Baton Rouge, LA - Believers are flocking to this Baton Rouge neighborhood to see a statue of Mother Mary with their own eyes. You see, everyone here believes the statue is bleeding.

Hai Nguyen is the owner. His daughter translated for him and says he was doing lawn work when the unexpected happened.

"He looked up and saw blood coming down."

Blood dripping from the side of Mary's face, and the word spread quickly.

"He don't know how to explain it. He just know that maybe God sent a message through Mary."

One faithful says he has seen these manifestations before.

"Was because of the hard heartedness of her children. They wanted to go and do their own will and straying away from God and the sacraments of the church."

We took the question to a religious studies professor at LSU.

"One way to think about it is to see how this is real for those who devote themselves to Mary, and what that means to them as a kind of prayerful way to contemplate the role of Mary in their lives, or Jesus in their lives. And, for many people, it's empowering and it's a way to return to a devotion."

And for those visiting the statue, seeing is believing.

Local news station WBRZ reports priests have collected samples of the substance on the statue's face and plan to get it tested.