Seneca Lake Serpent
Seneca Lake is the largest of the glacial Finger Lakes of the U.S. state of New York. It is 38 miles long and 618 feet deep.The US Navy uses Seneca Lake to perform test and evaluation of equipment such s sonar systems. The lake takes its name from the Seneca nation of Native Americans .Over 200 years ago, there were Iroquois villages on Seneca Lake's surrounding hillsides. Native American Indians believed Seneca Lake to be a bottomless lake, with a monster that lived in its depths.The finger lakes are known for their fishing and very large trout and muskie fish have been caught there.
A report in the Rochester Herald on July 14,1900 stated that around 7 p.m. the lake was calm as the steamship, the Otetiani, was cruising down the lake. The passengers saw a large object in the water. The captain also saw it and gave the engine room orders to slow down. The Otetiani steered within 100 yards of what appeared to be the keel of a capsized boat. The crew prepared to lower a boat when the object quickly moved away. Captain Herendeen ordered full speed ahead and when they came alongside the creature it raised its head, opened its mouth, and displayed two rows of pointed white teeth. One of the passengers was a geologist who described it as :
“Its head was perhaps four feet long and triangular in shape. Its mouth was very long and armed with two rows of triangular white teeth, as sharp as those of a shark, but in shape more like those of a sperm whale.
The body was covered with a horny substance that was as much like the carapace of a terrapin as anything I know. The horny substance was brown in colour and of a greenish tinge. The belly of the creature … was cream white. Its eyes were round like those of a fish, and it did not wink.”
Captain Herendeen headed the boat to collide with the creature but it dived underwater only to reappear just as the Otetiani rammed it .The passengers were knocked down and a hole was ripped into the side of the serpent. Lifeboats were quickly lowered and boat hooks placed around what was thought to be the carcass of the serpent.The rope near the tail end slipped off and the monster fell back into the water, sank and disappeared
The story did not end there .In 1914 there were more sightings reported including a couple in a rowboat in August having a day on the lake .They spotted a serpent-like creature, which broke the surface of the lake suddenly before swimming away . The creature was described as being about 10 feet long and 7 to 8 inches in circumference,with a black body and a human-sized head. The female witness was so shaken she had to be taken to a nearby cottage to recover.Her male friend returned later armed and with a friend. When the creature’s head surfaced near the boat, the man shot it, and the creature disappeared back into the water.
In 1929 The Ithaca Journal reported multiple visitors as having sighted two lake creatures, each approximately 12-15 feet long, swimming simultaneously along Cayuga Lake’s Eastern shoreline. The journalists speculated that the serpentine creatures were “…members of the Seneca Lake sea serpent family that found their way into the local waters through a subterranean channel which is believed to exist between the two lakes.”
In 1930 a group of boys constructed a head of a sea monster and towed it out into the middle of the lake.The Geneva Times was alerted and a photographer took a picture of the boys with the fake serpent head. It was seen clearly as a hoax ad kept the story of the serpent alive.
In the summer of 1995 a female guest at a Geneva hotel reported seeing a large creature rear up out of the lake before falling sideways back into the water. The creature was about 600 feet from the shore. The woman was so shocked she couldn’t give any other details.
That is the most recent sighting unless anyone knows of any others .Please comment if you do. So what lurks in the lake? Some say giant eel,some a huge snake others a prehistoric creature.What ever it is, it needs investigating.Hopefully more sightings will be reported.
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