Mississippi

1Bigfoot in Mississippi Investigated report

Ape-like · Statewide; Clarke and Lauderdale counties lead · first reported BFRO database

Mississippi's upright ape reports belong to the main Bigfoot dossier; the Honey Island Swamp creature on the Louisiana line has its own entry. The BFRO lists about 27 Mississippi reports, with Clarke and Lauderdale counties at 4 each.

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• January 2025Investigated report The most recent BFRO entry for the state describes possible eyeshine near a road on the north edge of Pearlington in Hancock County, close to the Pearl River and the Honey Island Swamp. Lauderdale County logged reports in 2021 and 2022. Source: bfro.net

2Chatawa Monster Told story

Ape-like · Chatawa, Pike County, near the Tangipahoa River · first reported Undated local legend

Chatawa is a tiny community on I-55 just north of the Louisiana line, surrounded by woods and swamp. Its monster is an upright, hairy creature. The most credible-sounding account comes from a highway patrolman who owned land nearby. Plowing at night, he said his tractor lights caught an upright hairy figure ducking into the woods at the edge of his field. He never went back to that field alone. One popular origin story blames a circus train wreck that let an ape-man loose. Local historian Sam McKinney has a simpler idea. He traces it to St. Mary of the Pines school, where older girls told homesick younger ones about monsters in the woods to keep them from running away.

• UndatedTold story A highway patrolman who farmed land near Chatawa said his tractor headlights picked out a fleeting, upright, hairy creature slipping into the trees at the field edge one night. The experience bothered him enough that he avoided the field alone afterward. Source: wlbt.com

3Pascagoula River Beings On the record

Humanoid · Pascagoula River, Pascagoula, Jackson County · first reported October 11, 1973 · also called Pascagoula Abduction

On the evening of October 11, 1973, Charles Hickson, 45, and Calvin Parker, 17, were fishing on the Pascagoula River. Hickson said an oval craft thirty to forty feet across appeared. Three beings with pincer-like hands took them aboard and examined them. Parker said he fainted. The men went to the Jackson County sheriff around 11 p.m. Deputies left them alone in a room with a hidden recorder, and their stories stayed consistent. Captain Glenn Ryder said if they were lying, they belonged in Hollywood. A polygraph found Hickson believed his story. Skeptic Philip Klass found discrepancies, and Joe Nickell suggested a waking dream. A historical marker went up in 2019.

• October 11, 1973On the record After reporting to the sheriff, Hickson and Parker were secretly recorded while alone. Their private talk matched their account, which impressed officers. Hickson later wrote a book; Parker told his side in 2018. Hickson died in 2011 and Parker in 2023. Source: en.wikipedia.org

Visiting: A historical marker about the 1973 incident was unveiled in Pascagoula in 2019.

4The Singing River Told story

Other · Pascagoula River, Jackson County · first reported French colonial era

The lower Pascagoula River is called the Singing River. People say that on quiet nights a low humming or music rises from the water. The best-known explanation is a legend. A Pascagoula chief fell in love with a Biloxi princess who was promised to another, and their elopement started a war. Outnumbered and facing capture, the Pascagoula joined hands and walked into the river singing a death song, and the song is still heard. Tellers disagree on the chief's name. The director of the Pascagoula River Audubon Center told WLOX that we may never know what really happened. Folklorists classify the tale as a Euro-American legend, not a documented tribal history.

5Simpson County Chupacabra On the record

Beast · Simpson County · first reported 2011

In the fall of 2011 Simpson County hunter Truitt Barnard shot a strange animal at about 130 yards. It had a long, hairless face, red and rough hide, rounded ears and double canine teeth about three-quarters of an inch long. Barnard said it was the weirdest-looking animal he had seen in fifty years of hunting, and not a dog or a coyote. He compared it to Texas chupacabra reports, and WLBT ran the story. A biologist with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks disagreed. He said it was some sort of dog or coyote with severe mange. A veterinarian interviewed by the station explained how mange can produce that look. Similar hairless animals were filmed near Picayune in 2013.

• October 2011On the record WLBT interviewed Truitt Barnard about the animal he shot. Wildlife official Jim Walker told the station it was likely a canine, possibly a coyote, with severe mange The animal's body was not formally tested in the reports we saw, so the identification rests on its appearance. Source: wlbt.com

6Ship Island Monster Fish On the record

Water monster · Ship Island, Gulf Islands, Harrison County · first reported 1864

In the summer of 1864 Ship Island held a Union garrison, and its commander had a sea-monster story. Major H. P. Ritzius reported that eight monster fish swam into the harbor. The men harpooned one. By his account it was eighteen feet long, fifteen feet wide and six feet thick, and weighed about eighteen hundred pounds. Its toothless mouth was four feet across and three feet deep, and its flesh was like raw cod-liver oil. A photograph was reportedly sent to the Smithsonian, and nobody named the species. The account stands as reported, and the animal was never identified by any scientist.

7Tusked Wild Man of Southwest Mississippi On the record

Humanoid · Southwestern Mississippi near Vicksburg · first reported About 1868

About 1868 a Pennsylvania paper, the Cambria Freeman, carried a story from southwestern Mississippi. A hunting party with dogs said it had cornered a wild man near Vicksburg. It was about the height of an average man but more muscular. It had dark brown hair that hung to its knees and two very large tusks several inches long from its upper jaw. The tracks were the strangest part: the toes of one foot seemed to turn backward. The creature killed one of the dogs and escaped by jumping into the river. Other wild men were reported around Vicksburg and Meadville in the same era. Country Roads Magazine groups these with the Arkansas wild-man stories of the 1840s and 1850s.

• About 1868On the record A hunting party's dogs bayed a long-haired, tusked figure in southwestern Mississippi. It killed a dog and leaped into the river. The story ran far away in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, a sign of how widely such items were reprinted. No later follow-up has been found. Source: countryroadsmagazine.com

8Witch of Yazoo Told story

Humanoid · Glenwood Cemetery, Yazoo City · first reported 1971 (in print)

Yazoo City's witch comes straight out of a book. In Willie Morris's 1971 novel Good Old Boy, an old woman lured fishermen to their deaths. The sheriff chased her into quicksand on May 25, 1884. Before she sank she swore to come back and burn the town in twenty years. On May 25, 1904, a real fire destroyed about 325 buildings, including more than two hundred homes and nearly every business. In the story she was buried in Glenwood Cemetery under heavy chains, and the chains were found broken after the fire. Today a grave there is marked as hers, and locals say replacement chains keep breaking. The fire is history; the witch is literature.

Visiting: The 'Witch's Grave' in Glenwood Cemetery, Yazoo City, is promoted by Visit Mississippi.

9Three-Legged Lady of Nash Road Told story

Humanoid · Nash Road near Columbus, Lowndes County · first reported Undated urban legend

Nash Road near Columbus is the setting for one of Mississippi's best-known dare legends. Drivers are told to stop, turn off their lights and honk three times. Then the Three-Legged Lady comes. She is a woman with an extra leg sewn onto her body who races cars down the road and attacks them. Origin stories differ. Some say she was a murdered bride, others blame cult activity in the woods. Folk Bestiary places her near the lock and dam. There are no dated reports or named witnesses, only the ritual and the story. Like many Southern dare roads, the legend is mainly a test of nerve for local teenagers.