New Louisiana Swamp Monster Photo [Updated]
Posted by: Loren Coleman on December 10th, 2010
Update: This appears to be a hoax. See the posting and comments that follow at our new entry, here.
A deer hunter at Berwick, Louisiana, has captured a strange image of something wandering through the Louisiana woods at night. The hunter near Baton Rouge reported to the media that he found this bizarre image on his deer stand camera.
The hunting camera was broken but the memory card was still there and so was this remarkable photograph. What is it? An ape? A swamp monster? A human in costume? NBC news station WVLA, Baton Rouge, feels it looks like a cross between a human and an animal, with long slender appendages and glowing eyes.
Perhaps tongue-in-cheek, the hunter says he just hopes it’s a vegetarian, if he runs into it in the woods again.
The national media, via MSNBC, has widely shown this photograph on television.
Berwick is a town in St. Mary Parish (shown above), Louisiana, United States. The population was 4,418 at the 2000 census. The first white settler to trek through the wilderness in this area was Thomas Berwick, a surveyor from Pennsylvania who was working in Opelousas, Louisiana. He settled along the banks of the Atchafalaya River in the late 18th century. Today the town of Berwick is home to several seafood processing plants and numerous boat companies.
Nearby, relatively speaking, are the reports of the Honey Island Swamp monster, a hairy humanoid or anthropoid cryptid reported from Honey Island Swamp, Louisiana since 1963. To Native Americans, this cryptid is called Letiche. Cajun have named it the Tainted Keitre.
The Honey Island Swamp (French: Marais de l’Île-de-Miel) is a marshland located in the eastern portion of the U.S. state of Louisiana in St. Tammany Parish (above). Honey Island earned its name because of the honeybees once seen on a nearby isle. The swamp is bordered on the north by U.S. 90, on the south by Lake Borgne, on the east by the Pearl River and the west by the West Pearl River.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
My initial take is that it’s a photo manip of a screen grab of the Remus Lupin werewolf from the third Harry Potter movie – the proportions are nearly identical.
http://www.archerytalk.com/vb/showthread.php?t=1366975
http://i835.photobucket.com/albums/zz280/sadiepoolovee/Swamp_Monster.jpg
Photoshopped, and taken from elsewhere. Sad that people feel they have to do this to get attention.
Full image [added above].
Reminds me of the Dover Demon. Looks like an apparition, more ghostly than anything else. We’ll all have to see how this one plays out. Very intriguing pic though, thanks Loren!
~Peace
It looks like Gollum! Too good to be true I suspect. Nice image though.
Its a ghoul from Fallout: New Vegas.
Well that is not what I imagined, would be lurking in the night time bayous of Louisana. It reminds me of the Dover Demon. I wouldn’t be surpirsed if this turns out to be boggus. Also, I watched the SyFy TV show “Fact or Fiction” last night and they did a segment on the Honey Island Swamp monster. The roar they heard at the end sounds alot like the roar of the Fouke monster from the movie “The Legend Of Boggy Creek”.
My first reaction is that it’s photoshopped. But I must concede that, if this is indeed a hoax, that the artist sure knows how to manipulate a pixel.
I’m with red_pill_junkie if this is a fake it is well done. This is the first time I’ve ever hoped a photo was faked, though. If it isn’t then this either a horribly diseased human (no sagital crest, so no Sasquatch) or the zombie apocalypse has begun.
It is kinda freaky. Its just too bad that any footage nowadays is going to automatically be disputed due to what we can do with a computer. Perfect example is in the local news cast of this story.
http://www.geekosystem.com/alien-deer-cam-video/
In the newscast you will notice that the date of their footage is different than the date of the picture here.
yup its a ghoul from fallout new vegas..its wired up on crystal nukacola.
Berwick is not far from where I grew up. I grew up in Terrebonne parish which borders St. Mary to the southeast. If you look at the posted map Terrebonne is the largeest of the parishes that border St. Mary to the east.
My gut tells me this is a fake photo, but there is a regional boogey man in Cajun culture called the Rougarou. This is a Cujun French dialect derivative of Loup-garou, which of course is werwolf.
In my family mythology the Rougarou was named Joe Patut, he lived in my Uncle David’s closet, and would skin you alive if you touched David’s Patsy Cline records.
It looks very similar to the “creature” in this YouTube clip.
That youtube clip was most assuredly faked. You can find the making of video on the website attached to the original post. Not digitally edited mind you just a really skinny friend and some prosthetics which is likely the case with this other image as well. As far as can be determined it appears the only thing that was definitely added to this image was the time and date stamp.
Ridiculously absurd fakery.
long time fan here but this is my first post, I want to say first that I have really enjoyed the site and have a huge amount of respect for everyone that posts here. Most of you all have unique perspectives and always manage to bring something constructive to the dialogue I hope I can as well. As to the above picture I would have to agree that my first thought was “fake” and I still hold to that but to me it looks like it may be a photo of a speedskater taken head on and then doctored to look this way but I must admit to not knowing enough about photoshop to say how it was done.
I don’t support the hypothesis that this is a photoshopped insertion of a “glowing one” —luminiscent ghoul enemies from the post-apocalyptic videogame Fallout Vegas. In this picture you’ll find several inconsistencies. That doesn’t mean it’s no necessarily a photoshopped image, as I’ve stated in an earlier comment.
I agree more with Ulalume. It’s very similar to that video.
It looks like a creature from I AM LEGEND.
OK, bigfoot in the woods I can handle, but one of these, no way.
I agree with ArmChairCryptoGuy and cryptid that it looks like a ghoul from the Fallout video game series. I don’t have and didn’t play New Vegas yet so… idk myself.
Anyway it could be an alien, demon from hell, or a government exp. or test gone bad.
Who knows?
😉
Photoshop.
Or, is Zombi-alien from Dover. 😛
I know we have a few gamers in here. Resistance 3 anyone? – Debunked!
http://playstationlifestyle.net/2010/12/10/creepy-resistance-viral-spooks-media/
Go to Youtube and look up Aphex Twin Rubber Johnny music video. This creature seems inspired by it.
Please tell me none of you thought this was real..please tell me you knew it was fake all along,just as I did. This is the kind of stuff that make a mockery of us all!
The pixels in the creature are far tighter than the pixels in the leaves which are as close and as washed out by the flash.
Also, after seeing it here and elsewhere, the aspect ratios change in different postings of the pic depending on the source.
I say faked, but good job, lol
I’ve been looking at other nighttime trail cam pics and there are a few elements that I feel this image lacks. The creature’s right arm should be producing a harder shadow against the rest of his body, his overall outline is too soft, and his genitals look blurred. All this to say, though, IF this was a real creature in motion then the blur effects and lack of shadow could be as a result of rapid movement. Plus the branch that his right hand goes behind would have been one of the harder elements to fake, so unless the hunter passes a lie-detector test I’m gonna have to stay on the fence.
After careful examination of the pictures I have come to the conclusion that the creature in the photo is the Boogeyman. I always knew he was real, except that he was lurking under my bed. I think everybody needs to be careful now, when they are sleeping and not let their arm dangle over the side and to make sure the closet is securely closed at night. It would appear that this booogeyman in the photo, got lost from it’s intended home. I myself, will be going to be bed, with a loaded sidearm next to me.
Told ya. . . .
Okay, I myself am a crypto-addict. My father actually e-mailed me this picture when he found out here it was. Because I live in Vermilion Parish, the one right next to St. Mary, my brothers actually found the picture while google-ing. I was initially shocked, but after taking a second glance I had no doubt that this was faked. I really hope it was faked. I pray it was faked. Because I live across the road from the swamp, and three miles north of White Lake. Middle of nowhere. Where things go bump in the night.
just got an account hear from you guys from MU love the site! personally, i get the feeling this is viral marketing, but the image is really well shot and photoshoped in. Also, if this was real, why would it just automatically stare at the camera? i doubt if it was an animal it would have noticed it, but i could be wrong. I’m honestly hoping this is viral, because if it’s for a movie I’d go see it just to see this creepy thing.
Somebody did an analysis of the image.