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On May 18, 1960, three priests claimed to have seen a horse-headed monster in Lough Ree in Ireland. This is one of three lakes in Ireland where a monster has been seen. In 2001, a search expedition even took place on the lake, covered by the Irish media. We have collected information about 8 more of the most famous lakes, on which, at one time or another, eyewitnesses saw unusual creatures unknown to science, the existence of which has not yet been proven.
1. Loch Ness, Scotland. Without exaggeration, the most famous lake with a monster in the world. The famous Nessie, rumors about which date back to the 6th century AD, according to many scientists, is the last dinosaur living on earth.
2. Lake Okanagan, British Columbia, Canada. Ogopogo is a legendary monster that glorified the whole of British Columbia and almost approached Nessie in popularity. First seen in 1958, it was regularly described by eyewitnesses as a long snake lizard with a barrel-like body, long neck and fins.
3. Lake Labynkyr, Yakutia, Russia. The Labynkyr Devil is a monster seen by the Yakuts in the 19th century. Although there is no photo or video evidence, the monster has been spotted by more than one scientific expedition. In addition, the noise allegedly made by the monster was recorded, and with the help of an echo sounder, a huge shadow was noticed, clearly not the size of any known lake fish.
4. Lake Kanas, Xinjiang Province, China. For the first time huge creature was noticed by students of the local university in 1985. Later there were rumors that the monster regularly drags animals and birds underwater. In the 90s, they forgot about him, but in 2011, several eyewitnesses stated that the monster had risen to the surface again. One of them even managed to capture it.
5. Lake Kok-Kol, Dzhambul region, Kazakhstan. Here, according to multiple observations of eyewitnesses, a huge (at least 15 meters long) bloodthirsty creature lives, dragging birds and animals under the water. The locals called the monster "the water spirit of Idahar".
6. Lake Storshen, Jämtland Province, Sweden. The local inhabitant is a huge pangolin, the first notes about which date back to 1635. Its existence for a long time was considered just a medieval legend, but in the early 2000s, local media wrote that two girls saw the monster. They were scared to death. At first, their story was not taken seriously, but a few years later, incredible footprints were found on the shore of the lake, the owner of which has not yet been identified. It is also known that a giant trap was set on the lake.
7. Lake Champlain, USA - Canada. For the first time, a local monster was described by an eyewitness - a sheriff named Nathan Mooney in 1883, as a huge black snake about 50 meters long. In 1977, tourist Sandra Mansi managed to photograph the head, neck and part of the back of the monster. Also, according to other eyewitnesses, the "Shamp" has three to five humps on its back.
8. Lake Brosno, Tver region, Russia. The local monster is described by eyewitnesses as a lizard, strongly resembling a plesiosaur. Most of them talk about the lizard in words, but some, supposedly, were even lucky enough to take pictures of it. Nonetheless, official facts there is no monster at the moment.
9. Loch Ree, Ireland. According to legend, not only a monster is hiding in the lake, but also a whole underwater city with a cathedral.
The theme of lake monsters primarily evokes the Scottish "plesiosaur" Nessie from Loch Ness. However, this charm is far from exhausted. After all, lake monsters are found not only there, but also in other lakes in Scotland, as well as in Norway, Sweden, Canada, the USA, Russia, China ... Without pretending to universal coverage, we will talk about some of these monsters.
THE HORROR OF THE CELTIC LAKES
In Scotland and Ireland there are a number of lakes where monsters like Nessie from Loch Ness are also found. Moreover, evidence of encounters with these monsters can be found in medieval chronicles.
In Irish myths, for example, there are water demons called eel horses. Written in the 12th century, The Book of the Gray Seal tells of a huge eel horse that lived in the small but bottomless lake of Slive Miss in County Kerry. This beast devoured cattle and even people, who were saved only by the stone walls of the fortress built on the shore of the lake. According to legend, the hero of the Irish epic Cuchulain, who one night found himself near this lake, heard the heavy tread of the monster and, despite all his courage, was so frightened that in the blink of an eye he climbed over the fortress wall and found himself out of the reach of the beast.
Legends attributed to many Irish saints glorious deeds in the fight against these huge monsters. Saint Mochua of Balla overcame the monster of Connaught, and Saint Senanus and Saint Kevin prevailed against the monsters of Scattery and Glendalough. St. Patrick managed to lure the eel horse into a huge barrel, and St. Colman from Dromore managed to save the girl, whom the monster almost swallowed when she was rinsing clothes in the lake. A great many ancient legends about lake monsters testify to the fact that belief in their existence was the most widespread.
In both Ireland and Scotland, there are legends about water horses that are very similar to real ones, and people sometimes mistook them for land horses. Legend has it that in County Cavan, water horses came out of Loch Ramore at night and grazed in oat fields. A certain farmer managed to catch such a foal and make him work in the field. But one evening, as the farmer rode past the lake, the water horses neighed, and the foal rushed into the water, dragging the rider with him, whom no one has seen since.
The same fate was prepared for a young man working near Loch Kaoh in County Leitrim, who caught a lost - as he thought - horse and began to plow a field on it. However, the animal suddenly rushed straight into the lake and dragged both the harrow and the young man to the bottom with it.
Some recent reports also emphasize the similarity of water monsters with horses. For example, Patrick Canning, who in 1955 found himself on Shanakiver Lake, County Galway, encountered a creature that he called "a wonderful black foal." According to Patrick, it started to rain, and he went after the donkey to bring him home, but stopped about 200 meters away when he saw that a black animal the size of a foal was circling near the donkey. Canning drew attention to the unnaturally long neck of the creature and quite clearly distinguished the head with protruding ears. Noticing a man, a strange creature rushed into the water.
As for Loch Ness and its mysterious inhabitant, who became world famous in the thirties of the last century, this story seems to have very long roots there too. It is sometimes argued that for many centuries the lake was considered a strange place inhabited by some incomprehensible and mysterious creatures. A Neolithic wood carving at Balkmaan, near Loch Ness, depicts the monster for the first time and serves as a kind of illustration for the stories of those who have seen it, describing both vertical undulating movements and a wide head. The Roman historian Dio Cassius mentioned that among the Caledonians, a tribe that lived on the shores of the lake during the time of the Roman Empire, there was a taboo on eating fish from Loch Ness.
The earliest written evidence of the existence of the monster is the 27th chapter of the second book of the Life of St. Columbus, written around 565. Its compiler, Adamnan, a highly credible author, tells how Saint Columbus came to the grave of a man who had been attacked by a monster.
Columbus decided to try his luck and ordered one of his men to swim across the lake after the boat. After that, a monster appeared, which rushed to the swimmer. Then Columbus ordered the monster to swim away, and at the sound of the saint's voice, he retired at high speed.
One Scottish chronicle indicates that the “last time” the monster was seen was in 1520. In the "History of Scotland" by Hector Boethius, written in the 16th century, there is a story about how a "terrible monster" came out of the waters of the lake one day "in the early morning, about the middle of summer", knocked down several trees and killed three people.
Richard Frank's Northern Memoirs (1694) mentions an island floating in Loch Ness, resembling a monster's fin protruding from the water. Daniel Defoe in "Journey through the whole island of Great Britain" tells about the "leviathans", which in 1726 were seen blowing up the soldiers of General Wade walking along the shores of the lake. In 1771, Patrick Rose heard of a monster, "a cross between a horse and a camel", which had been seen in the lake shortly before. In the summer of 1885, rumors were again actively circulating about strange monster seen near Loch Ness. It became so famous that it was even written about in the Glasgow Evening News in 1886. In November of the same year, a realistic woodcut depicting the monster and an article in the Constitution newspaper (Atlanta, USA) devoted to the mystery of Loch Ness appeared.
In the twentieth century, on another Scottish lake - Loch Morar - locals about 30 times a monster similar to Nessie was observed, which is quite a lot, given that this lake is not at all as inhabited and popular as Loch Ness, and there is no road along it.
Observations of various lake monsters in Ireland are not so numerous even in comparison with Loch Morar, but they are very colorful. Sometimes Irish monsters even attacked people.
One such case is mentioned in the story of Georgina Kerberry, who in 1954 saw a monster on Loch Faddah in County Galway, where she came fishing with three friends. Miss Carbury worked as a librarian in Clifden and in the sixties told the monster hunter F.-W. Holiday. Loch Faddah is small in size - it has a length of 1.95 km and a width of 550 meters. When the fishermen moored to the shore to warm tea and have lunch, one of them drew the attention of his comrades to a man swimming to the shore. However, as the swimmer approached, it became clear that this was not a person, but some kind of unprecedented creature. When only 20 meters remained before him, the fishermen jumped up and hurried away from the shore.
Miss Kerberry distinctly remembered the open "great white mouth" of the monster. The monster was "a disgusting... worm" and its body "seemed to be in constant motion". The head of an unknown beast, crowning a long neck, rose high above the water; as the observers retreated further on land, the creature moved around the rock, and from this angle the forked tail and two crests on its back became visible. Miss Kerberry was so shocked that she had nightmares for weeks afterwards.
A very strange monster was met on Loch Dub, County Galway, by schoolteacher Alphonse Mullany and his son. This lake has long been considered inhabited by unknown monsters. The meeting of Mr. Mullany and his son with an unknown creature took place in March 1962. Here is what the eldest of them reported to the newspaper: “After school we worked in the swamp, and I promised to take Alphonse Jr. fishing. We had a four-meter strong fishing rod with a lure for perch or pike, which abound in Loch Dabb.
I let my son fish with this rod, and I took a smaller rod for myself and fished with a worm. However, there was no bite. In the end, I decided that it would not be possible to catch fish that evening. Just in case, I took a big fishing rod and went down to the shallows. Suddenly the line twitched. Thinking that the hook could catch on a snag, I weakly pulled - it did not give in. He stepped back a little and pulled harder - the fishing rod crackled. I was completely occupied with an unpleasant problem when my son's piercing scream rang out. It was then that I saw a strange animal - I had never seen anything like it before. Short thick legs, hippo face, small ears and a white pointed horn on the nose. Dark grey, covered with short stubble or hair like a pig's.
Alphonse Jr. screamed in fear: the monster swallowed the lure and emerged with clearly aggressive intentions. Father and son ran away. Mullany quickly gathered the neighbors - armed with guns, the men went to the lake, but they did not find anyone there.
Another curious report concerned Loch Breen, County Kerry, which is located eight kilometers from railway and can only be reached by a bad country road. In the summer of 1979, two farmers met a reptile-like creature, a cross between a giant seal and a mythical dragon. Black as coal, more than three meters long, it slowly crossed almost the entire lake about 450 meters wide and disappeared under the water.
SELMA AND OTHERS
Norwegian journalist Erik Knetterud estimated that in about twenty lakes in this Scandinavian country, local residents periodically observe strange creatures. Perhaps this is not surprising, because Norway is a country with few people. Its area is 385 thousand square meters. km, which is more than that of the UK (243 thousand sq. km) or Italy (301 thousand sq. km). However, there are far fewer people living in these spaces than in these countries. In the Norwegian kingdom - 5.06 million people, while in the UK - 63.18 million people, and in Italy - 61.48 million people. Some Norwegian lake monsters even have their own names: Selma, Remmy, Cadulla. There is also a lake monster in the neighboring kingdom - Sweden with its similar natural and geographical conditions.
The most famous Norwegian lake monster is Selma, who lives in the glacial lake Seljord (Seljordsvatnet), located about 175 kilometers west of Oslo. The length of the lake slightly exceeds 19 kilometers, the width approaches two and a half. The first evidence of a large reptile inhabiting it dates back to the middle of the 18th century.
Locals describe Selma mainly as a large, up to 10 - 15 meters long snake. One of the first documented encounters with the monster was the case of Bjorn Bjorg and his mother Gunhild, which occurred in the eighties of the XIX century. They managed to cut the serpent crawling ashore in half. According to their testimony, the back of the creature slid back into the lake, while the front was left to rot on the shore. Several decades passed, and in the early morning of the summer of 1918, a certain Karl Carlson went fishing on Seljord. The weather was fine and calm, and the water was mirror-like. Suddenly he saw a strange animal moving rapidly under the water. It was approaching, and Carlson was so frightened that he dropped his fishing rod and ran. According to his description, the head of the animal looked like a horse and towered a meter above the water.
In 1996, two men went fishing at dusk on a lake when the silence was broken by a sudden wave on the water. Near the fishermen, the neck of some animal, crowned with a horse's head, stuck out of the water as much as three meters. After some time, the animal again plunged into the water and disappeared. In the early morning of July 2001, father and son from Oslo, who did not want to give their names, went down to the lake to swim. From a distance of about 100 meters, they noticed something strange on the beach, similar to a pile of discarded car tires. Coming closer, up to a distance of 10 meters, they realized with amazement that at the water's edge lies huge snake. The son stumbled, made a noise, the animal turned its long neck and looked at them. His head was as big as a cow's. People and the unknown creature looked at each other for about ten seconds, after which the beast turned its head back to the lake and slid into the water. It appears to be 10 meters long.
There are several amateur photographs and video footage of Selma. Swedish cryptozoologist Jan Ove Sandberg, president and founder of GUST (Global Underwater Search Team), has been collecting eyewitness accounts since 1977 and trying to track down the monster using sonar and hydrophones. He even tried to trap Selma with a fish-filled trap, but to no avail. However, long-term wiretapping of the depths of the lake allowed him to come to the conclusion that in Seljord "there is something unnatural." As for the assumptions of cryptozoologists and other enthusiasts, someone believes that Selma is a giant eel, others that it is a giant catfish, some kind of prehistoric creature, sea serpent or even it is not known how the anaconda ended up in Europe.
Another Scandinavian monster, Remmy, lives in a small, 14 sq. km, Lake Remmen in Ostfold County, Southeast Norway. Almost every inhabitant of the town of Remskog lying on the shores of the lake is sure that there is something in the local waters, but they do not know what it is. A few years ago, the city council of Remskog even set a bonus of NOK 10,000 for anyone who provided any evidence of the monster's existence, be it clear photographs, excrement samples or anything else. However, the award remained unclaimed.
The earliest evidence of encounters with this something dates back to the beginning of the 18th century. The inhabitant of Lake Remmen, according to eyewitnesses, had the head of a calf and a body that looked like a log. The first documented evidence of a meeting with Remmy dates back to 1929. Then the young girl Astrid Myhrvold went to the lake for water. On the way back, she stopped to rest. The sun was setting, there was not a breeze, and the water in the lake looked like a smooth mirror. Suddenly, Astrid noticed what looked like a large black pipe on the shore. Suddenly, the "pipe" slid into the water and began to make its way through the reeds and sedge growing near the shore. The girl saw the vegetation moving in the path of the monster. Above the water stuck a head, a bit like a horse, with protruding ears. The creature's tail resembled a fin and writhed like a snake's. Astrid rushed home and called for her mother, but when they arrived at the beach, Remmy had already disappeared. Astrid's brothers laughed at her and thought she saw ducks. Many years later, Astrid saw an image of the Loch Ness monster in a magazine and said to herself: "That's who I saw then."
Five years later, Astrid's neighbor Asbjorn Holmedal was returning home late at night through the woods from a neighboring village. Suddenly, just a few meters away from him, he saw a terrible creature resembling a snake, but four meters long. Asbjorn was terribly frightened and ran away towards the lake. It seemed to him that the monster was chasing him. Holmedal ran even faster and, having reached the lake, turned onto the path that runs along the shore. Hearing a strong splash, he turned around and saw the creature jump into the water.
Remmy's other credible sighting is from September 20, 1976. Eric Gustafson was driving a bus from Lilleström via Remskog towards the Swedish border. In addition to Eric, his wife and 15 schoolchildren aged eight to thirteen were on the bus. When they reached the crossroads near the church in Remskog, Eric looked out over the lake and saw big waves between the shore and the island of Bjornoy. The driver stopped and the passengers got out of the car. The view was limited to bushes, but it was clear that a large creature was swimming across the lake. Eric thought it was a moose at first. The children screamed as the monster began to puff out onto the shore. Everyone saw perfectly well that the monster had a serpentine body about 10 meters long, and four or five humps on its back. Eric wanted to get closer, but the animal dived again. Apparently, Remmy swam deep, as the surface of the lake was no longer agitated. Oslo University professor Hjalmar Monte-Kaas suggested that Gustavson and the students saw the log. However, Eric was skeptical about the professor's comment: "How could a log float, making waves, then crawl ashore, turn around again and jump into the water?"
There is also a lake monster in neighboring Sweden. It bears the extremely tricky name Storsbodyuret and lives in Lake Storsjon, located almost exactly in the middle of the country. The lake is large, has a length of 70 kilometers and a width of 25. The maximum depth reaches 91 meters. According to official chronicles, the monster has been observed here since 1686. But among the people, legends about the monster that lives in the lake went much earlier. In any case, back in 1635, the priest Mugens Pedersen wrote down a legend explaining how a monster appeared in the lake. According to her, one day two trolls decided to boil water for themselves on the banks of the Storsjön. They lit a small fire and hung a kettle over it. Although the water in it had boiled for a long time, they still did not remove the kettle and boiled the water to the point that a terrible creature with a cat's head and a snake body jumped out of the kettle. It quickly looked around and disappeared into the lake. According to another legendary version, the monster appeared from the beer cauldron. The wild imagination of the Swedish commoners in this case, apparently, is not too disturbed by the thought of how a creature could fit in a teapot or cauldron, which is credited with a length of from three to 15 meters.
Moreover, even a stone slab with one of the oldest runic inscriptions in Sweden, located on an island in the middle of the lake, is stubbornly connected by folk rumor with a lake monster. In the old days, he allegedly harassed the locals very much, and then they turned to some powerful sorcerer for help. He put a runic spell on a stone slab and placed it on the island, which forced the beast to behave more quietly. Residents of the surrounding area are still sure that if the slab is knocked down or destroyed, then Storsbodyuret will begin to rage again. And indeed, several centuries ago, when a stone was accidentally knocked down during some kind of armed conflict, the beast again began to rage. The outrages continued until the locals again gave the slab a vertical position.
The number of sightings of the mysterious creature back in the 19th century was in the hundreds. Things got to the point that, with the support of King Oscar II in 1894, a Swedish naval officer, Captain Dedering, founded a joint-stock company whose goal was to capture the monster. Nothing came of this, however. But in 1986, in connection with the 300th anniversary of the official observations of the monster of Lake Storsyon, the authorities of the city of Östersund lying on its shores passed a law that declared the monster itself, its nests and its offspring inviolable. In 2005, however, city officials got serious again and repealed the law. That does not prevent the monster from appearing at times quite unexpectedly and inopportunely.
So, a few years ago, customs officer for fishing inspection Ragnar Bjorks was checking certificates for the right to fish on the lake when he almost had a stroke. Out of the completely calm waters, next to Björks' four-meter-long boat, a huge tail suddenly emerged from the water. The huge animal that followed its own tail was about six meters long, gray-brown in color on its back and with a yellow belly. When the monster came abreast of Bjorks' boat, he hit him on the back with an oar. Startled, the animal hit the water with its tail, and the boat was thrown three meters up. "I never believed there was a monster in Lake Storsjön...but now I'm sure," the stunned official told reporters.
No, you still need to be careful with the lake monsters!
THE BEAST OF LAKE VAN
Lake Van is located in the east of Turkey, on the Armenian Highlands, near the border with Iran. It is so large in size that the locals call it the Van Sea. Indeed, among the lakes of the Middle East in size, it is second only to the Iranian Lake Urmia and at the same time is the largest "soda lake" in the world. The width of Lake Van reaches 119 kilometers, the surface area is 3755 square meters. km, surface height above sea level - 1640 meters. At the same time, unlike Urmia, it is also deep-sea, the average depths are about 160 - 170 meters, while the largest reaches 451 meters.
On Sundays, locals do laundry in the lake without the use of soap or detergent. The water here is six times saltier than sea water and, most importantly, contains soda in very large quantities. It is worth swimming - you will become clean, as if you used the best soap. No wonder local manufacturers obtain detergents by evaporating salts from water. These salts in their composition are somewhat reminiscent of the healing salts of the much more famous Israeli Dead Sea in the world. The water of Lake Van can also be treated. Local old people successfully use it to treat arthritis and rheumatism. At the same time, the concentration of salts is still not so high. Although the water from Lake Van is completely impossible to drink, it contains fish, including a unique pearl mullet found nowhere else in the world.
The lake is surrounded by mountains, including the nearby extinct volcanoes Nemrud and Supkhan. The mountains protect the lake from cold winds, and the waters of the lake, in turn, soften the climate, which makes it possible to grow flowers and amazing fruits on its shores. However, there is not a single pasture on the shores of the lake - after all, water for drinking by ungulates is also not suitable.
But outlandish cats live on the lake. Almost the only ones in the world who love and know how to swim and fish well. They are called so - "Van cats". If you are lucky, the lucky ones can watch the purrs make real swims in the early morning. Each such cat is highly valued and protected by law, their export from Turkey is possible only with official permission. It is believed that these cats are marked by the blessing of Allah. This is indicated by specific stripes on the muzzle, from the nose to the front edge of the ear, and eyes of different colors: one is green, the other is blue. So it is no coincidence that at the entrance to the city of Van, guests are greeted by two huge statues of white cats of this outlandish breed.
However, in recent times the lake is perhaps most often mentioned in connection with the local lake monster, somewhat reminiscent of the famous Nessie. There are ancient Armenian legends that the "Monster of Van" lives in the lake. Even the Armenian chroniclers Movses Khorenatsi and Anania Shirakatsi wrote about the vishaps living in the lake. These monsters were so great that they allegedly threatened to swallow the entire inhabited world. However, for almost the entire twentieth century, due to the political situation in the region, no one cared about the monster, and he calmly swam in the reservoir, only occasionally showing himself to the eyes of local residents. But in the nineties, strange creatures began to be remembered more often.
"In the early morning we stood on the deck of the ferry, waiting for the completion of loading. Suddenly, a rapidly floating object appeared on the water surface dark color. I have been working on this ferry for almost 20 years and have heard many times about the monster that lives in the depths of the lake, but did not believe in its existence. And on that day, something terrible appeared before my eyes ... " Such stories began to appear more and more often on the pages of the Turkish press. Eyewitnesses, as a rule, are talking about a creature "dirty gray, about 20 meters long, with a head covered with wool , and a number of ridges on the back. "It floats to the surface mainly early in the morning and after a few minutes again hides under water. Residents of the surrounding villages say that the monster is curious: periodically raises its head above the water on a long neck and turns it, as if surveying the surroundings .
Scientists are skeptical. Thus, Erkut Kivanch, doctor of biology at Ankara University, in an interview with the Hürriyet newspaper stated: “In the lake, where the water is high in soda, and there are practically no algae and fish, large creatures cannot live. Seriously discussing this problem is possible only if clear photographs". But some cryptozoologists have a different opinion. At one time, Jacques-Yves Cousteau himself, a famous explorer of the ocean, who was far from believing in all sorts of miracles, showed interest in the mysterious inhabitant of Lake Van. Unfortunately, at the end of June 1997, death prevented him from making his intended trip to the lake.
On June 12, 1997, the monster of Lake Van was captured on videotape for the first time. Unal Kozak, a 26-year-old teacher at a local university, was lucky that day. The filming of the lake monster only lasted a few seconds. In the video, you can see a black-brown object with a hump, on the side of which an eye appears to be visible. Kozak claims that the creature reached a length of more than 20 meters! In total, the young researcher witnessed the appearance of a monster from the water three times and collected about a thousand eyewitness accounts. After studying the photographs taken by Kozak, scientists confirmed their authenticity. For some time, an operational headquarters even worked at the University of Van to collect reports of encounters with a monster and search for it. Japanese filmmakers visited the lake. Now a group of Turkish specialists is working there, who have the appropriate equipment. A representative delegation of cryptozoologists from the UK is going to come to their aid. Needless to say, amateurs with photo and video equipment who pitch tents on the shore of Lake Van in the hope that they will be lucky enough to photograph a mysterious creature. Local residents, as well as foreign tourists, are now refraining from health-improving swimming in the lake.
Meanwhile, the Turkish media reported another miracle of nature that appeared in Lake Gölü. According to those who saw it, it's just awful. A creepy hairy monster attracted the attention of even the deputies of the Turkish Parliament. According to press reports, this happened after the governor of the province, who was resting with his family on the shores of Lake Golyu, saw the emerging monster. Before that, no one paid attention to the testimonies of local residents who had repeatedly seen the monster. Now a special commission will deal with the Golyui ichthyosaur. And the reservoir, like Lake Van, may very well become a place of pilgrimage for sensation lovers from all over the world.
MYSTERY OF LAKE KANAS
Lake Kanas is located in Altai mountains, in the north of the Altai region of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. It is located 30 kilometers south of the junction of the borders of China, Russia and Kazakhstan. Its waters flow into the Irtysh and, thus, it is one of the few in China that are part of the system of reservoirs that feed the Arctic. The length of the lake reaches 25 kilometers, width - 2, the height of the water's edge above sea level - 1340 meters, maximum depths reach 188.5 or even 285 meters. The lake is fed mainly from the largest glaciers of Altai, located in the Tavan-Bogdo-Ula massif.
"Kanas" in Mongolian means a beautiful, rich and mysterious lake in the gorge. And the lake is really beautiful and full of secrets. The waters of Kanas have an amazing ability to change their color several times a year. In May, during the thaw, the water of the lake becomes grayish-blue, in June - sky-blue, as if reflecting all the greenery of Altai. In July, when the flood begins, Kanas becomes milky white. In August heavy rains color the waters of the lake in a greenish color, which is replaced by a bright emerald green in September and October.
The shores of the Kanas are covered with forest, which is home to 798 plant species and 39 animal species, 117 bird species, four amphibian species, seven fish species and more than 390 insect species. On the southeastern coast is the Tuvan settlement of Dengelem.
From ancient times, they talk about three sights of the lake. The first attraction is a wooden dam of natural origin, which is over a kilometer long. It is located in the northern part of the lake. A lot of dead trees are forever intertwined in an eerie ensemble exceeding a width of 100 meters. Any log taken out of the dam, towed downstream, sooner or later floats back to the jam. And this is scientific explanation: tree trunks float down the rivers into the lake, go with the flow, but at a certain moment gusts of wind from the south "blow" the trees back to the north. For thousands of years the trees cannot get out of Kanas, the imposing natural dam keeps growing and growing.
The second attraction is the dragons or monsters living in the waters of the lake, mentioned in ancient chronicles, capable of dragging a horse from a watering hole into the depths. In the Tuvan epic, this monster, interestingly, not only steals livestock, but also breathes fogs and clouds. The third attraction is the "radiance of the Buddha": an extremely rare atmospheric phenomenon, when a human figure is seen in the clouds sparkling above the lake.
If the "radiance of the Buddha" is an extremely rare phenomenon, and, on the contrary, anyone can always see a dam of trees, then the monster from the lake occupies exactly an intermediate position. There are not so few witnesses of his appearance, they, or rather, they even managed to fix them on photo and video tape, but they still don’t see him so often that you won’t show him to tourists. However, the waves launched by "hu guai" appeared in the frame more than once. It is sometimes believed that for the first time a huge creature was seen by students of a local university in 1985. Soon there were rumors that the monster regularly drags animals and birds underwater. In the nineties, it was temporarily forgotten, but in the new millennium it again began to catch the eye. So, on September 27, 2003, immediately after the devastating earthquake, which damaged many social facilities and residential buildings in Russian Republic Altai, and which was also felt in the Altai region of China, eyewitnesses noticed a "huge black object" on the surface of the lake. The monster swam towards the shore.
On July 5, 2007, several travelers managed to make an eight-minute video of the movement of a group of about 15 giant individuals of unknown creatures in Kanas. "Pisces" approached and diverged under water, more like a fleet. In 2011, eyewitnesses again managed to capture the elusive "hu guai" on video. In most cases, the monster appears only in photographs, where large waves and incomprehensible spots appear. It is believed that both photographs and videos attract additional tourists to the picturesque banks of the Kanas.
However, are the "dragons" from Kanas so mysterious? Indeed, back in the late eighties of the last century, a seemingly semi-mythical story began to acquire quite scientific details. Then a group of scientists from Xinjiang University discovered a school of giant fish in the waters of Kanas, stretching for tens of meters. Literally two days later, another group of scientists not only observed a strange flock, but was able to capture the creatures on photo and video film. Biologists, having studied the materials, decided: a flock of giant taimen settled in Lake Kanas. Taimen is a genus of large predatory salmon fish that live up to 200 years, grow up to two or three meters in length and weigh hundreds of kilograms. Local Tuvans, alas, did not believe the scientists, and in Kanas they try not to catch fish - they are afraid of incurring the wrath of monsters.
In the future, Chinese scientists continued to defend the hypothesis of a giant taimen. That's just the size and weight had to be corrected in order to bring it into line with the "hu guay". In 2010, they talked about taimen, reaching two to three tons in weight and 12-15 meters in length. Such a huge predatory fish may well feed on its relatively small counterparts, as well as waterfowl, otters, and may well drag domestic animals from the shore.
So what is a taimen? This is a large salmon fish, the oldest in this series. If other salmon appeared on our planet two or three million years ago, then taimen - as much as eighteen million. In small specimens, 8-10 transverse stripes are clearly visible on the sides of the body; small X-shaped and semicircular dark spots are also common. During spawning, the body turns copper-red. Taimen is widely distributed, in almost all major rivers Siberia and Far East, as well as in Altai. AT Soviet times when the environment was better, from time to time cans of taimen appeared on sale.
This fish can grow to a very impressive size. In 1943, on Kotun, a taimen 210 centimeters long and weighing 105 kg was caught in the net. Taimen live longer than other salmon: the age of the taimen, caught in 1944 in the Yenisei, near Krasnoyarsk, was determined at 55 years. His weight was 56 kg. During the first three or four years of life, the taimen eats primarily insects and juvenile fish, then almost completely switches to fish food. At the same time, he shows interest in waterfowl, primarily ducklings, as well as small mammals: shrews, voles. The fishermen take advantage of this weakness of taimen, and catch it on a "mouse" that imitates such prey.
The head of all taimen is large and somewhat flat, which allows them to open their mouths wide and swallow big booty. A powerful, torpedo-shaped body with a wide back characterizes the taimen as a strong and hardy swimmer. Taimen prefers fast mountain rivers and lakes with cold and clear water. According to ichthyologists, in water whose temperature exceeds +18 degrees, all the vital processes of these fish are inhibited, and they have to look for more suitable places, for example, deep pits or cold mountain springs.
It is easy to see that Kanas with its melting glacial waters is a real paradise for taimen. It may even be so blessed that they are able to grow in it up to 12 - 15 meters in length and two or three tons in weight.
OGOPOGO: WHETHER A LIZARD, OR A SNAKE, OR A WHALE
Lake Okanagan is located in the extreme west of Canada, in the province of British Columbia, almost on the same latitude as the famous Loch Ness. The Okanagan has a strongly elongated and winding shape: its length reaches 135 kilometers, its width is up to 6.4 kilometers, and its maximum depth is 230 meters. Curiously, it also houses a lake monster, which is nicknamed Ogopogo. This monster is rightfully considered the main local attraction. On the coat of arms of the city of Kelowna, lying on the banks of the Okanagan, there is an image of a hippocampus - a sea horse with a fish tail - as the closest in heraldry to the description of Ogopogo. The image of the monster adorns the emblem of the local Kelowna Rockets hockey club. In the city itself, not far from the coast, a life-size statue of Ogopogo is installed.
In most descriptions, Ogopogo appears as an animal 4-6 meters long and 30-40 centimeters in diameter. The shape of the head varies from that of a horse to that of a goat. Often mention the similarity of the body with a log. Ancient pictograms depicting this monster with a long neck and four fins were found near the lake, and the first information about it was received from the Indians back in the 17th century. They talked about a huge creature with a long neck and a hump on its back. The indigenous people of America considered the monster living in the Okanagan to be an evil spirit and claimed that the remains of living creatures torn apart by monsters often end up on the rocky shores of one of the islands. An Indian legend told that in ancient times a certain vagabond killed a respectable old man on the shore of the lake and, as punishment, was turned into the lake monster Nha-a-tika. Crossing the Okanagan in a canoe, the Indians each time took with them some small animal and threw it into the water halfway in order to appease it. evil spirit. In some parts of the lake, the Indians never fished. Thus, the Rev. Upton, in The History of the Okanagan Mission, wrote that the Indians never fished near Squally Point.
The first European settlers, in turn, became so convinced of the reality of Nha-a-tika that they even organized coastal patrols to protect themselves from the monster. In 1926, when a ferry began to operate on the lake, the authorities intended to equip it with means to scare away the monster. The first documented cases of his observation date back to 1872. In July 1890, Captain Thomas Shorts was driving the steamer Jubilee across the lake on the traverse of Squally Point and saw an animal 15 feet long with a hammerhead. The sun played in his fins. In 1914, on the shore of the lake opposite Rattlesnake Island, the carcass of some animal with four fins, weighing 160 kilograms and a length of one and a half to two meters, was thrown ashore. At first it was assumed that it was a manatee, but it was also hypothesized that it was the body of a lake monster, whose neck had already completely rotted. The most massive evidence of a meeting with a lake monster dates back to 1926, when passengers of about 30 cars saw it at the same time. After that, the editor of the Vancouver Sun wrote: "Too much worthy people saw him to ignore the significance true facts". Then, in the twenties, a new name Ogopogo was assigned to the monster. This happened after a certain joker wrote a cheerful song about him.
In 1947 Ogopogo was observed simultaneously by passengers from several boats. On July 2, 1950, a "swimming dinosaur" was spotted by Mrs. Cray and the Montreal Watson family, who were touring the Canadian lakes. Mrs. Cray later related that it was an animal "about 30 feet long, with a body of about five undulating humps protruding from the water." Having sailed a few minutes to the north, the strange creature smoothly turned into reverse side obviously chasing a school of fish. It left a trail of rushing water behind it. Fish, apparently, is the basis of the diet of the Okanagan relative Nessie. However, in 1936, while fishing, a certain Mr. Crichton saw how Ogopogo suddenly emerged from under the water and caught a gaping seagull. But his diet can be even wider. Hundreds of witnesses claim that the creature threatened them, and some even stalked them. Up to 30 people die on Lake Okanagan every year, and some drownings look very mysterious. Rumor in these cases often sins on Ogopogo.
On the shores of the lake, traces of a mysterious monster were repeatedly found. Some were shapeless, others were jar-shaped, others looked like dinosaur paw prints with three fingers, while the fourth left a soft paw with eight fingers. However, as cryptozoologist Dr. Roy Makel writes, “The problem with prints is that they could be faked by anyone.
Especially the sightings of Ogopogo became more frequent after the opening in 1958 of a mile-long pontoon bridge. Many new messages came from people crossing this bridge. In most cases, as Roy Makel points out, witnesses speak of a smooth body of greenish-brown or golden brown, with stubble or a mane around the head. If the famous Nessie is considered by many to be a dinosaur that has survived to this day, then such unanimity is not observed with respect to Ogopogo. Some, such as Kelowna reporter Frank Lillquist, believe that he is a plesiosaur. Roy Makel believes that we are talking about a primitive prehistoric whale Zeiglodon, or Basilosaurus, which was just distinguished by a snake-like body shape. Finally, we can talk about a large water snake.
At the same time, serious doubts are expressed about the very possibility of the existence of Ogopogo, in particular, based on the fact that the biomass of the lake is supposedly not able to support the existence of an animal so large sizes. Kelowna Museum curator Celeste Ganassen points to the similarity of lake monster legends among Native American tribes across Canada as evidence that Nha-a-tik is just a myth. One alternative explanation suggests that the observers could see a litter of otters swimming one after the other, whose backs were visible from the water. Other alternative explanations include sturgeons and other large fish, as well as beavers, deer, and just logs.
However, numerous photographs of Ogopogo exist. These include the 1964 Parmenter photograph, the 1976 Fletcher photograph, the 1978, 1979 and 1981 Gaal photographs, the 1981 Wachlin photograph, and the 1984 Svenson photograph. The monster also hit the lenses of film and video cameras.
On a sunny August day in 1968, sawmill worker Arthur Folden was driving home with his wife. Suddenly they noticed something very massive moving quickly in the calm waters of the lake. Folden stopped the car and took out his movie camera. For a whole minute, he filmed a massive living object floating 60-70 meters from the shore. Beware of ridicule, Folden whole year did not show the footage to anyone, until finally relatives convinced him to show the film to numerous viewers. Supporters of the version of the reality of the monster consider the footage he shot to be one of the most convincing evidence of such. In 1989, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper, a certain Ken Chaplin did film a three and a half minute video, in which you can see a long body wriggling under the surface of the water.
In 1976, another remarkable incident occurred. Ed Fletcher, mentioned above, was sailing on a boat on the lake, when suddenly a moving object cut his path. He recalls: "If I hadn't turned off the engine, I would have run into him or jumped on his back, because the boat was only 30 feet away." Fletcher and his daughter Diana swam ashore for a camera. When they returned to their original place, Ogopogo reappeared from the depths. Fletcher, his daughter, and another passenger they took on board as they returned for the camera watched the monster for an hour. “He would go down, swim a couple of city blocks under the water, then come up again, and we kept swimming after him,” Ed said. According to his calculations, the lake monster has surfaced more than ten times. At first, Ogopogo swam, curled up into a ball, and then stretched out to its full length. Fletcher took five photographs. According to his daughter, Ogopogo's skin was smooth and brownish, like a whale's, with small bumps on the back. He swam wriggling in the form of a corkscrew. Eyewitnesses also noticed that two protrusions protruded above the monster’s head, like the ears of a Doberman Pinscher.
Sometimes Ogopogo in the clear waters of the lake is observed at a depth under water. For example, in 1985, John Raside and his family were water skiing and saw a large object under the water moving "like a whale." But there are cases far from being so harmless. So, in the summer of 1988, a certain Allan Scarbo from Peachland invited his friends to stay in his new houseboat. Captain Dan Kerr's cap was blown off by the wind and he dived for it. After the third attempt to get the cap from the bottom, Kerr disappeared. The police were called, but the victim's body was never found. Many believed that Ogopogo dragged him away. Allan Scarbo was so scared that he sold his houseboat and never dared to live on the lake again.
Storsjön is the fifth largest lake in the north of Sweden, located in a glacial-tectonic basin, the banks are forested, steep, and heavily indented. The length of the lake is 70 km, the maximum depth is 74 meters. Many islands, the largest of which is Frösön, together with the city of Östersund located on the eastern coast, form the center of the historical province of Jämtland. The river Indalselven flows through the lake. According to legend, the monster Storsjöodjuret lives in the lake. However, the locals call him simply Birger.
In 1635, the priest Mugens Pedersen recorded an ancient legend explaining how his famous monster appeared in Lake Storsjon. According to legend, once two trolls were going to boil water for themselves on the shore of the lake. They lit a small fire and hung a kettle over it. Although the water in it had boiled for a long time, they still did not bother to remove the kettle and boiled the water to the point that a terrible creature with a cat's head and a snake body jumped out of the kettle. It quickly looked around and disappeared into the lake.
They say that the little monster liked the lake so much that it began to grow by leaps and bounds and reached such incredible sizes that its length was enough to wrap around Fresen Island. It is on this island that the northernmost runestone in Sweden is located, which depicts a snake surrounding Old Norse symbols.
There are many legends about this stone, as well as about Birger himself. In ancient times, the lake monster so pissed off the locals that they had to turn to a sorcerer. He brewed a potion, then read the spell, it was it that was encrypted in the runic inscription on the stone. After that, the monster calmed down for centuries.
Rumor has it that it is worth saying this spell again, as the monster will again begin to misbehave and annoy people. There is also a legend according to which the head of a snake-like monster is crushed by an enchanted stone, and its tail stretches all the way to the other side of the lake. Allegedly, only this stone protects the population from the monster, so it cannot be moved and removed.
When the rune stone fell during the battle at Östersund, people could not swim across the strait for a long time because of the monster, but when the stone was raised, the monster calmed down again. Probably, these legends would have been forgotten long ago if Birger had not appeared on the surface of the lake from time to time.
In 1894, the captain of the Swedish fleet by the name of Dedering created a joint-stock company, the purpose of which was to capture the famous monster. One of the sponsors of the hunt, which involved experienced whalers, was King Oscar II.
Then, for some time, the monster was silent, apparently Birger did not like it, and he decided to remind himself. At the beginning of the 20th century, the monster began to climb onto the shore of the lake and chase tourists and local peasants.
The patience of the people inhabiting the shores of the lake ended when Birger terribly frightened two girls, chasing them. To catch the monster, a giant trap was set up on the shore, but the mysterious creature deftly bypassed it. They decided to kill the monster, for this purpose they hired a harpooner who guarded the coast for a whole year, but did not see the monster.
The failure of the harpooner did not mean that no monster existed or that he died of old age. Local residents continue to observe it periodically, and to present moment has already accumulated about 500 eyewitness accounts. Local authorities, fearing that various amateur researchers and hunters might kill or injure the monster, which is a great bait for tourists, they decided to protect it from all kinds of persecution. In 1986, the administrative court of the province of Jämtland issued an official decree prohibiting the "destruction, injury or capture of a living being known as the lake monster of Storsjön". It was also forbidden "to take or damage his eggs, caviar, masonry or den."
However, such a decision caused irritation in the environmental ministry, whose government officials said that the mythical creature, whose real being Since the claim has not yet been proven, such protection is not needed. In the end, the regional council relented and decided to remove the lake monster Storsion from the local Red Book. True, he categorically refused to admit that in fact there is no monster in the lake.
Until now, there is not a single more or less clear photograph of this mysterious monster.
According to the descriptions of eyewitnesses, this is a snake-like creature with a dog's head and fins around its neck. Many versions have been put forward of what Birger might be. Some suggest that this is a huge, not yet discovered cetacean, others see it as an impressive catfish, others speak only of a flock of elks that swam across the strait and were mistaken by some simpletons for a lake monster. It is said that in June 1998 the monster was captured on film, after which attempts to catch the monster, or at least see it, intensified again. In the spring of 2007, the Svergies Television documentary film crew installed automatic video cameras that respond to thermal radiation on one of the lake islands. In 2008, one of the cameras managed to capture Birger.
In the video, you can see a blurry, long and narrow silhouette moving in the depths of the lake. The group's journalist commented on the result: "Obviously, it is warm and consists of cells, otherwise our cameras would not have recorded it." So don't show up here and say that someone is pulling the rope!
Despite the fact that there are practically no white spots left on the map of the Earth, and even the oceanic and cosmic depths finally gave up and pulled off the veil of the mystery surrounding them until then, there is still room for the mysterious and mysterious in our lives. Traditions and legends about monsters unknown to science, even in the 21st century, continue to excite the minds of people. And this is especially true of creatures living in all kinds of bodies of water, stories about which can be heard around the world.
The world-famous Loch Ness monster (it is noteworthy that in the vicinity of Loch Ness in 2003 a plesiosaur was actually discovered, however, a petrified one), you can find a relative in almost any country if you carefully ask the locals. We will tell you about ten creatures who are united with the famous Nessie only by the fact that they have chosen any lake on our planet as their habitat.
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Monster from the sky
Lake Tianchi in China was formed in the crater of the Pektusan volcano. Literally, the name of the lake can be translated as "Heavenly" - this reservoir is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's highest crater lake (2000 meters above sea level). For the first time, a monster from the legends was encountered here in 1903: something resembling the outlines of a huge buffalo attacked the hunters who were on the shore from the water. Subsequently, eyewitnesses more than once observed the mysterious resident of Tianchi, and in 2007 they saw here at the same time as many as 6 creatures unknown to science.
Nahuel Huapi
In this lake in Argentinean Patagonia with a mysterious, defiant interesting associations a Russian person lives by the name of his Loch Ness monster - Nahuelito. According to the descriptions of eyewitnesses, this is a huge, at least 20 meters long, silver-gray reptile with jagged crests on its back. On January 4, 1994, about 20 people saw Najuelito splashing in the lake, making small waves.
Dragon from Brosno
This animal is our compatriot, "registered" in Lake Brosno, located in the west of the Tver region. According to one version, the Brosnensky monster is a plesiosaur who got here, others believe that it is a mutated giant beaver. Be that as it may, the dragon from Brosno showed true patriotism and adherence to spiritual values: according to legend, he more than once came into conflict with Tatar-Mongol yoke, and during World War II, it was swallowed by a German Messerschmitt flying low over the lake.
love ness monster
The British cousin of the famous Nessie lives in a lake near the town of Loveborough in Leicestershire. Basically, he became famous for the fact that from time to time he eats ducks that have the imprudence to splash down on the deceptively serene expanse of the lake.
Monster Varberg
It is documented that the monster living in the moat of the Swedish castle of Varberg was seen as early as the 13th century. This animal is distinguished by its extremely secretive disposition, but the tourists who saw it in 2006 managed to see that the monster is not covered with either fur or scales, and is the proud owner of an approximately 40-centimeter tail.
issy
The legend of Isshi, the Japanese monster from Lake Ikeda, is a legend about a white mare who once lived with her foal on the shore of the lake. But the foal was kidnapped by a samurai, and out of grief, the mare threw herself into the lake, turning into a lizard-like monster. Issy has been seen several times, mostly in 1991. Then the Japanese reported strange creature with black humps sticking out of the water, each up to 5 meters long.
Ogopogo
The original Indian name for this monster is Naitaka, which translates as "lake demon". This demon lives on the island of Rattlesnake, on the Okanagan Lake in British Columbia, Canada. According to the descriptions of eyewitnesses, and there were more than two hundred of them, the monster has a log-shaped body from 4 to 9 meters long and a goat or horse head. Archival records of Ogopogo date back to 1872, but it appeared in Native American legends much earlier.
Lagarfljöt Serpent
There is nothing surprising in the fact that in Iceland, an island where people still believe in trolls and spirits, they have their own lake monster. The so-called Lagarfljout serpent or worm lives, as you might guess, in Lake Lagarfljout. For the first time, technicians laying a telephone cable across the lake in 1983 encountered a giant hundred-meter (the length of a football field!) Serpent. It soon became clear that something (or someone?) had damaged the cable. But, no one wanted to find out how and what.
Chipekwe
The first information about Chipekwa - the Hippo Eater - came from the pygmies living in the valley along the banks of the Congo River. This area is covered dense forests and is still poorly understood. In Europe, they learned about Chipekwa from the famous big game hunter G. Schomburg. When in 1907 he was hunting near Lake Bangweolu, he noticed the absence of hippos, the conditions for which were ideal for living here. From the aborigines, Schomburg obtained recognition that an animal similar to a rhinoceros with a long neck lives in the lake, feasting on the meat of river horses. According to some cryptozoologists, the Chipeque is a ceratosaurus that has survived to this day.
Bunyip
When any atrocity is committed among the Australian aborigines, there will always be one among them who, having previously made magical gestures protecting against dark forces, will whisper: "this is the work of the bunyip." The first mention of such an insidious creature dates back to 1801. The Frenchman Charles Bailly and his comrades, having landed and deepened into an unfamiliar mainland, were forced to retreat in a hurry, having heard from the thickets surrounding the Swan River a devilish roar full of rage. Later, the bunyip was met in the most different ends Australia and described in different ways. Most often it was a dark-colored animal with a long neck, a kangaroo head and a huge mouth.
For several decades now, interest in the problem of the so-called "Yakut Nessies" - unknown monsters that allegedly live in the lakes Labynkyr, Vorota and Khaiyr (Pestsovoe) has not waned.
One of the first reports about the mysterious monsters of the North appeared on December 14, 1958 in the Komsomol newspaper Youth of Yakutia.
“In the Oymyakonsky district there are big lake Labynkyr, - the newspaper wrote. - Its length is 14 km and the depth is 60 m. The nearest settlement is the village of Tompor, located 120 km away. Its inhabitants have long been talking about a monstrous large animal that lives in this lake. They call him the devil.
One day this devil chased a Yakut fisherman. The animal had a dark gray color, a huge mouth, and the distance between the eyes was more than the width of a raft of ten logs (!). There was a case when he swallowed a dog swimming after ducklings. Collective farmer Pyotr Vinokurov says that on the northern shore of the lake he found the jaw of an animal with teeth. It had such dimensions that if it was placed vertically, then a rider could pass under this peculiar vault. Became a mystery and another, no less interesting detail. In winter, holes with smooth edges form on the ice of this lake. They are called "damn windows" here.
Somewhat later, in the journal Vokrug Sveta (1961, No. 2), the diaries of Viktor Ivanovich Tverdokhlebov, head of the geological party of the East Siberian branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, were published, where the existence of unknown to science creatures. True, he said that he had seen him, together with the geologist B. Bashkatov, not in Labynkyr, but 20 km away, in Lake Vorota, which has a 4-kilometer length and 60-meter depth.
“The object swam and quite quickly. It was something alive, some kind of animal. It moved in an arc: first along the lake, then straight towards us. As it approached, a strange numbness that made me feel cold inside seized me. A dark gray oval carcass slightly rose above the water ... two symmetrical light spots, similar to the eyes of an animal, stood out clearly, and something like a stick protruded from the body ...
We saw only a small part of the animal, but a huge massive body was guessed under the water. This could be guessed by seeing how the monster moves: with a heavy throw, having risen somewhat from the water, it rushed forward, and then completely immersed in the water. At the same time, waves were coming from his head, born somewhere under water. “Slams its mouth, catches fish,” a hunch flashed ...
Before us was a predator, without a doubt, one of the strongest predators in the world: such an indomitable, merciless, some kind of meaningful ferocity was felt in his every movement, in all his appearance ... there was no doubt: we saw the devil - the legendary monster of these places " .
The stories of V. I. Tverdokhlebov about the existence of giant animals in the lakes of the Sordonnokh plateau were picked up by sensationalists and served as a pretext for organizing a number of amateur expeditions, specially engaged in the search for "northern Nessies". Their reports were published in the journals "Nature" and "Chemistry and Life", in the newspapers "Pionerskaya Pravda", "Volzhsky Komsomolets" (Kuibyshev), "Komsomolskaya Pravda" and others.
By the way, the last report of the expedition on the search for the "Russian Nessie" in the Yakut Lake Labynkyr was published in Komsomolskaya Pravda on September 15, 2000.
All these trips to unravel the mystery ended in failure: their participants never once had to see northern Nessie at least from a distance, despite truly heroic attempts to find the mysterious creature.
Confirmed myth
In this regard, the question began to arise more and more often; maybe the Yakut monsters are a myth? However, unexpectedly, the existence of an unknown monster on the Sordonnokh plateau was indirectly confirmed.
On the pages of the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" on November 21, 1964, a sensational message appeared under the intriguing title "The Mystery of Lake Khaiyr". In it, G. N. Rukosuev, deputy head of the North-Eastern Expedition of Moscow State University, told readers that a certain mysterious animal with a long snake neck lives in the depths of the tundra Lake Khaiyr in Yakutia, beyond the Arctic Circle. The text accompanied the drawing. Here is what N. F. Gladkikh, one of the members of the biological detachment of the Yakut branch of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, said about the meeting with the mysterious creature.
“Two days ago at 7 am I took buckets and went to the lake for water to boil tea. I used to hear about the existence of a “devil” in the lake, but I don’t believe in either evil spirits or devils, so I went to the lake without being careful, looking at my feet so as not to stumble. Not reaching the lake about 15-20 meters, I heard something like a splash. When I raised my head, I saw that an animal unknown to me had crawled out of the water. His body was 4-4.5 meters long, 1.5-2 meters high, his neck was long - perhaps a meter and a half, and a flat small head, like a snake. Its color is dark blue with a tint, the skin is smooth.
I thought it was eating grass. My heart began to beat faster, my legs immediately gave way, and buckets involuntarily fell out of my hands. And when the buckets rattled, the monster turned its snake head in my direction. I don't remember what happened next, because I was very excited. I only remember that I screamed loudly, calling for help, and, turning around, ran headlong to our camp, but, unfortunately, the detachment’s employees were not in the camp at that time. When I looked at the lake, I saw that waves were moving along it, although there was no wind, the weather was calm.
This message, like the previous ones, did not go unnoticed. A year later, a group of Moscow divers and Voronezh tourists travel to Khaiyr to try to unravel the mystery of the lake. Here is what the participants of this fascinating expedition told on the pages of Komsomolskaya Pravda on November 27, 1965.
“We did not find any traces of the monster. Taking turns, several people kept their eyes on the surface of the lake around the clock. Khaiyr village is 2 km from the lake. Maybe the locals know something about the monster? Indeed, among the Yakuts of this, and many other villages of Yakutia, there is a legend about a bull pike that lives in lakes and is able to swallow a fisherman along with a boat. The legend has a basis: they do not eat pikes here (there are better fish), and the locals throw them away when they accidentally fall into the nets.
Therefore, there are many of them in the lakes, and large specimens can come across. The Yakuts are not at all afraid and do not avoid Lake Khaiyr, they often visited us and told us that some residents of the village saw a large pike in the lake. A monster similar to the published drawing, none of them saw.
On the highest shore of the lake there is an abandoned fur farm, in the house of which for the third year from spring to late autumn the microbiological detachment of the Yakut branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences is working. Last year, the detachment consisted of 3 people: the head of the detachment - Kolesnikov, the biologist Mezhennoy and the minder Gladkikh. These are the three who, as the author of the note claimed, saw the monster. Nikolai Gladkikh - the "main" eyewitness and author of the drawing, with his light hand this sensation was born.
We met Andrey Alexandrovich Mezhenny on the lake, and he told us that neither he nor Kolesnikov had seen anything and that this fact was pure fiction. The only eyewitness - Nikolai Gladkikh - left after the end of the season for his homeland. Later, after the article appeared in the newspaper, Gladkikh wrote to A Mezhenny that he had invented the story with the monster.
From all that has been said, it is quite obvious that there are no monsters in Lake Khaiyr, every meter of the bottom of which is currently explored by scuba divers. However, until now, along with the lakes Vorota and Labynkyr, for some reason it appears in the reports of hunters for living fossils as worthy of attention. Therefore, again and again, enthusiasts of searching for the unknown are attracted to themselves by the “mystery” of Khaiyr...
Is it possible for living fossils to exist in the lakes of Yakutia? This question has already been raised more than once in the pages of the press, and we will not touch on it now. Consider another, no less interesting and mysterious - what real creature could give rise to the legend of the "northern dinosaurs"?
According to A.N. Tolstov, a researcher at the Institute of Permafrost Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, who has repeatedly worked in the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the mysterious animal of Labynkyr Lake is a giant catfish. Indeed, this huge monster, whose weight reached 300 kg and a length of 5 m, can seem like a nightmarish monster to anyone. There are cases of such giants attacking land animals and even humans. Perhaps V. A. Tverdo-Khlebov overestimated the size of the mysterious creature, because fear has large eyes.
Meanwhile, as it turned out, such an assumption does not stand up to criticism. Here is what S. K. Klumov, senior researcher at the Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Candidate of Biological Sciences, wrote about this in the journal Nature:
“... catfish do not live in the basin of the Arctic Ocean”, this “has been established for a long time and has been confirmed many times (until very recently). Conditions for this type of fish in Labynkyr are completely unsuitable: the lake is covered with ice for 8 months a year. Temperature regime it also does not correspond to the catfish habitual for life and reproduction. For 4 months, this fish could not complete the breeding cycle and accumulate strength for such a long (8 months) wintering. Thus, the hypothesis of A. N. Tolstov contradicts the facts about the distribution and life of catfish that we know.
By pike command
Then the prototype of the monster, perhaps, was the well-known freshwater predator - the pike? One of the authors (A. V. Potapov) in 1970 in Lake Khaiyr almost mistook her for a dinosaur. In the article "The Devil of Pestsovoe Lake", published in the journal "Knowledge is Power" (No. 6, 1983), this episode is described as follows:
“The first meeting with a mysterious creature occurred under the following circumstances. That morning, I carefully watched the calm surface of the lake. A duck landed on the water 50 m from the shore and suddenly screamed desperately and, flapping its wings, disappeared into the abyss of the lake. Apparently, someone grabbed her and dragged her under the water. All this happened literally in 2-3 seconds, but I managed to clearly see the long semicircular, beak-like jaws of the animal. After this incident, I had great difficulty in forcing myself to get into an inflatable boat when I was fishing. All was quiet for the next eleven days.
The second meeting took place in the same area, but under different circumstances. I was sailing on a boat and at the very surface of the water, at a depth of no more than half a meter, I saw a shadow, in its contours resembling a long giant cigar. She accompanied me 10 m from the port side, and then slowly went into the depths. The length of the cigar by eye is at least 2.5-3 m, but I could not see any distinguishing features, since the surface of the lake was a little rippled.
And finally last meeting which greatly disappointed me. Now, for self-defense, I took a loaded speargun and always kept it ready. In the evening, I was sailing in my flimsy boat, carefully working with oars-blades, and near the shore, at a shallow depth, I again noticed a large object. Indeed, it was smaller than previous time. “Probably a cub,” flashed through his head. Cautiously approaching him, I made up my mind... The creature remained completely immobile. Taking the gun, I took careful aim at the supposed head and pulled the trigger.
The harpoon is firmly stuck in the body. I felt this by the force with which the nylon line was pulled, and if it had not been tied to my belt, the gun would have flown out of my hands. I lay down on the bottom of the boat, and she, towed by an animal, slid along the surface, changing direction. This went on for about half an hour. Then the line gave up. I raised my head and saw that I was on the shore. Pulling the boat close to him, I carefully began to select a thick nylon cord.
What was my surprise when my eyes were not an unknown monster, but ... a huge pike. Its length was just over 2 m! With great difficulty I dragged her to the shore. She weighed at least 35 kg! The harpoon pierced through her bony head. I have never seen such a large specimen of this formidable freshwater predator. The length from the tip of the nose to the tail was 2 m 2 cm! (Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of this hulk. I was caught in heavy rain, and all the films were damaged by water.)
This event greatly shook my belief that a "plesiosaur" lives in the lake. However, the very existence of pikes of this size is at least unusual. Even the fish I killed could well swallow almost any waterfowl. Apparently, even larger specimens are found, which gave rise to the legend of the existence of the “devil”.
The fact that the legend of the “Labynkyr line” also owes its origin to a giant pike is also written by A. Pankov in the book “Oymyakon Meridian”:
“It is no coincidence that the village near which the mountain rivers, merging, form the Indigirka, is called Shchuchye (in Yakut - Sordonnokh). There are legends that on the shore of the neighboring lake Vorota, such jaws of a pike were found that if they were put on the ground, a rider on a deer could pass under them like a gate (isn’t the name of the lake from here?) ... In the lower reaches of the Indigirka, one bulldozer driver told me, how he shot a pike. I saw some terrible muzzle in the sea, fired, the fish was belly up. The length of the pike turned out to be about 4 m. All mossy, green-brown, flabby, like cotton wool. It's no joke: maybe she lived a hundred years, or even two hundred ... "
In "Komsomolskaya Pravda" dated September 15, 2000, an expedition report was published on the search for "Russian Nessie" in the Yakut lake Labynkyr. Despite truly heroic attempts to find the monster, the participants failed to catch it. We saw only the signs that testified to its existence - and nothing more.
