List of Lake Monsters in the United States

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The following is a list of lake monsters from the United States.

Alaska

Illie

Illie is a whale or seal-like cryptid from Lake Iliamna. A notable sighting occurred in 1963 when a Fish and Game biologist spotted a large 25-30 foot (7.6-9m) long animal swimming below the surface. Another sighting occurred in 1977 when a pilot and two passengers spotted two 12-14 foot (3.5-4m) animals in the water, also describing a vertical tail.

Reports of something odd in Iliamna began with Indigenous populations and have continued to the present day. Those stories are uncertain thanks to being passed, often inaccurately, through white writers old and new. Reports from white witnesses in the 20^th century, some of them fliers, led to broader interest. The lake’s mystery inhabitants were most often described as long, relatively slender animals, like fish or whales, up to thirty feet in length. In 1988, pilot “Babe” Alsworth recounted his 1942 sighting in an interview with cryptozoologist Loren Coleman. Alsworth saw a school of animals well over ten feet long in a shallow part of the lake. He  described them as having fishlike tails and elongated bodies the color of “dull aluminum.” Larry Rost, a survey pilot for the U.S. government, saw a similar creature in 1945.  

There have been attempts to find or catch Iliamna’s mystery inhabitants. In the 1950s, sportsman Gil Paust and three companions tried to fish for the creatures. According to Paust, something grabbed the moose meat used as bait and snapped the steel cable it was hooked to. In 1959, oilman and cryptozoology enthusiast Tom Slick hired Alsworth to conduct an aerial search of the lake, but nothing was sighted.  

In 1979, the Anchorage Daily News offered $100,000 for tangible evidence of the Iliamna creatures.  The reward attracted both serious and eccentric researchers (one man reportedly played classical music to lure the animals up). No luck.

A 1988 article in Alaska magazine said an unnamed wildlife biologist in 1963 had an aerial sighting identical to Roost’s but larger. In 1977, veteran pilot Tim LaPorte saw one near Pedro Bay, at the northeast end of the lake. He and two passengers saw an animal lying still, its back just breaking the surface. As the plane came closer, the creature made a “big arching splash” and dove straight down. LaPorte still remembers watching a large vertical tail. LaPorte and his companions estimated the thing was twelve to fourteen feet long. LaPorte described the creature as either dark gray or dark brown. LaPorte had been a passenger in a different aircraft in 1968 when the other two individuals in the plane had a very similar sighting. Modern sightings have occurred mostly near the villages of Iliamna and Pedro Bay. It was off the latter town in 1988 that several witnesses, three in a boat and others on shore, reported one of the creatures. In this case, it was described as black. One witness thought she could see a fin on the back, with a white stripe along it. Lake Iliamna today remains isolated. The largest village, Kakhonak, counts under 300 residents. Sport fishermen and other summer visitors come by boat or fly in to the area’s single airstrip. If there are unusual creatures in the lake, it’s hardly surprising that a long time can pass between good sightings.

           A common theory is that the Lake Iliamna creatures could be gigantic sturgeon. These could be either an outsized population of a known type or an unknown species. Louise Wassillie, who watched one from her fishing boat in 1989, said, “It’s only a fish. It was about twenty feet long and had a long snout. Probably a sturgeon." Warner Lew, currently the senior biologist with the FRI’s Alaska Salmon Program, agrees that the lake seems like a suitable habitat for large sturgeon. Lew reports that several witnesses have told him of sighting giant fish, but he has yet to see any fish larger than a four-foot Northern pike. The white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) is North America’s largest freshwater fish. One caught in Canada’s Fraser River in 1912 was 20 feet long and weighed 1,800 pounds. White sturgeon are not known from Iliamna, but have been found in other Alaskan lakes and in coastal waters as far north as Cook Inlet. Jason Dye, a biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Bristol Bay office, said in 2005, “There’s never been any documentation that anyone’s caught one in the lake, or seen one, as far as I know. But that doesn’t mean they’re not in there.”

It may be that a distinct sturgeon population has developed, distinguished from the known white sturgeon mainly by unusual size. There is plenty of food in Iliamna, although it's seasonal, peaking with the summer salmon runs. There is also plenty of room. Iliamna has fifteen times the volume of Loch Ness. Sturgeon? Monster? Folklore? Or something completely different? Whatever is going on in Lake Iliamna, it makes for one of the most unusual and intriguing mysteries in the animal world.

Indiana

The Beast of Busco

The Beast of 'Busco, affectionately nicknamed Oscar, was an alleged giant alligator snapping turtle (Macrochelys cf. temminckii) reported from Fulk Lake, near Churubusco, northern Indiana in the United States, during the late 1940s. The story briefly gained national attention as a result of the increasingly dramatic attempts by the lake's owner Gale Harris, and other locals, to capture the animal. Another giant turtle was reported from the state in 1950.

Maryland

Eelpoot

The eelpoot, also called the haneturtle, hoopinflinder, lun, was a lake monster reported from Zekiah Swamp, Charles County, Maryland, in the United States. It was distinguished by its unpleasant smell. It may have been a tall tale invented by an old storyteller who used to cross the swamp once a week.

New Mexico

Zemo'hgú-ani

The zemo'hgú-ani is a lake monster in the folklore of the Kiowa Indians of New Mexico in the United States.

Ohio

Wewiwilemitá manetú

The wewiwilemitá manetú or msí kinépikwa (Shawnee: "great reptile") is a lake monster in the folklore of the Shawnee Indians of Ohio in the United States.

Vermont

Champ

Champ is a lake monster from Lake Champlain, which borders Canada, Vermont and New York. Though it's sometimes alleged to have been sighted by explorer Samuel Champlain, David Weatherly found that no records of this sighting occur in his writings. The first concrete sighting occurred in 1819 when a Captain Crum reported a 189 foot (57m) long animal in the lake. The most well known sighting comes from Sandra Massi, who allegedly photographed the animal in 1977.

Wisconsin

Brown's Lake Demon

The Brown's Lake demon was described as an aquatic or amphibious cryptid. First sighted in 1876. Estimated at over 27 feet (8m) in length, it was described as having a broad and flat head with an under jaw full of sharp teeth. The tail of the demon had three fins and was about the size of the head. It was green on the top, blue on the sides and yellow on the underbelly.

Wyoming

Lake DeSmet monster

The Lake DeSmet monster, also known as Smetty, reportedly inhabits Lake DeSmet in northern Wyoming. One account described it as having a blue and red, swan-like head with fiery eyes and sharp teeth, and a golden, scaly body that coiled. Another described it as being shaped like a telephone pole with limbs that looked like lard buckets.