Saturday, February 28, 2009

MONSTERQUEST: Swamp Stalker

History Channel - Original Air Date: 2/18/09

Yes, another bigfoot-like edition of MonsterQuest, this one based on the Legend of Boggy Creek.  The story started in Fouks, Louisiana, where the original sightings occurred.  Several of the townsfolk claimed to have seen, and even been terrorized by, a three-toed shaggy-haired humanoid.  A local man who's hunted in the area all his life, believes there is no evidence that the creature exists.  Of course, others claim to have seen the creature (as recently as October 2000).  One man saw the monster as he sat in a hunting stand; another spotted it on the mountainside after giving a wildlife call.  Another witness, after spotting the monster, kept looking for years until he found some prints -- of both foot and hand -- on a creek bed, which he then photographed and took casts off.  Unfortunately, the prints are not enough to prove anything; they seem to be human, though it's unlikely a human would be barefoot in a cold stream in the woods in the middle of winter.  MonserQuest sends a team out to the Sulfur River Basin look for the monster.  They ride and paddle through the wilderness and set up camera traps -- one of which gets knocked down and chewed on by a bear.  They spray reagent on the foliage (to see if it's been brushed against), and use call-blasting to try to lure out any incipent monsters.  They find some bear prints and show how, if the claws marks are absent, bear prints can look like a large human, or sasquatch, print.  They also find an very large print, not a bear, that's too old to properly analyze.  Unfortunately, none of the camera traps or high-tech gizmos turn up anything.  Analysis of a scat sample proves to be from a wild boar.  And the three-toed track photograph is analyzed as likely to be a hoax.  Thus, another quest with no actual monsters.

No comments: