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The Gigantic Wuhnan Toads
An isolated, mountainous region of China is the home to a strange, gigantic creature resembling an albino toad.
In an isolated, forest strewn corner of China’s Hubei province there are numerous lakes and deep, water filled gorges. While the beauty and natural splendor of the region are undeniable, there are some who claim that far and away the most interesting thing about this district are the gigantic and viciously territorial, toad-like creatures are said to lurk beneath the unfathomable waters.
According to local fishermen, Bao Fung Lake and the other gorges that dot the region are infested with colossal, alabaster-skinned, amphibious monsters known as Wuhnan Toads, whose most disturbing attributes are their allegedly voracious appetites.
This phenomenon was first brought to national attention in 1962, when a group of terrified fishermen attempted to purge their favorite fishing hole of these beasts by throwing dynamite into their murky domain. The fishermen were not only unsuccessful in their efforts, but were actually chased away from the lake by a massive toad-like menace, which the men — for reasons known only to them — dubbed “Chan.”
Legend has it that the “hopping mad” Chan pursued the explosive-happy fishermen almost 90-feet beyond the shoreline. The fishermen were, understandably, reticent to return to the lake and reports indicate that these pale-skinned monstrosities have continued to plague all those who stray too close to their watery abode.
As intriguing as the 1962 episode may be, there is an even more impressive encounter with these unexplained creatures on public record. According to an account printed in the Brisbane Australia’s Courier Mail in 1995, Professor Chen Mok Chun led an expedition of nine scientists from the Peking University to the remote Wuhnan area in August of 1987, in order to make a scientific study of the region’s fauna.
As the scientists began setting up camp along the shores of one of Wuhnan’s remote gorges, three gigantic animals reportedly surfaced in the lake and began to swim toward them. The stunned men later described the creatures as being toad-like in appearance, with a pale epidermis and large gaping maws, which seemed to exceed a width of 6-feet. The witnesses claimed that the animals’ gazes seemed both “aggressive” and “predatory,”though these observations are strictly subjective.
While these men of science stared in stunned disbelief at the gargantuan beasts that were bearing down on them, one of the creatures suddenly unfurled its gigantic tongue and — before the eyewitnesses could react — lunged forward and snagged one of their camera tripods by its leg and drawing it back into the water.
The scientists watched in awe — and more than a little terror, one would imagine — as the animal proceeded to devour its inanimate prey. As soon as its meal was complete, the expedition members claimed that the remaining animals emitted horrific shrieks before submerging into the depths of the lake and into the annals of the cryptozoological record.
Source Credit(s): english.hidden-science.net/2011/10/the-world%E2%80%99s-strangest-lake-monsters/, Photo credits unknown, please contact me if you have source.
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Brosnya: Russia’s Lake Dwelling Dragon
Far away, in a remote region of Russia…
The weekly Karavan+Ya published in the Russian city of Tver, became widely popular 15 years ago when it was first to report about a monster from Lake Brosno in the Andreapol District of the Tver Region. After the first publication in the weekly, the news about a dinosaur from Brosno spread all over the world. Journalists from Moscow and from abroad were seeking sensational publications about the monster from the Russian province. Hundreds of publications and TV programs about the Brosno monster made the creature a world sensation. The Tver weekly Karavan from time to time organizes small expeditions to Lake Brosno to visit the mysterious creature that became so much popular thanks to the newspaper.
Numerous witnesses say that they saw a head of a big beast above water that looked like a dinosaur or a dragon head and a long thin tail. The people said that the creature was covered with scales like a reptile and was about five meters long.
Researchers, who believe that a mysterious big creature does live in Lake Brosno and who work on the mystery of the creature, say that Brosnya (this is the name given to the monster) cannot be a reptile. Otherwise, it would be frozen and died in the climate of the middle geographic zone when dormant. If the strange creature has come to life, it means it is a mammal and breeds through syngenesis. However, some problems arise in this connection. First of all, the lake is too small for an entire population of large predators to live and breed there. Second, a group of these big mysterious creatures needs much food, which is also a problem in the small lake. There is a hypothesis saying that some water systems join lakes, seas and oceans. If so, Scotland’s Nessy may be a relative to Brosnya living in Russia’s province.
It is rumored that the strange giant creature has been living the Lake Brosno for several centuries already. One of the legends says that the lake monster scared to death the Tatar-Mongol army that headed for Novgorod in the 8th century. Baty-khan stopped the troops to have some rest on the sides of Lake Brosno. Horses were let to drink water from the lake. However, when horses came down to the lake, a huge creature emerged from the water roaring and started devouring horses and soldiers. The Baty-khan troops were so terrified that they turned back, and Novgorod was saved. Old legends say that some enormous mouth devoured fishermen. Chronicles mention some “sand mountain” that emerged above the lake surface from time to time. Once, Varangians wanted to hide stolen treasures in the lake. But when they approached the small island, a dragon came to the surface from the lake and swallowed the small island up.
The terrible monster disturbed people’s minds over the 18-19th century. It was rumored that the giant creature emerged on the lake surface in the evenings, but immediately submerged when people approached. It is said that during WWII the beast swallowed up a Fascist plane. Today, there are lots of witnesses who say they chanced to see Brosnya walking in the water. People say that it turns boats upside-down and has to do with disappearance of people.
Everything said by locals and tourists who witnessed Brosnya proves that the creature (either a dragon or a dinosaur) does exist. However, some people treat the issue skeptically and still say that the creature may be a mutant beaver or a giant pike of 100-150 years. Others conjecture that groups of wild boars and elks cross the lake from time to time. Do boars and elks dive and stay under water for a long time? However, local people witnessed neither boars, nor elks, and the Karavan newspaper and other expeditions spoke about some other creature.
There are some more scientific hypotheses concerning Brosnya. One of them is a gas version saying that when hydrogen sulphide goes up from the lake bottom it makes water boil up; this boiling in its turn resembles a dragon head. But the amount of hydrogen sulphide must be considerable to produce this effect. Other version says that there is a volcano in Lake Brosno that makes ejections on the water surface from time to time. It is well-known that there are several fractures at the bottom of the lake, the depth and the direction of the fractures cannot be defined. It is not ruled out that the volcano crater is inside of one of the fractures. This explains why the volcano, if it actually exists, has not been discovered yet.
Gennady Klimov says: “The lake actually keeps some secret. When the depth of Lake Brosno was measured, it turned out that in some parts it was 120-160 meters deep. It means that Lake Brosno is the deepest in Europe. What is more, the lake belongs to the preglacial epoch that is why mysterious phenomena are quite possible in it. As for me, my concerns about the whole of the story are quite particular. I am interested in the mechanism according to which global myths arise. I say that the administration of the Andreapol District where the lake is situated could have been more adroit to form economy of the district depending upon the Brosnya myth. Today, I do not personally care if the creature exists or not. But this is a really precious myth from the point of view of the future. Much is spoken about monster called Brosnya in different parts of Russia and in other countries, but nothing is said here in the Tver Region where the creature “lives”. It is believed that Loch Ness creature does exist. The whole of the county where is lives is connected with the creature myth. The nature here in the Tver Region is wonderful and pure. There is a unique technology of making and using myths. These technologies will be extremely important in the future.”
Marina Gavrishenko, the journalist who took part in the expedition says: “At first sight, the whole of the monster story looks like a fairytale. After the expedition to Lake Brosno, I do believe that the place is actually mysterious. Stories told by witnesses prove this opinion. We met with local people who were perfectly sane and adequate. What is more, all legends about the mysterious monster trace the roots back to the old times. I am sure that legends and rumors cannot arise from nothing.”
Nikolay Ishchuk, the head of the Tver Regional Legislative Assembly press-service says: “I do not believe in wonders. What we chanced to see at Lake Brosno is actually mysterious and incomprehensible. If the phenomenon can be explained with the laws of the planet’s life, I believe this is a miracle indeed. I recollect our expedition to Lake Brosno and our attempts to take pictures of the creature as a wonderful journey. This is wonderful that people may have such interesting adventures. May it be so that the expedition actually came across some miracle? Inexplicable things must exist in this world. When people do not understand some things they want to know more and reveal more new facts.” - Sofya Vorotyntseva - Pravda.ru
Brosnya is described as being 5 meters long (16 feet), and iridescent. Some have reported that it glows.
The bio-luminescent, aquatic reptile has inspired terror in the fishing villages surrounding Russia’s little known Lake Brosno for generations. Reports of this luminous beast, which allegedly lurks near the bottom of their lake, date back to at least 1854.
That having been said, the legends of this aquatic horror have been told and retold for centuries. One of the most famous tales associated with the dragon concerns its encounter with the Tatar-Mongol army that headed for Novgorod in the 13th century. Their leader, Batu Khan, allegedly stopped his troops on the shore of Lake Brosno to rest and allow the horses to drink but, when the horses ventured to close to the lake, a colossal roaring beast emerged from the dark water and devoured animals and soldiers alike. The troops were so terrified that they turned back and Novgorod was saved.
Other ancient legends describe an “enormous mouth” that ate fishermen and a “sand mountain” that appeared on the surface of the lake. More recently, locals claim that during World War II, the dragon – apparently an Allied sympathizer – managed to swallow a Nazi airplane.
This bizarre form of bio-luminescence is rare among cryptids, and has been reported in only two other animals, the winged predators known as the DUAH and the ROPEN, both of which are reputedly “flying” creatures that hail from across the globe.
Babushka Tanya (Grandmother Tanya) and her husband, whose house is metres away from the shore, claim to have seen the monster on more than one occasion. Tanya took a Reuters Television camera crew to the lakeshore site from where she claims to have seen the monster. “I only saw a head of this creature, so I was not scared at all,” she said while trying to draw the beast. “It is now on the bottom of the lake, deep, and it is hiding from the winter cold”, she explained. Local press reports describe a creature about five metres (16 feet) long living in Lake Brosno, 80 km (50 miles) northwest of the Russian capital, and have published photographs, though they are too indistinct to be convincing according to some experts. Natalya Istratova, Professor of Biology at Moscow State Zoo, says it is “absolutely impossible” to say what kind of animal the monster might be without examining it. However one Lake Brosno resident, Baba Nadya (Grandmother Nadya), is terrified of the beast fearing it will crawl out of the lake and into her house “any day.” A local press report describes a creature about five metres long. It quoted a local palaeontologist, Nikolai Dikov, as saying the creature’s alleged shape suggests an extinct order of reptiles with teeth like mammals. Recent palaeontological excavations at Russia’s old lakes of the tectonic origin, like Lake Brosno, are reported to have provided evidence to a theory linking the Brosno monster to pre-historic dinosaurs. Near the Siberian lake of Shestakovo, palaeontologists are said have found the bones of a pre-historic creature, quite similar to the descriptions of Brosno’s babushkas. - www.nfo.ac.uk
Fishermen say that the underwater world of Lake Brosno has a structure of several levels. From time to time burbots and perchs can be found in the lake. This is strange at all that some sorts of fish can be found in the area at all. For example, herring can be found in a lake in Peno District in the Tver Region. This is strange that the sea fish may live in the lake at all. Smelt shoals from time to time can be found in Lake Brosno as well. The phenomenon of Brosnya can be explained from the physical point of view: huge smelt shoals are reflected on the water surface through refraction of light and produces the effect of a huge reptile head. Physicists say that any mirage appears in hot weather. Indeed, witnesses say that they came across Brosnya in summer. However, origin of the strange monster is still a mystery.
Source Credit(s): Posted by Lon Strickler at Phantoms and Monsters naturalplane.blogspot.com/2011/06/brosnya-russias-lake-dwelling-dragon.html
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Loch Morar monster Morag sightings uncovered
Early accounts of the Loch Ness Monster’s lesser-known cousin have been uncovered by researchers.
Morag is a mysterious creature said to inhabit the depths of Loch Morar, in the Lochaber area of the Highlands.
Alexander Carmichael, a prolific gatherer of folklore at the turn of the last century, gathered stories about her from people living near the loch.
His scripts have been uncovered by the Carmichael Watson project at the University of Edinburgh library.
The writings, thought to date from 1902, paint a conflicting view of Morag.
On the one hand, she is presented as a mermaid-like character with flowing hair, while another description paints her as a grim reaper whose sighting was viewed as a death omen.
Dr Donald Stewart, a senior researcher on the project, discovered the texts while leafing through a “mad mixture” of folklore collected by Carmichael over 50 years.
“We were so pleased when we found them, it was just totally unexpected,” he said.
In the first text, Carmichael states: “Morag is always seen before a death and before a drowning.”
A second text reads: “There is a creature in Loch Morar and she is called Morag. She is never seen save when one of the hereditary people of the place dies.
“The last time she was seen was when Aeneas Macdonnell died in 1898.
“The Morag is peculiar to Loch Morar. She is seen in broad daylight and by many persons, including church persons.
“She appears in a black heap or ball slowing and deliberately rising in the water and moving along like a boat water-logged.
“The Morag is much disliked and is called by many uncomplimentary terms.”
A final description, penned by Carmichael at a later date, retains Morag’s association with death but sees her take on more human characteristics.
‘Great distress’
He wrote: “Like the other water deities, she is half-human, half-fish. The lower portions of her body is in the form of a grilse and the upper in the form of a small woman of highly developed breasts with long flowing yellow hair falling down her snow white back and breast.
“She is represented as being fair, beautiful and very timid and never seen save when one of the Morar family dies or when the clan falls in battle.
“Then she is seen rushing about with great speed and is heard wailing in great distress, bemoaning and weeping the loss of the House of Morar laid desolate.
“The Morag has often brought out of their houses at night the people living along the shores of the lake and in the neighbourhood of her haunts, causing much anxiety to the men and much sore weeping to the women.”
Carmichael, who became a figurehead for the celtic artistic movement, originally wrote the texts in Gaelic.
He is thought to have spent only a couple of days in the area of Morar and did not claim to see Morag for himself. His main source of information about the monster appears to be a local named Ewan MacDougall.
The first text was unearthed by Dr Stewart in 2011 and he later happened upon the other two.
Speaking about the findings for the first time, he said: “Clearly, there’s something going on in Loch Morar, whatever it is.
“People make sense of it in different ways, depending on who sees it, what they’re feeling at the time and how the story comes down from tradition afterwards.
“I think the texts are pretty exciting. They give us a window back to how people saw this monster well over 100 years ago. They’re the first reported sightings that we have.
“It shows that there were other monsters vying for popularity and Nessie happened to win out in the end. But there were a lot more of them out there.”
More recent sightings have depicted Morag - whose home is only about 70 miles from Loch Ness - as a humped serpent-like creature similar to the more famous Nessie.
The first recorded sighting of Morag was in 1887, while in 1948 nine people in a boat claimed to have seen a 20ft-long creature in the loch.
In 1969, two men claimed to have accidentally hit the creature in their boat. Morag is said to have disappeared after one of the men hit it with an oar while his companion opened fire with a rifle.
Loch Morar is the deepest freshwater body in the British Isles, with a maximum depth of 310m (1,017ft).
Source Credit(s): BBC © 2013 bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-21574832
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Loch Ness Understood
Loch Ness investigator Tony Harmsworth, author of Loch Ness Understood (formerly Nessie and Me) makes book available online for free reading - 360 pages of research on Loch Ness with more than 200 illustrations and photographs.
As a child he was so influenced by the space serpent encountered by British science fiction hero Dan Dare in The Eagle comic in 1959, that a life-long fascination developed with the Loch Ness monster mystery and subsequently, his childhood collection of newspaper accounts, pictures and reported sightings transformed into 25 years of writing the Loch Ness Understood project that combines an autobiography with the story of the hunt for the monster of Loch Ness.
Today, Tony is one of the foremost authorities on the mystery at Loch Ness and has conceived, designed, created and co-founded the Official Loch Ness Monster Exhibition Centre. He also was administrative coordinator of Operation Deepscan during 1986/7 and was Bursar of Fort Augustus Abbey on Loch Ness where he designed and wrote the highly acclaimed Fort Augustus Abbey Heritage Centre and also the Loch Ness Story Diorama.
Tony has given me permission to provide a link on Cryptid Chronicles to the book directly for anyone interested in reading his research and thoughts, though the conversion from paperback to online viewing is not complete, he is updating chapters as he has time.
The book has been a major project for him and is now published with LuLu in the UK, Amazon in the USA including Nook and Kindle.
Click here to start reading the book
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE – PREHISTORY
Interviewing Eye Witnesses
Scotland’s Prehistory
Childhood Visits
CHAPTER TWO – FOLKLORE
The Absent-Minded Researcher
Celtic Origins
From School To Business
CHAPTER THREE – INVERNESS TO LOCHEND
Protecting The President’s Son
From Inverness To Lochend
Exploring The Highlands
CHAPTER FOUR – CASTLES ALDOURIE TO URQUHART
Girl Friday
Castles Aldourie To Urquhart
First Encounter With Dinsdale
CHAPTER FIVE – FROM URQUHART TO FORT AUGUSTUS
The Obsessed Mr Shine
Castle Urquhart To Fort Augustus
The Move To The Highlands
CHAPTER SIX – COMPLETING THE CIRCUIT
Late Night Nessie Shows
Completing The Circuit
Conceiving The Exhibition
CHAPTER SEVEN – NESSIE’S ORIGINS
Drunken Antics
Nessie’s Origins
Staging The Exhibition
CHAPTER EIGHT – LAND SIGHTINGS AND FOOTPRINTS
Flipping Incredible
Land Sightings And Footprints
Discovering The Project
CHAPTER NINE – THE NESSIE ICON
The Power of Dom Perignon
The Nessie Icon
Cruel Betrayal
CHAPTER TEN – THE CLASSIC PHOTOGRAPHS
His Monster’s Voice
The Classic Photographs
Developing The Exhibition
CHAPTER ELEVEN – THE DINSDALE FILM
Papa Flash
The Dinsdale Film
Nessie Hunt
CHAPTER TWELVE – SURFACE OBSERVATION VIGIL
The Media Monster
Surface Observation Vigil
Monster Centres At War
CHAPTER THIRTEEN – AMERICAN SONAR INVESTIGATION
Vive La Difference
American Sonar Investigation
VIPS
CHAPTER FOURTEEN – MONSTERS EVERYWHERE
The Incredible Sinking Car
Monsters Everywhere
The Exodus From Genesis
CHAPTER FIFTEEN – NESSIE’S COUSIN CENTRE STAGE
Party Time
Nessie’s Cousin takes Centre Stage
Missing The Bus
CHAPTER SIXTEEN – 24 HOUR SONAR PATROLS
“Seeing” The Morar Monster
Twenty-Four Hour Sonar Patrols
Macbeth And The Benedictines
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – 40 STRONG SONAR CONTACTS
Fanaticism And Violence
Forty Strong Sonar Contacts
Rescuing The Abbey
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – CAUSES FOR ERRORS
The Wogan Show
Causes For Errors
Monastic Heritage
CHAPTER NINETEEN – THE DAY I SAW NESSIE
Monstrous Monks
The Day I Saw Nessie
Intrigue In The Cloisters
CHAPTER TWENTY – OPERATION DEEPSCAN
Plumbing The Depths
Operation Deepscan
No Peace For The Wicked
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – THE CLUE IN THE FOOD CHAIN
Abbots, Popes And Priors
The Clue In The Food Chain
More Awards But No Money
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – THE REAL NESSIE
Father Flat-Out
Will The Real Nessie Please Stand Up?
A Stroke Of Luck
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE CONCLUSIONS
Conclusions
PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS
END NOTES
Tony notes that “I have deliberately not provided links to each of those chapters as the story can only be understood fully by reading from beginning to end. Each chapter is linked to from the previous one so I suggest you keep the page you are reading as a favourite so that you can pick up there next time. It will take me some time to upload all of this material to the website. If you wan to cheat and get to the Nessie evidence pro and con, then buy the book!”
Tony will also be a speaker at the Loch Ness Monster Symposium April 2013 in the city of Edinburgh. The event will be sponsored by Kraken Rum and will be run under the umbrella of the Edinburgh International Science Festival which runs from the 23rd March to the 7th April.
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A Cryptid Chronicles Book Review: In Search of Ogopogo: Sacred Creature of the Okanagan Waters
Author: Arlene Gaal, 208 pages
Sydney C. Squidney’s rating: 4/5
Bookshelves: cryptozoology, dinosaurs, extinction, lake-monster, monster-hunting, my-reviews, read, reference, research, sea-monsters
Originally posted at http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/315087460
The review:
A strong case for Ogopogo
Author/Researcher Arlene Gaal is clearly passionate and dedicated to tracking the many sightings of the famous cryptid lake monster Ogopogo of British Columbia and to being a supporting voice for those individuals who have by most accounts, inadvertently had the experience of encountering this largely elusive aquatic monster.
In her sincere efforts to help substantiate the claims of folks who come to her with their reports, she has accumulated an amazing amount of data over the past several decades in which she has exhaustively spent researching, documenting, interviewing witnesses and archiving records, photos and films.
Though she has penned a couple books prior to In Search of Ogopogo: Sacred Creature of the Okanagan Waters concerning the monstrous animal of gigantic proportions that purportedly inhabits Okanagan Lake, this particular book is the last one to date and plainly demonstrates why Miss Gaal is the unofficial expert and consultant on Ogopogo.
Noted cryptozoologist John Kirk of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club said that “The catalogue of films and video of Ogopogo are more numerous and of better quality than anything I have personally seen at Loch Ness and I believe that several of them are very persuasive that there is a large living unknown creature inhabiting the lake” (2005) and therefore, it is surmised that the Ogopogos could be some of the most credible of the world’s lake monsters.
Arlene Gaal has certainly put together a comprehensive volume rich with numerous accounts of the search for Canada’s most famous lake cryptid including fascinating sightings from convincing witnesses that I had never heard of.
Gaal’s writing style is a bit unconventional in that it’s casual, though I attribute that to her exuberance for her subject. In Search also contains many eyewitness submitted illustrations of what they saw along with an introduction to the creature’s history and lore known in Indian traditions in which the beast is referred to as N’ha-a-itk meaning “water demon” or “lake monster”, so readers particularly interested in folklore and mythology will especially enjoy that section.
My summary -
PROS: Plethora of accounts with Ogopogos, many reports i’d never read before, Gaal presents serious and objective research while remaining conversational enough for the curious.
CONS: Published in 2001 it’s somewhat dated. A tad unorganised and I really would have liked to see source citations for many of the reports presented as evidence.
WHAT I LIKED BEST: There is a really cool chronology from the 1700s to 2001 at the end.
Overall, I totally recommend this volume for both those who enjoy pleasure-reading about cryptids and for the more serious cryptozoology researcher and consider “In Search of Ogopogo” essential for lake monster research.
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Pinatubo Monster - A Volcano Lake Serpent?
In 2002, reports came out of the Philippines from Filipino villagers which told of five “huge, black creatures” swimming in the Tikis River, near the former mining village of Buhawen, scaring the Aeta families, who claimed that the large serpent-like creatures were making life dreadful for the locals.
The very first sighting of a Pinatubo Monster was the previous November when a young boy playing in the river noticed what he initially thought were logs floating in the water. Once he approached it to play with it, the serpent-like creature showed its true form, which caught the boy by surprise and thus, he gave out a loud shriek. This scream attracted other Aetas but when they got to the boy, the creature had swam away, bothered by the screaming.
But in January 12, 2003 there were a multitude of eyewitness accounts of seeing the serpent-like creature in the river basin.
Filipino villagers then appealed for scientists to help explain the large unidentified creatures seen in the Tikis river. Five of the mysterious black creatures have been spotted in the river in Bhawen since November. This baffled the Aeta tribe who live there because there is no account of such creatures in their oral history.
Dubbed the Pinatubo Monsters, they are believed to be 7ft long and 3ft wide. Children have been ordered not to bathe in the river and fishing has also been banned in case the creatures are dangerous. They have never been seen in full form, but the elongated outlines could be seen when the wind blows over the river and ripples are made in the water. They never produced any sound at daytime or night.
Joel Serrano, a village councilman, told The Philippine Daily Inquirer: “We don’t know if they are fishes or snakes or eels because they never show their heads or tails.” He is also worried what effect the ban on fishing will have on the village, adding: “Frogs are our only source of protein.”Villager Alfredo Banos said: “The children are afraid. When they come here to view those creatures, they wonder what those things really are. We don’t have answers to their questions.”
The strange creatures were also seen swimming in the river below Labuan, which is enclosed by tall, thick bushes. Since the monsters’ heads and tails were not seen, no one could venture what these locally named “Pinatubo Monsters” could be.
The call of the councilmen was answered by the Bureau of Fisheries & Aquatic Resources (BFAR) regional director, Remedios Ongtangco. Ongtangco chose 43 year-old Nelson Bien — who had already rescued the residents of Luzon’s Nueva Ecija province from an extraordinary 12-foot long eel — for the job.
Bien, who served as the chief of the fisheries resources management division of the BFAR in Central Luzon, arrived in Labuan less than a week later. Upon his arrival, the community’s tribal leaders immediately escorted the scientist to the Tikis River. After a cursory glance through a pair of binoculars, through which, according to most reports, he saw nothing, Bien wasted no time in concluding that — based soley upon the Aetas’ accounts — the phenomenon in question was most likely a school of the relatively common fish known as tilapia, who had probably congregated in groups of 500 or more.
The accounts all seem to end on this note, giving skeptics yet another excuse to practice their patented condescending smirk, but only a blithering fool would assume that an entire community — who have for generations lived on the banks of the Tikis and whose primary sources of nourishment came from the River — would confuse a school of relatively small (not to mention well known) pan fish for a quintet of 7-foot long, 3-feet wide, inky black, serpentine creatures.
Some researchers have suggested that the creatures may be a mutation spawned by the massive mercury levels said to be in the river. Whatever the origin of these beasts actually turns out to be, the fact remains that the Aeta villagers continue to fear the serpentine monsters of the Tikis River.
Interestingly enough, Lake Pinatubo was formed after Mount Pinatubo erupted on June 15, 1991. Mount Pinatubo being located near the boundaries of Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales provinces in the Philippines offer a summit crater lake that is the deepest lake in the country at 800 m (2,600 ft) deep.
Did the eruption have anything to do with the reports of huge, serpent-like creatures seen after it’s wake, or does the fact that they were seen near a former mining village where mercury levels could be so high as to have created a mutation be relevant?
On September 24, 2008, Destination Truth aired an episode where Josh Gates and company searched for the Pinatubo Monster and discovered that changes in the river and lake may have changed the schooling habits and ecology for any creatures in the lake.
Whatever these creatures are, it has been made clear by the Aeta that these animals are unlike any eel, fish or snake that they are familiar with, and as far as we know, no other scientists have since volunteered to go further investigate.
Source Credit(s): unknown-creatures.com/pinatubo-monster.html, ananova.com/news/story/sm_494687.html, americanmonsters.com/site/2009/12/pinatubo-monsters-philippine-islands, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Pinatubo
Pinatubo Monsters illustration © 2012, Syfy, Destination Truth
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Sydney C. Squidney
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Hunting the (other) loch monster in Morar, Scotland
Matador Nights editor Tom Gates takes us on a hunt for Nessie’s much shier — but perhaps more compelling — lake monster cousin.
MORAG IS A LOCH MONSTER with a terrible publicist. Although slightly famous in Scotland, tales of Morag have not spilled into coloring books or Hollywood films. A bit of a sensation in the late sixties, the beast’s home of Loch Morar has shied away from publicizing sightings and remains quite disinterested in a tourist trade that involves humped aquatic creatures.
The case for a monster in Morar, though, is compelling and arguably stronger than discussion of what might be living in neighboring Loch Ness. After Loch Ness, Loch Morar is the best known.
For starters, Loch Morar is the deepest body of fresh water in Europe, reaching depths of over 1,000 feet, beating it’s better known rival by 200 feet, located just seventy miles away. Unlike the peat stained waters of Loch Ness, Morar’s waters are very clear. Morar never freezes and despite being a deep-sided glacial lake it’s waters comparatively productive. 
It is largely uninhabited, flanked by a road that only covers one quarter of its perimeter — this allows for hardly any traffic around the lake, which would explain the lack of tourist sightings.
More importantly, it is the setting for sightings as sensational as any that have come out of Nessietown.
Tales of a monster have permeated the Morar area for centuries. Sightings of the creature, dubbed Morag by the locals, go as far back as the mid 1700’s when residents of the region began referring to the undulating humps, which they saw slipping in and out of the water, as funeral boats. Sightings of these humps were considered by those who lived in this pre industrialized environment to be the ominous warning of death.
According to early stories, “Mhorag” was the spirit of the loch, only appearing in the form of a mermaid when a member of the Gilles clan was about to kick. Later, tales spun of a waterhorse (or “kelpie”) that would lure riders onto its back, then drown them and snack on their remains.
If you’re laughing, you probably weren’t born in the 1700s, when it was completely reasonable to treat most of these tales as fact.
The Golden Age
Nearly eighty years after the first reported sighting in Loch Ness, the creature has started to lose its appeal, out-imagined by Pixar and the like. The romance of a loch monster just might be dead and buried, even if the animal is still alive and swimming.
Still, I wanted to find out if what I’d been hearing was true; if another loch was a more likely candidate for some kind of beastie than the infamous one near Inverness. I went straight to Scotland’s loch monster expert, Adrienne Shine, in hopes of learning a bit more before I set off to Morar myself.
Nobody would know better than Shine, who began his own Morar investigation in 1974. He was sparked by the loch’s most famous account, which made papers around the world. Says Shine:
It was the encounter in 1969 that aroused my interest. I thought if Loch Ness wasn’t the only place where there were these traditions, perhaps there’s more chance of it being real.
He hired a rowboat and drifted at night with a powerful light fixed to a camera, in hopes of repeating the encounter. After this turned up nothing but a false sighting in the form of a rock (“It taught me not to believe the evidence of my own eyes.”), Shine decided to head below water. By 1975 he was manning missions into the depths of a loch in a homemade submersible, during what he calls “the underwater phase of my work.”
Shine is difficult to pin when asked the ultimate question about what’s out there, mostly because he has no definitive evidence either way. He says,”I have no one theory because many animals and physical effects have contributed to sightings.” When asked about his favorite explanation, he offers:
I am accused of the Shine Theory. The occasional migration of sturgeon into fresh water might have started the water horses tradition.
While many argue that such a fish couldn’t live in these lochs, it is quite arguable that no fish has ever looked like a horse more than a sturgeon.
Shine is honest about why he first started hunting the now-famous beast, seeing it first as “a soft option for fame and glory.”
Thirty-five years later, it has become much more than this to him. He’s manned countless expeditions in Loch Ness, most famously with 1987’s Operation Deepscan, during which dozens of sonar-armed boats scanned and mapped the whole of Loch Ness. It proved inconclusive.
If a man like Shine couldn’t find a monster, how would I? There was one thing that Shine said that kept me going.
Wherever these traditions seem to come to the surface now, there’s always a perception that they’re copying Loch Ness.
It was his way of saying that Morar had been written off as a copycat. Could Morar just be a place that had been overlooked? Digging a little deeper into the history of the area, it seemed entirely possible.
Morar and the Monster
I’d been reading The Search For Morag, a history of all known accounts of the monster. Hardly a bestseller, I’d had to order this discontinued title from a collector’s shop and paid dearly for it. Written by two members of The Loch Ness Investigation Bureau expedition to Loch Morar in 1972, the hardback documents everything known about Morar, recalling over 100 years of sightings and probing that ultimate question.
The book doesn’t disappoint, recounting sightings that were, in the words of one subject, “beyond explanation or definition”. Reports generally describe a humped, “eel-like or snake-like” creature, with “black and shiny” skin. It is generally seen on sunny and calm days, when the waters are less choppy and Scotland’s rain isn’t pissing down.
The most famous sighting — the one that grabbed Shine’s attention in August 1969 — involved two local men, Duncan McDonell and William Simpson. In the account, they were on their way back from a fishing trip at the north end of the loch. It was just after 9 p.m. The sun had gone down, but there was still plenty of light. Hearing a splash behind them, McDonell, who was at the wheel, turned to determine its cause. To his astonishment, it turned out to be a creature coming directly toward them, at a speed later estimated to be between 20 and 30 mph. They describe a creature that accidentally ran into their boat while breaching the surface. Their initial fear was that it might capsize the boat. After attempting to fend it off with an oar, Simpson fired his rifle in the animal’s direction. He fired a single shot at the beast; it seemed unaffected by the blast and slowly moved away and submerged out of site. He claims,
“I then watched it slowly sink away and that was the last I’ve seen of it.”
The whole thing would have been easy to write off were there not scores of other sightings before and after.
Morar is exactly the same as Campbell described it in 1972. The town is comprised of a hotel, a train platform and about ten houses.
The Morar Hotel is one of those terrifying old white houses, the kind with squeaky floors, a mysterious staff, and wall-to-wall carpet. I was given an umbrella at check-in and warned that rain came when it pleased, and often.
I made my way down to the water under careful directions from the hotel (“Turn left at the house with the satellite that’s pointed towards God.”) and took a look. It was ominous, moody and unfathomably quiet. The skies had gone dark and threatened to spill buckets. Nothing living moved on or around the lake. The opposing shore was at least a mile away and not one boat could be seen on the water. The loch was desolate.
The water had a wake that day, mostly because of the coming and going weather. I could see quite easily why there were so many false sightings in these parts — every rock or wave looked like something. One of the most common monster mistakes has been the misinterpretation of a boat wake. I could see why — a number of them caught my eye, tricking me too.
Rocks make a deceptive wake.
The rain finally started to fall as I tried my best to walk the path around the loch. It would have been impossible to circle in one day, so my plan was to make it halfway around, about another hour out from where the road ended.
In the course of six hours I saw three people, seven cars, and about ten houses. There just wasn’t much life on the loch, other than the occasional lamb or sheep.
My eyes remained on the water. It wasn’t so much that I was hoping to spot a giant serpent but more that the loch had some kind of draw, a quiet power that demanded attention. There was no doubt in my mind that if there is ever to be something discovered, it could be found here, rather than in a populated place like Loch Ness.
Half a day later, I was back at the hotel, sans monster story and waterlogged.
But Is There Something?
Nobody would talk to me.
I’d been warned about this from a few people but it was surprisingly true — the town has zero interest in kicking up a story and attracting tourists. It would seem that the fame of the 1969 sighting was enough of a taste for everyone.
I did speak with one woman who wished to remain anonymous. She said that the area was largely run by one of the older families and that they wanted nothing more than for the world to leave them (and their sheep) alone.
The mandate was that if you spoke, there’d be hell to pay. She herself has seen something in the water but brushed it off as quick as it was out of her mouth. “It was probably nothing.”
The sightings in The Search For Morag are all that really remains of the hunt in this loch and may serve as the end of any formal investigation. But they’re still compelling to this day.
There is the story of John MacVarish, barman at the Morar Hotel, had a sighting on August 27 1968:
“I saw this thing coming. I thought it was a man standing in a boat but as it got nearer I saw it was something coming out of the water. I tried to get up close to it with the outboard out of the water and what I saw was a long neck five or six feet out of the water with a small head on it, dark in colour, coming quite slowly down the loch. When I got to about 300 yards of it, it turned off into the deep and just settled down slowly into the loch out of sight. The neck was about one and a half feet in diameter and tapered up to between ten inches and a foot. I never saw any features, no eyes or anything like that. It was a snake like head, very small compared to the size of the neck-flattish, a flat type of head. It seemed to have very smooth skin but at 300 yards it’s difficult to tell. It was very dark, nearly black. It was 10am, dead calm, no wind, brilliant sunshine. I saw it for about ten minuets travling very slowly: it didn’t alter its angle to the water. It looked as if it was paddling itself along. There was very little movement from the water, just a small streak from the neck. I couldn’t really see what was propelling it but I think it was something at the sides rather than behind it.”
And Charles Fishburne:
“It passed within thirty-fifty yards to port…three large, black hump-shaped objects moving quickly through the water.”
Or Kate MacKinnon:
“It was rather like a huge eel…the neck was about one foot in diameter and was black in color.”
What is Morag , the Lake Morar creature?
While there is no doubt that Loch Morar possesses an adequate food supply to support a population of large animals, it is unclear exactly what the creature might be. The majority of sightings describe a creature bearing an undeniable resemblance to the long extinct plesiosaur, but if such animals where to have survived they would have had to adapt to far colder water temperatures than their ancestors are thought to have been able to handle. Biologist Roy P. Mackal has suggested that Morag, the Loch Ness Monster and the other so called monster sighted around Scotland are zeuglodons, a primitive snake like whale believed to have gone extinct over 20 million years ago. Other theories which have been put forth to explain Morag sightings include sharks, seals, eels and even mats of vegetation.
Morar lies in a glacially deepened valley on Inverness-shire’s west coast. Twelve thousand year ago, as the ice retreated, sea water is believed to have invaded the lake, bringing with it an abundance of marine life. Even after the sea water retreated, for a few thousand years the sea animals now in the loch may have had fairly ready access to their oceanic home, because the loch level and the low-tide level were only one-third then what they are today. The sea level at high tide would have been within a few feet of the loch level.
A member of the Centre for Fortean Zoology that participated in the 2005 Loch Morar Expedition has put forth his suspicion that it is a giant sterile eel. The theory is that the common eels swims out to the Sargasso Sea to breed then die. The baby eels follow scent trails back to their ancestral fresh waters homes and the cycle begins again. Sometimes, however a mutation occurs and the eel is sterile. These stay in fresh water and keep on growing. Known as eunuch eels no one knows how old they get or how big. In February 2004 two Canadian tourists came upon a 25-foot eel floating in the shallows of Loch Ness. At first they thought it was dead but when it began to move they beat a hasty retreat. In the 1980s a 20-foot eel was reported in the Birmingham Ship Canal. Another 20 foot eel was supposedly caught in the cooling system in some aluminum works in Dores in the 1990s.
One theory suggests that these rare, naturally occurring, mutations may now be on the increase due to pollution. PCBs and Beta Blocker chemicals have long been implicated in causing sterility in fish. Could they be causing more eunuch eels in the deep lakes of Scotland?
Regaurdless if Morag is a eunuch eel, a prehistoric relic or an evolved new species yet to be officially categorised, Loch Morar does have an adequate food supply to support a population of large animals.
Even if somehow some animal escaped extinction and made its home in this huge lake, with its huge size and deep water, it may take a long time to be able to find any substantial proof of the existence of the Morag.
All of the credible tales have to make you wonder if there is something out there and, if so, what it might be. There’s plenty of exploring left to be done in these waters and plenty of stories to be fished out.
If you’re interested in trying your hand then you couldn’t find a better place than Loch Morar. Just turn left at the satellite aimed towards God and keep walking.
Sources: matadornetwork.com/trips/hunting-the-other-loch-monster-in-morar-scotland, unknownexplorers.com/morag.php, cfz.org.uk/expeditions/morag/morag.htm
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Pressie the Lake Superior Sea Serpent
Lake Superior or Gitchigumi (meaning Great Water or Great Lake) is a fresh water lake. It is 1,333 feet deep in places , with an average water temperature of 34 degrees F and is 350 miles long and up to 160 miles wide in parts. The lake is almost an inland sea. It is said to house a lake serpent, Pressie, named after the Presque Isle River where one of the best sightings occurred .
Mouth of the Presque Isle River at Lake Superior
The native indigenous people called the serpent Mishipishu and it is seen in pictographs at various shoreline sites, either as a spiky cat-like creature or as a serpent. Modern sightings cite a serpent type creature up to 75 feet long with a horse-like head on a longish neck and a bilobate (whale-type) tail, and described as dark green to black in colour. The reported sightings go back centuries, here is a selection of the most well known:
In September 1894, about halfway between Whitefish Point and Copper Harbor, Michigan, the crews of two steamers observed a strange creature undulating along in the twilight, its back protruding 6 to 8 feet out of the water.
In July 1895, three members of a steamer crew observed a “hideous creature” off Whitefish Point which seemed at times to be deliberately pacing their ship. They claimed it had a 15 foot neck and a jaw a foot wide.
In 1897 near Duluth (MN), a Detroit man fell overboard when his yacht struck a rock. He was then attacked by a huge serpent which he said tried to constrict him in the manner of a large snake. His three shipmates also saw the beast.
In the 1930’s, a serpent, swimming along at about 9 miles per hour, was observed by two fisherman at Pictured Rocks, Munising, Michigan. The animal created a strong wake as it passed the shore.
In the 1960’s, a family watched a huge animal, alternately showing humps and stretching out straight, swim upriver past the North coast of Sugar Island Neither head nor tail was visible and they said it resembled a log when stretched out straight.
Memorial Day weekend in 1977, North of Ironwood , hiker Randy Braun snapped a photo of something which he suspects was a giant serpent swimming in the waters of the lake near the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. Braun said it undulated in the water like a serpent. The snapshot he took of the beast shows a blurry object in the water. (Top Photo) The photo indicates a serpent like creature with a horse-like head on a long neck and an undefined tail. 
Randy Braun’s sketch
In the summer of 1981 in Munising, four children and teenagers, all siblings, observed a serpent showing 3-5 humps rising 1-2 feet out of the water (the slower it went the higher the humps). As it came within about 20 yards of the private beach, one of the children ran away crying and the animal headed away showing lower humps.
In the middle 1990’s, during the summer, fishermen watched in horror as a large aquatic animal pulled a wading buck deer under (leaving only it’s severed head) near Point Iroquois, Michigan.
All the photographic evidence is as usual grainy or blurry , but that is par for the course and lets face it, anyone’s hand would shake if they thought they saw a monster. So could it be a giant eel? It seems the most likely or a giant water snake. A sturgeon, the usual explanation seems less likely given the descriptions. What we need is a video or a carcass to turn up. Certainly in a lake that big there are plenty of places to hide!
Here is Randy Braun’s written account of the incident with other information:
Lake Superior Monster
“On Memorial Day Weekend in 1977 I was camping at Presque Isle campground north of Ironwood, Michigan, with a friend. I don’t remember if it was Saturday or Sunday but it was a beautiful morning and Lake Superior was like glass. Visibility was remarkable when looking out across the Lake, and distant land was visible. There’s a trail that leads east from the campground which crosses the Presque Isle River that I was navigating, however, the bugs were unbearable, and I headed north towards the lake hoping that walking along the beach would be more comfortable.
When I reached the tree line there was the beach but about one hundred feet below me. The slope leading to the beach was close to a 45 degree angle with short dead trees protruding from the moss covered rock, and come to find out also very slippery. It still amazes me to this day how I was able to control my slide and with a full backpack. I sheared off some of the scrub trees on the way down. Then again I was young and experienced having had extensive background in forestry and working in Idaho and Montana. I was twenty-six years old then and now I am fourty-eight. The beach was maybe thirty feet from the waters edge to the the slippery slope and as I continued to walk east sometimes no beach at all. Instead there was water with tangled lake debris amid dead standing trees. The water was knee deep to waist deep but difficult to get through, and as I think about it I’m glad “it” wasn’t lurking in there. After crossing through a couple of these beach barriers it was clear beach as far east as I could see, and I stopped by a 3’x3’ boulder, sat, and began to east lunch.
When I looked straight out to open water I saw two very distinct dark bumps which seemed to be separated by just a few feet. First, one bump would go underwater then the next bump would do the same, but only after the first one surfaced. I had a 20x spotting scope with me and couldn’t quite make out what they were. Then they began to move east and to my left, one bump going under and then the other, but one bump always stayed on top of the water while the other submerged.
It became frightfully apparent to me that this object was close to one thousand feet out and as it gained speed I realized there was a third smaller bump, and that the object was undulating. It moved very rapidly “VERY RAPIDLY” to the east and quartered towards and nearly up to the shore. The now obviously living thing stopped maybe several hundred feet from me and began moving and weaving around large boulders that were in the water, and directly towards me. IT WAS BIG and resembled an anaconda with the girth of a Volkswagen. Don’t laugh it wasn’t funny.
There was no where to go for me because of the slippery slope and the water barriers so I jumped behind the boulder and grabbed by 35mm Yashica. As it moved towards me it slowed down considerably but was making a noticeable wake. It was strangely quiet while it snaked towards me and stopped dead in the water, right in front of me. IT WAS BIG! I steadied my camera on top of the rock and fired one picture but was afraid to move after that. The thing sat there for about thirty seconds with its huge horse shaped head and large dark left eye staring at me. On the nose was a visible catfish type whisker, maybe two feet in length and wiggling.
I don’t talk to many people about it and have the original negative which I used to make an 8x10. The picture is high quality and every-thing plus more makes it quite a conversational piece. Incidentally a Doctor Reines from the State University of New York in Plattsburgh, New York has an 8x10 I’ve sent some twenty years ago. The picture is copyrighted so he didn’t pursue purchasing the photo, at least that’s what I think. At the time of the incident I lived in northern Illinois but now ironically I live in Michigan and only several miles from Lake Superior.
Two summers ago and not far from where I live, now, recreational fisherman observed a large something bite a buck deer in half while it was wading in the water near Sault Ste. Marie. An Indian friend of mine has the newspaper article.
May I also add that seeing these creatures is in Indian legend. Legend has it that Indians observed the creature do the same thing I did, and legend further adds that when it stops in the water sometime gulls mistake it for a log and land on its nose. You can guess what happened to the gull.
Furthermore and finally, people disappear near Presque Isle River occasionally and are never found. It’s attributed to the undertow (???). I don’t swim in any deep water lake anymore and occasionally have nightmares of being consumed by the thing I saw.”
Sources: cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2009/07/pressie-lake-superior-serpent.html, monstertracker.com/article/lake-superior-monster
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“WOMAN IN BLACK” DIRECTOR SEEKS OUT NESSIE
Fairly condescending comment aside (intelligent approach to narrative exists in horror, Mr. Clarke), the notion of a well done Nessie movie is certainly exciting. Duric is best known for his art and storyboard work, and previously collaborated on EDEN LAKE with Watkins.
As some of you may know, “The Loch” written by best-selling author Steve Alten, is the story of a scientist who finds new evidence that leads to answers concerning the monster’s identity.
Hopefully, THE LOCH film proves to be a compelling, worthwhile movie for those of us who take the loch ness mystery seriously :)
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Was it Montana Nessie?
FINLEY POINT May 18, 2012 — After a prolonged absence of Flathead Nessie sightings, the lake’s elusive monster may be out there after all. That’s what Pam Moriarty, her daughter Laura Barthrop and Justin Lagemann are wondering after the trio viewed a strange object swimming against the current about 7:30 p.m., Saturday, May 12.
From the picture windows in Pam cliff top home on the northwest end of Finley Point, they watched for about five minutes as it swam northeasterly away from shore toward the main part of the lake. They were so surprised that Pam briefly forgot her camera was nearby. She rushed to retrieve it and managed to snap a picture, but it was too far away to identify.
Lagemann estimated the object was about 40 or 50 yards off shore when they first noticed it. They watched through binoculars and afterward he sketched how it appeared to him. He thought the critter was at least 25 feet long. The head was not showing as it moved away, but it had a “whale-like tail” and “spiked dorsal fins.”
