? We didn't make that rule. They made it. Honestly, we could give or take it. I'll be honest. It's kind of a walk in the park. These kids are only 16 years old. They don't have much upper body strength.

So you should be able to easily take them I don't know why they do it anymore the lions have a streak going the lions have one year after year it's true, I think we need to toughen up the youths of the world that's why every weekend I run out

into the woods without a compass, without a map hell, without even fresh drinking water and strangle a weasel. And no, that isn't slang for jacking off in the woods. I strangle any creature that looks like it can't defend itself. I don't know if you get to talk like this because whenever you were 16, you were too scared to ask a girl to go to our school formal well that was classified information and i don't appreciate you bringing that up on the conversation you took your

sister which was fine but like once like it visually it was fine until people found out what was happening i asked a girl how would you like an address made entirely of weasel fur because i have about 27 weasels in the trunk of my car and you will be the bell of the ball said hey babe if you want to come back to my hotel room i got a weasel we can strangle and you got maced and the whole night kind of wrote itself i i've actually never been hunting myself so i don't know how good i would be at it uh but it seems like these guys ford and millilt, they are pros. I have not been hunting either.

I think I recently told the story of the closest I got was my father-in-law got me to hold a torch while he tried to shoot a fox until my wife came and said, Dad, don't make him do it, he's vegan. And then he felt sorry for me and let me go back to not holding the torch i mean such a small part being played and even that was too much for you

she knew i was gonna like go oppenheimer mode have blood on my hands never be able to sleep again all right we're getting distracted here but as i said being the hunting pros that thord and mills, they decided to examine the surrounding area for any traces of what had attacked the boar. And there, imprinted in the mud, were deep sets of strange footprints leading off into the woods. I know we talked about this creature being similar to a bear or Sasquatch or the skunk ape, but these footprints were four-toed web-footed prints. Jesus. Somewhere between that of a large primate and an alligator.

Ford and Mill managed to take plaster casts of these footprints, and that was enough to bring widespread attention and belief to the existence of the Honey Island Swamp Monster. Interesting. Many locals in the area have backed up Ford and Mills' claims that there is something out there in the swamp, some kind of humanoid, ape-like, wild, hairy creature killing wildlife and occasionally even attacking locals. You know, I just don't want killing wildlife to sound like a crime,

because if you're an animal, it's not a crime. That's a really good point. You don't see an anteater on trial for eating bugs. Yeah. You know? Because that would be a quick trial. Look at his f***ing name. He's the anteater.

It's hard to get off on that one. You think he's beating the allegations with that schnoz? There's no way. He's getting perp walked, taken away, coughs, I f***ing do it again I do it again The lawyer has completely got him Day one, he's like So, your defense is claiming that

You've never eaten an ant in your life That ants are your friends Sir, could you please state your name For the record Objection Overrul you please state your name for the record oh this is this is objection overrule state your name state your name sir i'm an anteater the jury guilty he flips they don't have souls they don't have souls it doesn't matter everyone's like oh my god there's a family of ants crying in the booth.

Hard cut to a press conference outside the court, an ant standing at a podium. It's a day for justice. Our family cannot move on from this incident. The hunt for evidence of this creature would continue for years. But as the years went on, no real proof was ever discovered eventually locals started to become skeptical that there ever was a swamp monster maybe Harlan Ford was lying maybe he faked those footprints in the swamp you know we're going to see a little bit in this story

kind of the maybe the downside and the tragic side of being someone who comes across one of these creatures. Because it usually goes one of a couple ways. You see something like this, and you don't want to talk about it. You're done. Because people make fun of you, they ridicule you, you don't want to be a part of it anymore. Or two, you become obsessed with it. You want to tell everyone, you want to share your story. And sometimes option two leads to option one. Sharing your story and telling everyone means that eventually you don't want to tell anyone anymore. And unfortunately, that's kind of what happened with Harlan Ford. Despite the ridicule, yes, he did continue to search for the creature. He never stopped, even in his old age. But as the public grew more and

more skeptical of his story, Ford retreated to the shadows, hiding from the public eye and concluding most of his research privately. Until eventually, Harlan Ford passed away. Now after his death, his wife Yvonne was sorting through some of his old research in the attic. And this thing was filled with old letters, descriptions of the creature, and more plaster casts that Ford had made at some point in his years of research. It seemed like even in the end, Ford was obsessed with finding proof that this creature existed. Yvonne naturally had a lot of questions, you know. Why would he be so determined

to prove that everything he was saying was the truth? What did he know that everyone else didn't? And that's when she found the tape. Lying in the piles of research was a strange tape of 8mm footage filmed out in the swamp. Footage that had never been released to the public before. We're gonna watch that video right after a quick break.

Okay, kid, are you ready to watch the footage that was found hidden away in Ford's research up in the attic? Check this out. The footage you are seeing right now was shot by Dana's grandfather on Super 8 Movie Reel Film. Now, if you look closely, there appears to be a hairy,

Bigfoot-like creature walking amongst the trees. He was in a tree blind, and there's something that crosses through the swamp on foot, but you can tell it's not human. It's hairy. Wow. What do you think, Kit think so rory has displayed me the footage it is eight mil which means it is old timey so this is very

this is exactly what you're picturing a grainy blurry forest blown up zoomed in um it is very blurry but there is there is something in the background moving around back there, walking through in the kind of Bigfoot style to which we've become accustomed. Yeah. And look, I'll admit it's very much in line with a lot of other very early days Bigfoot footage we've seen. Very like Patterson footage-esque. That level of quality that same

style of movement i think the interesting thing about this tape is that obviously once it was released to the public it only kind of raised more questions you know people who had previously doubted ford's story were more confused than ever because i think one of the main theories was that he had made this up he'd made up the entire story just for notoriety but if he did why did he hide this tape in his attic with a bunch of research and not share it with anyone even if it was fake footage wouldn't he have shared it with the local news and told everyone he managed to catch it on camera yeah we're getting into the psychology of it did he like in your kind of paradigm of option one option two of how your life turns out did he give in to the ridicule and just and just think it would never be taken

seriously and he wouldn't even bother yeah really the i suppose the elephant in the room with these types of footage we've seen them before with things like bigfoot is uh are they a hoax because it's really the number one question because we can see something is there and then we have three possibilities that this is a honey island monster option two that this is a man just a person walking through in a ghillie suit or whatever they always say or three that it is a hoax that they say simply got someone far enough away to dress up like something and walk through and it's kind of blurry enough that it could be anything okay so two of your options were the same it was two of them were hoaxes and one was it's real i think you just said so you're like we got a few

options here one it's a crock of shit. Two, it's bullshit. Or three, it's a hoax. I feel like maybe that wasn't fair for the case. I feel like there's a couple more options out there that maybe we've seen footage of a creature never witnessed before. No, no, because option two, almost the most believable, is that it is both not paranormal and not a hoax that that our friend here took the film in earnest thinking he'd caught something when he really hadn't got it it is a human in a suit

but the photographer didn't realize that when he took the picture i mean also there may be another option which may seem unbelievable just from looking at that that this is a creature out in the woods but maybe not a cryptid that may sound crazy sure but there will be some information later that might mean that we consider that i see what you're saying bears have walk on two legs exactly well the more i personally investigated the sightings of this creature the less clear this whole thing really became for me. Eventually I realized if we were ever gonna find out what this thing is, we would have to investigate the origin story of how the Honey Island Swamp Monster came to be. We just found out he existed, how are we gonna find his goddamn Marvel origin? Well it turns out there are quite a few theories, some normal, some paranormal.

And I can tell, Kit, you're feeling skeptical today. So please let me know if any of these explanations resonate with you as a possibility. Okay. Love it. Hit me. So first off, many people believe that the creature's origins can be traced back to a Native American myth. can be traced back to a Native American myth. Indigenous peoples of the area, including tribes like the Choctaw and the Huma, have a number of stories involving a mysterious beast.

The legends say that an illegitimate child was once abandoned in the swamp and raised by alligators. Alligators? Of all the animals that could have adopted the child? Ones that live in water? Right. And are dinosaurs? Right.

I feel like the parents that dropped this kid off, they were like, look, there's some monkeys downstream. We'll gently slide our baby down there and they let go of the basket and it's floating and then,

the current kind of gives him a sharp right towards Alligator Creek and they're like, oh, he's now on a very different trajectory. Yeah. Into their mouth, probably. Wow. Okay.

But it is a myth. So this also could be full of allegory and could blend the worlds of myth and reality. Sure. I think that's really what this one is um the assumption is this wild human grew up to become the swamp monster yeah um doesn't explain a lot of the stuff like alligator feet and things but who knows maybe he had an alligator wife another much more modern urban legend says that in the early 1960s, a train carrying a collection of circus animals crashed near the swamp.

This crash released a family of chimpanzees that interbred with alligators, creating a whole gang of Honey Island swamp monsters. Okay, maybe I am feeling skeptical, but let me use my secondary school biology to disprove this by saying the definition of a difference in species is the inability to interbreed so just by definition we can't have well first off love breaks all barriers yeah it's not love if a monkey does

love a lizard enough anything can happen it's actually not true according to kind of the laws of genealogy um you know there are some kind of hybrids but they're very limited we've got what's the one where it's like a donkey and a zebra i don't remember there's only like a couple oh i don't know about that one yeah and i think like donkeys and horses and stuff can bonk but i guess because they're very genetically the same. Yeah, they're pretty much the same. But I think in this case, these would be too far apart for anything to really happen. Yeah, an ancient swamp lizard and a monkey mixing, that's not going to give you good results.

It's not. I don't think. This isn't how, you know, we're pokemon silver uh and and kind of breeding them and just getting and it's just like a a kind of character generator right yeah it's not going to mix that well uh okay that's maybe a dud explanation another theory proposes that it belongs to an unknown undiscovered species possibly an ancient species of prehistoric reptiles that adapted to the swamps i like this i mean that's classic cryptid isn't it yeah we're just never getting into loch ness territory um there is a word for this what's it called when um a population becomes cut off from the rest

of the world incel i believe right no that's an involuntary celibate right uh no this is uh yeah i could look it up but there's a word in biology for this term of like a population getting cut off and then it basically takes a bit like our baby friend going down the chute to the alligators it uh then this population takes a different evolutionary route so we saw this with say australia that at one point in time lots of those uh animals there would have had common ancestors with the animals we have over here but they got cut off from the rest of the world right that gave birth to all the marsupials we have now and australia has so many unique life forms yes it really does and maybe that's why the life forms over there are very dangerous.

Because Australia is basically the island from the Hunger Games. For hundreds of years, it was just all the animals fighting each other for survival. And that's why all the weirdest and most wonderful have survived. Right. Maybe we're seeing the same thing here. This is, yeah, a creature that was isolated out in the swamp, learned to survive, and now has kind of adapted and is now just being seen by humans for the first time. You know, and it's interesting that it overlaps with alligators

because, of course, crocodiles and alligators, they're considered living fossils, as they say. So they're really totally unchanged from prehistoric times. Yeah. So, yeah, you're right. That could be somewhat of a logical conclusion to make. But hey, I do know that a lot of these explanations are pretty far-fetched. I mean, for example, how many cryptid cases have we investigated where the most popular explanation is that monkeys escaped a zoo or a lab? I feel like we've had that happen at least four or five times now.

Oh, you mean the ex-monkey? Yeah, the ex-monkey, the skunk ape, Sasquatch. It's always an explanation. Is this just a monkey that got out of a zoo somewhere? There are a lot of monkeys being experimented on. Well, I'm glad you said that because this part maybe won't blow your mind as much as I thought it would. Yes, there are a lot of people who claim to have seen the Honey Island Swamp Monster in the woods.

But there's also just a lot of people in the area that have claimed to see regular monkeys in the woods. Oh, really? And the key to all of this might lie with a little place known as the Tulane Primate Research Area. Ooh, okay. This is a research facility located in Louisiana, not too far from the swamp. And not to tell you too much about how this place is run, but they have a whole section on their Wikipedia called Incidents and Controversies. So what you're saying is that there has been just a kind of steady stream of convict monkeys getting released into this swamp over the last 70 years.

They might as well have a section called Loose Chimps because it's happening frequently enough. You could just name them and the date they got out. frequently enough you could just name them and the date they got out this is like you know the way in the uk uh there's been a big scandal in the uk over the last couple years about like how are there's poo in our waters um i didn't know this okay i don't know if you've not read the news yeah there's shit in all the water in the uk should i stop drinking water i mean that sounds bad yeah it's pretty bad um and it kind of it kind of hit the press where it was like hey someone realized that the water companies even though they're not allowed to just dump raw sewage into into our lakes and rivers they kind of just do it uh when they feel like it and then it kind of uncovered

this whole story where it was like it was like okay damn did they do this one time that's crazy what year was this and it's like oh they've been doing it every year i was like you're kidding once a year uh actually if you want the real number here's a map you could look up maps where it shows you where all the like dumpings are taking place and it's like you know it's taking place probably um 600 times a day in 500 different locations around the uk it's just an open pipe the the map it has like a pin on the map for every place it's happening and there's there's more pin than map you can't even see the united kingdom so it'd be easier for us to tell you when we're not dumping poo in the water so in this case christmas day that was it yeah we took a break yeah so weirdly everything

was functioning properly but uh yeah if there was a map of the swamp and if you had to put a pin for an escaped chimp, it's just one big orange thumbtack. Yeah, it's like, oh my God, are you telling me you guys released a monkey into the swamp? We've been releasing a couple monkeys in the swamp. My God, what year was that? Every year since the lab was formed. It's like, you've been releasing monkeys in the swamp. My God, what year was that? Every year since the lab was formed.

It's like, you've been releasing monkeys in the swamp? Were we not supposed to release monkeys in the swamp? We thought that was chill. Yeah, because in my head, you know,

they talk about in zoos reincorporating animals into the wild. Yeah. I think there's like, there's an art to it. Training them up, getting them ready,

making sure they're able to cope by themselves in the wilderness and the delicate ecosystem. In my head, a truck rolls up to the swamp, they open the back and monkeys just pour out and then they drive away. They throw a bundle of bananas and say, may the best chimp win. In my mind, they load up a Chinook helicopter and just kind of spray them over the swamp like there's a wildfire

for the people of louisiana it looks like d-day chimp soldiers raining from the skies it's the wizard of oz except these chimps can't fly scientists are like i mean this works out well for us because i don't think a lot of them are going to live after they hit the ground uh over the years this place has probably just under 100 monkeys escaped the lab oh my god in 1998 two dozen monkeys escaped from their cages and fled into the surrounding areas in 2005 over 50 monkeys escaped and ran into the woods. This is the worrying bit about the 2005 case. It says, as a conclusion to that case, it says, while most were recovered, four of the primates died or were never found.

All right. So pretty conclusive, I would say. So I do want to say for the first time, I think, in this podcast history, we do have a very high probability that the creature we're investigating is an escaped monkey convict. There's actually a very high documented chance that this is a monkey

that escaped from a lab it's kind of awesome honestly it is it's kind of it's kind of great because you know testing on animals is a debate we won't wade into but you know their lives are complete shit that's cool that some of those monkeys, imagine you're that monkey. Oh my God. And just like purge night style, the system malfunctions, your cage just lifts up and you just wander out into the swamp.

You're swinging through the trees with your two dozen other monkey homies. Oh my God, yeah. It's like monkey Shawshank. Crazy. You finally made it out. You're a free chimp again. It would feel incredible. Wow. It's like monkey Shawshank. Crazy. You finally made it out. You're a free chimp again. It would feel incredible.

Wow. It's like I saw a meme once about, imagine how excited you'd be to be one of the lobsters in the tank at the restaurant on board the Titanic. Great. It's like you were brought on to be eaten by rich people. And then all of a sudden the place is filling up with seawater and you're like i think we're getting out of this yeah like we're gonna

get the out of here this is it this is happening you get your freedom again imagine oh it would be incredible now before we wrap up today's investigation you know on this podcast we have to play the role of the believer and the skeptic. So I do have one last piece of information I need to include. Okay. Earlier in the story, we talked about the second sighting of the beast, where Ford made the plaster casts of the creature's footprints. Now those footprints do still exist today. You can actually visit them at the Abita Mystery House Museum in Louisiana.

But at some point in the hunt for the Honey Island Swamp Monster, a pair of shoes were discovered, buried in the mud, near Harlan Ford's hunting camp. And they were a regular pair of shoes. For sure. With alligator feet strapped to the bottom. All right. shoes for sure with alligator feet strapped to the bottom all right so i'm just gonna play a quick clip here to show you the shoes here's the shoe along with photographs of known honey island swamp casts and cast photos including the original casts cast by harlan ford the shoe print is the same size and width of the casts it bears the

same indentions where the toes begin even the telltale tilt of the middle toe can be seen in comparison to this cast photo the bends and arches of each toe can be easily seen represented in the casts wow they really got these guys in 4k huh It's almost an exact match to the original cast. Don't bury the alligator shoes in the swamp where everyone's looking for the creature. Burn them. Take them apart. Put them in an incinerator.

Yeah. Oh, God damn it. He almost got away with the perfect crime. Look, does this mean? Don't you dare. Don't you dare. That the creature doesn't exist

just end the show no it doesn't this means that one paranormal investigator maybe got a little too keen for evidence and went

quite literally a step too far can I ask you a question when did you learn about these shoes to be quite frank about seven minutes before we started recording okay it was the last piece of information i i was like wrapping everything up in a nice little bow

yeah and then at the end of uh my notes you put a champagne bottle on ice yeah i really thought this was gonna go down differently i thought the whole like monkey lab thing, like experimental monkey lab was going to win you over. And I was like, oh, you know what? This will be the final nail in the coffin. Oh, a little video I didn't watch. One little video. Oh, a news video as well. That's very authentic.

Actually showing the plaster cast so Kit can see them. And then they were like, so we found the counterfeit boot right by where the guy who made the cast lived. We've been talking a lot about swampboot.store and that is one boot that is not available currently on the store.

It isn't. We might be able to bring it in though if it's popular demand. The Honey Island boot. That's a limited edition drop. I love this case. I actually really do love it because there's enough twists

and turns in here to make this more than just a cryptid sighting we have yes the original sighting and some plaster cast but then we have this mystery of all the evidence being hidden in the attic along with footage that was never released to the public then we have an actual primate laboratory where monkeys and chimps are escaping into the swamp and then you have this last kind of twist where it's like okay well but then was it all fake because we found the guy who was saying he saw the creature and made these saw the footprints and we apparently he made fake boots to prove it yeah yeah so there's so many you're kind of like i've got like whiplash from

this story from all the twists and turns. I shouldn't rag on this story too hard because these are the hallmarks of any popular paranormal case, any popular cryptid case. I mean, if you look at the Loch Ness Monster, like I mentioned earlier, that is a real mess of a story because there are several highly documented hoaxes

around the Loch Ness Monster over decades. That doesn't stop people believing in it. Stopped us believing in it. But it doesn't kill the thing dead just because one person made a hoax. So one should keep an open mind about these things. But it's troublesome here because no one has seen this thing before this guy and then the guy who sees it for the first time also hoaxes it that's the biggest problem i think with this if it had been someone else in the surrounding town who said that they found the footprints maybe you could say okay well this person was trying to piggyback off of the momentum but when the prints were allegedly made faked by the guy who was the original person who saw the creature that becomes tough yeah but i do agree with you you know even

alien cases we've done enough alien cases where we walk away being like this 100 happened this is real this took place and then next week we investigate dav Huggins, the guy who says he lost his virginity to an alien. And it's like, all right, David, sit this one out. Because we are talking about the same thing, but I think these are very different stories. You're lowering the tone, yes. I don't think we need to dilly-dally and mess around, discuss this too much at the end of the podcast.

Of course, we do need to come down on our conclusions. Kit, where is your head at today whilst it's a fun ride and we have given double guesses to extremely similar beasts in similar locations uh it's too much of a red flag that our our protagonist in this the key witness was caught hoaxing in 4k and the beast has not been meaningfully seen since plus monkeys what a what a combination that's why it's a no for me i think i'm right there with you i do love the fact that there is genuinely a lab leaking monkeys into a swamp like that if it wasn't for the hoax thing i think i might have entertained more the notion of somehow a monkey drank some swamp water

and turned into something crazy or i don't know the lab is doing secret monkey experiments where they made a creature i don't know you could have a field day with different theories but frustratingly this hoax this fake alligator boot really just is the the final nail in the coffin for me too it's going to be a double no today that one hurts but hey so great to investigate a classic cryptid case if you have a story that you want us to investigate whether it's one that you've heard about or one that's happened to you personally send us an email at thisparanormallifepodcastatgmail.com. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of This Paranormal Life. You know, we've got a great community out there over on Reddit, over on Facebook, over on the Discord.

And I have seen a few people who have recently joined the show saying, guys, I don't know what to do. I've gone back and I've listened to the entire backlog. I'm caught up. Now I have to wait for catalog of secret episodes never released to the public over there on patreon.com we've got extra monthly bonus episodes we've got weekly after parties where kit and i talk about the behind the scenes the production um and extra little bonus bits that didn't make it into the episodes themselves it really is an untapped treasure trove of TPL content. So if you do want more and you just want to support the show, your paranormal pals over here in the commune, head on over to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. And if you need somewhere to start,

if you enjoyed this case, we've done many cryptid cases, but we say it all the time. There was a standout recently with the ogopogo episode on the bonus feed and uh i'll not give it away but it was i think by definition the most compelling cryptid case we've ever done on the bonus feed i was devastated not devastated that it was a bonus episode but i think at the end i was like i was so blown away by the level of evidence being provided in that case that i i was like i hope people in the community do join

to listen to this episode if you've ever been skeptical about the world of cryptids before maybe you're into the aliens and the ghosts but you're like i don't think there's monsters in the world we have a video we watched a video of the monster you should go check it out it's it's really great it's over there with no escape monkey i'll tell you that much yeah that shit isn't a monkey monkeys don't swim like that that's all i'll say uh but one of the other cool rewards you can get on patreon.com is a shout out right here at the end of the podcast. That's what we're going to do right now. So thank you to Timothy Odinson. Timothy, your name alone strikes fear into me.

Tim Mothy. Whoa. Tim Mothy. Listeners to the after party in the bonus episodes may know that my apartment was recently infestated with moths. A war that has raged on. Infested? Same word what isn't it yeah infiltrated by moths how about that uh and there was a lab leak there was a lab leak

of moths unfortunately bro he lives below a moth lab yeah not a meth lab a moth lab. Not a meth lab. A moth lab. I don't just have a list, but I'm talking about drugs. Right. So, Timothy, you can join the commune, but I may hit you with a rolled up newspaper at some point. I'm not sure. Thank you also to Madeline Jace. Madeline needs to stop meddling in things that don't concern her because

Is that a threat? Because I, listen, I opened a hotel on this haunted property fair and square and it's not my fault that a ghost has been scaring away some of the locals. Alright, so Madeline and her f***ing dog and her friends

and their van need to stop Madeline in my affairs. So it sounds like you're definitely to blame and she's trying to solve the problem with the cast of Scooby-Doo. No! No! Is that what that dog is called? I hate that little f***ing guy. Thank you to

Brenda Hamada. Brenda's a big spender. Oh, wow. Yeah, I see Jesus Christ gave us $1,500 this week. Yo! That's insane. My leash. Brenda, sorry.

I kind of even read your name casually there. Please take a seat. When would you like your breakfast? Sit on me if you want. What is happening? I'm nervous. Sorry, on your lunch, do you want the white truffle, the black? I'll just get both truffles.

He'll just get both. Do you like Kit, by the way? Because we can get rid of him if you don't. If you don't.? I'll just get both truffles. He'll just get both. Do you like Kit, by the way? Because we can get rid of him if you don't. If you don't? And I'm not even talking about the podcast. I'm talking about from this earth. All right, let's not get crazy, bro. It's 1500.

I mean... I'll get them for you, Brenda. I'll do whatever it takes. Just keep that cash-ing coming. Thank you to Nick Heigl. Nick Heigl. Named Nick because he was the original guard we had for the palace room. And we gave him, of course, a fully sharpened Japanese katana to defend the ballroom with.

One problem, though, he kept nicking himself. He kept nicking himself. Every time he unsheathed the blade, touched the blade, borderline looked at the blade, he would nick himself. We should have seen it coming. Guy couldn't close shave his face if his life depended on it why we entrusted him with a ancient and very sharp sword and when you've got a bodyguard that essentially needs to be hooked up to a blood bag 24 7 because he's leaking so much it's time to find a new guard so nick now uh is in the ball pit where he can't do any damage to himself.

And finally, thank you to Andy Howell. Hey, well, if it isn't Candy Andy. You know, we don't have a lot of treats and luxuries here at the Paranormal Commune. We don't even have an ice cream truck. But what we do have is Candy Andy. And he kind of goes around on the weekends and he just has almost like Santa Claus, just a sack full of treats to give to the lovely people here at the commune. Of course. Cool.

All we really have is, so your choice is kind of a regular potato or a sweet potato. It's kind of whatever you, those are your choices. So you said candy Andy? Yeah, because the potatoes can be sweet. Candy Andy? Yeah, because the potatoes can be sweet. A sweet potato is really, I mean, I guess if you roast them to oblivion and maybe drizzle a little bit of maple on there. No maple. We're out of maple.

They're not candied. Okay, they're not caramelized. So they're just, are they cooked? They're not anything, brother, because we're also out of sweet potatoes. Okay, so there's just white potatoes. So take a potato from the sack and move on. Lest he beat you with the sack. The sacks really dispense

more beatings than potatoes. And he's more of a kind of potato mercenary. Because if you tell people to take a candy and there's only potato, people don't want the potato. They've been primed

to want candy so what you get is hit thank you thank you Andy thank you Andy thank you everyone who supports us on Patreon

we literally couldn't make this show without all of that support so head on over check it out if you want to get some really cool rewards and support your buddies over here

at Paranormal HQ thank you so much for listening. I had a blast this week. I hope you did kid. And I hope you did too. Listening to this. We will see you once again next Tuesday for another paranormal tale. Ciao.

Bye-bye.