YEAR: 2025

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: January

DATE: 18th

STATE: Mississippi

COUNTY: Hancock County

LOCATION DETAILS: between the Possum Walk Trail and the Logtown Cemetery

[Investigator (MM) Notes:
GPS = 30.280938, -89.625814 ]

NEAREST TOWN: Pearlington Ms

NEAREST ROAD: Logtown Cemetery Rd

OBSERVED: My girlfriend and I often ride thru the Stennis Space Center Buffer Zone at night in the Honey Island Swamp. The area had several towns that were abandoned in the 60s so the Space Program would have an area to test the Apollo rockets.

The Buffer Zone straddles the Pearl River and it's a very primal swamp. Special Boat Unit 22 trains on the river and the Navy has a River Warfare school at the Test site. It's home to a lot of wildlife including Louisiana Black Bear, feral hog, and a large alligator population. I believe I've heard big cats in the swamp before, even though Mississippi and Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries deny their existence. My European family has a connection to the area dating back to the area since the late 1700s and I have Native roots in the area going back 2000 years.

The road we were on that night has large live oaks that line the road and is very scenic. It ends in a boat launch on the Pearl River that has a circle turnaround that's on top of a Native miden pile that's over 1000 years old. The area has artesian wells from old homesteads and a saw mill. It's a cool place to hangout and walk a nature trail. The area definitely has a "vibe" to it. We like to ride and see the wildlife that crosses the road. It's only a 15 min ride from our house and is a convenient way of breaking the monotony of working 60+ hour work weeks.

This night we were riding back from Slidell Louisiana and I made the usual detour to the area to "Bigfoot hunt". The area has the local legend of a swamp monster. I've seen pictures of possible footprints in the area and knew a couple people who had encounters or had weird things happen to the on the Pearl River.

As we ride down the road we both notice eye shine on the right side of the road in a tree probably about 150 feet down the road. As we go down the road we see the eye shine is in a fork of an oak tree probably about 8 feet up. I pull up about 30 feet from the eye shine and angle the truck lights to see better. The eye was large and at first I think it's a great horned owl. The eye moves to the left ducking out of sight. I mentioned to my girlfriend that it's probably an own and I can tell by her tone she's skeptical of that.

As we are sitting there watching the eye reappears and I'm waiting to see the other eye appear... it never does. From the arc the eye travels I can immediately tell it's not a small animal like a possum or raccoon... the arc is too long for us not to see a second eye... it was like a man leaning out into the fork in the tree to look at us. I instantly got that cold chill like my blood drained and my skin pickled. My mind is running thru different things trying to rationalize what we are looking at. We've seen owls in trees and they rotate their heads away from the light... not lean over and stare into it.

I shined a 600 luminem light thru the front windshield to see if we could see a face - we couldn't see a face just that blazing amber eye. In hindsight I believe it wasn't against the tree but a few feet behind the tree and that's why we couldn't see a face. I never thought about pulling out my camera phone at the time because honestly I think I was in shock at what we were seeing.

After a few minutes I had seen enough and straightened the truck up and drove passed the tree. We made the turnaround and didn't see anything on the backside of the tree on the way out. If you ask why I didn't shine the light on the backside of the tree when we passed by the first time I'll be honest with you: I was afraid.

We didn't smell anything (I had the windows rolled up but the AC intake was on).

We have had another strange incident about a 150 yards from this spot a few years before this. We were on a trail at night and all the bugs and frogs just stopped like a switch. We immediately got the feeling of being watched... my skin pickled up as well as my girlfriends and we both heard something moving in the palmettos. We decided it was time to leave.

This incident happened on Saturday January 18th around midnight. I lose my GPS signal on this road so my Google driving log is patchy when we ride in this area.

I'll be honest with you I don't feel the same about walking around in this area after dark. My brain keeps rolling the events over and over and I often go back to that tree in daylight trying to come up with a rational explanation of what we saw... I can't. The head was just to big and it's obvious that the eye leaned out way to far to be a small animal. I'm 6 ft and I'm 2 feet under where the eye was looking thru the fork in the tree. The backside of the tree has no where for an owl to perch. In both out minds it had to be something large on 2 feet standing behind the tree and it was just as curious about us as we were of it. Their is a trail right behind the tree it was standing at and I could have bolted into the thick swamp very easily... but it didn't. Thanks for your time!

OTHER WITNESSES: 2

OTHER STORIES: I have a few other incidents with others I've been told. I'm willing to share if asked.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: around midnight, dark night, no rain, no fog

ENVIRONMENT: swamp

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Matthew Moneymaker:

About BFRO Investigator Matthew Moneymaker:

Matthew Moneymaker is originally from the Los Feliz District of Los Angeles, California.

- Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

- Juris Doctorate (Law degree) from University of Akron School of Law

- Founder of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization,1995.

- Writer and co-producer of the Discovery Channel documentary "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science", 2001.

- Co-producer of the TV Series "Mysterious Encounters" for the Outdoor Life Network (OLN Channel), 2002.

- Producer of the "2003 International Bigfoot Symposium" (Willow Creek Symposium) DVD set, 2004.

- Co-host of "Finding Bigfoot" on Animal Planet Channel, 2010 - 2017.

- Current Director of the BFRO

- Available for private bigfoot expeditions and conferences. To inquire please email ContactUS@BFRO.net