Read Lake Monster Mysteries Online

Authors: Benjamin Radford

Lake Monster Mysteries

BOOK: Lake Monster Mysteries
7.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Lake Monster
Mysteries
Lake Monster
Mysteries

Investigating the World's
Most Elusive Creatures

B
ENJAMIN
R
ADFORD
J
OE
N
ICKELL

Foreword by Loren Coleman

T
HE
U
NIVERSITY
P
RESS OF
K
ENTUCKY

Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant
from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Copyright © 2006 by The University Press of Kentucky

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,
serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky,
Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College,
Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University,
Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University.
All rights reserved.

Editorial and Sales Offices:
The University Press of Kentucky
663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008
www.kentuckypress.com

10 09 08 07 06          5 4 3 2 1

Some of the material was previously published and is reprinted here courtesy of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Parts of
chapter 1
were published in the March 1996
Skeptical Briefs
newsletter;
chapter 2
in the July–August 2003
Skeptical Inquirer;
chapter 3
in the June 2004
Skeptical Briefs
newsletter;
chapter 4
in the March–April 1999
Skeptical Inquirer;
chapter 6
in the December 2004
Skeptical Briefs
newsletter;
chapter 7
in the January–February 2006
Skeptical Inquirer;
parts of chapter 8 in the January–February 2000
Skeptical Inquirer;
and
appendix 1
in the September 2003
Skeptical Briefs
newsletter. All other material is new and original.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Radford, Benjamin, 1970-

Lake monster mysteries : investigating the world's most elusive
creatures / Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell.

    p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-2394-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-8131-2394-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Monsters. 2. Lake animals. I. Nickell, Joe. II. Title.
QL89.R33 2006
001.944--dc22
2005031052

This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Manufactured in the United States of America.

To Sir Richard Burton, Johan Reinhard,
Ernest Shackleton, Francisco de Orellana,
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay,
and the nameless and countless other explorers
whose bravery and thirst for knowledge inspired me.
—B. R.

IN MEMORIAM

My parents, J. Wendell and Ella T. Nickell,
who nurtured my inquisitiveness,
and three paranormal investigators
who led the way in conducting hands-on investigations:
magicians Harry Houdini and Milbourne Christopher,
and my late dear friend, psychologist Robert A. Baker.
—J. N.

The interests of truth have nothing to
apprehend from the keenness of investigation,
and the utmost severity of human judgment.
—Dr. Stubbins Ffirth, pioneering medical investigator, 1804

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Benjamin Radford

1  Loch Ness

Joe Nickell

2  Lake Champlain

Joe Nickell and Benjamin Radford

3  Lake Memphremagog

Joe Nickell

4  Silver Lake

Joe Nickell

5  Lake Crescent

Benjamin Radford

6  Lake George

Joe Nickell

7  Lake Okanagan

Joe Nickell and Benjamin Radford

8  Other Notable Lake Monsters

Joe Nickell and Benjamin Radford

Conclusion

Joe Nickell

APPENDIXES

Benjamin Radford

1  Mysteries and Misinformation: How
Cryptozoologists Created a Monster

2  Eyewitness (Un)reliability

3  Animating the Champ Photograph

4  Ogopogo Film and Video Analysis

Index

Foreword

There are always two sides to a story. The book you are about to read is the best version to date of a skeptical look at the entities known as lake monsters. The formal examination of lake monsters has been a subfield of cryptozoological research for more than two centuries. During the fifty years that I have been studying these freshwater cryptids, I have learned much about them.

According to surveys and research that I and other cryptozoologists have conducted, more than a thousand lakes around the world harbor large, unknown animals unrecognized by conventional zoology. Such claims have a long history and a rich representation in the world's mythology and folklore. The term “lake monsters” is a relatively recent appellation; traditionally, such creatures have gone by a variety of names, including great serpents, dragons, water horses, worms, and others. They share the landscape with other legendary entities, such as Sasquatch, sea serpents, and black panthers.

Some of the long-ago sightings are remembered in fantastic fashion, which is often what happens when people have real encounters with new animals in new lands. In “Water-Monsters of American Aborigines”
(Journal of American Folklore,
1889), Albert S. Gatschet surveyed stories of peculiar aquatic monsters, including the great horned reptile of the Ohio River region and the horned snake. The Creeks, when they lived in Tennessee, spoke of a large, horned snakelike animal that frequented water holes. The creature could be brought to the shore by the magical singing of Creek elders, and when it showed its horn, the Indians would cut it off. The horn was then taken as a fetish and carried into war, to ensure success in battle.

An account from the Oneida branch of the Tuscaroras, collected by David Cusick and published in 1828, tells of the “Mosqueto,” which rose from Lake Onondaga (near Syracuse, New York) and slew a number of people. The natives also said that 2, 200 years before the time of Columbus (approximately 700
BC
), a great horned serpent appeared on Lake Ontario and killed onlookers with its overpowering stench.

The strikingly similar horned beast of Alkali Lake (now known as Walgren Lake) near Hay Springs, Nebraska, was the subject of tales by the local Indians. These native Nebraskans told the first white settlers in the area to be on the lookout for the monsters. The legend seems to have had some truth, for more modern sightings followed. The
Omaha World-Herald
of July 24, 1923, carried the testimony of J. A. Johnson, who stated, “I saw the monster myself while with two friends last fall. I could name 40 other people who have also seen the brute.” Johnson claimed that the stubby, alligatorlike head had a projection like a horn on it between the eyes and nostrils. The gray-brown creature devoured livestock, uttered a dreadful roar, and smelled horrible. News of Alkali Lake's horned wonder spread around the world.

Michel Meurger and Claude Gagnon underscore the importance of these legends in their book
Lake Monster Traditions
(1988): “From Alaska to New Mexico the belief in a horned serpent-shaped water beast of enormous dimensions is widespread.” They go on to place such creatures in a folkloric framework.

Probably the issue of lake monsters would be of concern only to antiquarians were it not for a large body of modern reports from seemingly credible eyewitnesses, most prominently at Loch Ness in Scotland, Lake Champlain in Vermont-New York-Quebec, and Lake Okanagan, British Columbia. In addition, there are unexplained, instrumented observations of large, moving bodies under the water's surface, as well as a small number of intriguing photographs that don't seem—at least from my cryptozoologist's point of view and examination—to be fraudulent or to depict mundane objects. In other words, the evidence isn't conclusive and probably won't be until incontrovertible physical evidence (a body—or at least a part of one) is available. Nonetheless, it is suggestive enough to keep the issue very much alive.

The scientific investigation of lake monsters initially occurred in the beginning of the nineteenth century, and it had much to do with the controversy surrounding sea serpents. During those early days, some journalists and theorists assumed that lake monsters were sea serpents that had either temporarily or permanently entered freshwater bodies from the ocean. It was further reasoned that a sea serpent would be more easily captured in an accessible place like a lake or river than in the vast ocean. This, of course, has not proved to be true, but it was hardly an unreasonable conclusion at the time.

Typical of nineteenth-century references to lake monsters is an article from the
Inverness Courier:
(Inverness is a small city north of Loch Ness), reprinted in the
London Times
in March 1856:

The village of Leurbost, parish of Lochs, Lewis [an Outer Hebrides island off Scotland's northwest coast], is at the present the scene of an unusual occurrence. This is no less than the appearance in one of the inland fresh water lakes of an animal which from its great size and dimensions has not a little puzzled our island naturalists. Some suppose him to be a description of the hitherto mythical water-kelpie [a dangerous shape-shifting monster that appeared as a horse to lure unsuspecting travelers onto its back, after which it would plunge into the water to drown them]; while others refer it to the minute descriptions of the “sea serpent,” which are revived from time to time in newspaper columns. It has been repeatedly seen within the last fortnight by crowds of people, many of whom have come from the remotest places of the parish to witness the uncommon spectacle.

The animal is described by some as being in appearance and size like a “huge peat stack,” while others affirm that a “six-oared boat” could pass between the huge fins [humps?], which are occasionally visible.

All, however, agree, in describing its form as that of the eel; and we have heard one, whose evidence we can reply upon, state in length he supposed it to be about 40 feet.

Though the
Courier
correspondent suggested that the witnesses had seen an oversized conger eel, later theorists took their cue from Dutch zoologist Antoon Cornelis Oudemans (18 58–1943), author of the influential book
The Great Sea Serpent
(1892). Oudemans believed that huge long-necked seals were responsible for serpent sightings. That was also the conclusion of investigator Peter Olsson, who studied reports from Storsjo, a deep mountain lake in central Sweden. Then, after the increase in firsthand eyewitness accounts from Loch Ness in the early 1930s (after trees were cleared from around the lake for a new road), Oudemans extended his theory of a large, long-necked pinniped to that lake. Though the long-necked seal theory has long been out of fashion, it did anticipate subsequent speculations that the animals being sighted were mammals rather than reptiles (still a popular belief in the United Kingdom).

BOOK: Lake Monster Mysteries
7.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Girl Who Wasn't There by Ferdinand von Schirach
Casanova Killer by Tallulah Grace
The Pretend Fiancé by Lucy Lambert
From This Moment On by Debbi Rawlins
She's Not There by P. J. Parrish
Quest for the King by John White
Cole: A Bad Boy Romance by Hart, Michelle
A Rendezvous to Die For by McMahon, Betty
Betrayed by Love by Lee, Marilyn