Sea Serpent Immune To Bullets
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 11th, 2008
New Castle [Pennsylvania] News ~ August 30, 1919
Sea Serpent Is Immune To Bullets
Reno, Nev., Aug. 30. (International News Service) ~ Doubt not the authenticity of this, for the nation went dry long since.
Four hunters report a Sea Serpent 35 feet long in Pyramid Lake, largest fresh water body west of the Great Lakes. It has huge fins and a serpent’s tail, comes to the surface of the water and lives, and its hide is impregnable to bullets.
The hunters who shot the animal but who report it dived after being hit unhurt, are J. S. Neff, Mike Nagy, W. J. Neff and M. Geni. They were camping on the shore of the lake when the monster was first sighted, they said.
Thanks for this historical item from Jerome Clark.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
This is interesting…. My thoughts are that if this is a mammal, it may have a layer of blubber and therefore not be as affected by the bullets. Any more sightings in the area?
I am wondering the specifics of what it looked like . I’ve read that the sea serpents (and I use the term loosely) around that area of America has ears and a snout. No one else talked about how tough its skin was.
What is this Pyramid Lake? There are a lot of big lakes west of the Great Lakes, including Lake Winnepeg, Lake Yellowstone, etc.
Im thinking it could be either like ‘Maine crypto’ said a mammal with thick skin and a layer of blubber, or reptilian with thick scales
perhaps these animals have sub dermal dentricles like the giant Ground Sloth you to have.
That would explain the imperviousness to bullets.
Tony Lucas
New Zealand cryptozoologist.
sschaper: According to Wikipedia (I know, not the best source, but it is where I usually find items I trust to be non-controversial), Pyramid Lake is indeed one of the largest lakes in the United States, and is a salt lake found in Nevada as part of a formerly much larger water structure. The armor-like skin quality in conjunction with the fins and “comes to the surface of the water and lives” sounds almost like a very large gar of some sort. If it wasn’t a fish, but a reptile or mammal, perhaps it had osteoderms to cause the bullet-defense?
Interesting. I’m very familiar with the natural history of the Basin and Range geological region in which this lake is located and it indeed is a remnant of the lake system that included Pleistocene Lake Lahontan and Lake Bonneville during cooler and damper climate regimes. Giant lake trout and other species that we associate with the rives of the west are a possibility though there hasn’t been an outlet connecting this system since Lake Bonneville drained into the Snake River several thousand years ago. The Snake River does empty into the Columbia and so perhaps when the conditions were just right a population of sturgeon or some unknown large species was able to establish itself in these lakes, adapted by growing in size as trout have in big lakes many times in that family of species and as they slowly adapted to the increasing salinity and temperatures that characterize the basin lakes that still linger in this geologic dominon.
That said, having been to pyramid lake a couple of times, it should be pointed out that optical illusions are also part of the natural history of the area with temperature inversions, and cool marine-like layers of air, and surprisingly clear conditions combinig with wind fetched waves, floating logs, and even actual fish rising to the surface, to make mirage, fata morgana and other vaireties of optical illusion a not unlikely explanation too to maginify or distort whatever thing one is observing, real or imaginary.
In this case I would guess two things at work here…one I do not think the guns back in 1919 had a lot of stopping power…suppose it depends on what they were carrying…
and two since it was only described as having a serpent’s tail, I would also think possibly a sturgeon–don’t those boys have thick armor like backs…
of course the 35 foot length is troubling…but since it sounds like this one was reported at least second hand, the length could be exxxxxxagerated too…
still on the other hand, I would not totally dismiss the account, but look into that area to see what other odd sightings are going on or have gone on in the surrounding area. If we start seeing a pattern of sightings that help corroborate this one, then I’d say we have something to go on…
Dogu4- I was not familiar with this particular region, so thank you for the very informative post concerning its geological history and particular idiosyncrasies.
I have some thoughts about this story, assuming the described event even happened. As far as the claim that it is “impervious to bullets goes”, I’m not so sure how those hunters could assume the thing actually was bulletproof. How did they know it was unhurt? Lack of blood? Lack of visible injury? Would they be able to definitively tell those things under the circumstances? These are pieces of information I’d like to know before assuming anything such as imperviousness to bullets. In many instances an animal can be shot, seriously wounded, yet still flee and sometimes get a considerable distance before finally succumbing to its injuries. Or maybe it was injured, but its wounds were not life threatening and it managed to escape. A large animal being shot, then diving underwater to escape or go off somewhere else to die is not unheard of, so maybe this plus the surprise of seeing something so unexplainable to them caused the hunters to get the impression of it being bullet proof. Animals that are misunderstood often get attributed capabilities, abilities, or physical characteristics that they do not actually have, so I think this is plausible.
If there is a lochness monster it may not be around for long if people are shooting at it.