Louisiana is a US state found in the South-Central US in the Deep South region and is bordered with the US states of Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi and also has a coast along the Gulf of Mexico. The state capital is Baton Rouge and the largest city is New Orleans. Small fact, Louisiana is one of two US states that are not divided into counties, but Louisiana instead is divided into parishes, the other is Alaska that is divided up into boroughs instead.
The region along the coast is made up of low swamps, coastal marshlands and beaches as well as some barrier islands. Sea level rise and erosion is a continuing problem for the state, causing it to gradually lose land, which the state government has been working against. The northern uplands of the state include prairie and woodlands. The state’s climate is humid subtropical, it has long, hot and humid summers and short, mild winters. The state is also within tornado alley and so has a couple dozen tornadoes per year on average, as well as that due to being along the Gulf Coast it is subject to major hurricanes possibly making landfall, which due to the state’s vast lowlands and wetlands can cause major flooding damage, even now the city of New Orlean’s is still recovering from the devastating Hurricane Katrina that made landfall in 2005.
Agriculture plays a part in the state economy including products such as cotton, soybeans, cattle, sugarcane, poultry, eggs and more and is also the biggest producer of crawfish in the world. Industry and Tourism sectors are also important. The Port of South Louisiana is the largest volume shipping port in the Western Hemisphere and the largest bulk cargo port in the world. The state also has a growing film industry.
Now let’s jump straight into the weird and the unexplained within the state of Louisiana. The state does have some quite strange ones indeed and I shall start off with what I think is the most bizarre by far.
The Grunch is a cryptid that appears to be a cross between a reptilian and a canid, with light green scaly skin, long tail, four legs with claws, fangs and black spines along its spine, this is at least one of the common descriptions, as always it varies from person to person, sighting to sighting and story to story but it’s all believed to be the same thing – The Grunch, and many believe it may even be some kind of hybrid Chupacabra, a cross between a canid and reptilian version of that well-known goat-sucking cryptid.
Sightings of The Grunch go back well into Louisiana’s past even before it became a state and when it was under the control of the French as a colony, so it has some pretty deep cultural roots, which has been fairly rare to come across on many of the localized cryptids I have gone over so far. There are two main folkloric tales of how The Grunch came about, such as a Voodoo/Hoodoo story that tells how a Voodoo Queen called Marie Laveau castrated the Devil Baby to stop it creating more of its kind, but the testicles transformed into a male and female Grunch which attacked the lady and nearly killed her, with the Grunch and Devil Baby then vanishing.
The other story was about a road that led into the wilderness (named Grunch Road) where outcasted deformed and small peoples would live together away from normal society, it is said they commonly inter-bred and that over time this led to the creation of the Grunch.
Where is the above road exactly? Again, it is conflicted and different from story to story but one common area is that it was a road east of New Orleans.
If alarmed the Grunch is said to be able to howl like a wolf, scream like a Banshee and bellow and screech like an ape, it is also said to be able to easily camouflage into its surroundings and is described as being quite intelligent and even being able to utilize basic tools. Many have blamed unexplained animal mutilations in the state on the Grunch, particularly the mutilations where the organs have been removed and blood has been totally drained seemingly only through one or more tiny holes in seemingly expert surgical precision. The Grunch is also said to smell quite putrid as well.
Next up is the Honey Island Swamp Monster which appears to be some kind of bipedal hominid (perhaps even with reptilian features) creature found in Honey Island Swamp which is a marshland located in St. Tammany Parish in the east of the state. The creature is described as being as tall as 7ft with grey hair and yellow eyes and also as is common, is said to have a bad smell.
The first recorded sighting dates back to 1963, made by a retired air traffic controller with a hobby for wildlife photography and hunting called Harlan Ford, but it wasn’t until a discovery by Ford and a friend of his in 1974 that it gained more wider national attention, when they found apparent footprints they claimed belonged to the creature and also the carcass of a boar that had its throat gashed out, the footprints were casted, with them being three-toed and seemingly webbed, as if they were reptilian.
It is claimed that Ford continued to unsuccessfully hunt for the Honey Island Monster until his death in 1980, among his belongings was found supposed footage of the creature caught on camera, which has been featured on several TV programs and can be found on Youtube.
The Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files program was one such to show the footage and investigate it, coming to a conclusion that the figure was likely a person in a ghillie suit and could easily have been mistaken identity on Ford’s part rather than a purposeful hoax. Of course, though, this does not necessarily rule out the creature from existing.
A bizarre folkloric origin tale of the Honey Island Monster is that a train crashed in the area during the early 20th Century that was carrying a travelling circus and a group of chimpanzees had escaped and inter-bred with a local alligator population that created the creature, which may explain the description of it being crossed between a hominid and reptilian.
There is also further claimed sightings by a man called Ted Williams who was a trapper who worked on the swampland every day. He claimed to see them often and exclaimed that there were more than one. He said he left them alone as they seemed to not want to hurt him. It is said that one day when he went deep in the swamp in his boat to set trout lines he went missing and nor him or his boat has ever been seen again.
Now we shall move on to the haunted place slot and this one I am going to do Myrtles Plantation as it is a popular one, I have often heard of and is said to be another one of the US’s most haunted locations. The place is located in St. Francisville.
The historical home was built by David Bradford, a successful lawyer and deputy attorney-general for Pennsylvania’s Washington County. The home and plantation was called Laurel Grove back then and utilized a number of slaves for work and jobs performed on the property, with the slaves changing hands through different owners who obtained the plantation.
Ruffin Gray Stirling and his wife obtained the home and its slaves in 1834 and both he and his wife performed extensive remodeling of the house which doubled its size and they also imported lots of furniture from Europe there and the name of the home was change to The Myrtles after crape myrtles that grew in the area.
Most of the home’s furnishings and accessories were robbed during the American Civil War but the house survived. In 1854 Stirling died and his wife became the owner of the plantation and she later married William Drew Winter, a lawyer and agent she had hired to help manage the plantation, they had six children together, one of whom died of typhoid.
In 1871 William Winter was murdered on the front porch of the home. After the twice widowed wife died in 1880 the house would pass through several more hands before being owned by Harrison Milton Williamson. Marjorie Munson obtained ownership of the house in the 1950s who appears to be the first to speak of odd-happenings of a paranormal nature, sparking a number of ghost stories, the house changed hands a few more times before finally being bought by James and Frances Kermeen Myers who turned the house into a bed and breakfast and Frances wrote a book on the plantation where he called it “the most haunted house in America”.
As of now the plantation is owned by John and Teeta Moss who run tours and overnight stays for visitors and tourists, especially for those looking for a possible paranormal thrill or encounter. A number of paranormal investigators and shows have also been and featured the Myrtles Plantation as well – including Ghost Adventures.
Possible alleged and seemingly documented activity that can be encountered in the house and its grounds include unexplained figures and apparitions caught on pictures or seen with one’s own eyes. In 1992 a creepy famous photo came about appearing to possibly show the apparition of a slave girl between The General’s Store and the Butler’s Pantry, who has been named Chloe (after a legend of such a slave having been at the house), what makes it more intriguing are that the pictures were taken by the owner that were required by law to show distance between the grounds buildings to aid underwriters in rating a fire insurance policy for the plantation. The pictures have been analyzed as well with little reason to doubt the authenticity.
There are many unproven legends surrounding the plantation such as various murders and deaths and the poisoning of the Woodruff’s via a cake possibly by a slave named Chloe and that it may have been an accident that was part of a failed plan for her to nurse those who ate it back but that she had used too much poison, she was then supposedly dragged out of her bed by the other slaves and hung so they could not also be held responsible. The poisoning legend is likely one of the least credible, but who’s to say for certain?
When William Winter was shot on his porch it is said he dragged himself into the house and up to the 17th step where he died, it is said by some that a haggard apparition can sometimes be seen repeating this. Other activity can include disembodied footsteps, voices and laughing among more.
And that’s strange and unexplained Louisiana. Next up will be the strange and unexplained of Wisconsin.
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