Cotton Island - Scott Kessler, who has been investigating Bigfoot sightings for four years, thinks he knows a Bigfoot footprint when he sees one.
And this week he's seen what he thinks are 16 such footprints in the Cotton Island area of northeast Rapides Parish.
Bigfoot Busy In Louisiana
[Original headline: Is Bigfoot roaming in Rapides Parish?]
Kessler is investigating this week's reported sightings of a Bigfoot creature in that area. Deputies and wildlife officials are also investigating, and the hoopla surrounding the sightings is starting to attract national attention.
Mary Ward, who owns the property where Bigfoot was said to have been spotted, said she isn't scared to live out there while the unknown creature is on the loose. She said she is more worried about people coming out to her place with guns or dogs looking for the creature.
"If I see 'em, I tell 'em to get off my property," Ward said.
Plaster casts have been taken of the large footprints found in Boggy Bayou at Cotton Island, and Kessler believes the tracks are from the legendary creature.
Kessler said the casts are very convincing that Bigfoot is roaming northeastern Rapides Parish near Little River.
Kessler went to Cotton Island Thursday afternoon after hearing about the sightings of a large, human-like creature covered in black hair that appeared before two loggers removing timber in the area.
"I got a really good cast out of it," Kessler said while holding the 14.5-inch, four-toed footprint cast.
Earl Whitstine, a logger with Delrie Wood Products of Colfax, said he saw the creature while operating some logging equipment at Cotton Island on Tuesday, and then ran into the creature again two days later.
In the first encounter, Whitstine said, he called out to it and it ran into Flagon Creek and then into the forest.
The second sighting Whitstine had was near the same location when he and Carl Dubois were walking along a property line near Boggy Bayou.
Again, Whitstine said, he called out to the creature which turned and ran off toward the bayou. If was after that sighting that 16 prints were found.
"What gets me is the way the toes have curled into get a grip in the mud. You can even see where the toenails have brushed the mud," Kessler said.
Kessler said he marked, tagged and measured each print.
"One stride appeared to be 6.5 feet ... those are strides that would be awkward for a human to make," he said, adding that he measured 47 feet of tracks.
The plaster casts, along with some black and brown hair found at the scene, will be sent to cryptozoologists and analysts in Oregon who are familiar with the Bigfoot phenomenon.
Kessler said he has been investigating Bigfoot sightings for four years for the Bigfoot Research Organization and that most of the most recent sightings in central Louisiana have been in a 20-mile radius - north to Georgetown and south to the Deville area, all near Little River and Catahoula Lake.
"There appeared to be something different about each track," Kessler said. "I don't know what it is, maybe the climate or terrain, but we seem to have a lot more four-toed Bigfoot in the South. The five-toed ones are usually up in the Pacific Northwest.
"And the Honey Island Swamp Monster (in southeast Louisiana) has three toes," Kessler said.
This week's sightings aren't the only ones to have occurred this summer. A fisherman from Alexandria was wading in the Honey Hole slough, he said, and came face to face with a similar creature over the Fourth of July weekend, just yards away from Ward's bait shop on Cotton Island Road.
The man reportedly described the creature as about seven feet tall and covered in jet black hair with coal black eyes and a body odor problem.
Another fisherman earlier this week reportedly saw a Bigfoot carrying a hog in the Cotton Island area.
When asked why more people haven't seen Bigfoot, Kessler replied, "Well, out here there aren't many people so he has free reign and really has nothing to harass him." Kessler and his brother, Shane Kessler, spent Friday night trying to attract the creature by playing amplified recordings of what is believed to be a Bigfoot cry recorded in California.
Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office and the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries have also been to Cotton Island and have taken hair samples and plaster casts to be studied. A report is expected from the Sheriff's Office next week.
Interest in the Bigfoot story has resulted in calls from interested parties all over the country and Canada.
Representatives from "In Search Of ...," a revised version of the 1970s paranormal program hosted by Leonard Nimoy, plan to come to central Louisiana in mid-September to interview witnesses and researchers.
A day after the story broke Whitstine is sticking to his story.
"It was all black," Whitstine said. "At first it looked like I was looking at the back end of a horse." Whitstine theorized that the Bigfoot was attracted to the location by the bitter pecans that came down with the pecan and other trees he and his crew were cutting down.
Whitstine said he will not go back into the area where he had his sighting.
"It weren't no bear," he said.
