Lake Pepin's rumored creature may be folklore come to life

[I feel I need to reiterate that "Lake Pepin" is only an enlargement of the Mississippi River and so we are really talking about the Mississippi River Monster, and there are a lot more sightings and even more photos from other locations.-DD]

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/267579381.html?page=all&prepage=3&c=y#continue

Lake Pepin's rumored creature may be folklore come to life

Article by: KIM ODE , Star Tribune      Updated: July 21, 2014 - 11:39 AM  

            

The centuries-old legend of a lake creature is alive today thanks to a handful of folks who are driven by scholarship, obsession and the irresistible mystery.

 

About JW Player 6.7.4071 (Ads edition)

There it … there it is! Over by that fishing boat. No, there! Omigosh, they don’t see it! They must think it’s a log.

Unless it is a log.

Or a catfish. Or an otter. Or a boat wake.

But it also could be a sea serpent. (It could be.)

For hundreds of years, people have glanced across the glistening waters of Lake Pepin, where the Mississippi River widens to a basin as long and wide as Scotland’s famous Loch Ness (the same size!), and seen … something.

Most often, the sight turns out to be a dead tree hung up on a sandbar, or a huge sturgeon breaking the surface, or the wake of a boat unfurling toward shore.

But not always. (Maybe.)

“I firmly believe there was something at one time,” said Jil Garry, who owns Treats and Treasures in Lake City, Minn., a town of 5,000 on Lake Pepin.

Garry sells T-shirts, bibs, mugs and candy depicting a friendly Pepie, which is what everyone calls the (possible) creature. “There were those accounts of French explorers and the newspaper stories,” she said, then shrugged. “But now?”

Larry Nielson, who plies the lake daily offering tourists excursions on his sparkling paddlewheeler, Pearl of the Lake, doesn’t know, either. A few years ago, he offered a $50,000 reward to anyone providing “undisputable evidence that proves the existence of the real live creature living in Lake Pepin,” according to www.pepie.net.

So far, there hasn’t been a single claim, although he added, half-laughing, that “my wife’s always worried.” No question, the reward is a publicity stunt (and has reeled in some national press) but Nielson also would like some proof because, well, he’s seen “things I can’t explain.”

Such as 11 years ago, on a calm lake, midweek with few boats out, he saw “this wake 200-some feet long and 2 feet high going upstream.” (Upstream!)

Then in 2009, he saw a log in the water — he knew it was a log; it looked just like a log — but then it began moving against the current (against the current!) before slipping out of sight.

Is Pepie real?

“I don’t know,” Nielson said, hands on the spokes of the Pearl’s big wheel. “That’s for you to make up your mind.”

 

From “Sacré bleu!” to “What the – ?!”

 

When Father Louis Hennepin explored this region for France in the late 1600s, he reported seeing “a huge serpent as big as a man’s leg and seven or eight feet long” where the Minnesota River flows into the Mississippi. In those days, the river ran unimpeded from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico — and, in turn, was open from the ocean to Minnesota.

Indians used only strong dugout canoes on the lake, given legends of something large enough to swamp a birchbark boat. Ancient effigy mounds in the region appear to depict huge serpents. Still, we can’t know if they reflect sightings, creation myths or something else entirely, said Chad Lewis, a Minneapolis man who’s written “Pepie, the Lake Monster of the Mississippi River” and maintains www.chadlewisresearch.com.

The first known newspaper account in August 1867 was from river rafters from St. Louis, Mo., who reported seeing a large, unknown creature in the water. A more vivid account appeared four years later in the Wabasha County Sentinel, describing “a marine monster between the size of an elephant and rhinoceros,” moving “with great rapidity.”

Four years later, another newspaper described a “dark, strange-looking object” that rose 6 feet out of the water. Another newspaper noted that a huge eel later was caught.

Sightings have continued over the years, with Nielson, the Pearl’s captain, considering 15 to have some degree of credibility, in that they can’t easily be explained away.

Local lore even claims that one moonlit night in 1922, a young man named Ralph Samuelson saw a creature gliding across Lake Pepin and thought, “If a large aquatic creature can skim across the water’s surface, why can’t I?” A few months later, he invented the sport of water skiing.

Except for the fact that Samuelson did invent water skiing, and Lake City is known as “the birthplace of water skiing,” this is almost certainly not true.

Plans are being made for the first Pepie Festival in September, which promises to be the most family-friendly of events.

“When Larry Nielson brought Pepie back to life, some were afraid that people would think we’re dumb, or they’d be scared to go in the water,” said Garry, the shopkeeper. “But we see Pepie as a shy creature. Like we say, if you haven’t seen it, it’s not going to bite you.”

 

Wait a … wait a minute. Over there, by the far shore, do you think it … um, never mind.

 

Twenty years ago, Chad Lewis was pursuing a master’s degree in psychology, driven by two questions: What makes people believe in the weird and unusual? And what makes people not believe?

He had ample reason to ponder those questions, growing up near Elmwood, one of three Wisconsin towns (along with Campbellsport and Belleville) that claim to be the UFO capital of the world. But he also had ample reason to earn a living and so became a grant writer, pursuing folklore on the side, writing books and giving lectures.

Those books and lectures proved so popular, though, that he became a full-time folklorist, traveling the world collecting legends and accounts of curious experiences. (It may not hurt that he looks just like actor Sean Penn. Just. Like.)

So, what makes someone believe in the weird and unusual? “Personal experience,” he said, or knowing someone who had a personal experience.

But what intrigues Lewis even more is research suggesting that “the more educated people are, even while they may not believe in something, the more likely they are to believe in the possibility of these things,” he said. In other words, the more we know, the more aware we are of what we don’t know.

He’s always taken a 50-50 stance about the existence of legends, a position he calls “simple, safe and accurate.”

So he was a little stunned a few years ago when, to the usual question about Pepie, he blurted that he was tipping toward 75 percent that something unidentified is in Lake Pepin. What, he doesn’t know.

“But there’s something that’s big, and real.”

 

It’s a sturgeon. (It’s always a sturgeon.) Until it isn’t.

 

So what exactly is in the lake, apart from the large- and smallmouth bass, walleye, sauger, black crappie, sturgeon, northern pike, bluegill and yellow perch?

Does it migrate? What does it eat? Does it need to pop up and breathe, or is it a bottom-dweller?

Is it some form of ancient pleiosaur? A large eel?

Is it an alligator gar, which can be 8 to 10 feet long and weigh 300 pounds? Did we mention a gar’s broad snout and double row of sharp teeth? (Did we mention that whether or not such a fish accounts for Pepie, alligator gars really do live in the lake?)

Finally, sightings over centuries speak to reproduction, which means there has to be more than one.

Right?

“I love that we haven’t explained this,” Lewis said. “But it’s funny how we need to believe something is out there.” Today, Lewis said he has more questions than answers, which is OK with him.

“The legends, for me, provide the opportunity to have an adventure,” he said, a motivation that he urges others to adopt. While looking for Pepie, or Bigfoot, or a UFO or a ghost — or just an unfamiliar horizon — you may find yourself in a new place, learning new things and moving just far enough out of your comfort zone to discover a fresh context for your life.

Or, as Nielson said, at the very least, you can have a lovely day on a beautiful lake

The Photos of (Not) the Lake Superior Monster

While doing my usual cruising on Facebook this morning I came upon the Lake Monsters page. On that page I saw something which I thought was pretty remarkable, a set of Lake Monster photos which struck me as being possibly genuine. These were the photos, probably the same photo reprinted several times:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-Monsters/537100722991730

And I found that these were supposedly photos of the Lake Superior monster and a reference link given to a source about the Lake Superior monster. The source did not mention this photo and I mentioned that part too. "This is one of many photographs taken in the 90s by the Us navy.They estimated the creature's length about 15 m [approx. 45-50 feet long] long,with a long tail," was the first part of the reply, "These photographs appeared in either SIGHTINGS or UNSOLVED MYSTERIES.I don't remember which, but they showed an amateur footage of the same creature on the surface." was the second half of the reply which came later.

As it turned out, both the mentioned photographs actually came from a different lake, Lake Pepin.
http://www.lakecitymn.org/about/pepie.html
With the contrast turned up a great deal higher

courier_wedge_dec__3_1987

Anonymous photo, pepie_swimming_below_maiden_rock 2008-06-20

Something swimming on the Lake between Central Point and Maiden Rock. Submitted by local fishermen  Al Knudson, DVM and Steve Raymond

The legend of Pepie

Lake Pepin is the largest lake on the Mississippi River, over two miles wide and 22 miles long. It forms the natural border between Minnesota and Wisconsin and is located about 60 miles south of the Twin Cities. Surrounded by scenic bluffs and quaint villages, Lake Pepin is widely described as one of the most scenic spots in North America!

The native Dakota people that lived in the area refused to travel on Lake Pepin in bark canoes because of the large "creatures" that would rise from the depths of the Lake and puncture the thin bark skin of those canoes. They would only travel on Lake Pepin in more stout dugout canoes that were made by hollowing out a large log.

On April 28, 1871 "a lake monster is seen swimming in Lake Pepin" (Minnesota Almanac, published by the MN Historical Society). Since then, many people have reported sightings of an unidentified creature surfacing from the depths of Lake Pepin. The locals have given this shy and elusive creature a name; Pepie.

Over the years the question persist, what is Pepie? Because Lake Pepin is almost identical in size and geography to Scotland's Loch Ness (which is 23 miles long and 1.5 miles wide), many people feel that Pepie is a relative of the famous Loch Ness creature dubbed Nessie.

Still others feel that the sightings might be surfacing schools of the huge game fish that are so abundant in the Lake

http://www.pepie.net/PepiesHome_Page.php

The legend of PepieLake Pepin is the largest lake on the Mississippi River, over two miles wide and 22 miles long. It forms the natural border between Minnesota and Wisconsin and is located about 60 miles south of the Twin Cities.   Surrounded by scenic bluffs and quaint villages, Lake Pepin is widely described as one of the most scenic spots in North America!

The native Dakota people that lived in the area refused to travel on Lake Pepin in bark canoes because of the large "creatures" that would rise from the depths of the Lake and puncture the thin bark skin of those canoes.  They would only travel on Lake Pepin in more stout dugout canoes that were made by hollowing out a large log.

On April 28, 1871   "a lake monster is seen swimming in Lake Pepin"  (Minnesota Almanac, published by the MN  Historical Society).  Since then,  many people have reported sightings of an unidentified creature surfacing from the depths of Lake Pepin. The locals have given this shy and elusive creature a name; Pepie.  Over the years the question persist, what is Pepie?  Because Lake Pepin is almost identical in size and geography to Scotland's Loch Ness (which is 23 miles long and 1.5 miles wide), many people feel that Pepie is a relative of the famous  Loch Ness creature dubbed Nessie.

Still others feel that the sightings might be surfacing schools of the huge game fish that are so abundant in the Lake.  

In an effort to solve the puzzle, we have posted a $50,000 reward for indisputable proof of Pepies existence.  Click on "News" for the details. 

An editor on the site added this message: Note; There are only three known [bona fide Plesiosaurian] Lake Monsters in existence today, Champ in Lake Champlain, Nessie in Loch Ness, and Pepie in  Lake Pepin.  -- M.F.A.

Lake Pepin is actually the widest part of the Mississippi River and very plausibly the creature in it could be the last refuge of "The Great Serpent of the Mississippi River (Said to be shaped like a Plesiosaur in some of the older accounts) that once roamed the whole length of the river and which was once important in Native American lore.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Pepin

The 50000 dollar reward was mentioned once before on this blog. This is the original source for that story:
http://www.wisconsinosity.com/Pepin/articles/Pepie/wcco/lake_pepin_sea_monster__capture_.htm

http://cryptidchronicles.tumblr.com/post/26501197906/pressie-the-lake-superior-sea-serpent

http://voices.yahoo.com/pressie-lake-superiors-own-monster-6762668.html?cat=58

[One of the Lake Superior reports also specified a Puckwudgie creature on two legs and five feet tall]

"Missi", the Mississippi River Monster, at the level of Tennessee, from Flickr (During WWII reports referred to "Submarines" with "Periscopes". "Missi" is the proper regular name for the creature anywhere along the lenth of the River, and several reports at New Orleans state it is the same creature seen there as at the River's source)
[NB, I have no confidence in this photo as representing the Mississippi River Serpent, unfortunately]

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/world-largest-roadside-attractions-gallery-1.39761
The Serpent of Serpent Lake (Not only meant to represent this lake, this represents all of such creatures in the area generally. Serpent Lake runs into the Mississippi) There is a photo said to represent the monster of Serpent lake in circulation but it might be only a copy of the Lake Pepin monster photograph shown above. The statue represents a monster thirty feet in length.

 

The creatures are said to run generally 30-50 feet long (A minority of reports, mostly older ones, say 60-75 feet) with a horse-sized snakelike head, a 15-foot neck a foot thick and a spiny crest down the middle of its neck and back. It can be either green or brown, but running to black in either case. Fore-flippers are sometimes noted at the base of the neck, as in this case. Although scales are shown on this statue, they are not generally known as a feature of the reports.

Several early reports from Wisconsin (eg, Rocky of Rock lake) also come from tributaries of the Mississippi river. And several large lakes at the source of the Mississippi (eg, Leech Lake, etc) have historical records of such reports: Serpent Lake is in the area of the sources for the Mississippi.

George Eberhart, Mysterious Creatures (2002), Water Monsters Appendix

Minnesota
Big Sandy Lake. Chris Engstein fired at a horned monster in August 1886. Charles Fort, The Books of Charles Fort (New York: Henry Holt, 1941), p. 615.
Leech Lake. John Aldrich and Skip Christman were using a fish-finder in September 1976 when they detected two 60-foot targets at a depth of around 100 feet. Minneapolis Star, October 1, 1976; Betty Sanders Garner, Monster! Monster! (Blaine, Wash.: Hancock House, 1995), pp. 88–89
[Both these lakes are near the source of the Mississippi. Eberhart seems not to know of Pepie-DD]

Wisconsin
Devil’s Lake.
Two huge serpents with finlike paddles were allegedly seen fighting in August 1889. “Western Lake Resorts Have Each a Water Monster,” Chicago Tribune, July 24, 1892.

"[W]hen the first Christian missionaries arrived on the shores of Devil’s Lake they were greeted by the Nakota tribe who told them about yet another creature that was revealed in the year of the great drought.
The Natkota’s remained near the swiftly drying lake, not only because it was the only water source for miles, but also because the animals upon which they fed were forced to expose themselves in order to drink, providing the tribe with an ample — and relatively simple to hunt — food source. As the summer progressed the lake grew smaller and smaller, until it eventually became two lakes, separated only by a shallow strip of mud, which ran through the center.
One morning the Nakota’s awoke to find what they described as a huge, fish-like creature, which they referred to as “Hokuwa,” trapped on the narrow, muddy strip of exposed lake bed.
The tribe watched as the apparently amphibious animal — which they described as having a large body, long neck and small head much like other prototypical LAKE MONSTERS such as CHAMP or the LOCH NESS MONSTER — thrashed and writhed in an effort to free itself from its drying perch for days.
The sight filled the Nakota with both awe and terror and not even the bravest warrior dared to approach the creature, which they believed it to be an Unktizina — the vile progeny of the evil spirit Unk and the lizard beast known as UNKCEGI — for fear that the spirit’s wrath would bring on even greater hardships than just the drought. Eventually the animal was able to free itself and (presumably) make its way back into the deeper portion of the lake."
American Monsters
http://www.americanmonsters.com/site/2010/10/devils-lake-monsters-wisconsin-usa/

Elkhart Lake. An animal with large jaws was seen in the 1890s. Charles E. Brown, Sea Serpents Wisconsin Occurrences of These Weird Water Monsters (Madison: Wisconsin Folklore Society, 1942).
Lake Mendota. See BOZHO.
Freshwater Monster of Wisconsin.
Etymology: Potawatomi (Algonquin)... May be a shortened form of the name of the Algonquian trickster figure Manabozho.[ie, "Supernatural"?] Physical description: Serpentine. Long head and neck. Large eyes. Long tongue. Distribution: Lake Mendota, Wisconsin. Significant sightings: On June 27, 1883, Billy Dunn and his wife encountered a huge, green snake with light spots that had to be beaten back from their rowboat with an oar and a hatchet. In the autumn of 1917, a fisherman saw a head and neck 100 feet off Picnic Point. Sources: “A True Snake Story,” Madison Wisconsin State Journal, June 28, 1883; “Western Lake Resorts Have Each a Water Monster ,” Chicago Tribune, July 24, 1892; Char les E. Br own, Sea Serpents: Wisconsin Occurrences of These Weird Water Monsters (Madison: Wisconsin Folklore Society, 1942).
Mississippi River. The Menomini Indians warned Jacques Marquette in 1673 that the river was filled with monsters, some like enormous trees, others with tigerlike heads. Jacques Marquette, Récit des voyages et des decouvertes du R. père Jacques Marquette de la Compagnie de Jesus (Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons, 1855).
Lake Monona. Eugene Heath took several shots at a 20-foot-long animal on the evening of June 11, 1897. “What-Is-It in Lake,” Madison Wisconsin State Journal, June 12, 1897; Charles E. Brown, Sea Serpents: Wisconsin Occurrences of These Weird Water Monsters (Madison: Wisconsin Folklore Society, 1942).
Pewaukee Lake. There were several sightings of a monster in the 1890s. Charles E. Brown, Sea Serpents: Wisconsin Occurrences of These Weird Water Monsters (Madison: Wisconsin Folklore Society, 1942). Red Cedar Lake. A 50-foot animal was seen by a fisherman in 1891. Charles E. Brown, Sea Serpents: Wisconsin Occurrences of These Weird Water Monsters (Madison: Wisconsin Folklore Society, 1942). Lake Ripley. Serpentine animal. Betty Sanders Garner, Monster! Monster! (Blaine, Wash.: Hancock House, 1995), p. 181.
Rock Lake. See ROCKY.
Freshwater Monster of Wisconsin. Etymology: After the lake. Physical description: Spotted dark brown, like a pickerel. Horselike head. Eyes like a snake’s. Long neck. Distribution: Rock Lake, Wisconsin. Significant sightings: The earliest sighting was in 1867. On August 28, 1882 (or 1887), Ed McKenzie and D. W. Seybert were in a rowboat race on the lake when they spotted a floating log that turned out to be the head and neck of an animal. The creature was as long as their boat and the color of a pickerel(Pike, spotted green and brown, and Costello says the head reared up out of the water in front of the witnesses). Sources: Charles E. Brown, Sea Serpents: Wisconsin Occurrences of These Weird Water Monsters (Madison: Wisconsin Folklore Society, 1942); Mary M. Wilson, A History of Lake Mills: Creating a Society (Milwaukee, Wis.: Mary M. Wilson, 1983), pp. 521–522; Frank Joseph, The Lost Pyramids of Rock Lake (St. Paul, Minn.: Galde, 1992), pp. 89–95.

Lake Waubesa. A dark-green animal, 60–70 feet long, was seen around 1900. Charles E. Brown, Sea Serpents: Wisconsin Occurrences of These Weird Water Monsters (Madison: Wisconsin Folklore Society, 1942).
see also http://www.atthecreation.com/wis.monsters/deep.html

Hoax Postcard of unknown date, said to come from New Orleans area

"Minnie", a travelling mockup of the "Loch Ness Monster" type, was making the news a while back:
http://www.bringmethenews.com/2013/06/07/minnesotas-answer-to-loch-ness-monster-resurfaces-at-lake-nokomis/
And currently the mockup is on permanent display on Lake Nokomis.

Minne-the-Lake-Monster-photo-Facebook-com-LakeMonster

Recently a similar-appearing cement mockup was erected upriver of New Orleans but authorities wanted it removed since it was in violation of local ordinances.

If nothing else all of this shows a continuing public awareness of the Mississippi River Plesiosaur-shaped water monster, which according to John Keel was known as far back as colonial times and even to the "Mound builders" before them, who represented it in artworks always as being of the Plesiosaurian type.(This was mentioned in his regular column "Mysteries of Tiome And Space" along with a mention of Harold T. Wilkins' sighting of two green Plesiosaurs in a creek in Cornwall, in a book also by that title.)

More Mississippi Monsters:

http://kurtisscaletta.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/the-mississippi-river-monster-of-1877/
December 1, 2011 by Kurtis

The Mississippi River Monster of 1877

A great many able monsters have been seen by sea captains in different states of gin, but the fresh-water monster which is at present infesting the waters of the Mississippi surpasses the ablest of them. (The New York Times, September 7, 1877)

A handful of stories in the fall of 1877 concern a sea monster in the Mississippi River. The monster is described as being 65 feet long, with the body of a snake, the head of a dog, and a ten-foot tusk-like bill. It has six legs and the mane of a horse. You can find the stories here, and they’re all quite enjoyable for their descriptions, style, and quality of evidence. I particularly like the one where the reporter avers the certainty of the monster’s existence because it was witnessed by a Methodist minister.

What the monster needs is a name. What would you call this pelican-billed dogsnakehorsefish?

 

[The illustration which goes with this article is entirely fanciful]

 

Since the head of this creature was compared to a dog or a seal although many times larger, because it had a "horn" on its snout and because it had large webbed feet 14 inches across, I suspect this series of reports was once again inspired by an errant Elephant Seal, the whole scenario sounding very much like Roy Mackal's version of the White Lake Monster. The tail is not reported as such and is imaginary, likely the extra pair of limbs also.

 

http://www.unmuseum.org/whiteriv.htm White River Monster Elephant Seal

Posted on the Cryptomundo site by way of Jerome Clark is this account of what may actually have been a Mishipizhw or Water-Panther (American Master-Otter) since there is a mention of a long tail and "sawteeth", although the reference is obscure. It was ten feet long and 500 pounds, quite reasonable enough dimensions:

A Terrible Fish Story

A strange monster was captured recently [during May] in the [Missouri] river opposite Canton, by some fishermen, in their seine, while dragging for fish. We know not what to call it, or what it looks like, or how to describe it, for it is unlike any creature of earth, air or water, that we have ever seen. It is not a fish, nor is it an alligator, or crocodile, or a turtle, but resembles the pictures we have often seen in books of the mythical dragon. It is a hideous looking and apparently savage monster – the last remnant of a past age. It has a huge, slimy, scaly body, short, strong legs, immense claws, long, serpent-like tail and sharp teeth, set in, like those of a saw. It chaws up ravenously everything with which it comes in contact, but seems loth [sic] to leave the water even in quest of food, and can only be seen where drawn out by the chain with which it is made fast. We should judge it to be ten feet in length, and it weighs probably 500 pounds. When provoked, it makes a roaring noise similar to a sea lion. The parties having it in charge are having a large tub or tank for it, and they intend to take it to Quincy [Illinois] and St. Louis for exhibition. They have refused a thousand dollars for it.

 – Lagrange (Mo.) American.South Side Signal, Babylon, New York, May 14, 1870

“There is, of course, not the remotest possibility that this story is true, but it’s a great yarn anyway.” – Jerome Clark

 

 

Oh and along the way during this search there was a reconstruction of the "Big Blue" catfish under the title "The Legend  of Old Blue"

 

 

http://www.combat-fishing.com/taleofthebigcatfish.html

Alkali Lake Monster and Hall's Horrors

About the time Ivan Sanderson died, there was an article in PURSUIT by Mark A. Hall entitled "HORRORS From the Mesozoic" which touched on two distinct matters actually: the Alkali Lake Monster reported in Nebraska and the Great Horned Alligator mentioned much more vaguely as centered around Texas. The latter is both the more definite Cryptid and more spectacular, but the Alkali Lake monster became a point of confiusion by being better-documented and better-described, with a similar overall description. It was however almost certainly a hoax from the beginning.

From North American Monsters:

ALKALI MONSTER: (NEBRASKA, USA)

0 Comments 06 January 2010

This gargantuan, mono-horned, foul smelling, reptilian beast is reputed to lurk in the depths of Nebraska’s famed Alkali Lake, devouring all who come near it.

Located in central Nebraska, Walgren Lake (formerly known as Alkali Lake) is an eroded volcanic outcropping that is reputed to be the nesting place of one of the most unusual LAKE MONSTERS ever recorded and, if the legends are true, the habitat of the only aquatic monster ever reported in the state of Nebraska.
Originally chronicled in Native American folklore, this creature has been described as a gargantuan alligator-like beast with some unique attributes. Eyewitnesses claim that the beast is approximately 40-feet long, with rough, grayish-brown skin and a horny outgrowth located between its eyes and nostrils.

The first confirmed report of this curious monstrosity comes to us from the Omaha World Herald, dated 1923. In this report, a man named J.A. Johnson claimed that he and two friends had seen the creature while camping on the shores of Lake Alkali. Viewing the creature from a distance of a mere 60-feet, their testimony confirms that the animal’s features did resemble those of an alligator – complete with a rhinoceros-like horn – but that the creature in question was much longer and heavier than any traditional specimen of “Alligatoridae.” According to Johnson’s own account:
“I saw the monster myself while with two friends last fall. I could name forty other people who have also seen the brute.” Johnson went on to state that this creature had been responsible for local livestock losses.
The trio also claimed that as soon as the animal noticed their presence on shore, it emitted a “dreadful roar” and began to thrash its tail – creating a massive splash – before disappearing beneath the lake’s churning surface.
The American Monsters research team could uncover no modern encounters with this beast, which remains one of the most fascinating lake monsters in the continental United States.

http://www.americanmonsters.com/site/2010/01/alkali-monster-nebraska-usa/

A much-repeated description found on the internet follows:

The Alkali Lake, known now as Walgren Lake, is an 80 to 100 acre body of water located in the Sandhills area of Northwestern Nebraska. The lake is also the reputed home of the Alkali Lake Monster which is described as a 40 foot long alligator like creature with rough, grayish brown skin and a horn like appendage located between its eyes and nostrils. Reports of the Alkali Lake Monster started in August of 1921, and the first written account of the monster appeared in a 1922 printing of the Hay Springs News.

A second written report appeared in a 1923 printing of the Omaha World Herald. According to this report a name named J.A. Johnson claimed that he and two friends saw the creature while camping on the shores of Alkali Lake. The three men reported that they saw the creature from a distance of 60 feet and stated that it looked a lot like an alligator, complete with a rhinoceros like horn. They claimed that when the creature noticed them it began to violently thrash its tail and disappeared beneath the churning surface

See the original news report here dated 1923 July 24^th :

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19230724&id=uKkLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=21QDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3974,1214487

Some researchers of the Alkali Lake Monster have suggested evidence that the creature was nothing more than a hoax. They state that at the time stories of the creature first appeared the Hay Springs News employed a man by the name of John G. Maher, who reportedly had a flair for tall tales and hoaxes. One such trick he and his accomplices perpetuated was the planting of a concrete cast in the local badlands where it was later “discovered” and named petrified man.

Maher was a corresponding reporter for many newspapers at the time some of which where ran by editors who where only interested in boosting circulation by printing sensational stories [This was commonly known as "Yellow Journalism"-DD]. As a contributing reporter for many newspapers Maher was only paid for stories that where printed, so it became necessary for these stories to sound as good as possible. Maher's attitude toward his contributions was evident when he reportedly said, "There was a great demand for stories and few things to write about, so, for an inventive mind, there was nothing to do but make up stories".

Another noteworthy piece of information is that in 1889 and 1890 the Alkali Lake area experiences a severe drought causing water levels in the lake to fall until it became little more than a puddle, causing some to question how a 40 foot monster would appear in the lake just 30 years later. While the lake continues to be a popular social and recreational gathering areas to this day sightings of the Alkali Lake Monster all but stopped in the 1920’s leading most researchers to suggest that if the creature ever really did exist it has either passed away or moved out on to another lake.

 

http://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2009/08/alkali-lake-monster-fact-or-fiction.html

http://theshadowlands.net/serpent.htm

http://www.cryptozoology.com/forum/topic_view_thread.php?tid=5&pid=188348

 

-So essentially the entire history of the "reliable sightings" of the Alkali Lake monster consists of one published report, and possibly one later incident at Campbell Lake SD was inspired directly from it.(Evidently within the decade later and again with only one published account. I have not seen the actual account in this case but the two places are often cited in tandem by Cryptozoologists)

 

The Alkali Lake affair does not end at that point, however. Peter Costello's In Search of Lake Monsters includes the following information  on pages 210-211;

"This lake is a few miles south of Hay Springs. In 1939 the indigent scholars and writers employed on the Federal Writer's Project, which was collecting "American Folklore", summarised the history of the monster there, which they facetiously call Giganticus Brutervious. When the monster appeares the Earth trembles and the skies cloud over. When he comes ashore, to devour calves it is said, a thick mist covers the shore around him. His gnashing teeth rumble like claps of thunder (How reminiscent this is of the Chinese dragons, originally gods controlling rain and thunder. Did the Chinese coolies working on the American railroads in the 1870s leave one of their deities behind them in Nebraska?) the writers archly describe the horror of the monster, how his appearance made men mad or turned their hair white. He was said to be over 300 feet long and to have swallowed a small island in the lake. By 1939 the monster was seen so infrequently that some thought it was gone away, others that it was hibernating.

This is an example of folklorists at their worst. Rather than treat popular stories as topics of serious interest, the writers feel that to justify their spending time collecting and rehashing them, the stories have to be given a facetious treatment, and the bourgeois prejudice of the reader pandered to by making what his grandfather believed to be an object of ridicule. This is not literature, nor is it social science. It is rubbish. They would have been better employed exploring the coincidence of their local folklore with Chinese mythology"

Now that was uncalled for and I feel I must take Costello to task for it because he was being greatly misleading about a straightforeward report which he evidently did not even bother to read in the original. The story as Costello excerpts it was widely circulated at the time and reached even the London Times, which was evidently Costello's source. However, the original document is available on Google documents. It is quite responsible and it names John Maher as probably the originator of all this folderol. And bringing Chinese dragons into the discussion merely introduces another unrelated matter. The Alkali Lake monster seems to have been made from whole cloth from the onset, although there is the tiniest glimmer (because of the gag postcard reprinted by North American Monsters) that originally reports of "Giant Mudpuppies" might have been at the base of it. If so, the amphibians most likely had died off by the late 1800s and were separated from the wildly exaggerated stories by a generation or more. Here is the link to the document:

Giganticus Brutervious

On the other hand, Hall's explanation of the creature as a kind of enormous horned alligator (up to 50-60 feet long, the presumed size of "Phobosuchus") DOES correspond to some reports of creatures in Texas, the Mississippi delta and deep in the Everglades of Florida, a creature sometimes called the "Super-Croc." During the WWII days, sightings of such creatures were confused with (or interpreted as) "Phantom submarines" come up the Mississippi as far as Missouri, and at least one report of the White River Monster (Arkansas) sounds like one of these creatures (An alligator-like creature with an exaggerated back-crest and estimated as 75 feet long) And representations of these creatures in Native art feeds into the notion of a "Great Horned Serpent" because that is what archaeologists invariably call them. However, these creatures are large and hefty with no discernable neck to speak of.

"Horned Serpent" mound creature carved from coal. Note that this is a reptile because it has a single cloaca. Large creatures resembling this are pictured on ancient Indus Valley seals with the hint that they were trying to steal cattle. Similar giant horned crocodiles are supposed to live in the big rivers of Thailand and Burma, where they are called the "King of Crocodiles" and the length of 50-60 feet again quoted for them.

 "Great Horned Alligator" as a "Mississippi River Monster"

IMHO, the horns on these representations are much exaggerated and we do have a real creature involved. The "Super-Croc" is world-wide in distribution and may have been reported as dragons both in Mediterranean countries as well as in the Orient (China and Japan): they may have been the originals for the reports of Tarasques and "Storm Dragons" (said to have fallen from the sky during storms, AND to have been reported in Madagascar, South and East Africa (Including as the "Silwaaane Manzi"-if so there is a possible photo of one from South Africa in the 1930s). They are more than likely the source of a couple of Heuvelmans' reports of "Marine Saurians" and we may have some specimens of some of them in our museums mistakenly labelled as "Crocodylus porosis"-especially the largest specimens assigned to that species. And we may have reports of the type all the way back to Sumerian imes. They seem to be nearly entirely marine but are forced to go into freshwater to breed: evidently the smallest hatchlings cannot tolerate saltawater and need a period of development before travelling out to sea.

Best Wishes, Dale D.