Please see comments for latest sighting
Bala Lake, in Wales,
is a protected wildlife site. It is 4 miles long and is said to be 125
feet (42 metres)deep. The Welsh name is Llyn Tegid. One of it’s
residents is the unique gwyniad fish, believed to have been restricted
to Lake Bala
from the end of the last Ice Age. The fish spends most of its life in
the deep cold parts of the lake and only comes up to shallower water at
night to spawn. It is not found anywhere else in the UK. The lake is also home to a creature nicknamed Teggie, said to be a dinosaur or crocodilian type aquatic animal.
It has been reported since the 1920’s but the first documented report I found was in 1975.
Dowie
Bowen, the former lake warden, saw something strange. "I was looking
out at the lake and saw this thing coming towards the shore," he says.
"It was at least 8ft long, similar to a crocodile, with its front and
rear ends about 4ins above the water." He rushed to the shore but found
nothing.
Then
in 1979 I found two reports. One in the The Sunday Express. Anne Jones
was gazing out on peaceful water when the surface began to foam and
bubble. For a few seconds she saw what looked like a huge hump-backed
beast. "I shall never forget it," said Mrs Jones. "All I saw was its
huge back, and froth boiling around it."
Then
in the same year John Melville Rowlands, a local businessman, was
fishing in the lake with his cousin. The pair saw something they
described as having a large head like a football, big eyes, nearly 8
feet(2.2metres) long. It swam towards them and then disappeared within a
few yards of the boat. Mr Rowlands said he wouldn’t describe it as a
monster, just something very large unlike the large pike normally seen.
Then I found this on the internet :
My
encounter with the monster took place when I was 14 in the summer of
1992. It was twilight and I was on the shingle beach of the lake, in
front of the Catamaran Club, looking for flat stones to skim on the
lake's calm surface. Without thinking, I suddenly turned a full 180
degrees and looked straight at the monster. The reason for my sudden
turnaround was because it was looking right at me. It was about twenty
metres away, it's black head and neck clear above the surface of the
water. The instant I saw it, it ducked under. My first thought was that a
diver was playing a hoax, swimming under the surface with a Loch
ness monster head. I immediately disregarded this for two reasons. The
head had ducked under the water extremely quickly - only an animal with
fins or paddles could have ducked under the surface that fast.
Furthermore, there were no tell-tale bubbles indicating the presence of
an artificial underwater breathing system. It looked to me like a
plesiosaur and I would estimate its length to be approximately twelve
feet (3.66 metres). B Vickers BSc (Hons),
In March 1995 Paul and Andrew Delaney, were fishing from a small boat on the lake They were visiting from London
and unaware of Teggie reports. They were surprised to see a small head
that appeared at the lake's surface only 80 yards( 26 metes) or so
away, which then proceeded to raise itself on a long slender neck until
it was about 10 feet ( 3.1 metres) above the surface before disappearing
under the water. The same year by Japanese TV crew, investigated the
lake and obtained a sonar trace of a very large, unidentified object
moving swiftly under the water, but failed to film anything.
.
One windsurfer recently reported being strangely "lifted out of the
water". And many boating accidents have been attributed to the beast.
Some
of the explanations put forward include one from the First World War.
Secret military experiments were said to have been carried out with
seals, which were trained to place limpet mines on their targets. Some
escaped and Teggie was born. Others believe that Teggie is actually the
'Pontrhydfendigaid witch, Mari Berllan Biter' who can transform herself
into all kinds of shapes and forms. Could it be some sort of seal? It
certainly is the size for one and a seal can have the look of a long
neck if it stretches itself to see something. The crocodilian type
creature described could not be a seal though. I also would have thought
a seal would have been seen more often and on the shore, they don’t
live permanently in the water. Maybe there is more than one creature
from the Ice Age still living in the lake, only further investigation
can tell.
3 comments:
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paul.rushton57@googlemail.com said...
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On the 10/04/2013 my son and i were fishing for pike at the top end of
the lake using very large surface lures. When attempting to cast out
again we saw a large black shiny head surface where we had been casting
our lures. We watched this thing glide along to surface about 20 yards
out making its way to the shore. We watched it for about 20 seconds
until it disappeared under the surface. The head was about 2,5 feet long
with about 2,0 feet sticking above the surface. It was about 2 meters
in length. I believe that our contstant casting in and out must have
brought this thing up to see what was going on. We have been pike
fishing Bala lake for over 25years and have never witnessed anything
like this. We have seen all types of birds and mammals so what we
saw was not any of those.
I will never wade out in Bala lake again we have reported this incident to Bala police. It has given us a greater respect for Bala lake and we know what we saw was not natural, now its sunk in its left us quite scared to go near the water again as this thing was hunting for a meal.
Paul Rushton
Richard Rushton.
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Richard Rushton said...
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I and my dad were fishing there yesterday and we saw it! We have fished
Bala for years and used to be told by a farmer who has sadly passed
away now, who we used to camp in his field about 15 years ago. He used
to ask us if we saw the Bala monster as we would camp on the edge of the
lake but we never did, until yesterday. Yesterday we travelled up there
to catch pike and there was a lot going on in the day time, I think it
was a training day for the fire rescue team as there was the rescue
helicopter doing a rescue attempt with people on the roof of a sunken
caravan. Also there were numerous rescue power boats surging up and
down the lake. The waters were being parted from the blades from the
helicopter as it hovered over the caravan whilst winching the people
from off the caravan. With all this commotion going on we decided to
fish another lake further out from Bala. Anyway we decided that around
5pm we would head back to Bala presuming that all the noise would have
calmed down, we fished various points around the lake with no joy and we
ended up towards the nature reserve end where there are 3-4 rocks that
go out in the lake looking slightly towards your left you would see a
fence going into the water where the cormorants perch themselves where
the river dee flows in, in the background. We fished and had no joy the
water was flat calm and there was a cold chill. It just felt very
eerie. The gate behind us went and a farmer was watching us from up the
top of a very large bank we walked down and as I turned around to look,
my dad said to me "what’s that" We looked and we saw a large head and
it was black and it was though it had two parts where its head was above
the water and its back was also above too. It was swimming toward the
shore and it’s as though it appeared from out the lake. Our first
natural reaction was that it was a dog but the more we stared it
resembled something very unusual. It wasn't a dog. The farmer was
asking us if we had caught anything and that’s when he told us about the
sad loss of the farmer we knew. We didn't mention what we just saw
because it hadn't quite sunk in and after he had gone we decided to walk
down in that direction along the railway track. Whilst on the way down
in that direction toward the nature reserve end we talked about what it
could have been
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Richard Rushton said...
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. As it's a nature reserve area there is a bird watching hut where this
unexplained creature was swimming toward the shore so we kept thinking
despite our doubts maybe it was a dog. We got near to where this hut
should have been but it wasn't there anymore??? We don't know how long
ago it has been gone but if it was still there then it could have been a
bird watcher with his dog but there was nothing. Nobody could have
thrown a stick in the water for the dog because you couldn't throw a
stick from the railway because of all the trees and you would have to
climb over a wired fence which would be awkward to say the least. We
didn't hear a stick thrown in the water nor any noise which would
resemble a dog swimming out to swim back in to the shore again. As I
explained it was quiet and it appeared from the lake. When I looked
around to see the farmer making his way toward us it was my dad that
first spotted it as it was so quiet the way it swam in; only sight could
verify it being there. It was so subtle and we weren’t far away from
it at all not to hear it. The evening was very quiet as it was around
19:30pm. Our theory as to why we saw it was because of all the noise at
the other end of the lake during the day from all the power boats and
the helicopter, where the deep contours are (only electric outboards can
only usually be used for boats normally)... must have driven it up the
other end of the lake where it could find peace and to back it up we
were using heavy lures which we were using for pike with the noise of
the splashes must have intrigued it to surface. When we thought about
it though it was too big to be a dog, seal or anything else I could
relate it too. It could have been at least 8 ft or more. What’s really
reassuring to know is it tallies up with what other people have
witnessed that its black, at least 8 ft long swimming toward the shore.
My dad has notified the police at Bala today and that the Warden for
Bala Lake will keep on the lookout for anything unusual in the water.
My summary is that I shall not call it a monster but rather it must be a
large rare creature of some kind because the more I watched it swimming
toward the shore the more puzzled I was trying to verify what it was.
Being a fisherman all my life we get to see it all whether a dog, seal,
ducks, otters swimming in the water but nothing like this. It's a large
natural lake over 100 ft deep and has so much history. Even the
Gwyniad fish only seems to be native in this lake, and I've seen one of
these in there too.
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