California Monsters Featuring Lizardmen

http://robojapan.blogspot.com/2010/02/lizard-men-are-they-living-amoung-us.html

Lizard Men - Are They Living Amoung Us? (Part 1)

Written By: Ken Hulsey
Source: Louisville Mojo

As most of you already know, I have an incredible fascination with monsters (no...is that why this place is called Monster Island News?) and strange creatures of lore, mythology, cryptozoology, television and, of course, movies.

Now, today, I was planning on writing an article about one of the lesser known cryptids that have been seen all over the world, Lizard Men. My article was going to focus on the history of sightings here in California, and their possible link to the lost continents of Mu or Lemuria.

Mu and Lemuria are basically the Pacific Oceans' very own versions of Atlantis, to make a long story short.

Low and behold, I left the materials that I was going to use for that article at home this morning in my haste......my bad.

Now, you may think that this is some sort of coincidence, but while I was skimming through the news on Google this morning I came across a story about a Lizard Man written by J.S. Holland for Louisville Mojo.

That's weird. I came actress a story about Lizard Men on the very same day that I was going to write my own.

Some of you may say that this was some sort of fate, a cosmic connection, others will simply dismiss this as randomness. I, however, believe that all things happen do to plan, whether that be by God's plan, or not.

Now to get to the meat of the J.S. Holland piece. It seems that way back on October 28th, 1878, there was an article in the Courier-Journal (Louisville) about a scaly "Wild Man of the Woods" that had been captured and put on display.

When one generally hears the term, "Wild Man", images of a Sasquatch or Bigfoot normally comes to mind, this creature, however, was far different. According to the original article, this strange being was about 6-foot-tall, with large eyes, and covered with scales.

This strange lizard-like humanoid was reportedly displayed in Louisville for some time before, like the "Minnesota Ice Man"and the Bigfoot captured by railroad employees around the turn of the century in Canada, it disappeared, never to be seen again.

I should be noted that 'hoaxed' newpaper stories were very popular in the 1800s. Articles concocted to stimulate the public and boost newspaper sales. The more wild and unbelievable the better. However, according to Holland (I didn't read the article myself) the 1878 story in question was, ".. treated rather matter-of-factly despite its outlandish subject matter.."

Does that add any credence to the validity of the article.......probably not.

Regardless, this 1878 account of a "Lizard Man" is not unique, not on a worldwide scale, or even for the American south.

In June of 1988, a sixteen-year-old boy named Christopher Davis was attacked by a 7-foot-tall, scaly monster, while changing a flat tire near the Scape Ore Swamp in South Carolina.

The "Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp" (also known as the Lizard Man of Lee County) reportedly tried to attack the youth's car as he tried to escape.

In the following months after the attack other local residents reported sightings and other attacks on vehicles. Seems this "Lizard-Man" wasn't much of a car buff.

Reports of the creature, and sometimes creatures, continue to this day in the area, the latest being reported in 2005 and 2008.

Other areas of the country that seem to be home to lizard-like humanoids include Loveland, Ohio (The Loveland Frog), Thetis Lake, British Columbia, Canada (Thetis Lake Monster) and also here in my home state of California.

More on these California sightings in a follow-up article.

Is there really a race of "Creature from the Black Lagoon" esque "Gill-Men" living in obscurity in North America?

Good question?

Though, these things aren't seen with near the regularity of the Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, the reports may be worth some investigation.

Local legends of lizard-like races come from various periods of human history. There is the Cecrops, the mythical first King of Athens who was half-man-half-snake, the Dragon Kings of Chinese mythology, the Nāga in India and the Zahhak, a figure from Zoroastrian mythology, just to touch on a few.

One of the predominant theories about these creatures is that they are extraterrestrial, that is, they are aliens from another world. Indeed, there have been numerous reports of lizard-like aliens emerging from UFOs.

Many authors about UFO encounters have postulated that these guys are hear to start a colony, but if that's true, then they have either been really slow about it, or they are already living here.

More about that in my follow-up.

Food for thought, for now, I promise to write about all the California "Lizard Men" sightings as time permits.

Is there more here than meets to eye?

I know....I'm a tease...

[A subsequent bit of information on the site concluded with the information:

Lizard Men aren't just exclusive to rural South Carolina. On the opposite coast, in California, reports of humanoid reptiles have been reported for decades. In the 40s a fortune hunter claimed that a race of lizard people had built a labyrinth of tunnels filled with gold under Los Angeles. Likewise in the 50s a man almost hit a Lizard Man on a road in Riverside. On top of that Lizard Men have been reportedly seen on the slopes of Mt. Shasta.

--Now there are reports of Lizardmen living in catacombs under Los Angeles but elsewhere in Southern California there are vague reports of human-sized Lizards looking like iguanas but with the bodies that were the size of human beings (not counting the tails) AND they were said to hole up in caves. It might seem to be ridiculious to suggest such a thing, but it is also possible that some of these big lizards were living in caves in the Los Angeles area and occasionally fed into reports of Lizard Men: otherwise the descriptions tend to merge into "River Liz" and similar "Water-Monster" reports, and be about the same size with the same features. There are also some California "Chupacabras" sightings that fall into the pattern and which are much the same as the Mexican Chupas, and reported largely within the Hispanic population. I imagine there are also the usual mangy-dog sightings but I have not heard of any definite ones from California.    
                                                                                        

[Location of Lake Elsinore, one of the locations where Iguana lizard-shaped, spinybacked Water Monsters have been reported. Such reports in Southern California and Arizona are frequently referred to as "Alligators" or "crocodiles" but also as "Spinybacks", "Godzillas" and "Godzilla Lizards". Some have turned out to be released pet alligators but a couple have even turned out to be released pet monitor lizards. Some are reported along the Colorado River but there seems to be a concentration of reports near Phoenix, Arizona]

http://www.anomalies.net/archive/cni-news/CNI.0703.html

[I have heard of several other such Chupa reports from Southern California: it is notable in the reports quoted in this article that some of the witnesses think the spine is decorated with distinct tufts of hair-not otherwise on the body-and others speak of a spiny back "Like a Dinosaur"]

WEIRD CREATURES IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA -- CHUPACABRAS?

Victor Valley Woman Investigates Series of Close Encounter Reports
[CNI News thanks Joyce Spivey for sending us this exclusive story of her ongoing investigation into reports of a weird creature -- some say Chupacabras -- repeatedly sighted in the high desert country east of Los Angeles. Joyce can be contacted by email at tspivey@ctainforms.com]
by Joyce Spivey
Has the Chupacabras, well known in Puerto Rico, come to the Victor Valley in the High Desert of Southern California?
I have lived in this area for nineteen years. I got interested in the paranormal about eight years ago after seeing and hearing about so many strange things in this beautiful desert.
On the night of October 8, 1996, many witnesses reported four UFOs in the northeastern sky around 8:00 PM. A newspaper pressman for our local paper took video of the mysterious lights. It made front page news in the Victorville area.
Our local paper has taken an interest because it is good for the community. A lot of movies and videos are being shot up here, becoming a cottage industry, due to the fact that this is the former home of George Air Force Base. The city of Victorville is more than happy to let the movie and video makers use this former base for a fee. Jodie Foster was here last October to shoot scenes for "CONTACT," an alien-encounter movie based on Carl Sagan's novel, due for release this summer.
On October 9, the day after the alleged UFO sighting, a local woman called the Sheriffs's Department to report her run-in with a scary animal on a dirt road while going to pick up her daughter from a friend's home. I contacted the woman later and interviewed her. Her story is humorous now, but it wasn't on the evening it happened to her.
There are a lot of dirt roads in the desert. She was on one in west Victorville at the time of the encounter. She was driving slowly because the road was like a washboard. The sun had just gone down; it was twilight. She had just turned on her car lights when she noticed something or someone standing up the road. As the lights from her car illuminated it better, it leaped into the brush beside the road. She said that the creature, before it jumped into the brush, appeared to be about four to four and a half feet tall.
Now feeling curious, she slowed down to about 7 or 8 miles per hour and rolled down her window to see if she could hear anything. She heard something coming through the brush toward her, and then silence for a moment. At that instant, she saw something crouching behind a large bush about eight feet from her. Its head was moving as if it were trying to see her better too.
She became very frightened when she saw "the glowing red eyes, just like a Christmas tree lights." She realized that her car lights were pointing straight ahead, while this creature was right beside her on the driver's side. She deduced from this that the eyes were glowing on their own, not from her car lights.
As it stood up from a crouching position behind the brush, she stepped on the gas to get away from it. She said it kept coming toward her even as she was picking up speed. It was running faster than a dog or person.
"It didn't run like any animal I'm familiar with," she said. "It was upright, like a person. I was trying to roll up the window and step on the gas. At the same time, I was shaking, and it was getting closer."
Describing the creature, she said "it was a medium gray in color but had darker spots on the chest, which was broad. It had glowing red eyes. The shoulders were rounded. It had slender arms with what looked like claws. I couldn't see the legs or feet, but it was upright and moving fast. It had tufts of hair on different parts of the body.
"I didn't really take time to see it real well, because I was so frightened," she said.
Next I interviewed a family in an area called Pinion Hills in the Victor Valley, at the base of Wrightwood, a skiing resort. The family lives in a sparsely populated area at 4,300 feet elevation. The creature has been hanging around, and still is at this date [mid March, 1997]. They have seen it several times, but never as close as the night in October, 1996.
The children saw it first, then the husband and wife . The children, a boy age 11 and his sister, 13, were in the bedroom playing a board game. Mom was in the kitchen preparing dinner, while dad was in the living room, reading and watching the news on TV. The children stood up from playing and saw something standing outside the window with glowing red eyes, like lights. It just stood there staring at them through the window, about ten feet away from the house.They both got a good look, because they were curious. It seemed just as curious about them.
What they remember best, before becoming frightened and yelling for mom and dad, was the eyes. They were big and glowing red.
I had them draw a picture as best they could remember. The boy saw a creature standing upright, about four or five feet tall. In the drawing he shows the creature with sharp teeth, hunched over a little. The head seems to sit on the shoulders, without much neck. It has small pointed ears, long arms and what could be claws. He said it looked gray with small tufts of hair on different parts of the body, but not all over it.
"It looks meaner in person," he told me.
I talked to his 13 year old sister next. Her story is basically the same. The kids seem to focus on the eyes and the fact that they glowed red and were big, but not round.
I talked to the parents about that night. They were running toward the bedroom as the children ran out of the bedroom yelling, "It's a monster outside!" The parents ran outside and just got a glimpse of something moving very fast, then gone.
The parents did find odd footprints of something that was on two feet. Estimating from the depth of the prints, they figured it must have weighed forty to fifty pounds.
The creature is still seen at times around their two and a half acre homesite. I have asked someone to stay up there several times with a video camera, he is planning to make more trips in the coming weeks. I have told the parents to get plaster of Paris for footprints.
The parents seem to think the creature shows intelligence.
I have talked to several other people who have seen it, but who don't want anyone to think they are crazy and don't want their names in the paper.
A group of school children have seen something unusual in the same area as that of the first woman I interviewed. They have seen it more than once. They say it runs upright, very fast, and jumps a long way.
A student at our Junior College has seen it several times along the banks of the Mojave River in an area called Ore Grande. She said it frightened her because it wasn't like anything she had ever seen, especially the eyes. She got frightened while talking about it. "I haven't said anything because I don't want people to think I'm nuts," she said. "I know what I saw."
Several of the people said it has spikes or quills down its back that move.
I have one report from a young woman who got a real good look at something a little different. She was the only one who saw a tail, thicker at the body and thinner at the end. It didn't drag the ground, but looked like it was used for balance. The creature was light and dark gray, mostly dark. It had no visible ears. It was bulky, about four and a half feet tall, walked upright, and its arms and legs looked thicker than those of a human. It had gold or orangish eyes, big but not real round, and a snout with short and pointed teeth.
Her drawing looks like this creature has something like a chicken's comb that goes from the top of the head to the end of the tail. "Kind of like a dinosaur," she said.
This young woman said she didn't know why, but she felt sorry for it. The creature made no move to harm her.
In an area called Deep Creek, a wooded canyon at the base of the Big Bear mountain range, I heard two reports of a creature that sounds similar to what most of the other witnesses have seen. But in this case, the creature seems able to fly short distances with leather-like wings that cannot be seen unless it is soaring, like a flying squirrel.[or else they are bats-DD] 
The mystery continues. I keep getting more reports. I believe these people saw something. But what? Your guess is as good as mine at this point. Something very strange is going on in the Victor Valley.
Original file name: CNI - Chupacabras.Spivey
This file was converted with TextToHTML - (c) Logic n.v.

So-Cal Sandman And Such

I have known about the site Monster Island News for some time now and I have been waiting for a while to run some of the material from that site on this blog. Part of the problem is that some of the material promised has not shown up there yet. There is some new information on "Lizardmen" there that I hope to get to at some time, and the current excerpted series on California Monsters.

In this case I am going to focus on some South-Californian "Man-creatures" which seem to me NOT to be the same thing as the Northern-Californian Sasquatch/Oh-Mah-Ah.
http://robojapan.blogspot.com/2010/09/borrego-sandman-1939-present-california.html
Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The Borrego Sandman (1939 - Present) - California The Monster State - Part 2

Written By: Ken Hulsey

Many of you are undoubtedly familiar with the legends of Bigfoot and all of his ape-like kin who are reported to dwell in the numerous remote wilderness areas and swamps throughout North America. These vast areas where man seldom treads provides a perfect refuge for these creatures where food and water are plentiful and protection from the elements can be easily attained.

It may come to your surprise that the legendary monster is also a desert dweller as well.

As hard as it may be to fathom there are many reports from the vast deserts of Southern California of Sasquatch-like creatures roaming the sand, much like they do in the lush forest. These very dry areas with little vegetation, and almost no water supply would seem like the last place that a 6-t0-10-foot-tall animal that weighs upwards of 400 pounds, and not to mention is covered with thick fur, would want to call home, yet the sheer number of Bigfoot sightings in these areas are too numerous to ignore.

In the late 1960s reports of Bigfoot sightings in the desert towns of Lancaster and Palmdale reached a feverish pace that lasted well into the 1970s, then tapered off. Though these areas border on the Mojave desert, they also border on the Angeles National forest, so it wouldn't seem to unlikely that the creature could have been lured out of the wilderness and into the desert for some unknown reason.

More bizarre are the stories that have surfaced from nearby Edwards Air Force Base, that is farther inland and farther from the forested areas near Los Angeles, of frequent intrusions by creatures that match the description of Bigfoot. As the story goes, Base Security is in possession of several surveillance video tapes that plainly show giant, up-right, apes trespassing in the numerous underground tunnels under the facility. How, or where, the Bigfoot break into, or gain access to these tunnels has never been revealed, obviously for security reasons, but reportedly these incidents happen rather often, and are a nuisance.

The Mojave Desert and Death Valley are two of Southern California's more famous barren areas, but there is also a stretch of inhospitable desert that stretches from the Mexican border northward to the edges of the San Bernardino mountains. This area to has had it's share of Sasquatch sightings over the decades, and this is the area I wanted to focus on today.

The desert wilderness of the Anza-Borrego area has been home to many a tall-tale and several strange events over the past several hundred years. Many a desert rat has emerged from the region with tales of a mysterious Spanish ship filled with pearls inexplicably marooned in the sand, or of a Viking boat embedded in the rock, strange lights in the night skies, and most commonly, of vast quantities of gold just waiting for some lucky prospector to cart out.

It was undoubtedly the lure of these reported gold deposits that first lured the white man into this desolate area and it is from one of these fortune hunters that the first report of Bigfoot, or the Borrego Sandman as it is known in these parts, came. Reportedly in 1939 a prospector, who when interviewed in the 1970s wished to remain anonymous, was attacked by a large group of upright-walking-apes as he camped near the Borrego Sink. The frightened man described the creatures as very large, covered in white fur, with glowing red eyes. The only thing that saved the man from the attack was the fact that the monsters were afraid of his camp fire.

Another report of giant footprints from that same general area came from a man named Victor Stoyanow in 1964. His story was retold in a famous article in SAGA magazine entitled, "America's Terrifying Woodland Monster-men" in 1969. The piece also featured the story of Harold Lancaster, a miner who encounter the Sandman in 1968. Here is an excerpt:

Gold prospectors and treasure hunters frequently seek their lost bonanzas in isolated areas. Since 1964, treasure hunters in the Borrego Valley desert in California have whispered about "the Abominable Sandmen of Borrego." The arid area is near the Mexican border, it is virtually uninhabited. There are many fissures, caves and crevasses in the Superstition Mountain region and prospectors say the Cocopah Indians have told of a subterranean labyrinth under the mountain, Maj. Victor Stoyanow was seeking an access into the Superstition Hills in January 1964, when he noticed large, humanoid tracks in the sand dunes. "The prints ran in pairs, generally parallel and averaged about 14 inches in length and nine wide at the instep," Major Stoyanow declared. He returned to the desert on several other occasions, made plaster casts of the prints, and snapped photographs."Curious as I am, I hope that the person who discovers what kind of beast it is doesn't happen to be me." Major Stoyanow said after his thorough investigation into the tracks.

The San Diego Union ran an unverifiable article some years ago of a "sandman" that was shot by hunter Frank Cox at Deadman's Hole, near Warner, California in San Diego County. The beast was described as a cross between "a man and a bear." The head was rather small, with protruding teeth and powerful jaws. The muscular creature had feet that measured 24 inches in length and the body weight was estimated to be 400 pounds.Harold Lancaster, treasure hunter, was prospecting in the Borrego Sink, east of the settlement of Borrego Springs. California in July 1968, when he saw a "sandman." "I was camped up on a mesa one morning when I saw a man walking in the desert," he reported. "The figure came closer. I thought it was another prospector. Then, I picked up my binoculars and saw the strangest sight in my life."It was a real giant apeman," Lancaster said. "I had heard about the screaming giant apeman up in Tuolumne County that frightened people for a couple of years. Another person and I even went up there to look for the thing. I decided it was a hoax and never expected to actually see one."

As the "sandman" drew closer, Lancaster became worried. "That thing was big. I was no match for it," he reported. "I had a .22 pistol on my hip but it would have been like shooting at a gorilla with a pea shooter. I was afraid the beast might get too close. So, I fired a couple of rounds into the air. The sandman jumped a good three feet off the ground when the sounds of the shots reached him. He turned his head, looked toward me and then took off running in the other direction!"Why didn't Lancaster shoot the alleged sandman? "I was afraid," he admitted. "They should be protected. They're a form of a human, a primitive species. It would be murder to kill one. They should be studied."

Reports from the area continue to this day. In 1998 some hikers discovered a set of strange footprints near Boundary Peak, close to the Mexican border. Likewise in 1993 a hiker saw a Bigfoot, um ...... using the restroom on the La Jolla Indian Reservation. Reports have also surfaced from military personnel at Camp Pendleton who had encounters with the creature while on maneuvers during the 1960s and 1980s.

http://robojapan.blogspot.com/2010/09/fontana-speedway-monster-1951-1992.html

The Fontana Speedway Monster (1951 - 1992) - California The Monster State - Part 3

Written By: Ken Hulsey

The southern California city of Fontana has had a long and glorious history in auto racing. As most of you probably know, the city is the present home of the Autoclub Speedway which holds a yearly major NASCAR race along with other racing events of different types.

What many of you might not know is way back in the 1950s there was a drag-strip in the area that was considered one of the best in the country. The Mickey Thompson's Fontana International Dragway, as it was called, lasted for almost two decades before a series fatal accidents forced it to close in 1972.

The area is now a housing tract known as the The Village of Heritage and lies about a mile east of Etiwanda Blvd on the north side of Foothill Blvd.

It seems that these race events that took place for two decades in the area attracted more than legions of die-hard race fans, they also attracted a very curious monster.


The height of these sightings took place in the early 1960s when race patrons would regularly spot a giant, harry, Bigfoot-like creature crossing a field adjacent to the track in full view of the grandstands.

The Bigfoot was seen so regularly that it earned the name "Speedway Monster".

Though the animal was witnessed by hundreds of people, no one ever worked up the courage to investigate it.

It is hard to speculate why a creature that is known for being reclusive and shy of humans would trek so close to a race track filled with people and to mention the load noise produced by the cars?

One can only assume that it was curious about what all the fuss was about or more likely that the creature was making plans on rummaging through the tracks trashcans for left-over burgers and hot dogs after everyone cleared out.

Though the speedway closed it's doors in the early 70s reports of the "Speedway Monster" continued in the city of Fontana and the nearby San Bernardino Mountains continued.

In 1975 a group of Boy Scouts were woken up by a Bigfoot rummaging through their campsite near Barton Flats, likewise in 1976 a young man came face-to-face with the creature outside his cabin near Big Bear.

The area of Lytle Creek, in Cajon Pass, near Fontana has been a 'hot-spot' for Bigfoot sightings for decades.

In 1991 Fontana resident John Davis reported that a harry creature on two legs raided his chicken pen.

The most interesting, post Fontana Speedway, story came in 1992 when several motorists on Foothill Blvd spotted a family of Bigfoot walking along the railroad tracks the crossed over the the busy street. The location was reportedly close to the local Ace Hardware store.

This report is so interesting to me personally because my wife's family had move to nearby Rancho Cucamonga at about that same time. I can tell you from first hand experience, that the area of Fontana was no longer a rural area filled with farms and vineyards in 1992. It was an up and coming community with new housing areas and shopping centers.

To believe that a family of Bigfoot would have wandered into this busy area is nothing short of fantastic ........ if it is to be believed?

Then again the "Speedway Monster" has never been known to shy, so who knows?

http://robojapan.blogspot.com/2010/09/borrego-sandman-speedway-monster.html

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Borrego Sandman / Speedway Monster - Updates - California The Monster State - Part 4

Written By: Ken Hulsey

In the time since I last wrote about both the "Borrego Sandman" and the "Fontana Speedway Monster" I have managed to stumble upon more reported sightings of both creatures while doing research on another. Not wanting to proceed with an article about another of California's legendary creatures, and not wanting to add to the other two articles, I have opted to write a follow-up article instead.

It seems that the Bigfoot that reportedly inhabit California's southern regions have been a lot more active over the decades than I first realised.

Here are a bunch of stories that I happened to come across while doing my research:

Borrego Sandman

As I had mentioned in my previous article, the Borrego Sandman, is said to inhabit the rather desolate desert areas of Southern California that reach from the Mexican border to the San Bernardino Mountains to the north.

It may come to the surprise of those who follow stories about Bigfoot and other mysterious creatures that the first report of these creatures by European settlers did not come from either the East Coast, Midwest, or Pacific Northwest. It actually came from southern California in 1769, when Spanish priests founded the first mission in San Diego. Local Gabrieleno Indians told the padres about "harry devils" that lived nearby. In fact, according to written accounts, the Indians actually lived in fear of these large, foul-smelling, "wild-men" and refused to anywhere near their reported home called "towis puki" (camp of the devil) on the southern bank of the Santa Ana River.

The area of "Deadman Hole" near Holcomb Village, just west of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, was a water stop on the old Stagecoach lines during the mid to late 1800s and the reported site of several alleged murders that were blamed on Bigfoot. In 1876 one the passengers who ventured out of the safety of the coach while it's horses stopped to take a drink reported seeing a large, naked, harry "thing" watching him from behind some scruff.

After that, several people met their demise at the site, either strangled or beaten to death by an unknown person or thing. Of course, the monster got the blame, whether it actually did the killings or not.

In March 1888 two local hunters, Charles Cox and Edward Dean, set out to hunt down the monster and put an end to all the murders. According to a report in the San Diego Daily Transcript (newspaper) the pair found, and killed, what they were looking for, a creature that was described as a gorilla, with the face of an Indian, and fangs like a bear. The body of the creature was transported to San Diego where it was to go on public display, though before it did, it mysteriously disappeared.

In April of 1876, the San Diego Union reported on an encounter with a "missing link" near Warner's Ranch, also west of Anza-Borrego, by a young man named Turner Helm. According to Helm the creature had dark fur like a bear and a face like an American or Spaniard.

Moving forward in time now to 1964, when a father and son were pelted with rocks by a"shaggy" creature while hiking near Escondido, then later that very same summer, a juvenile Sandman was blamed for the death of three cows on the MGM Ranch near Jamul, again to the west of Anza-Borrego. This time the creature left behind plenty of large human-like tracks in the soft dirt.

In 1985 a set of large, human-like, tracks were found in the mountains near Anza. A local hiker, who reported the story to the BFRO, noted "I have hunted that area and hiked around there over the years. Many times I have been out there and knew or had some feeling of another presence. I don't mean like small animals or anything of that sort; just some unexplained feeling that someone or something has been watching me or following me."

It seems that the Borrego Sandman has had a long and very interesting history for sure.

The Fontana Speedway Monster

As I mentioned in my prior article, the "Speedway Monster" was seen in the area of the Mickey Thompson's Fontana International Dragway during the 1960s. What I didn't know was that this creature who reportedly wandered the fields near the track and rummaged through it's garbage also had a violent side.

In July of 1965 a young boy was attacked by the monster as he walked home. According to the account the creature surprised the lad by jumping out from behind some bushes. As he tried to wrangle away from the monster his clothes were torn to shreds. The child manged to get loose and run away, the monster reportedly didn't give chase.

On August 27th of that same year a young woman named Jerri Mendenhall was attacked while in her parked car on a residential street in Fontana by a mud-covered monster that smelled "like a dead animal". The creature reportedly crabbed her through the open drivers-side window. Frightened, the young woman put the car in gear and stepped on the gas to escape. Again, leaving the monster in the dust.

Oh, and here is a little history. Back in the 1800s an area between what is now the towns LaVerne and Pomona, near Fontana, was known to local Indians as "Toybipet" ("devil woman who was there) the reported hunting ground of a female Bigfoot.

ALSO reported on the site is the So-Called Yucca Man:

[-Yucca Man is a longrunning hoax set up by some U. S. Marines out of the nearby training base, and the marines will get themselves up as "the Monster" to frighten locals.  They have also got to be quite nervy to do this, since there is always the possibility that they shall be fired upon. I have a brother who was a Marine sargeant at that base for a while, and he filled me in on the details about the hoax. He said he was one of the ones that would dress up as the Yucca Man and go out with the intent to fool and scare the locals-DD.]

-Now I shall have to admit that the illustrations of this series are running downhill. I can tell from my experiences with Eastern Bigfoot portraits that the top illustration is one of the same, and it is right-spot-on except perhaps the arms are shown as a mite too short. The second Illustration is  mite stylized but it passes as a good reconstruction for a fossil man of the  Homo erectus or low-Neanderthloid grade. If the latter, the "point" in back should be lower down and the mistake is exactly the same as in the Dzhungarian Ksy-Giik. That is also significant. But the last one just another version of the Patterson film Sasquatch and it is almost trite by comparison. What excited my attention initially was the same "Face of the Almasty/Leshiye" portrait at top as we had been discussing here most recently. And since it is almost a certainty that the artist had not been looking into depictions of the Eastern Bigfoot, I think that lends credit to this being an independant corroboration. These type of reports continue on into Arizona and Mexico and IMHO they are the same types of creatures as reported on the big Indian Reservations of the Southeast. They can reportedly run right through thickets of cactus and act as if they don't notice. They can leave EXACTLY Neanderthaloid tracks as I have learned from cross-examining witnesses on Reservations, and the descriptions and drawings recall certain similarities to both the Central Asian Ksy-Giiks or Almases, and also to the "Minnesota Iceman."

The larger-sized series of reports in Southern California, Arizona and Northern Mexico I refer instead to the different category of "Monster Bears", which I became aware of in about 1985. These could instead be residuals of the supposedly-extinct Mexican grizzly bear.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

Another Poor "Sea-serpent" Photo from Argentina

One of the last messages on the topic of the Argentinian "Sea Monster" photo was a request to see an even more obviously mistaken "Sea Monster" photo.


Rick at The Anomalist sent in this photo when the other went missing and said "was this the one you were looking for? It is from Argentina" and no, it isn't the same one but it is also obviously a ripple in the water, and not such a large one this time.


This was also called a "Snake" (Culebron or Cobralito) but there is no reason to suspect a single living creature is involved in producing the effect. The "snake" is apparently moving and has movement in the "Body", but that is due to the motion of the water.

My brother Benny adds that it could be a school of fishes all surfacing simultaneously and that he has observed the effect in the lovcal creek on a small scale.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

New Mouse Lemur Species Discovered

Microcebus gerpi. Photo by Blanchard Randrianambinina
Photo: Tiny lemur discovered in Madagascar forest
wildmadagascar.org
January 08, 2012
A new species of mouse lemur has been discovered in eastern Madagascar, report researchers from Germany. The species is described in a recent issue of the journal Primates.
The diminutive primate is named Gerp's mouse lemur (Microcebus gerpi) after a GERP (Groupe d'Étude et de Recherche sur les Primates de Madagascar), a local lemur research group. It was discovered during surveys in 2008 and 2009 in Sahafina Forest, a fragment of rainforest just 50 km away from the well-known Mantadia National Park, which lies east of Madagascar's capital city of Antananarivo. The lemur was confirmed as a "new species" after genetic analysis of small biopsies collected during the surveys. Lemurs were not killed to make the determination that it was an undescribed species.
At 68 grams (2.4 ounces), Gerp's mouse lemur is "a giant" relative to Goodman's mouse lemur, a species found in nearby Mantadia, according to a press release from Stiftung Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover, the German institution that supported the research.
The conservation status of the new species is presently unknown, but due to fragmentation of habitat in the region, it is likely at risk from further deforestation.
More than 40 species of lemur have been described in the past decade. There are more than 100 lemur species Madagascar, the only place lemurs occur naturally in the wild.
Mouse lemurs are the smallest lemurs and among the tiniest primates in the world. They are found in virtually all of Madagascar's forests where they feed on insects, fruit, and plant sap. Mouse lemurs are nocturnal and betray their presence with high-pitched chirps.

CITATION: Ute Radespiel, Jonah H. Ratsimbazafy, Solofonirina Rasoloharijaona, Herimalala Raveloson, Nicole Andriaholinirina, Romule Rakotondravony, Rose M. Randrianarison, Blanchard Randrianambinina. First indications of a highland specialist among mouse lemurs (Microcebus spp.) and evidence for a new mouse lemur species from eastern Madagascar. Primates, 2011; DOI: 10.1007/s10329-011-0290-2

Thor Vs. Super-Eel Lindorm

Among the other titbits I came across on my sea-serpent photo-search was this Victorian-age illustration of Thor fighting (supposedly) the Midgard Serpent. The illustration is by Lorenz Frolich and shows a Thor probably more inspired by Classical images of the god Zeus. The reason I am running it here is because the creature represented is obviously a Lindorm and obviously an eel.

Some More New England Sea-Serpent Notes

SOME MORE NEW ENGLAND SEA-SERPENT NOTES

The picture at the top of the page was used as an illustration to represent the New England sea serpent of the 1800s. Unfortunately, I think it owes more of its design to the oarfish (right), a recurring candidate for sea-serpent reports in general. The blunt head and big eye would be the more important factors in making that determination: the colouration is wrong but Bernard Heuvelmans has said that in some sea-serpent reports the silvery sides might reflect the colour of the sea rather than show the true colour (these reports are also possibly oarfishes because of the feature).

A summary of sea-serpent reports from a New England newspaper, clipping from Ivan Sanderson's files. Interestingly enough the 'serpent' seems to be of plesiosaur design with a prolonged tail although the text basically re-tells the story of the 1817 Massachussets Bay 'flap' of sea-serpent reports. The last-mentioned Reverend Cummings had a sighting represented in the Von Ferry blog article just posted as being a "Caddy-like" sighting, presumably a moose. I don't know how many moose there may have been around Penobscot Bay in the early 1800s, but they were fairly common in much of New England up until the 1840s, at which time their range basically retreated to the north (such as in Maine, where such reports have been going on all along).

This is the Delia SS sighting off of Maine in 1818, a report which otherwise sounds much like the Pauline SS Whale-fighting-a-giant-squid sighting. Heuvelmans says of this sighting "Was it a squid or a hoax? the latter choice seems more probable."

In this case the prominent whale's tail said to be at the end of thirty feet of 'serpent' tail could be a misinterpreted view of a giant squid's tentacle. Or else it could be that a sperm whale has a type of very long, very thin whale caught head-end in its jaws and it is belabouring the smaller whale to death. If this is so, the same thing may have been sighted two or three other times in other places. The long, thin whale might be a kind of beaked whale developed along the lines of a zueglodon and we have some residual reports of this type after ruling it out as a candidate of the multi-humppd type. It would be the kind of beaked whale reported as a corpse by the Emu in the Pacific: about 60 feet long but with ribs only two and a half feet long, a ribbon-whale. The skull of this creature was definitely the skull of a type of beaked whale, or so the official report from the museum goes.

This last piece of evidence was also from Ivan Sanderson's files and I saw it back in the 1970s when the SITU library and files were still intact. I have restored it somewhat around the edges (scrapbookers, don't listen to the people that tell you to use rubber cement!). This copy comes from The Greatest Study. This page illustrates what was reported to be a film taken by a fisherman in Maine and viewed by an SITU member to be recorded in the files. I never knew what to make of it because the 'blowing' seems to come from some place on the upper neck well behind the head. Presumably that was a mistake, and it may have been there was another creature swimming parallel to this one but obscured on the far side, but far enough back that its blowhole was that much out of sync. And even though the creature was seen and filmed from fairly close to, I think it was based on a small school of dolphins. The view of the head front-on looks a great deal like a head-on view of a bottlenosed dolphin to me. This does not necessarily mean that the dolphins represented in the film are of a known species (if they actually are even dolphins); the lead animal that is best seen appears to have a sort of ragged top edge where the fin would be.

If it is really one snake-like creature as supposed, then the position of the blowhole makes no sense anatomically because it would seem to be well back of the rear end of the skull.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

"Sea Monster" Photographed In Northern Argentina

The following photograph came from the area of Tafí in Tucumán province, NW Argentina. I would have assumed it was a writhing anaconda being swept along by the flood but the area is fairly high altitude and fairly cool, averaging about 70 degrees Farenheit year-round (summer average temperature about 25 degrees Centigrade, winter temperatures about 15 degrees). And so it is not really the kind of climate you'd expect anacondas in.

Sea Monster

I hiked along the river in Tafi and kept seeing this very strange current that looked like the humps of a serpentine sea monster!!! I don't know what it was...definitely something unnatural, maybe supernatural?

http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/8475850

http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Argentina/blog-120709.html

This was originally posted in "Siesta is Obligatory"

User's name is Natalie/Gordita: I have not been successful in contacting her yet. I contacted Blogger and I was told I needed to contact her directly to get permission to use the photo, but at that time TravelBlog did not seem to have any record of the photo or how to get in touch with her. I will of course always take the photo down if she denies me permission, but my impression is that it qualifies as "Fair Use"

--Anacondas are also usually marked with conspicuous black spots all over the sides and this object?/creature? does not show anything like that. It looks too flexible to be a branch or a tree trunk. And so until somebody comes foreward and says it actually is an unusual anaconda in unusual conditions, I'd be inclined to call it an unknown Giant eel, swimming on its side as Heuvelmans said that they do. Whatever it is, it is a highly valuable photo in that it shows ANYTHING swimming in traditional "Sea-serpent" up-and-down-serpentine-style. That is actually something very unusual to see and not known in anacondas otherwise, so far as the sources state.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

Von Ferry, Caddy, and Maine: Water-Horses Revisited

Continuing to expand upon the CFZ Canada postings from last week:

I would like to go on record as stating that the fossil crocodile bears no resemblance whatsoever to any of the water-monsters under discussion. The water-monsters all have full racks of deer, moose or elk antlers and when they are spoken of as having feet at all, the feet have cloven hooves (for which the 1906 Omaha water-monster drawing reprinted below).Their long undulating backs illustrate the "String of Buoys" effect in the wake and not the back at all.


Kiowa Water Monster 1890s

 Furthermore, the fishy monsters are all supposed to be heavily armoured with thick scales while the fossil crocodile is scaleless. And the fossils actually show no obvious indication that the animals were fish-tailed in life: the fin part did not fossilize since it was only compposed of soft flesh originally.

Lorenz Von Ferry sea serpent sighting in the mid-1700s. This sighting had darker and lighter patches on the face and neck, and it had a white mane. This happens with moose sometimes. The description given by Pontoppidian in reference to this sighting mentions the large nostrils, which are not showing in the drawing, but the drawing does still show the eyes situated in the head as in a moose, and the distinctive overhanging top lip. This last feature indicates a terrestrial vegetarian browser, by the way.

Instead, all of these water-monsters belong to the same category of Eurasian creatures that started out as the horse-headed, multi-humped "Sea Serpents" of Scandinavia since the 1600s-1700s and which were seen somewhat later on off the coast of New England and then eventually off the coast of British Columbia as "Caddies" or "Cadborosaurus." They were also reported regularly in Quebec since the or early 1800s, according to George Eberhart, who calls them "Horse's Heads" in this instance. In both British Columbia and in the area around the Great Lakes they were definitely identified as the traditional horned (antlered) water serpents, and the descriptions continued across Canada from sea to sea. In Ontario the term On Niont was on record for this sort of creature sighting in 1647-48.

["The Water Horse" illustration above, and generalized indication for such sightings in North America on the map at the right]

These sightings I would say were one and all based on imperfect sightings of swimming moose. And although it would seem that only the white men would be foolish enough to be fooled by such a sight, many of the early sightings up to the 1930s were made by Indians. It may be that these were mostly older men and women or children who were not accustomed to seeing moose or elk swimming.

Navajo Water Pot LB03
This has the full rack of antlers and a shapeless
"Watery" body trailing behind the head

The giveaway is when the heads are seen to bear full racks of horns (antlers). These are shown on some of the traditional representations including the Kiowa example from the 1890s at the top of this page and on the Navajo pot labelled LB03 at the left. And although the fact might not have been recalled in connection to these traditions, the Kiowa, Apache and Navajo are actually Canadian peoples who migrated southwards in the period just before the white men came. That is why their water-monsters have the full racks of antlers like moose or elk while their neighbours do not.



Omaha Water Monster, Drawn in 1906.
Once again this has the antlered deer head
and the long trailing body (with humps) and tail
indicating the trailing wake in the original sighting



Without the horns/antlers being apparent we can still recognize swimming moose because of their 'bent' camel-noses, big droopy ears, fully-haired back, and sometimes even the beard or "bell" on the throat (See the "Cadborosaurus" representations in the photos below) Moose are indeed sometimes swimming out of sight of land at sea off both British Columbia and Scandinavia.



 "Caddy" and monstrous-looking moose above.

"Caddy" drawing showing the typical features of a swimming moose sighting. By the way, the only way you can have a sea monster float on top of the water like an inflatable pool toy (as in this case) is to actually have an inflatable pool toy; in the case of a real animal, most of the body lies below the surface like an iceberg. Therefore the idea that you can see through the bottoms of the "loops" is imaginary (you can see light through waves in the water more easily than through flesh, however).

Von Ferry Norweigan SS at top;
Swimming moose at Attean Lake, Maine, below. The moose is headed toward 3 Mile Island. By now it should be evident that "Sea-Serpent" sihghtings in such a conformation do not show primitive whales, Plesiosaurs, or anything of the sort. They are usually swimming moose or elk with the head held only moderately high out of the water with the neck held in a natural curve for a moose or elk's neck and the "Humps" being the waves in the wake left behind. In the case of a swimming moose, the "humps" in the wake can be quite striking, although the same effect occurs in the wake of many unrelated animals including Orcas and tuna.




Great New England Sea Serpent With Caddy-Like features [Merhorse?]
This one likewise has a short length of neck at a natural curve for a moose



Ivan Sanderson's sea-serpent report collection, statistics posted at The Greatest Study. Dale D. touched up the colours and while he was at it, he added his estimates for how many of the "Serpent" cases were possible giant eel reports (from my notes as to what was in Ivan Sanderson's files; I did similar statistics at this time and thereafter, partially incorporating Sanderson's data). The darker blue area represents primarily 'String-of-buoys' reports and I would discount them personally, hence the mark; likewise I would also discount most of the reports in the red and white areas. The white area does also include 'marine saurian' reports, however, and several undoubted mistaken reports of misidentified whales and such (so indicated by Heuvelmans). I include this version here to indicate just how much of a percentage of the reports are in the invalid 'multi-humped'categories; the same category also dominates the freshwater sightings.

Ivan Sanderson's Sea Serpent Report Collection Mapped Out



For a full explanation of the Water-Horse theory, please see my CFZ blog at the link below: and if you still think the "Train-of-Humps" represent the back of a multi-humped monster, please pay especial attention to the illustration at the end of the posting.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html

Walker Lake Monster, Tahoe Tessie and California Monster Snake-Fish

[Above: Tahoe Tessie as represented in children's books and at right, the real thing, a photo taken in 2006 allegedly showing the creature poking a big fishy head out of water and photographed as it was submerging]

Recently I had been posting a couple of articles on the CFZ Canada blog as a guest blogger. I was basically reviewing a statement in the press made about Native North American water-monsters, which was implying all such monsters were similar and possibly all based on finds of fossils. I considered this to be misleading and I explained that the problem included several other separate things, and I might have been trying to make it too complicated because not all of my material got posted through on the blogs there. However, I basically was done with it except that I felt I should explain a couple of the matters in more detail on this blog. To quote the posting on CFZ Canada:

Back in 2007, Craig Woolheater wrote an article for the Cryptomundo site which touched upon the interrelatedness of some Native North American water-monsters and uncovered fossils which were supposed to have inspired them. The discussion at that point included some quotes from one Adrienne Mayor, author of a book on fossil discoveries and related mythology, and cited a recent find of a fossil fish-tailed crocodile in the state of Oregon.
http://www.cryptomundo.com/bigfoot-report/na-water-monster/

'...Most intriguing, the initial restoration of the fossil croc bears a striking resemblance to a mythic animal of some Native American tribes, the Kiowa, Sioux, Pomo of northern California and others, says Adrienne Mayor, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, author of Fossil Legends of the First Americans. A University of Oregon artist’s depiction of the crocodile greatly resembles the Kiowa artist Silverhorn’s 1891-94 sketch of a water monster with scales, a long narrow head with needle teeth and a forked fish-tail drawn to illustrate water serpent legends, Mayor says. The Pomo Indians described a fish-tailed, needle-toothed water monster called Bagil, as well.' [Similar water monsters are described in several lakes along the California-Nevada border, including the 'serpent' of Walker Lake. The long toothy jaws and flinty-hard scales, together with the 'snaky' head and body with the forked fish-tail, all remind me irresistably of some sort of a garfish - DD] '...A very similar dragon-creature is described from northeastern California, Parkman adds. The Ajumawi people have a legend of a big serpent-like creature with fish tail ... similar to Bagil...'

In this case I would like to review those creatures most like Bagil, the flinty-scaled, alligator-headed, needle-toothed, long-jawed, fork-tailed serpent-fish around the borders of California.

Cecil the Sea Serpent of Walker Lake, Nevada

Read more at Suite101: Cecil the Sea Serpent of Walker Lake, Nevada | Suite101.com http://sharon-damon.suite101.com/cecil-the-sea-serpent-of-walker-lake-nevada-a388685#ixzz1iG87lHT8

posted Sep 13, 2011

by Sharon Damon

Folklore or fact? Fiction or fable? The Paiute of Walker Lake have told of sea serpents inhabiting its depths for many years. Local legends of Cecil concur.

Walker Lake is a beautiful natural lake in Nevada, approximately 75 miles southeast of Reno. It is a terminus lake: a lake with no outflow, fed by the Walker River. It’s known for fishing for cutthroat trout, boating, camping, but most especially, for the legend of the Tawaga, or Cecil, the Sea Serpent of Walker Lake.

The History of Walker Lake

Walker Lake is a rare remnant of ancient Lake Lahontan, an inland sea that covered much of northwestern Nevada during the Ice Age. As Lake Lohantan retreated, many “dry lakes” such as this were formed. Walker Lake, fed by the Walker River, has dried up completely several times in its long history.
Native Americans have inhabited the area surrounding the lake for approximately 11,000 years and in 1874, a reservation was formed on the lake’s northern shores for the Paiute Agai-Dicutta (“trout-eaters”) tribe. Unfortunately, the use of the Walker River for irrigation of surrounding desert lands has caused a severe drop in the level of the water in Walker Lake, increasing the salinity of the lake and putting the ecosystem in danger. Paiute tribal tales and local folklore have long claimed the existence of huge reptiles dwelling within depths of Walker Lake.

The Story of Cecil: Southwest Loch Ness Monster or Ichthyosaur?

Walker Lake is a beautiful place with a rich history. Over 200 million years ago, the sixty-foot long [fossil]Ichthyosaur lived on the floor of the ancient sea that became Walker Lake. This “fish-lizard” is Nevada’s official state fossil.
Forty of these gigantic creatures became stranded in the mud flats in central Nevada, and were discovered in 1928 during the geological exploration for mining near the town of Berlin, NV. In 1957, this region became Ichthyosaur State Park.
Local folklore abounds in this area of the country. You have rich urban legends, tales, fables and stories no matter where you travel. If Paiute legends are to be believed, Walker Lake may be home to a mysterious creature that is known as Tawaga, or more affectionately, as Cecil, the Sea Serpent.

Tribal folklore tells us the tale of two sea serpents, which were once a man and woman, now inhabiting the deepest regions of this lake. Paiute children were warned not to tease them or make fun of them. In 1868, white settlers described a creature “with a head similar to a crocodile, four feet [thick] near the neck, an enormous tail covered with scales.” Is this Tawaga, or [an] icthyosaur?
[Neither the Ichthiosaur nor the fossil crocodile have the requisite thick scales. However the overall crocodile-headed fish-tailed "serpent" pattern is quite clear already-DD]

Fact or Fiction?

Some locals have reported sightings of this large reptilian creature in the lake, likening it to the Loch Ness Monster. There have historically even been rumors that huge serpents have been killed in the region. Some say that Cecil inhabited Walker Lake by day and slithered across the old highway to the nearby caves at night. Without concrete proof, and with his reputation of living deep in the depths of this glacier-formed lake, one can’t say for sure. But wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if prehistoric reptiles had, indeed, found a home in this rich environment?

For now, we may have to make do with the “Cecil” float that emerges every Armed Forces Day to cruise the streets of Hawthorne, NV. Whether fact or folklore, giant prehistoric reptile, or the serpent of Paiute legend, Cecil is a local favorite, possibly the best-known sea serpent around. Except, of course, for the Loch Ness Monster.

Sources:

http://www.lakelubbers.com/

http://www.strangeark.com/

www.theothersideofcalifornia.com

www.walkerlakenv.org

A historical report sent in by Jerome Clark to the Cryptomundo site follows. Loren Coleman offers no classification for the creature sighted:

Serpent in Nevada Lake
Mining Man Brings Strange Story
to Goldfield.
From the Savannah Bee.
A report from Walker Lake states that a monster sea serpent has been seen at the northern end of the lake. Dan Cornelison, a mining man of good reputation for veracity, brought the story to Goldfield.
Cornelison says that he and a companion named John McCorry sighted the reptile while fishing from a boat half a mile from the northern shore of the lake. The monster was then making its way toward the east shore of the lake. Cornelison says that at first sight he took the serpent for a man in a skiff, and when it disappeared for a moment he thought the boat had capsized, and rowed toward the spot, when it suddenly reappeared, giving them a good view of its proportions, which they estimated to be about thirty feet in length and six feet across the back.
Another resident of that vicinity, a man named Peters, is said to have discovered the serpent sometime ago reposing in shallow water near the shore, and on being aroused it disappeared in deeper water. There is also said to be a legend among the Piutes around Shurz concerning the existence of a serpent in Walker Lake.Washington Herald, September 22, 1907

Thirty feet long and six feet across might be considered a maximum, and for purposes of argument we might make the minimum fifteen feet long and three feet across. It depends on how close the witnesses were and how good at estimating sizes of objects on the water; the general run of actual sightings has a series that will say fifteen to twenty feet long and three to four feet across the width of the back, and a series at a much larger size of forty to sixty feet long and as much as four or five feet out of the water - but in the latter case there is a very good chance this describes a wave rather than the creature's body. A longer blog entry with some of the further-out legends from this area follows.

http://skylaire.com/walkerlakemonster.htm

WALKER LAKE MONSTER

by Skylaire Alfvegren

Cecil, the mechanical serpent who does double duty as Hawthorne’s goodwill ambassador and high school mascot is no PR pipe dream. Indian legend says that when Lake Lohontan began to dry up, a pair of serpents were forced apart. The male made his way to what became Walker Lake, while the female burrowed north into the land, creating Sand Mountain. 600 feet high, the shifting sands sing: it’s said the music is simply the serpent whimpering for her beloved.

Historically, the Walker Lake monster has Nevada’s strongest record of sightings, and we don’t mean Cecil’s patriotic lumber down Main Street in Hawthorne’s annual Armed Forces Day parade.

When white settlers founded the town on the south end of Walker Lake in 1881, they noted a strange absence of fishing boats--the local Paiutes refused to traverse its waters. According to the Hawthorne Arsenal, it was “believed to be have been the only lake in the country near which resident Indians had no boats, and they had no desire for any.” Traditional teachings said one or more huge serpents lived in the lake.

According to legendary Fortean John Keel, “Early Indian settlers around the lake became annoyed because the monster occasionally dined on members of the tribe. They decided to launch a major effort to trap and kill the creature. But, somehow, the swimming sneak overheard the plot, surfaced, and held a pow wow with his persuers. A bargain was struck. If the Indians promised not to kill him and turn his hide into moccassins, he would promise to eat only white men.” When a small steamer was launched by whites in the summer of 1876 and quickly decommissioned, the natives weren’t surprised.

The Walker Lake Bulletin reported in August 1883 that settlers near the lake were “awakened by a horrible, soul-shrinking screech” when a pair of monster pythons, writhing in battle, took it ashore. The Paiutes made a peace offering of the loser’s corpse, which was measured at exactly “seventy-nine feet, seven inches and a quarter in length.” The victor slithered back into the lake—but, like many of his brethren, was fond of sunning himself lakeside. A quarter century later, local businessman E. J. Reynolds told the Goldfield Daily Tribune the uncoiled beast was seen “wallowing” on the sand, and estimated its length at as least 70 feet.

Walker’s giant water snake piqued the curiosity of professor David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University. In the summer of 1907, newspapers reported Jordan, “generally conceded to be the foremost icthyologist in the United States,” and his colleague planned to high-tail it to Nevada upon the next sighting, capture the beast and send the dissected remains to that most reviled of institutions—the Smithsonian.

Samuel Pugh, superintendent of the Walker River Indian Agency, apparently rethought what he had chocked up as Indian superstition after “several white men claimed similar visions” of the serpent. In 1909, it was sighted by a Reno police captain; two years later, miners made a fuss of the monstrous “serpent-like fish” which disturbed their work. After a highway was built around the lake, “respectable” tourists and locals reported seeing “a huge monster, wholly unlike any fish inhabiting the waters of the lake, swimming about.” One hermit even asked the district attorney how much he would be paid in exchange for its scalp. A 1930s account in the Hawthorne News claimed it was sighted in a cave at the base of Mount Grant. The witness went to retrieve his gun—but by the time he returned, it had vanished.

As recently as 1956, a couple from Babbit, Nevada wrote to the editor of Hawthorne’s newspaper, claiming to have seen “something moving in Walker Lake at a terrific speed” which actually outpaced their automobile. It performed an aquabatic 100 yard dash before plummeting below the surface. The fall 1969 issue of non-fiction magazine Old West reprinted their letter, which continued, “It must’ve been 45 to 55 feet long and its back stuck up above the water at least four or five feet when it was swimming fast.”

Lake monsters are perennial newspaper fodder; nicknamed Sarah in the early 1900s, the Walker Lake monster was exploited for Hawthorne’s 1964 centennial celebration. One old coot claimed May 15 as Serpent’s Night at Walker Lake. He told the Nevada State Journal that every 100 years on the dot the serpent surfaces and seeks his prey. “He never fails, the old timers say he is as regular as the Capistrano swallows and far more dangerous.” As part of the celebration, local Paiutes attempted to lure the beast ashore with “an hours-long serpent dance,” even halting Naval frogmen from their exercises for fear it would be disturbed. Luckily the creature continues to elude capture.

http://jill-stefko.suite101.com/move-over-nessie-make-room-for-cryptid-lake-tahoe-tessie-a281694

Move Over Nessie, Make Room for Cryptid Lake Tahoe Tessie

posted Sep 2, 2010

by Jill Stefko

Loch Ness' Nessie is probably the most famous water monster. Lake Tahoe has its Tessie who has been sighted by many witnesses. What could she be?

Lake Tahoe, a natural crater lake, borders Nevada and California. It’s twenty-two miles long, twelve miles in diameter and 1,645 feet deep. The lake is one of several that are the remnants of a huge inland sea, Lake Lahontan, which was 8,500 square miles.
In the 1800s, members of the Paiute and Washoe Native American tribes told white settlers about a monster living in the lake. There have been many sightings since then. The locals dubbed the aquatic cryptid Tessie.

Lake Tahoe Tessie – Description

The vast majority of witnesses describe Tessie as being more than sixty feet long, with reptilian features, an undulating serpentine body and dark skin; however some say she looks like a giant sturgeon

The reptilian accounts remain consistent from sighting to sighting and many compare her appearance to that of Nessie’s of Loch Ness.

Jacques Cousteau Investigates Lake Tahoe Nessie

In the 1970s, the highly respected French oceanographer is said to have led an expedition to investigate Nessie after he heard about the sightings of the water monster. It was reported that Cousteau encountered something so frightening that he refused to reveal any information to the public about what he had seen. He never released any of his information or films. Cousteau told his colleagues that the world wasn’t ready to find out about what lurked in Lake Tahoe.

Cave Rock and the Lair of Lake Tahoe Tessie

This is a large rock formation by the southeastern shore of Lake Tahoe. About three million years ago, it was part of a volcanic vent when the lake was deeper than it is now. Waves crashing against the rocks created the caves.

Cave Rock was sacred to the Washoe Indians. It’s alleged that the tribe tossed their dead off of the rock. It's said that several spirits perform tribal rites there and people can see the Lady of the Lake in the rock formation. There have been reported sightings of a female specter garbed in clothing of the late 1800s, seen floating below the water’s surface. Cave Rock is said to be above Tessie’s underwater lair.

Selected Sightings of Lake Tahoe TessieSightings of Lake Tahoe Tessie include:

• Ashley ___ sighted a cryptid that looked like Nessie and said it was black, green and brown.
• Rick Osborne and three other people witnessed a large serpentine creature hunting and feeding on a school of large trout in the winter. It was about the size of a telephone pole in diameter and, approximately, thirty to sixty feet long. It dove up and splashed into the school of fish.
• Ingrid and her aunt saw Tessie one morning. The water was still and clear, without waves. Suddenly there was a wake that caught their attention. They saw four dark blue humps in the lake, but couldn’t see a head or tail, before the humps sank into the water.
• Samantha and her family were watching Fourth of July fireworks and heard something swimming near their boat and felt the vessel shake. They saw a long serpentine creature that swam by, then disappeared.
• Barry and a friend watched Tessie swimming for thirty minutes from the highway on the eastern side of the lake. She was black and serpentine-shaped, like a huge snake. He estimated she was fifty to sixty feet long. She floated in shallow water about ninety yards from the shore as if she was sunning herself. Then, she swam to deep water and disappeared.
• Gene St. Denis and a friend sighted spotted gray creature about ten to fifteen feet long swimming in Lake Tahoe. On another occasion, St. Denis and another person were swimming over a large hole in the bottom of the lake and felt an explosion underneath them, followed by seeing what appeared to be a sixteen feet long creature swimming away. After the silt settled, they found large fin prints where the creature had been.

What Might Lake Tahoe Tessie Be?

The only evidence that the water monster exists is the accounts of witnesses and an alleged video tape that hasn’t been released to the public. There are about six sightings reported every year. The majority of witnesses say she’s serpentine, while some say she resembles a sturgeon. It could be possible that there is more than one water monster in Lake Tahoe.
The late Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans, Father of Cryptozoology, the study of unknown mysterious animals, classified water monsters in his 1968 book, In the Wake of Sea Serpents. According to him, there are eight types of these cryptids. While Nessie is probably the most famous water monster, these cryptids have been documented world wide.
In addition to Tessie, there are the Lake Norman’s Norman or Normie and Lake Eerie’s South Bay Bessie. Some postulate these cryptids are giant sturgeons or mutant species of know aquatic animals, such as catfish. Others postulate they are surviving species of dinosaurs believed to be extinct. The coelacanth, a fish, was believed to be extinct until one was caught in the last century. Since then, schools of this fish have been found in the ocean. The tuatara, an animal resembling an iguana, is another example of a living fossil. There is a museum and a hotline dedicated to Tessie in the Lake Tahoe region. Perhaps, some day, one or more will be captured alive and join the rank of the living fossils.

Articles Related to Cryptid Lake Tahoe Tessie

Readers who enjoyed this article might like Cryptid Sea Serpents or Monsters –Categories, along with Lake Norman's Cryptid Water Monster and South Bay Bessie Lake Erie Water Monster.
Source:
Cryptozoology A to Z, Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark,(Fireside, 1999)


Read more at Suite101: Move Over Nessie, Make Room for Cryptid Lake Tahoe Tessie | Suite101.com http://jill-stefko.suite101.com/move-over-nessie-make-room-for-cryptid-lake-tahoe-tessie-a281694#ixzz1iGJLLnwj

http://criticalbelievers.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=crypto&action=print&thread=2753

Tessie, the Monster of Lake TahoePost by blacky on Feb 1, 2010, 1:44pm

The state’s largest freshwater lake, Tahoe has long been rumored to be home to both an underwater Mob graveyard and a huge unknown creature.

A story often told around Tahoe is that a few years back a fisherman trawling off the south shore got his hook caught on something in the deeps. When he finally freed it and reeled his 'catch' back to his boat, he found a well preserved human ear on the end of the line. (Another version of the tale has the fisherman snagging a three-fingered human hand.)

According to local legend the 900-foot-deep waters off South Shore served as a dumping place for Mob victims from the 1920s to the 1950s. Hundreds of gangsters’ corpses are suspended in the depths, they say, preserved from decay and prevented from gas-bloated surfacing by the near-freezing deep waters. So pervasive is this tale that many local fishermen refer to the area as “The Graveyard,” and a Tahoe-boat Mafia execution was featured in the climax of The Godfather Part II.

Even stranger are the tales of “Tessie.” Locals maintain that a large, unidentified, serpent-like creature lives in the deepest parts of the lake, and usually appears around June in even-numbered years. Dubbed “Tessie” in imitation of Loch Ness’s Nessie, the beast allegedly appears in Washoe Indian legend, and may have first been spotted by 19th century settlers.

Tessie made headlines in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 12 1984 when the paper reported that two women had seen the Lake Tahoe leviathan a month earlier. Tahoe City residents Patsy McKay and Diane Stavarakas were hiking above the west shore when they spotted the creature swimming in the lake.

McKay said the beast was about 17 feet long. She watched it closely and saw it surface three times “like a little submarine.” Her companion said that the creature had a humped back and seemed to surface in a whale-like, lethargic manner. She was also sure that it wasn’t a diver, a log or a large ripple.

Two years earlier a pair of off-duty Reno policemen had also taken a turn with Tessie. Officers Kris Beebe and Jerry Jones were water-skiing in the lake in June 1982 when an “unusually large” creature swam by them.

Yet another story about Tahoe asserts that there’s an underground river system that links the lake with Pyramid Lake in Nevada. Apparently the bodies of people who have drowned in Tahoe have surfaced in Pyramid Lake, fifty miles to the north. This phenomenon, however, might be due to the corpses floating over the north Tahoe spillway onto the Truckee River, and then downstream to Pyramid Lake.

The closest anyone ever came to figuring out Tahoe’s mysteries was in the mid-1970s. Famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau brought a mini-submarine to the lake and did several dives in search of the 1,600-foot bottom.

He returned to the surface allegedly saying, “The world isn’t ready for what is down there,” and to his death refused to release any pictures or data from the expedition.

What did the legendary diver find? Pin-stripe-suited, bullet-riddled corpses bobbing in the dark depths? A colony of living, amphibian dinosaurs? Or something even weirder?

The answers lie in the chilly depths of blue Lake Tahoe.

Re: Tessie, the Monster of Lake Tahoe
Post by darrylmckay on Feb 6, 2010, 12:11am

Quote:

The closest anyone ever came to figuring out Tahoe’s mysteries was in the mid-1970s. Famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau brought a mini-submarine to the lake, and did several dives in search of the 1,600-foot bottom.
I have been trying to find info on this and it appears to be a myth that this ever happened.

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Re: Tessie, the Monster of Lake Tahoe
Post by blacky on Feb 6, 2010, 4:12pm

the submarine part is the myth? hmmm

--in the case or Tessie we have several of the same features, basically a creature described as either a big fish or a "Serpent": we need not wonder at the common reports of a train of humps or a "Long undualting/ 'Serpentine' body" because that is not the body of the creature, that is the wave on the surface of its body passing underwater. Several creatures can produce the effect: there are other wave effects as well, and the Walker Lake sighting of 1956 could well be a seiche wave or a "Surge" unassociated with any living creature. The general run of reports also sounds much like Ogopogo, and Ogopogo reports seem similarly at base a big sort of fish and a long series of sightings of wave effects. All the same, the identification of the "big fish" reports at Lake Taho are possibly not sturgeons as stated. Mapping out the probable sturgeon reports elsewhere in North America shows that Tahoe and associated lakes are well outside of the usual territory for such reports: and then again the usual riun of reports and traditions insist that the creatures have long jaws full of sharp teeth. So it may be that Tessie is really Bagil under a new and less threatening guise.

In the case of the last discussion on Tessie, the one reconstruction of the whole animal offered is very much like the Altamaha-Ha. I think the Altamaha-Ha is a sort of Alligator gar and that furthermore the Bargil, Cecil and Tessie reports represent the West Coast variant o a similar creature. As a matter of fact, some internet sources refer to alligator gars as being reported around California, but they are assumed to have been introduced secretly by sportsmen in order to spice up their local fishing possibilities. It is possible they might be native there. If so, there is a fair possibility that they are the same species as the alligator gars in the east, since they are regularly identified as belonging to the "Known" species.

Below, some Easterner sports fishermen show off their alligator gar catch. These photos came from an Indian site which specializes in recirculating photos off the internet and so I do not know their original source. These fish are known to reach ten feet in length, although reports of 20-footers are not uncommon. Some "Monster" reports from Lake Norman are known to be such.

Snakeyes. The pattern of scales also reminds some people of snakes

Generalized area of BAGIL or TAWAGA Reports

UPDATE: of probable interest is this recent article about an alligator gar caught in Arizona:
http://current.com/green/89156714_alligator-gar-caught-in-arizona.htm