Cryptids spotlighted in a text viewed as the foundation of modern zoology

Carl Linnaeus’ parents wanted their son to enter the priesthood, a noble profession in the 18th Century. Linnaeus, like many children, rebuffed his parent’s desires and followed his own interests. In doing so, he created the foundation of modern zoology.

Carl Linnaeus wrote the Systema Naturae, an early attempt to classify life on Earth. Though he was trying to be as scientific as possible, Linnaeus nevertheless included several cryptids, or mythical animals, in his taxonomies of “suspect” animals. This list would later prove doubly interesting as several of the suspect animals are now known to exist.

Carl Linnaeus and Systema Naturae

Linnaeus’ family initially sent him to school to pursue the priesthood, but his studies ventured further and further into botany and medicine. He quickly became a popular lecturer, botanist, and physician.

In time, Linnaeus turned to the systematic classification of the living creatures, forming the foundation of modern zoology by writing and editing the Systema Naturae. Linnaeus also converted the Celsius scale to its modern form along the way.

Swedish by birth, Linnaeus wrote the Systema Naturae in Latin, akin to how modern scientific papers are overwhelmingly written in English regardless of the source country of the authors.

Initially published as a twelve page leaflet in 1735, Carl Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae is a gargantuan attempt to systematically break down and separate the organisms within the animal and plant kingdoms. Linnaeus turned a critical eye to his previous work and boldly made changes, with a superb example coming in the reclassification of whales as mammals and not fish in later editions.

Linnaeus’ greatest achievement, the Systema Naturae separated animals, plants, and minerals into three separate kingdoms. Linnaeus constantly added to the the text, including further classification dividing creatures into class, order, genus and species to make for a five point classification system.

The Animalia Paradoxa

Linnaeus included a variety of animals in the Systema Naturae with questionable data supporting their existence. He deemed these creatures Animalia Paradoxa; populating the list from the reports of explorers, stories passed down through the centuries, and literature.

Among these suspect animals is the hydra, a multi-headed, snake-like creature. The mayor of Hamburg, Germany believed he owned the taxidermied head of a hydra. Upon examination, Linnaeus found the creature to be a fake, featuring the heads of several animals glued and sewn together. The mayor of Hamburg hoped to sell the preserved hydra for a large sum of money, leading Linnaeus to flee the city in fear.

Included in this list of unusual and suspect animals are tiny frogs that revert back to tadpoles and a plant that grows sheep as fruit. Mythological creatures like the phoenix, sirens, dragons, and the Sphinx-like manticore also make Linnaeus’ cut. Several creatures included in the list of Animalia Paradoxa are now known to be real, including the pelican, antelope, the barnacle goose, the death watch beetle, and the narwhal.

The list of Animalia Paradoxa only survived the first five editions of Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae, one of the many edits Linnaeus made to improve the text. The 10th edition is particularly beloved and viewed as the beginning of modern zoological nomenclature. The twelfth edition of System Naturae would be Linnaeus’ last. By the time of its printing, the twelve page leaflet became a two thousand plus page text.

Source Credit(s): io9.com/5931316/cryptids-spotlighted-in-a-text-viewed-as-the-foundation-of-modern-zoology

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Cryptid Cupcakes: Leviathan Sea Monster, Mothman and the Sea Elephant!

Wow, how cool are those?!

Cryptid Chronicles is incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to be reaching so many people interested in cryptozoology and to have a loyal fan base that have embraced it like they have.

I am always amazed at how many awesome folks are so engaged and open to connecting to the community in their own ways. One such super supportive CC fan is Lauren at http://halfbakedart.tumblr.com who had entered our Cryptid Chronicles 1st Annual Cryptid Cupcake Creations Contest with her Leviathan, Mothman and Sea Elephant cupcake creations!

Lauren was very creative in how she went about making these cryptid cupcakes in the spirit of celebrating the field of cryptozoology in a fun and interesting way!

Basing them off these legendary creatures in ways that accented their features and even using melted chocolate/merckens candy melts to shape them!

She based the Leviathan off of this picture:



And even made a shark for it to devour, showing the Leviathan’s immense size!



See more of the Leviathan sea monster cupcake and how she did it http://halfbakedart.tumblr.com/leviathan

For the Mothman cupcake she included eerily large wings:



See more of the Mothman cryptid cupcake and how she did it http://halfbakedart.tumblr.com/mothman

For the Makara aquatic pachyderm, she was sure to borrow from an illustration showing this mythical creature with the head of an elephant:



See more of the mythical sea elephant cupcake and how she did it http://halfbakedart.tumblr.com/seaelephant

I would like to thank Lauren for participating in this contest and contributing to our little community here. These are some fine and delicious looking creations!

Please give Lauren a round of applause for her wonderful work!

Discover more cryptids and mysterious creatures at Cryptid Chronicles and please don’t forget toVote in our Cryptid Tournament to determine Featured Cryptids for Cryptid Chronicles 1st Annual Fan Art Competition in 2013!

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Sydney C. Squidney
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Lusca: Tentacled Sea Monster from the Caribbean - was it Octopus giganteus?

The Bahamian island, Andros, has an array of what the natives call blue holes, formed during the prehistoric Ice Ages. Researchers discovered that they are an immense network of underwater caves, linking Andros’ lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. Divers of these blue holes have described their experiences in many ways ranging from beautiful and fascinating to eerie and haunting. The eerie feeling you get while diving the blue holes might be from the presence of Lusca, the mythical beast of Bahamian legend. Lusca is half-shark, half-octopus. She lurks deep among the waters of the blue holes and inland caverns that are found throughout the Bahama island chain.

Local legend holds that the tidal currents of the inland blue holes are none other than the breath of Lusca. As she breathes in, water pours in strongly enough in some caverns to form a whirlpool, and when she exhales, cold, clear water boils to the surface.



It has been suggested by cryptozoologists that the lusca is actually a gigantic octopus, far larger than the known giant octopuses of the genus Enteroctopus which includes the giant Pacific octopus which can be found in the coastal North Pacific, usually at a depth of around 65 m (215 ft) and has a recorded arm span of up to 4.3 m (14 ft).

One of the first fairly well-documented sightings of an unknown giant octopus occurred around on the evening of November 30 of 1896. Two bicycling boys discovered an enormous light pink mass that had washed up on the beach at St. Augustine, Florida.

When the young men first saw the carcass, it had sunk into the sand because of its immense weight. The next day, Dr. DeWitt Webb, founder of the St. Augustine Historical Society and Institute of Science, arrived on the scene. The skin was of an extremely light pink color with a silvery tint to it. They concluded it weighed roughly five tons and the visible portions were twenty-three feet in length, four feet high, and eighteen feet across the widest part of the back. Webb decided that it was not a whale but instead some kind of octopus.



Over the course of the next few days, Webb and the rest of the party returned and photographed the creature. Also, two drawings based on the snapshots were made by A. Hyatt Verrill, son of Dr. Verrill.

Published in the Pennsylvania Grit, 1897.

For decades, the photographs taken were lost and these drawings were all that existed pictorially of the event. Then, in 1993, some of Dr. Webb’s original photos were discovered / recognized! The photographer Dr. Webb had used, Mr. Van Lockwood, had compiled an album of photos he had taken from 1885 to 1899. Upon Lockwood’s death, he had bequeathed the album containing the photos to the St. Augustine Historical Society and Institute of Science. Somehow decades later this album was discovered / recognized while in the possession of Mrs. Marjorie Blakoner, of California. Here they are:

Panoramic view of the crowd of some 50 persons, who had come by foot, bicycle, horse, or car, to see the “Florida monster”.

Two horses and a harness, on the left side; to the center is the carcass, a domed mass, with a cable around it’s middle and a post on it’s left. On the right are 3 other men, of which the first one is Dr. Webb.

One assistant reportedly found fragments of arms while digging in the sand nearby. He was unfortunately alone at the time so his statement is uncorroborated. Evidently, it was attacked while still in the sea and had been dismembered before the carcass washed to shore. Soon afterwards, a storm dragged it out to sea where it again washed ashore two miles to the south of its original position.

It was then that Webb sent several letters describing the carcass to scientists. Professor Verrill of Yale read one of them. Verrill, a zoologist, was recognized for his work on cephalopods, especially giant squid. In a note in the American Journal of Science, published January 1897, he concluded the animal was a giant squid, not an octopus, but much larger that the Newfoundland specimens he had examined. Webb then forwarded more photographs and information to Verrill, who changed his theory to an octopus. He wrote more notes to the American Journal of Science describing the new giant octopus. He concluded the specimen’s tentacles to be approximately seventy-five to one hundred feet long by eighteen inches at the base. He then designated the new creature Octopus giganteous verrill, after himself.

It would be into the second week of January that the work on the specimen would continue. The carcass had been washed out to see again resulting in further losses of body parts and mutilation of the carcass. He reported to both Verrill and Professor William Healy Dall, curator of mollusks at the National Museum in Washington DC, now called the Smithsonian, by letter. In spite of this, neither Verrill nor Dall made any effort to investigate the carcass for themselves nor were they willing to provide the time and money to properly preserve the animal.

Using teams of horses and the efforts of local citizens and companies, Webb was able to move the carcass further up the beach. This protected the remains from being permanently washed out to sea where they would have been lost forever. He then prepared specimens for Verrill and Dall. They were both taken from the mantle of the creature and preserved in formaldehyde. This would turn out to be the only hard evidence to future scientists to study. Webb was, however, interested in preserving the whole carcass and preservatives were forwarded.

Verrill received Webb’s preserved specimen on February 23 and wrote letters of reaction that were published in Science on March 5, 1897, and in the Herald on the seventh. He described the samples visually and concluded they could not be octopus tissue because they resembled the blubber found in some crustaceans, despite the fact that little oil was found in them. Professor Frederic Augustus Lucas, of the National Museum, also examined the specimens and stated “the substance looks like blubber, and smells like blubber, and it is blubber, nothing more nor less.”

Verrill finally concluded, after further examination of the tissues, that the bag-like section of the carcass was most likely the upper head and nose of a sperm whale. In the issues of the American Journal of Science and the American Naturalist for April, he does not try to make the objections and problems with his sperm whale theory less obvious. He pointed out that other zoologists that examined the carcass still believe it is an unknown cephalopod related to the octopus.

No work was done on the specimen until 1957 when Dr. Forrest Glenn Wood became interested and involved Dr. Joseph F. Gennaro Jr. Dr. Wood was a specialist in biology for the Naval Undersea Research and Development Laboratory of San Diego (California), and was reviewing the archives of the Marineland Research Laboratory (Florida) in support of its research on octopi.

This lead to a long research effort uncovering all of the published accounts of the event, many of which made mention of specimens being sent to the Smithsonian. Wood was unsuccessful in getting the Smithsonian to cooperate, so the more influential Gennaro made a trip to the Smithsonian to collect the specimen and wrote:

There by the sink was a glass container about the size of a milk can. Inside it was a murky mixture of cheesecloth, formalin (and I think some alcohol), and half a dozen large white masses of tough fibrous material, each about as large as a good sized roast. We lifted them up with the cheesecloth, then took them out with forceps.

He noted that the material corresponded to Webb’s description. He was allowed to remove what he wanted with a dissecting knife with replaceable blades. The two pieces he removed were wrapped in cheesecloth, placed in a jar, and transported by himself to his laboratory.

Initial examination proved disappointing. There were no features such as suckers, identifiable skin structures, or muscular masses. He then viewed them through a microscope along with control specimen samples of known octopus and squid. He was disappointed to find no cellular fine structure. He expected highly differentiated cells of a mammal if it was from a whale or structures typical of a squid or octopus. Then he viewed his control samples. They also revealed little if any cellular structure. Differences of connective tissues were more striking. Octopus tissue was different from squid tissue and neither could be mistaken for mammalian tissue.

Using polarized light, Gennaro decide to compare connective tissues. His findings were as follows:

Now differences between the contemporary squid and octopus samples became very clear. In the octopus, broad bands of fibers passed along the plane of tissue and were separated by equally broad bands arranged in a perpendicular direction. In the squid there were narrower, but also relatively broad, bundles arranged in planes of the section, separated by thin partitions of perpendicular fibers….

It seemed I had found the means to identify the mystery sample after all. I could distinguish between octopus and squid, and between them and mammals, which display a lacy network of connective tissue fibers….

After seventy-five years, the moment of truth was at hand. Viewing section after section of the St. Augustine sample, we decided at once and beyond any doubt, that the sample was not whale blubber. Further, the connective tissue pattern was that of broad bands in the plane of the section with equally broad bands arranged perpendicularly, a structure similar to, if not identical with, that in my octopus sample….

The evidence appears unmistakable that the St. Augustine sea monster was in fact an octopus, but the implications are fantastic.

To Be Continued on Cryptid Chronicles!
Please check back for the conclusion to this post!

Source Credit(s): suite101.com/article/lusca-st-augustine-and-bahamian-cryptid-a364121, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusca, staynehoff.net/giant_octopus.htm

Cryptid Chronicles readers, what do YOU think??

Please post your comments!

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The Blue Men of the Minch

Scottish folklore tells of a tribe of supernatural sea creatures called the Blue Men of the Minch, who used to inhabit the stretch of water known as the Minch, between Lewis, the Shiant Islands and Long Island in the Hebrides part of Scotland.

They were humanoid in appearance with blue skin, kinned with mermen they would swim alongside ships passing the Sound of Shiant in an attempt to lure sailors into the water, and conjure storms to wreck ships. According to lore, they lived in deep underwater caves in a clan system ruled over by a chief. Like many supernatural creatures they could be beaten with a cunning tongue, and by making sure you got the last word in a rhyme. Many a sea captain is said to have escaped sure disaster with the sharpness of his tongue, and his skill in riddles.

There are a few theories about the Blue Men’s (also known as storm kelpies) origins, it has been suggested that they were fallen angels, and on a more historical note, a folk memory of Moorish slaves marooned in Ireland in the 9th Century by Viking pirates and slave traders.

From legend, they appear to be human but their skins are glossy and blue (gorm). Their faces are long and gray (glas) and their hair and “beards” are curly and green. Their eyes are small, their noses flat and their mouths are large. Their arms are long and their legs are but fish-tails. They are the size of full grown men and they are very, very strong.

It is natural that the  Inner and Outer Hebrides seas are a source for many of the Hebridean myths and legends because they are a part of Scotland which has always relied on the surrounding sea to sustain the small communities which have occupied parts of the islands for centuries.



But as with many folklore tales, our ancestors wrapped their truths in legend and therefore, myths are the starting place to explore valuable information and try to set the reality distinct from the rumour as so to credit it. So, what could the Blue Men of the Minch be from a cryptozoological angle?

If we are to believe they are kin to merfolk, then we must acknowledge the several different scientific theories that have been put forth to explain mermaids and mermen.

One idea is that merfolk are animals. They might be some variety of undiscovered fish that has a top half that simply looks human, or they might be a variety of primate that evolved to a half-aquatic lifestyle as previously discussed on this blog. Unfortunately, not much evidence has come forth to support either idea. If merfolk exist and are animals, they must be incredibly rare, for science has never managed to get a dead body despite the fact that merfolk are supposed to love hanging about near shore, where capture should be easy and bodies would probably wash onto the beach.

Another idea holds more promise, but strays outside the normal confines of cryptozoology. According to this idea, merfolk are actually intelligent aliens. This idea is supported by the earliest merfolk legends, which describe semi-aquatic “gods” that came from the stars. If this idea were true, merfolk would be the descendants of these ancient aliens, perhaps ones that had been genetically modified to make them look more human and thus get along better with their human subjects. At some point, the set-up for playing gods collapsed and these remnants were stranded here to live out their lives apart from humans. This would explain why we don’t capture mermaids or find bodies, because an intelligent race, unlike animals, would have the ability to prevent such occurences. Unfortunately, even though this idea makes for an attractive story, it doesn’t have much going for it other than some really old legends.

Other explanations lean more towards the supernatural and, thus, are of less interest to cryptozoologists. Mermaids are explained as spirits of the water, as shapeshifters, as a subcategory of fairies, even as a type of demon.

In the other direction, cryptozoologists sometimes decide to classify other weird humanoids as merfolk, in order to continue their investigations into merfolk without seeming so much as if they are researching a fairy-tale creature. These researchers have lumped together a number of weird creatures under the heading of “merfolk” such as chupacabras and various lizardmen, frogmen and things that look like the (fictional) Creature from the Black Lagoon (this movie was based on legends of the South American “gillman”). Then, these cryptozoologists say that merfolk legends and sightings are actually based on sightings of these other cryptids, or that these other cryptids have been out-competing the more stereotypical merfolk and thus replacing them. In this view, the idea of aquatic primates once again surfaces, in the form of speculations on the Sea-Ape (a cryptid from the Bering Sea, near Alaska) and hypothetical relatives of the potto (a very weird, but real, lemur).

In addition to the various speculations in cryptozoology as to whether mermaid reports might represent a new species of some sort, there is another connection between mermaids and cryptozoology. Some reports of mermaids link them to sea serpents and lake monsters. There are several ways this link can be formed. Firstly, there are legends about mermaids and other water spirits commanding sea monsters and lake monsters. Secondly, a few mermaids are reported to have extra-long tails, like sea serpents, instead of a fishy tail. Thirdly, a few rare mermaids are supposed to be shapeshifters who alternate between a mermaid form and one that resembles a sea serpent. For example, Morag, the legendary monster of Loch Morar, is said to appear in one of two forms. One is a beautiful blond mermaid, the other is a many-humped monster resembling Nessie. According to local lore, Morag appears in her monster form when someone is about to die.

Even if we never discover what the Blue Men really were or how these legends got started, one thing is for certain, their mythical stories will continue to intrigue researchers and believers alike for many years to come.

Source(s): mysteriousbritain.co.uk/scotland/western-isles/folklore/the-blue-men-of-the-minch.html, celticqueens.blogspot.com/2011/02/blue-men-of-minch.html, newanimal.org/merfolk.htm, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebridean_mythology_and_folklore

Cryptid Chronicles readers, what do YOU think??

Discover more cryptids and mysterious creatures at Cryptid Chronicles and let us know what Cryptid you most believe in/find plausible!!

If you enjoyed this article please comment, Like ❤ and share! Thank you!

Your Chronicler,
Sydney C. Squidney

Hunting the (other) loch monster in Morar, Scotland

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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