The Honey Island Swamp monster, an overview.

Honey Island is named after the honeybees once seen on a nearby island. The island is between three and seven miles wide and 15 to 20 miles long, is found in the swamps of South Louisiana. A bigfoot like cryptid has been reported there for many years. The Honey Island Swamp Monster was first sighted and reported in 1974 by Mr Harlan Ford The Native Americans of the area called the creature Letiche, and describe it as a carnivorous, aquatic-humanoid. They believed that it was once an abandoned child who was raised by alligators in the swamp. The Monster has been blamed for numerous human and livestock deaths which have happened around the area for decades. It is described as bipedal, seven feet (2.2 metres) tall, weight estimated at 300 or 350 pounds ,with grey hair and red/ orange eyes. It apparently smells like rotting meat and it’s footprints have four webbed toes. The descriptions further go on to say it has long to short hair on it’s head and then shorter hair all over it’s body and has big, wide-set eyes. Sometimes described as having a "mane" of hair. The face is said to be rather flat. Mr. Ford stated that this gave the animal a "sinister" look. The tracks , left by the animal , appear to be similar to an Alligator's rear foot. ( some of the details sound familiar to other cryptids and also there is a legend that a train crashed and exotic animals escaped . Heard this before somewhere?)

1963, Harlen Ford and Ray Mills report the first documented accounts of the creature. Harlan Ford was a retired Air traffic controller who had taken up wildlife photography. After his death in 1980, a reel of Super 8 film showing the creature was allegedly found among his belongings

1973, a guide was travelling down a bayou in a small boat when it struck something in the water. The guide stopped to see what it was and then he saw a creature swim to shore, climb out the water then walk into the woods on two legs.

In 1974 the monster gained national fame after Ford and his friend Billy Mills claimed to have found unusual footprints in the area, as well as the body of a wild boar. The same year zoologists from Louisiana State University (LSU) met with Harlan Ford to study the plaster casts of the creature's four-toed footprints. A Crypotozoologist from Washington also arrived in Louisiana to inspect the casts.

Harlen Ford retells another encounter with the creature:
"One evening late, just about dark a friend and I we encountered eyes, they were a yellow or amberish color set real wide apart, so this friend of mine, Jim Hartzog, he took a gun and went into this area to try to kill whatever it was and he says he came face to face with this thing. It looked like an ape about seven feet tall, and he fired on it. He said when he did the eyes went away. It most likely turned and ran, he shot at it one more time. So we went back the next day to look for signs and blood but we didn't find any. We figured Jim missed it that night.

A local man, Ted Williams describes two encounters with the creature:
First time I ever saw it, it was standing plum still like a stump. I stopped and realized it wasn't a stump and it wasn't supposed to be there. When I stopped it ran. It was dark gray, about seven foot high, it jumped a bayou that was the first time I saw it. The next time I seen him was swimming the river, two of them, one was bigger than the other and faster than the other and they swam just like a human with them long overhead strokes. I tried to get one of them to look at me and the other one ran off and the other one wouldn't look at me. I could've shot it but I wouldn't on account it wouldn't look at me. It looked too much like a human too me, broad shoulders, arms hanging down below its knees, hands looked almost like a humans."

Barry Ford describes his encounter to the In Search Of crew:
"My wife and I were going on a fishing trip about four years ago and at about 9:00pm that night I heard this peculiar noise, a scream down the river, I'd say about a half a mile away. My wife wanted me to build a fire so I was out gathering wood, and it screamed again, this time it was closer, maybe three hundred yards. That's when it really scared her, it scared me but I tried not to let her know it scared me, so I went ahead and kept building fires and less than ten minutes later it screamed again and this time it was right on top of us. It almost shook the leaves off the trees."

Sightings of the creature have been reported through out the years since the first report. The grand daughter of Mr Ford went on to make a documentary on The Honey Island Swamp Monster and interviewed lots of local people living near and in the swamps that have had sightings of the creature. The documentary also contains a showing of an original "super-83 film reel filmed by Mr Ford himself in the swaps from a stand showing what many think is the creature making his way through the trees. Since hurricane Katrina people are still reporting seeing the Honey Island Monster in the wilderness along the Pearl river on both the Louisiana and Mississippi sides.

Some Claim it is a hoax see here : http://jmichaelms.tripod.com/HIS/

Others claim that it is a creature that has lived in the area for centuries. Again there are the footprint casts and the grainy film which neither prove nor disprove anything. One can only hope that one day someone appears with a clear film or a tuft of hair that cannot be disputed and proves once and for all there are strange creatures out there.

The Controversy around the Irish Lake Video shot by CFZ

The Irish lake video appears to have started a controversy. In case you missed it here is a news paper report about it:

SCIENTISTS believe this incredible footage could show a mysterious monster lurking beneath one of the deepest lakes in the British Isles. Jonathan Downes, 50, spotted the "creature" thrashing around in one of the Lakes of Killarney in County Kerry, Ireland, while on holiday last week. His eerie sighting was in the Upper Lake one of three interlinked lakes that make up the area. The mystery comes just a few years after bizarre unexplained sonar recordings showing a large body were made in the adjoining Muckross Lake. Along with his wife and friends who also had cameras, Mr Downes, from Crediton, Devon, managed to capture shapes moving across part of the lake. Mr Downes, who is director at the Centre for Fortean Zoology, said that he had heard of the sonar reading before visiting the lake, but was "ridiculously" lucky to see anything. He said: "I was actually there with my wife and a friend on holiday. "All I knew is what I've read and having spent an hour on Thursday night looking down on it. "What we saw was a thing about nine to 10ft long. "I'd love to say I saw long necks and humps and things but I didn't." Mr Downes, who studies cryptozoology - which investigates unknown species of animals, described seeing what he see described as appearing to be "a long thin eel-like creature appearing about 10ft long". "I believe it must be a large eel," he said. "It was a pale colour. "What I saw didn't actually really come out on the picture as well." Pat Foley, deputy regional manager of National Park and Wildlife Service, which oversees Killarney National Park, said that there has been some unusual readings taken about six years ago, which indicated an unknown figure in Muckross Lake. "I think it was about 2003 there was a survey taken," he said. "They were getting some sort of strange picture coming back. "The image was a large and dark blob which I presume, for economic reasons, was described as a monster." The Lakes of Killarney have much in common with Loch Ness - home of the world's most famous monster - just across the Irish Sea in Scotland. Both are large very deep lakes with similar fish species including Arctic char. Loch Ness is the deepest lake in Britain, whilst Muckross Lake measures up to 70m deep, is along with Lough Leane, Ireland's deepest lake. At the time of the sonar findings in Muckross Lake in Paddy O'Sullivan, Killarney National Park manager for the National Parks and Wildlife Service said: "I am very excited by these findings and am delighted that the ancient fish community of these lakes are being examined by the Irish Char Conservation Group and scientists from around the world. "These interesting findings can only be good for Killarney from a public awareness and a tourism point of view. "Whatever the thing turns out to be it will be afforded our fullest protection under EU law as the Muckross forms part of a Special Area of Conservation." Source:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/weird/2656419/Monster-of-the-deep-is-filmed.html

This is not the first report by an organisation of a large creature in the lake- see this from Jan 2004:

Lough Ree may have been the first lake in Ireland to claim it’s own prehistoric monster like that of Loch Ness in Scotland. However Muckross lake in Killarney, Co. Kerry is turning up a mystery of its own and it is no swimming leprechaun. Recent scientific evidence indicates that very large and mysterious “thing” lurks beneath the tranquil surface of Muckross lake. Although the jury is out on what exactly this strange USO or unidentified swimming object might be, parallels are already being drawn with the famous Loch Ness Monster. Measuring over 20m or sixty feet in depth, and almost 80m in length the object or creature has scientists baffled. For almost a year now, Irish and international scientists have been working with the Irish Char Conservation Group to find out more about the fish life in the Ice age lakes around Co. Kerry. They carried out the first fish survey ever in Muckross Lake last September and identified the presence of the important rare fish called the Arctic char. This finding is of interest in itself but when they recently analysed data collected by new hydroaccoustic or sonar gear in April of this year they were completely taken by surprise. Hydroaccoustic surveys basically beam sound into the water, some of this sound bounces back from fish, other aquatic life or the lake bottom and is picked up by a receiver which logs the information. This data must then be examined using sophisticated computer software. “It was when we started to examine the recorded signals that we noticed something very unusual was going on in one transect logging. Instead of the normal small signals indicating individual fish which we always get during our surveys, we got something the size of a two story house in 20-25m of water along the south eastern portion of the lake. We have been unable to identify what exactly the image is, but we know that it is not a computer or logging error as the gear was functioning normally” reports Andrew Long specialist fisheries consultant with River Monitoring Technology Ltd.

see the full report here it includes sonar readings :http://www.charr.org/news/muckrossmonster.htm

The original video and comments from The CFZ team and others can be seen here:

http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com

John Downes and his fellow researchers who shot the video have been abused and ridiculed by some. This is why nothing ever gets discovered or concrete evidence produced because most of the cryptozoology community are too busy being self important and wanting to be the only one whose opinion is valid. They ought to stop and take a long hard look at themselves, these critics , and think about where they are coming from. If they stopped preening them selves for a moment they might see the damage they are doing. I am not saying they have to be totally open minded about everything that comes along, after all if a mind is completely open stuff falls out, but having a totally closed mind to anything but your own opinions is worse. A closed mind is like a steel trap and will ensnare you just as easily. Any new evidence or sightings of possible cryptids is exciting and should be viewed as needing investigation and not just dismissed. Whether the phenomena in the lake turn out to birds , waves or unknown creatures, a lot is still learnt from it. If it is some thing explainable then in the future we will know to remove it from the equation. To send abusive messages to Jon Downes and his friends /colleagues at CFZ is unforgivable and should not be tolerated in the Cryptozoology community, sadly however some of those messages of criticism came from so called leading lights in cryptozoology. The internet also means cowards can remain anonymous and post abusive remarks and get away with it. Jon Downes is an honest person and he filmed something in that lake. Whatever it turns out to be , as evidenced by his comments on the CFZ blog, he will be quite willing to have the film scrutinised and evaluated and listen to reasoned debate. That shows to me he is genuine. When people refuse to produce negatives or allow films to be examined that is when you hesitate to believe. Unfortunately the lesson learnt from this vitriolic back lash means less people will be willing to come forward with photos or films for fear of being treated in the same nasty fashion. I hope the protagonists read this and are ashamed but I doubt it some how.

Some blogs on Irish lake Monsters:

http://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2009/07/irish-lough-monster-muckie-of-muckross.html

http://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2009/04/irish-lake-monsters.html

http://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2009/09/doyarchu-irish-crocodile-or-giant-otter.html

Issie, the Japanese lake monster.

Lake Ikeda is a caldera lake(in an extinct volcano) about 15 kilometres in circumference ( it is almost round )and is located in the south eastern part of Satsuma Peninsula of Japan. It is said to be 233 metres (about 750 feet) deep and also to be the home of a lake monster called Issie or Ishii. There is a Japanese legend that a white mare once lived by the lake. A man took the horse's foal away, so the mare jumped into the lake. This horse, now the huge Issie, sometimes rises to the surface of the lake to search for its lost foal.

The monster was first observed in 1961. In 1978 the story started to be taken more seriously when the 20 attendants of a memorial service testified that they saw the monster. In the September 3^rd 1978 encounter Yutaka Kawaji and his relatives were at the lakeside .Kawaji’s children Hiroto, Mutsumi and Tomoko were playing by the lake shore when they noticed two humps belonging to a large black creature in the lake. The humps measured five metres (about 16 feet ) and stood 60 centimetres (two feet) out of the water. The children shouted to the others present and Yukata Kawaji leapt aboard a motorboat and pursued the creature as it crossed the lake going quite fast. He was unable to catch up with the creature but the sighting lasted three to four minutes, and he said he was able to see the humps twice for about 20 seconds.
Then the creature was apparently photographed on December 16 1978 by Toshiaki Matsuhara. It was 1.30pm when Matsuhara saw a whirlpool suddenly appear in the middle of the lake. For five minutes he watched it through a 50X telescope as it moved northward before it disappeared. While scanning the lake in the aftermath of his initial sighting Matsuhara’s attention was drawn to a moving object . He quickly took a series of photographs and in one of them what appears to be two humps with spinal ridges can be seen. When the photos were published, Yutaka Kawaji contacted the tourism department to say that Matsuhara had photographed the creature he had seen three months earlier and that it was also in the exact same location off a local landmark known as the Couple’s Rock.

In January 1991, another visitor at the lake took video footage of a creature, approximately 30 ft. in length.

The lake is home to eels up to 2 metres long (about 6 to 7 feet). It is conceivable that Issie could be a giant eel. The questions are of course, is there more than one and how did they get that big?

Video of the lake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFub7eIsXQA

Shielagh , the Loch Shiel Creature

Loch Shiel is a freshwater loch, 120 metres ( about 390 feet) deep, situated west of Fort William in the Highlands of Scotland. Loch Shiel is only marginally above sea level and was a sea loch a few thousand years ago when sea levels were higher. Loch Shiel is said to be home to a lake monster, Shielagh.

It is said to be about 70 feet (20 metres) long and show three large humps in the water .

Reports of sightings of Shielagh can be traced back to the 1870’s; as documented by a Benedictine priest, Father Cyril Dieckhoff, before he passed away in 1970. Amongst the sightings he wrote about was that of Ian Crookback and Ewan MacIntoch who, along with two boys, claimed to have seen three animate humps breaking the surface of the loch from the bow of a mail steamer named Clan Ranald.

List of sightings :

1874, 1905, 1911, 1925, 1926, 1997, June 1998

Descriptions: 3 humps moving fast in the water.. 4 animals were seen at once in 1997. Long necks, upturned-boat back.

I have been unable to find anything about the 1997 or 1998 sighting. If anyone knows anything about it please post a comment. The descriptions are typical of most lake creature sightings, the humps, the fast moving through the water, more than one animal etc. The similarities between so many lake creature sightings would surely lead logically to thinking there are similar creatures or phenomena in these lakes that should be investigated? The scientific world can be very blind sometimes.

The Beast of Bodmin Moor.

The Beast of Bodmin Moor is said to be a black panther like creature . It supposedly lives on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall and sightings have been recorded from 1971 to recent times. The creature or big cat is described as black panther like or a dark haired mountain lion, with large white-yellow eyes. The size varies from 3-5 feet long for the body, with a tail of roughly 18-24 inches. It makes hissing and growling sounds as you would expect of a cat , but is also said to make sounds like a woman screaming.(Foxes scream when they are mating and that is a weird noise so no reason other creatures shouldn’t do the same).

There have been around 60 reported sightings in the area since 1983. In the early 1990's, when farmers found their animals savaged, the national press fueled speculation as to whether a big cat, a panther or perhaps a leopard was living wild on the moor. Photographs had been produced over the years with what appeared to be a large catlike creature prowling the moor.Most are too fuzzy to make a definite identification.

The Ministry of Agriculture commissioned an investigation in 1995, which concluded that there was 'no verifiable evidence' that the beast existed. However the government report also stated that "the investigation could not prove that a 'big cat' is not present.".

There has been little physical evidence to support the sightings. A 14-year-old boy discovered a skull with large fangs, in the River Fowey on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. The skull was taken to the National Museum in London for analysis where it was discovered to be a leopard skull. It was also discovered that the animal did not die in Bodmin Moor, this leopard had been a rug in some one’s living room. A hoaxer or hoaxers had dropped it into a Bodmin river, where it was eventually found.

In October 1997, officials from Newquay Zoo identified paw prints left in mud to the south of Bodmin Moor as the tracks of a puma.

In August 1998 a 20-second video was released and some wild cat enthusiasts believed that it confirmed that big cats roam Bodmin Moor.

Then in November 1999 a squadron of Cornish RAF reserves spent a night on the moors trying to track the beast with the lastest hi-tech military night-vision equipment. Unfortunately bad weather hampered their operation and they had no luck.

So mystery beast or big cat? In the 1970’s in the UK laws were brought in that made it difficult and expensive to keep exotic cats as pets and as a result some were freed, illegally, into the wild by their owners. It is possible that some big cats adapted and bred and now the second generation is living out it’s lives on Bodmin Moor and many other places. Evolution teaches us that adaption is the normal way for survival , so it is a distinct possibility that this is what has happened.

Captured on video 1998:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/136546.stm

Link to some news articles:

http://web.ncf.ca/bz050/bodminphoto.html

The strange Tale of the Turkey Hollow Varmint.

A 7-foot-long predatory cryptid from the Brushy Mountains

killed a hunting dog and pursued local residents in Turkey Hollow,

Wilkes County, North Carolina in November 1944, according to the North

Carolina journalist John Harden . He chronicled the story in his book

“The Devil's Tramping Ground and Other North Carolina Mystery Stories”

(Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1949, 1980). ( chapter on "The Strange Killer of Turkey Hollow" pp. 147-154).

The story is as follows:

One cold November day in 1944, Slim Davis and his friend Code Frazier

set out deer hunting near Moravian Falls and Pores Knob, with Code's

50-pound black hound Jule. As they followed a narrow wagon road up

Turkey Hollow, Code showed Slim some scars on Jule's leg and ears, made

some time earlier by an unknown assailant. She had a long ragged scar on

her leg from shoulder to knee, and her ears had been slit in a dozen

places, either by a fang or a claw. "I don't know what done that," Code

told Slim, "but whatever it was, it's the only thing that ever

whipped Jule." A dog hadn't given Jule these wounds, he added. "Whatever

done that whipped every dog in the country--and Jule twice." Code said

that he had been working in an apple orchard near that very spot in

Turkey Hollow when Jule first jumped it. He had found poor Jule limping

home an hour later, bloody, severely hurt, from her encounter with the

"varmint."As Slim and Code were talking that morning, Jule suddenly ran off--and

then a thin whine sounded down on the slope below them, followed by a

long drawn out baying, as they approached a cliff called the Devil's

Smokehouse. Then they heard Jule yelping in a frenzy of excitement. They

heard Jule running and yelping in pursuit of what they thought must be a

fox toward Snaggy Mountain and the Devil's Smokehouse. Code's grim voice

then snapped them back to reality. "That's no fox, either," he said.

"That's the varmint she's after again." A few minutes later, Slim and

Code stood just below the Devil's Smokehouse rocks, a 50-foot cliff

running a quarter of a mile east and west, across the rim of Turkey

Hollow. Then Jule's hunting sound reached its highest peak--and abruptly

ended.Slim and Code looked for Jule, but never found her. Code's dog was never

seen again that November day in 1944. Arthur Edsel, Raymond and Willard

Lane, Galen Hood, and Reid Anderson helped in the search for days. They

covered the whole area by foot, inch by inch, but never found a trace of

Jule.

Did they ever find out what the "varmint" was?, Harden asked.

“No, but there was a story of how it chased the Lane boys out of Turkey

Hollow the next night after Jule disappeared. Then Reid Anderson said

that it jumped into the road in front of him as he was coming through

the adjoining Shandy Hollow two nights later. Reid said it looked like

it was seven feet long. He took a few shots at it with his .38 but

seemed to have missed. After that the varmint retired, as far as anyone

knows.” (p. 154)

There was no further description of what the creature looked like but Harden thought it might have been a "panther".

One interesting thing in the text is that it says "Whatever done that whipped every dog in the country--and Jule twice.". This implies that other dogs had been attacked and Jule wasn’t the only dog to be injured. There are no further details and Harden did not seem to have interviewed any other residents. Could it have been a Big Cat? Sounds most likely. North Carolina certainly seems to be the place for lots of strange cryptid sightings!

Did The Beast of Bladenboro return?

The Beast of Bladenboro was a creature that caused widespread panic in the 1950’s and was said to be responsible for the deaths of many pets and livestock. Did the beast return in 2007? Bladenboro is a small community in North Carolina.

In Decmber 1953 a local farmer reported a large, cat-like creature had attacked one of his dogs and dragged it into the underbrush. On New Year's Eve two more dog carcasses, reportedly completely drained of blood, were found. The next day, two more dogs were attacked their “skulls crushed in and chewed.”

Then a 21-year-old mother named Mrs. C.E. Kinlaw apparently walked out onto her front porch at about 7:30 p.m. January 6, 1954 and when she looked up and saw the “beast” stalking toward her. Kinlaw screamed and ran into the house. Her husband, Charles Kinlaw, grabbed his shotgun and ran outside but only found cat-like paw prints all around his yard.

Residents reported seeing an animal four and a half feet long, bushy and resembling either a bear or a panther about 150 pounds, with a footprint like a dog’ s and a large head with “runty-looking ears.”. It looked, they said , Brownish and tabby, indicating a furry appearance.

A Mr Shaw, still a resident of the area, then the 35-year-old owner of a gas station, had heard about a goat killed on a farm on the edge of town. He’d been told there was something odd about how it died so he went to see for himself. It’s head was flat as a fritter,” he reported . “It had a great big ol’ track . . . It was weird.” Shaw showed the size of the paw print by spreading four fingers of his right hand and placing them on his left palm, simulating the size of the paw. He said the beast killed small cows, too, and “two or three” hogs.

Police Chief Roy Fores organized a hunt for the beast in the swamps, but came up empty handed. It was when Mayor W.G. Fussell called the newspapers that things really took off. Fussell, who also owned the local theatre, was later quoted in a 1958 edition of the Carolina Farmer magazine as saying "A little publicity never hurt a small town."

The resulting publicity caused chaos.. Hunters from as far way as Tennessee descended on the town to see if they could get a shot at the beast. Newspapers from Arizona to New York ran coverage of the hunt for the creature. Men with guns were walking through the forest shooting at anything that moved. Deciding that things were getting out of hand , Mayor Fussell and Chief Fores called an end to the hunt, and taking a large bobcat that had been killed by one of the hunters,ran it up a flagpole in the centre of town. They posted a sign underneath stating "This is the Beast of Bladenboro."

The sightings lasted for ten days, then disappeared. Strange noises supposedly accompanied the sightings, including squeals, “catlike” roars, and what sounded like a baby crying. The town settled back to normality.

Then in September of 2007, sixty goats were found murdered and drained of blood, in Lexington, North Carolina. Glenda and Bruce Floyd, owners of the one hundred acre farm where the goats were attacked, found the goats dead early one morning. Thirty miles northeast of Lexington, in Greensboro, Billy Yow’s goats were also massacred in the same senseless way. Throats ripped out and multilated.

The following month Bolivian resident, Bill Robinson found his three-year-old Pit Bull terrier dog gutted. Robinson buried his pet but the next morning, discovered the carcass in the same spot where he had found it originally.

Four days later , Leon Williams found his two-year-old Pit Bull, dead, with his chain “stretched out across the ditch.” He was covered in blood, and pieces of him were missing. There were no signs of a struggle.

Ten canines found murdered in the areas of Brown, Midway, and Rutland Roads in Brunswick County, during a two-week period. The tracks, four and a half inches in diameter, were very similar to those found in 1954.A resident living on Brown Road, Robert Smith, has been finding tracks around the church, and in neighbourhood gardens. He commented that he has never before seen tracks likes these. “My fist could fit in it,” he said. The local animal services department investigated the predator's tracks and droppings, but never determined what had attacked the animals.

So did the beast return or was it just a large bobcat or even human intervention that slaughtered the animals? The problem is when a media panic happens it is very difficult to determine the truth. So many people handle the remains of animals that have been attacked and so many stories spring up, it is hard to determine the facts. Lets hope it doesn’t return again for the sake of the residents but it sounds like it was a large cat to me, and maybe it’s ancestor came back to the same territory?

An article about the 1950’s scare:

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20061029/NEWS/61027007?Title=The-Beast-of-Bladenboro

Lizzie, The Loch Lochy monster, or Nessie passing through?

Loch Lochy (Scottish Gaelic, Loch Lochaidh) is a large freshwater lake located southwest of Loch Ness. It is ten miles long and one mile wide and is said to be the home of Lizzie, a creature described as similar to the Loch Ness Monster, Nessie.. Loch Lochy is only separated from Loch Ness by Loch Oich. Loch Oich is said to contain several holes reported to go as deep as 2000 feet. This of course has given rise to the possibility that animals from Loch Ness are also being seen in the other two lochs.

Lizzie was first sighted in 1929 by two game wardens near Spean Bridge..

The two game wardens believed at first that they where looking at nothing more than debris from a large fallen tree. When one of the two men took a closer look through his telescope they soon realized that they where looking at much more than a fallen tree but a large unidentified beast, they continued to watch the creature swim for about a mile before it submerged back into the depths of the loch.

1930: A man living on the loch side saw a strange creature in the water one day - he told his wife never to wash her clothes there again!Other reports came and in 1933 the monks of Fort Augustus Abbey began to chronicle known sightings.

In 1960, while staying in a caravan near Glen Fintaig, Eric Robinson, his family, and nine other witnesses, spotted what looked to be a standing wave in the centre of the loch.It appeared to be caused by a living creature Viewing the animal through binoculars he estimated that the animal was between 30 and 40-feet in length, with a dark spine and a paler underbelly. Robinson and the other witnesses claimed the creature began to roll in the water exposing a huge flipper before disappearing into the loch. This sighting was witnessed by nine other people.

1975: Mrs. Margaret Sargent of Fort William was passing the loch with her husband and family near the Corriegour Hotel when they saw an unusual wake on the flat calm loch. A long black shape could be seen moving through the water. As she took a photo, the object disappeared below the water and the subsequent picture showed only the wake.(see link below to Nik Sargent’s story)

In 1996 while fishing for pike in the loch, angler Alastair Stevenson encountered a creature approximately 18-feet in length and roughly the shape of an overturned rowboat. The creature reportedly took Stevenson’s bait and began to pull the vessel. Stevenson was quoted as saying, "I knew immediately it wasn't a pike with that ferocity. I had to stop the line but when I did the power started dragging the boat behind it. All the time I'm thinking it was like a scene from Jaws. Fortunately my line and rod snapped and that was the end of that. I have no idea what it was, but it was a lot bigger than a pike

An expedition the same year led by crypto zoologist Cameron Turner, had a contact with a large object near Spean Bridge, where the very first reported sighting took place. The contact was estimated as being between 18 and 20-feet in length, and was moving at a depth of 160-feet below the surface. Approximately two minutes later, after the boat sharply turned starboard in order to pursue the contact, a second contact was made, this time at a depth of 200 feet. As the boat approached the centre of the Loch, above an abysmal trench which is reportedly over 300-feet deep, the objects disappeared. Cameron returned to the Loch again in September 1997, and hired a boat from the family of Alastair Stevenson, the same man who had the 1996 encounter with the creature. The team had another contact about 270 feet down in the loch. During the 3 minutes the team managed to follow the contact they where able to get clear pictures of the sonar screen . nothing. They also had readings showing sonar hits of over 2000 feet deep, which appeared to be holes in the bottom of the Loch,.

Loch Oich is located between Loch Ness and Loch Lochy in the Great Glen and the three locks are connected and form part of the Caledonian Canal. A strange beast has also been reported in Loch Oich. Described as a dog headed serpent, with a horse like mane, two humps, black skin and a snake like neck, very like the descriptions of the creature reported in Loch Ness.

Sightings of the Loch Oich Monster date back to the 19th century. The Loch Oich Monster is also reported to have caused at least a death. The story goes that some time in the 20th century the Loch Oich Monster reportedly drowned a young boy, who allegedly climbed on the creatures back in hopes of catching a ride, when the beast submerged the boy was dragged below the surface and drowned.

In 1961 hoaxers reportedly planted an artificial monster in the dark waters of Loch Oich in order to take some photographs and cash in on the monsters popularity. This has not helped serious investigation in the area.

Eye witness accounts:

Lizzie, a three humped first cousin of Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, surfaced again last week on Loch Lochy.And several people, locals and vistors, confirmed on Thursday the sighting of the water beast.Staff and guests at the Corriegour Lodge Hotel watched in amazement as a dark shaped twelve foot long "something" caused a commotion on the loch which is overlooked by the hotel.Guests and waitresses at Corriegour Lodge rushed to the picture window of the dining room to get a better view of the creature which had come to the surface."At first we thought what we were seeing was an upturned boat", said husband and wife Derick and Lindsay Burney, from Hornchurch, who were having dinner at the hotel."Then suddenly it started moving backwards, and then round in circles, and we noted that it had three humps. It was causing quite a stir. It was very large, about twelve feet in length, and it wasn't a seal or any other mammal we've ever seen before. And we've been coming to Loch Lochy on boating holidays for the past seven years"
Lorna Bunney, joint proprietor with her husband Rod, of Corriegour Lodge revealed that she had originally seen a marine animal in the loch three weeks previously."I thought at first that it was just the wake from a cabin cruiser but it was too fast, and the ripples too close together for that. I ran to look out of the kitchen door and I realised it was some kind of creature. I've never seen anything like it before." Source:

http://www.corriegour-lodge-hotel.com/not_the_loch_ness_monster.html

The Sargent family 1975 sighting told by their son::

http://niksargent.com/writing/2009/3/6/an-encounter-with-lizzie-sister-of-the-loch-ness-monster.html

And report this from 1996 claims to have found a body:

http://www.thefrasers.com/nessie/news/nesspapr011803.html

It is intriguing that the first sighting of Lizzie was before the 1933 media frenzy over Loch Ness. There are reports of a hole in the bottom of Loch Ness(Edward’s Deep) . Perhaps there are tunnels between the Lochs, but it seems unlikely that no one has found them before. It still is an interesting idea that the creatures(or fish or eels or whatever they are) could travel between the lochs, and hence their ability to hide from sonar and researchers. A good mid week thought to cogitate over .

The maryland goatman -urban legend or experiment?

The Goatman is described as a hybrid creature; part man and part goat. According to those who claim to have seen it, it has the legs and feet of a goat, the upper body of a man, a horned head, and a body partially covered by fur. A witness placed his height at 7 feet and weight at 300 pounds.

It is often associated with Governor’s Bridge Road, Lottsford Road and Fletchertown Road, in Prince George’s County, and with the nearby Glenn Dale Hospital, the former site of a state tuberculosis sanatorium. It is reported to have attacked a number of witnesses and to have damaged property, and to have killed family pets.

There are references to a magical creature that the Piscataway native tribes people believed could change into animal form as written in 1666 by a Jesuit priest, in which the illustration of a Bigfoot-like creature standing on two legs appeared in the document.

The sightings seem to have begun in 1957.The first encounter said to be reported, a young couple were parked alone a lonely country road during a moon lit night , when they suddenly heard something banging on the hood of their car. Looking up they were startled to see a goat like creature staring at them, waving what looked like a double edged axe in it’s hand. The creature suddenly turned and dashed into the surrounding woods. This smacks of urban legend but reports continued.. A motorist spotted a seven foot creature near Beltsville in 1969. In 1971 there were several sightings around Bowie, including a witness who claimed Goatman beheaded her dog. A woman heard her pet dog barking wildly outside, peering through a window she saw the shadowy figure of the creature moving about where the dog was tied up. Being to scared to go outside in the dark, she looked in the morning, only to discover the dog had been beheaded.

One of the famous sightings in Maryland dates back to1973 and took place in Sykesville, a town on the southern edge of Carroll county .It Occurred March when a man was driving along Rt. 32 when he saw a “huge beast on two legs with glowing eyes.

Media reports:

On November 10, 1971 edition of the Prince George’s County News carried a front-page banner declaring “Residents Fear Goatman Lives: Dog Found Decapitated in Old Bowie” with a photo of the remains of the mutilated pet. The canine victim, named Ginger, belonged to April Edwards and had disappeared after Miss Edwards and friends had reported hearing strange noises in their yard on the night of November 3, 1971 and then saw a large creature moving in the dark. The article also reiterated that reports of an “animal-like creature that walks on its hind legs” have proliferated along Fletchertown Road.

The Prince George’s County News coverage of the Goatman climaxed with one last front-page story on November 24, 1971. Focusing on Mrs. Evelyn Johnson, who lives on Fletchertown Road, the article mentions the trouble and harassment she and other neighbors received from Goatman hunters, including an incident where the road was blocked off by two cars and one truckload of people who claimed they had the creature trapped. Mrs. Johnson had to call the police in order to reach her property.

So urban legend or not the Goatman has had some publicity over the years and been seen in other locations such as Fort Worth. The local story has it that a scientist crossed goat DNA and human DNA which produced the goatman who escaped and then it was hushed up by the government. It is unlikely that it was possible to do such experiments in the 1950’s as the technology wasn’t available. The computer power to work out the DNA sequencing was not around nor the programmes to do it. Still it makes a great story and who is to say that people didn’t see something unusual that could be a new species or the remnants of a very old species of creature. Though I do know a local priest claims it was a wild man living rough in the woods dressed in skins and mud that had lived in the area from 1930’s to 1950’s. That doesn’t account for the sighting in 1971.

Sky news has video of Windermere Lake Monster

Sky news has a video said to be of the Windermere lake creature or Bownessie as it is known. Follow the link to see for your self. However before jumping to any conclusions , consider it was shot by the local hotel owner. Cashing in on cryptids is big money!
/Bownessie-Search-On-Windermere-Has-Loch-Ness-Monster-Got-A-Distant-Relative-In-The-Lake-District/Video/200909315385157?lpos=video_News_in_Video_Home_Region_6&lid=VIDEO_15385157_Bownessie_Search_On_Windermere%3A_Has_Loch_Ness_Monster_Got_A_Distant_Relative_In_The_Lake_Dis

Latest report on giant snake sightings.

The scientists reports on the film of what is said to be a giant snake from the Warner expedition :

http://www.bigsnakes.net/Scientists.htm

Mussie The Muskrat Lake Monster, seal or serpent?

Muskrat Lake in Canada is about 10 miles long and two hundred feet deep. It is said to be the home of a lake monster. The creature has been named Mussie by local residents. It is said to be a fish eating creature ,about 25 feet long with a fin down it’s back and has legs. Mussie has been alternately described as “serpentine, prehistoric, and resembling a giant seal

The local folklore is that over 300 years ago, Samuel de Champlain, while exploring the region, learned from the natives in the area of a legendary creature who lived in the lake.. The myth has been strengthened by sign which once welcomed visitors to Cobden. The sign featured Champlain holding his famous lost astrolabe while looking out over Muskrat Lake. In the lake is a creature with three eyes and a long tongue ,classified as a hepaxalor,. The Muskrat Lake region was originally inhabited by the Nibachis, a sub-division of the native, Algonquin speaking.

Reports of Mussie apparently can be traced back to 1916. Two of these creatures were also caught on film by a fisherman. The film is said to show two creatures at the same time, in the water. The film is short and was studied by scientists who concluded that maybe they are seal like animals.

At 8:30 P.M., June 7 , 1976, two people, Allen Childerhorse and John Hoard reported seeing a large creature in the lake. Hoard wrote: “Trailing about thirty feet behind and cutting the surface a green fin of some sort. I felt a little weird…I don’t know what to make of it…”

Then a Mr. and Mrs. Stark reported seeing two humps moving across the lake and then disappearing into the water.

In 1988 Michael Bradley conducted a sonar survey of Muskrat Lake in an attempt to find evidence of the existence of a large creature . He captured a sonar image of two creatures, 6-8 feet (1.8 to 2.45 meters) long, at a depth of 24 feet (7.3 m). Bradley notes that these creatures seemed to be undulating vertically. According to Bradley this is remarkable because only two types of creature undulate vertically, invertebrates and marine mammals. Bradley theorizes that Mussie may be a type of freshwater pigmy walrus, similar to the seals in Seal Lake, Quebec. Some eyewitness accounts seem to support this theory with descriptions of slick, silver-grey fur and long white teeth or tusks.

In the mid-1990s Mussie was made the focal point of a Cobden/Ottawa Valley marketing campaign. Flags, windsocks and signs sprung up all around Cobden and the entire Ottawa Valley. There was even talk of offering a $1,000,000 prize for Mussie's capture; unfortunately the plan never saw fulfillment. (Once again we see cryptids as a money maker)

Other theories include that of Mussie enthusiast Dennis Blaedow, who thinks that Mussie may spend the winter in some form of hibernation feeding off a cache of food deep in the Muskrat Lake caves and retired High School geography teacher Stew Jack thinks that belief in Mussie's existence may be caused by hallucinogenic qualities of the lake water itself.

So varying descriptions from serpent to seal as is normal with lake sightings. If the eye witness accounts were all the same then that would be more suspicious than if they are all different. Perception is individual and memory fallible. There seems to be no recent sightings documented but that doesn’t mean to say none have happened. Most people are reticent about coming forward saying they have seen a monster.