Susquehanna’s Mystery Thing
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 16th, 2009
Outdoor guide and writer Ken Maurer of the Sunbury, Pennsylvania’s The Daily Item was asked recently during a panel discussion about his most “mysterious sighting” while in the wild. He recalled a large creature that he saw swimming in the Susquehanna River.
Then Mauer decided to write about his experience, late last night:
For those of you who missed the “most mysterious sighting” question asked of The Daily Item’s Great Outdoors panel, I told of a large creature that I saw swimming in the Susquehanna River.
I have to say that I received several comments concerning my eyesight, mental state, and imagination. Well, I saw what I saw, several times actually. I don’t know what it was and I have thought about it quite a bit.
The other day an acquaintance who shall mercifully remain nameless came up to me and told me he read of my experience in the paper, and he was amazed because he witnessed the same mysterious sighting. His sighting was a couple of miles downstream from the area where I saw it. We discussed it at length. He felt that because of the size of it, it was a mammal of sorts, similar to a seal or otter.
I felt it was a fish of some kind. After much discussion, we sort of agreed that it must be a fish because the head never comes out of the water. I have witnessed seals, otters and beavers swimming, and the head always comes out of the water somewhere along the line.
Now, as to how this all started. About eight years ago, a good friend of mine told me about this “thing” he saw swimming in the river. He described a small submarine about to surface.
Of course, I thought he was nuts. Then one evening we went fishing and the “thing” showed up. At first I thought it was a deer swimming across the river, then it turned and came upstream. When it got closer, there was nothing sticking out of the water. It pushed a wake that made waves that lapped up on the shoreline. At about 50 yards, it sank out of sight. Creepy. Over the next year or two, I saw it several times and it always sank out of sight before it got close enough to be seen clearly.
The only fish I can think of that could create this disturbance is a huge carp. I’ve never seen a carp act like that, but what else could it be? It’s not a mammal because nothing ever comes out of the water. Between those of us who have seen it, we think it must be at least five or six feet long, which is far larger than any carp I’ve ever seen.
Before you jump in your boat and go looking for it, sightings are rare. I haven’t seen it for years, although last summer a guy told me about a very similar sighting in the same general area.
We live in a very civilized area. How could any creature live around here, on land or water, that we don’t know about?
Well, we don’t know everything. When darkness falls, the forest turns into a very different place. Many hunters have seen and heard things in the pre-dawn darkness that are hard to understand or explain. Coyotes, for example, are very common around here, yet many people have never seen one. Who would have ever thought someone would catch a gar out of the river? We have pictures of that.
The outdoorsman Izaak Walton said it best: “Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery elements are meant for wise men to ponder, and fools to pass by.”
– Ken Maurer, Herndon, is a licensed fishing guide and a regular contributor to the Outdoors section.
- Similar Phenomena:
Maybe a Siamese carp ? Could someone have released one into the waterway ? Are there any in the US at all ? They reach that length and can attain weights of over 300 lbs.
This is just an offer for your “carp” theory, grin. There’s all sorts of other possibilities, of course……..
Could it have been a sturgeon?
They reach to large size and do on occasion jump out of the water.
A Dakwa maybe?
Possibly a Catfish. In the dark its skin could look like a seal. And I don’t think a five or six foot Cat fish is out of the question.
It would be nice to know the seasons in which the sightings have occurred. Rare sightings may indicate this is not a permanent resident.
Of course, manatees have been seen in other waterways that flow into the Chesapeake, and I don’t think they lift their heads entirely out of the water — they just get the nostrils above the waterline.
YEs, the more info we get, the actual shot of making a known guess on the critter…but a large swimming creature could literally almost be anything.
How about a rough size guess-timate, coloring, shape, time of day, season (good call Fhqwhgads), etc. That is a lot of what creates more mire for the crypto to slog through…getting detailed accounts helps determine whether we actually have a big fish, some known critter invading new waters, or actually have something that does not fit the known creatures.
SO, I guess the mantra for the rest of the year should be–give us detailed information!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
While I don’t know the catfish situation in the northeast, down here in the south catfish over 6 feet are not entirely unheard of. He mentioned gar being caught in the river as well. I don’t know what species of gar live in the Susquehanna, but alligator gar can get over seven feet long, and since they often live in low-oxygen environments, they’ve evolved the ability to take in gulps of air to supplement their oxygen needs. I’m not sure if other gar do this as well. However, both of these fish can get massive, and could easily confuse someone who has never seen a fish of that size surface, (especially if you can’t see the entire fish). However, while gar would be more inclined to surface, since they surface quite often, you’d think more people would have noticed over time. Since he mentions he only sees this creature once every few years, and others see it only sporadically, I’m throwing in my vote to very large, very old catfish that’s occasionally spotted surfacing for whatever reason, (perhaps multiple very large catfish). Of course, the Susquehanna is a very old river, so there are probably tens of species it could be. We’ll probably never know.
I wish Maurer would have been thoughtful enough to have brought along a video recorder and/or camera to record the “whatever.” Would have saved a lot of speculation and unfortunate “ridicule” for the man.
But—as it is, great story. He’s right—there is so much we do not know about what our rivers and oceans contain it’s really not funny. Great post, Loren.
This is REALLY far up from the Chesapeake so I think we can reasonably discount manatees in Pennsylvania. Also, parts of the Susquehanna are shallow making migration of a large fish or mammal very difficult.
Yes, and on re-reading the account, I don’t think manatees ever move fast enough to send waves lapping on the shore, either.
Not far from there in Kinzua, PA, you can stand on the damn and watch catfish that are six feet and longer. I grew up in northwestern Pennsylvania and remember many times going up to the damn and watching them for hours.