Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

Big Chapman Lake, near Warsaw. On August
16, 1934, W. H. Scott was fishing from a boat
when he saw a head, 2 feet across and with cowlike
eyes, rise in the water nearby. Jerome Clark and
Loren Coleman, “America’s Lake Monsters,” Beyond
Reality, no. 14 (March-April 1975): 28, 52.
Big Swan Pond, south of Vincennes. Robert
Hedges and others reported a 20- to 25-foot serpentine
animal with a white throat in June 1892.
“Sea Serpent Seen Again,” Vincennes Commercial
Weekly, June 17, 1892.
Eagle Creek. Loren Coleman, Mysterious America
(Boston: Faber and Faber, 1983), p. 277.
Fulks Lake. See BEAST OF ’BUSCO.
Hollow Block Lake, near Portland. Squarish animal
about 7 feet long that screams. Cincinnati
Enquirer, August 7, 1960.
Horseshoe Pond, south of Vincennes. In April
1892, Isaac Daines saw a monster resembling a 60foot,
black snake with a dog’s head. “A Sea Serpent,”
Vincennes Commercial Weekly, April 22,
1892.
Lake Manitou, Rochester. Probable hoax of
1838. Indian legends about the lake may have
been inspired by fossil remains of mastodons in
northern Indiana. Albert S. Gatschet, “Water-
Monsters of the American Aborigines,” Journal of
American Folklore 12 (1899): 255–260; Donald
Smalley, “The Logansport Telegraph and the
Monster of the Indiana Lakes,” Indiana Magazine
of History 42 (1946): 249–267.
Lake Maxinkuckee. Loren Coleman, Mysterious
America (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1983), p. 277.
Wabash River. At Huntingdon near the end of
the nineteenth century, two women saw a lionheaded
animal churning up the water with its tail.
Charles M. Skinner, Myths and Legends of Our
Own Land (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1896), vol.
2, p. 298.
Iowa
Okoboji Lake. A large, oval-headed animal with
one hump bumped against a dock where a family
was watching it on June 23, 2001. Shadowlands
Sea Serpent Page, http://theshadowlands.net/
sightings.htm.
Spirit Lake. Loren Coleman, Mysterious America
(Boston: Faber and Faber, 1983), p. 277.
Kansas
Byron Walker Wildlife Refuge [Kingman
682 LAKE AND RIVER MONSTERS
County Lake]. A 20-foot-long animal is said to
have eaten an entire calf in October 1967. Kingman
(Kans.) Leader-Courier, October 27, 1967,
and August 8 and 15, 1969.
Kentucky
Herrington Lake, 30 miles south of Louisville.
A 15-foot animal was seen several times by classics
professor Lawrence S. Thompson. Joe Ward,
“Monster Reported Swimming in Herrington
Lake,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 7,
1972; Alan Markfield, “Professor Says He’s Seen
a Prehistoric Creature Swimming in a Kentucky
Lake,” Cincinnati Enquirer, November 12,
1972.
Reynolds Lake. A giant snake was reported in
this small Oldham County lake in 1965. “More
and More,” Fate 16 (December 1965): 22.
Louisiana
Calcasieu River. Loren Coleman, Mysterious
America (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1983), p. 277.
Maine
Boyden Lake. See WIWILÁMECQ.
Chain Lakes. Passamaquoddy legend of a 50foot
snake that is active in winter. Charles M.
Skinner, American Myths and Legends (Philadelphia:
Lippincott, 1903), vol. 2, pp. 277–279.
Machias Lake. Lake monster seen in 1881.
Aledo (Ill.) Democrat, December 9, 1881, p. 2.
Moosehead Lake. Down East 17, no. 2 (September
1971): 41.
Rangeley Lake. A giant fish, the size of a sturgeon
or larger, routinely seen but never caught by
fishermen in the 1970s and 1980s. Loren Coleman,
Mysterious America (Boston: Faber and
Faber, 1983), p. 277.
Sysladobsis Lake. An 8-foot-long snake with a
dog’s head. Charles M. Skinner, Myths and Legends
of Our Own Land (Philadelphia: Lippincott,
1896), vol. 2, p. 299.
Maryland
Patuxent River. A “dragon” was seen around
1933. Alain Y. Dessaint, ed., Historical Tours
through Southern Maryland Today: The Lower
Patuxent (La Plata: Southern Maryland Today,
1983).
Zekiah Swamp, Charles County. See EELPOOT.