Comments on: Photos of Pennslyvania Lake Monster?

By: guyer1

guyer1 — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:22:12 +0000

I’ve lived by the Raystown branch for 47 years, fished in the old dam as a kid, regularly fish in the new dam (dedicated in 1974). Heard reports of sturgeon in the old dam and had described to me two years ago by one of my longtime friends a fish I believe to be a sturgeon. Some years ago there was an article in the local newspaper about the fish commission shocking fish at the tailrace of the dam and I believe it said they brought to the surface a muskie over 5′ long. Then there’s the local story of the tourists poodle swimming on the lake and being gabbed, taken under water and disappearing. Big muskie? While I have no doubt there are huge sturgeon, muskies, stripers and carp in the lake, I believe Raystown Ray is a bunch of hyped up horse manure.

And how about you tourists that act like affluent swine, when you leave the area, take your garbage with you!

By: jhimlin

jhimlin — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 23:44:45 +0000

Yunz guys are idiots. Napoleon Dynamite would be shocked at these comments of disbelief.

By: osp001

osp001 — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 21:40:03 +0000

Way, way late on the conversation, but I’d like to make a couple of mentions here. My ancestors go way the heck back in that neck of the woods, and I lived for a time in Huntingdon when I went to the miserable college in that town.

As has already been noted, Raystown is a modern artificial impoundment; the top image on the page is almost certainly a floating log. The lake, formed from flooding a valley, is filled with trees, some of which are still standing even decades after having been flooded. Trees wash down the Juniata River and into the lake as well. There is so much debris that one fisherman that disappeared in the lake wasn’t discovered for more than a decade.

The lake is deep, particularly towards the new dam; the old dam (from circa 1913) was flooded, and the new dam (from around 1973, I think) put the lake level up even higher. It’s deep enough that one can practice diving using exotic mixes; a diver died there a few years back practicing for a dive on the Andrea Doria. I think the lake maxes out at about 200′, which is pretty good for Central Pennsylvania.

The only “monster” sightings there are of monster pike- muskellunge. One of the SCUBA instructors out at the lake once told me of a large muskie he sighted by the base of the old dam. It was swimming close to another diver that was going in the opposite direction; he reported it was almost as long as the diver- from the tip of his head to the ends of his fins. His perspective was almost certainly off, as that would put it at well over 7′ in length; anything over 5′ would be a true monster!

By: josh W.

josh W. — Thu, 25 May 2006 00:43:53 +0000

I agree that the first photo is possibly a hoax. but, this photo is a lot better than the nahuelito photos.
It is a lot clearer and has a reference point. But this photo is still very sketchy at best.

By: Nachzehrer

Nachzehrer — Tue, 23 May 2006 14:41:50 +0000

We need a new category, “Chamberofcommerzoology”,

By: Loren Coleman

Loren Coleman — Tue, 23 May 2006 10:41:51 +0000

Sorry, but I would have to file this one away as probable “tourist promotion hoax, locally sanctioned, to generate visitor revenues” or alleged “local chamber of commerce stunt, due to boredom.”

From information of my sources on the ground in Pennsylvania, there is absolutely no history of this, and it appears to be a local recent creation for one of the two reasons noted above.

By: sasquatch

sasquatch — Mon, 22 May 2006 20:26:41 +0000

If it’s a photoshop, it’s very well done.
the average hoaxer would most likely fake a much closer picture for dramatic effect. I’d like to see the other photos that were supposedly taken at the time. Yes, animals migrate all the time. They found a dead wolf just a short distance from Denver along side I:70 about a year ago. It had traveled hundreds of miles from Yellowstone Park.
So if there are connecting rivers etc. I see no reason why some large serpent couldn’t have gotten from point A to point B. Think of this for a cotton pickin’ minute; Godzilla lives on Monster Island, but regularly swims across the sea to invade Japan!

By: MattBille

MattBille — Mon, 22 May 2006 18:51:18 +0000

According to Maurice Burtin and other authorities, eels have been known to do odd things, including swimming with head out of water and undulating on their sides at the surface, both of which could create very un-eel-like appearances. An eel could not produce the shape in the photo above, but huge ones would fit a number of lake and ocean sightings, possibly including the gold standard of sea serpent reports, the Nicoll/Meade Waldo sighting of 1905.

Matt Bille

By: Batgirl

Batgirl — Mon, 22 May 2006 17:42:28 +0000

Anybody here ever hear about the CORMONS???
Some story from britain about Wizards back in the day summoning nether creatures like bigfoot and nessie and incidentally populating the world with them?
Sounds ridiculous…but ya never know.

I need a coffee.

By: JeffC

JeffC — Mon, 22 May 2006 16:01:31 +0000

As for man-made lakes, Sardis Lake in Mississippi is a man-made, flood-control lake built by the Army Corp of Engineers less than a hundred years ago. When I was a kid, we used to go camping there and at Arkabutla Lake (the lake being made in the movie O! Brother Where Art Thou?).

On these trips, I would often fish along the shore of the lake. I was only a kid, but my parents let me go off alone for hours at a time fishing. One day at Sardis Lake, I saw something in the water that scared me so bad, I ran all the way back to our camp site.

It wasn’t a fish. Or a snake. I was a young explorer and avid fisherman and I had seen pretty much everything, including some pretty big catfish some friends used to catch in Arkabutla Lake.

This thing made three distinct humps in the water. One hump cleared the water enough to get an idea of its girth, and I’d say it was as big around as a basketball. It was swimming about 50 feet out from shore, and I’d guess the three humps covered a total area of about 20 feet. I got the clear impression that I was only seeing a portion of the complete creature. And it was swimming, not floating. I dropped my fishing rod and ran as fast as I could.

I have never heard of a creature in Sardis Lake. As far as I know, I’m the only person who has ever seen anything like that in that lake. And this is the first time I’ve ever mentioned this to anyone other than my parents.

But I know that what I saw was not one of the usual suspects - a big catfish, a big gar, driftwood, garbage. It was a big “something.”