Tianchi Lake Monsters Video
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 17th, 2007
Here is the Chinese footage from an Italian news station, apparently.
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.
Um, ducks? An English translation would be nice, but I seriously doubt this will amount to anything. That footage could be of anything, since it was shot from so far away.
This is a lot more interesting than the few still photos we saw posted the other day. I’d like to withdraw my theory that they are waterfowl. The “submerging” sequences look as if they are animals that are mostly underwater to begin with, and the heads are disappearing under the surface.
There are some visible wakes at the end of the video. I’m very excited about these subjects, but they also could just be some humans swimming/diving in the lake. Need more info. Can’t wait for the next video.
hrmmm… I disagree that they look like animals that are mostly underwater. they were barely beneath the surface in the video. Almost all the footage they were floating on the surface.
They are likely those diving ducks everyone keeps mentioning in previous posts. Floating on water and diving underneath for food.
Whether these are ducks or monsters, I personally see this footage as useless since nothing about the creatures’ appearance can be derived. We just know they are tiny black specks. Not whether they are bugs, ducks, the head or full body of something, etc. We need something close-up, or at least closer to get an actual shape from or to make out some kind of features.
People are never going to take cryptozoology seriously if footage like this is made a big deal of. Even though undiscovered creatures and creatures thought to be myths do get discovered- that all gets ignored b/c stuff like this is what gets labelled as cryptozoology. You never see cryptozoology get credit when new stuff is officially discovered, only when crappy footage is released and labelled as monsters, then it’s “oh those crypto-nuts believe anything”.
hey loren great lake monsters video article. good evening bill green 🙂
You have the right to project whatever known animal you wish on those videos. But don’t mistake your projections for fact. Also, it is fair to guess that the gentlemen who created the videos saw a lot more than the videos reveal.
You never see cryptozoology get credit when new stuff is officially discovered, only when crappy footage is released and labeled as monsters, then it’s “oh those crypto-nuts believe anything”. Few truer words have been spoken, my friend. I agree fully.
On to the footage, it still looks a bit…blobserpenty. Not easy to tell how big the are, much less what the heck they are species-wise.
Those certainly aren’t ducks – what’s under the surface behind them is at least ten times longer than what breaks the surface. Very snake-like.
And the wide shots toward the end give at least a rough idea of scale – that footage was taken at long range. I’d venture to say that the figures, with the head breaking the surface and what is under the water, are at least 6 feet long, conservatively.
In my opinion this is pretty significant footage. I’d rank it just behind the Mansi photo and ABC News video from Champlain and just ahead of the Russian video that surfaced within the past couple years. It’s certainly better than anything from Loch Ness.
Interesting. Vague, but interesting.
Obviously its no duck…more like a fish with long & flexi body,like Arowana??Anyway, the fun about crypto is the curiousity & suspend that drill our mind..agree?
dont confuse swimming wakes, please dont contort them into snakelike under the surface. How can you see things under the surface, when you can barely see whats on the surface. We have to be realistic about this. I grew up a Dino nut and nobody would like to see a herd of plesiosaurs more than me, but we have to see them not wish them. As far as comparing videos, the anchient Dinsdale film from Loch Ness is more valid than this. Watch the ring wakes in the footage, if these were of any significant size the wakes would take longer to spread. Common sense still says ducks or other water fowl.
After many years of hunting and observing waterfowl these are very clearly large Diving Ducks of some type. The movements and diving sequence is exactly what I have seen over the years from mergansers and other diving ducks.
Here’s my two cents on the video. After seeing the photos I was fairly convinced that it was simply waterfowl. Now having seen the video I still feel that they are the most likely candidate. There are a few things that I find interesting though. The clip at the very end of the video does seem to hint at something of considerable size under the water. Waterfowl frequently dive under the surface of the water, but from my experience they tend to do so in shallow water not in the middle of deep lakes. Also, as anyone who has watched birds diving under the water knows, it is very common for them to flap their wings and do some preening upon resurfacing. But without seeing the entire unedited video its impossible to deduce anything.
hlw-
dont confuse swimming wakes, please dont contort them into snakelike under the surface. How can you see things under the surface, when you can barely see whats on the surface.
Look at the still photos from the last Tianchi thread on this site. The second still from the top clearly shows long dark bodies or necks extending from the portion of the head that is extending above the surface. No contortion about it.
We have to be realistic about this.
I am.
I grew up a Dino nut and nobody would like to see a herd of plesiosaurs more than me, but we have to see them not wish them.
Who said anything about plesiosaurs? I don’t think that’s what they are.
As far as comparing videos, the anchient Dinsdale film from Loch Ness is more valid than this.
I don’t recall exact footage from Loch Ness, if you have a link please provide it. But if memory serves everything from Loch Ness basically consists of humps and wakes at the surface. In some of the stills from this video you can see a head extending above the waterline and a long neck or body extending below it – and in more detail than anything from Loch Ness. But I’m open to changing my mind, so I’d like to see the Dinsdale footage again. Link please, if you have one.
Watch the ring wakes in the footage, if these were of any significant size the wakes would take longer to spread. Common sense still says ducks or other water fowl.
Can you gauge wake size by the rate of the spread? Haven’t heard of that.
As far as water fowl is concerned:
– No eyewitnesses have mentioned waterfowl, the guesses I have heard have been seal-like or fish-like.
– No beaks or feet visible. Even dark colored ducks or waterfowl usually have different colored beaks.
– The practice of just poking the head above water isn’t usually what waterfowl do – they usually float or wade and then dive. Just poking the head above water like the figures pictured is more like aquatic snakes or turtles, and turtles can probably be ruled out because the shell would be visible.
So I’m skeptical of the “waterfowl” explanation, there’s not really much to support it.
When in doubt, it must be otters. 🙂
Waterbugs? At least where there are the ring ripples.
Shovethenos, didn’t mean to single you out but please after watching over and over I see nothing to show the detail your talking about.
The beginning of the footage shows the objects moving left and leaving wakes behind.The right hand side of the wake is darker in the image and stands out more. There is nothing to show any locomotion motion if they were bodies. If there was large bodies below the surface the mass would make a bigger wake. If the darkness of these wakes said big animal, then the darkness at the end of the video says whale.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an overall skeptic, I just don’t like seeing things read into photos and videos that just aren’t there.
I just stopped, and watched again, I see no necks and heads like you describe, these things are too far away for any of the details mentioned.
I don’t have a link to the Dinsdale film I took for granted you knew about loch ness footages when you dismissed them out of hand. What about the Rines photos they show better detail than this video before enhancement.
Perhaps Loren could add a Dinsdale link here. Or Loren what is your opinion?
What bothers me most about this video and previous pics is if they can get photos at this distance why not get closer?
Look at the rings again they are exactly like diving birds.
Maybe I’m wrong and these paired off things we see are water Monsters. If so we should have lots of videos next year of baby monsters, hopefully from a closer vantage point. My guess is we will see baby birds.
“The practice of just poking the head above water isn’t usually what waterfowl do”
But no one (at least I don’t think) has said that what we are seeing is just heads. Myself, and I assume the others, think that what we are seeing is the entire body of the ducks/creatures. Therefore it is whole duck bodies swimming like normal ducks, not just duck heads. And they dive fully underwater for food.
What people are seeing as long necks, looks to me just like the shadowing of the trail behind them in the water.
I hope they are unknown creatures. But no matter how mnay time I watch the footage, there is nothing monster-like about them.
I would say something similar to an oarfish, whose been often mistaken for a sea serpent. The problem is the oarfish I believe is found only in salt water and only surfaces when sick or dying. Don’t know if they swim in pods or whatever you’d call their families. Interesting video, but like most not revealing.
Just a note on the Italian commentary. Most of it is what people have already read from the articles circulating various media. However, one point that the commentary raises which was not mentioned in other media that I saw was this:
“…[according to a second witness] whatever it was that he saw, it was very strong because of the speed at which it was swimming…”
It also mentions that they were observed moving for an hour and a half.
I’m with Dr. Dave. Seen too many ducks, geese and waterfowl of other sorts all my life. Still see them on the job frequently. I’ve seen really big diving ducks like mergansers out in the middle of lakes and they seldom flap wings when going down or coming up. That is usually dabblers like pintails and mallards. It is surprising how fast diving ducks can swim and the amount wake they can throw on a relatively calm body of water. Oh, and the divers ride much lower in the water than the dabblers, giving the impression (from a distance or poor angle) that only a head is protruding. Sorry no plesiosaur, no oarfish, no otters on this one. Gotta stick with ducks. I’d wager the man who filmed them was a city boy out on holiday who is unfamiliar with wildlife. Therefore he saw something he could not identify and genuinely thought he was filming something strange and unknown. That, or the Chinese are as much into hoaxing as some Americans and Europeans are.
hlw-
The beginning of the footage shows the objects moving left and leaving wakes behind.The right hand side of the wake is darker in the image and stands out more. There is nothing to show any locomotion motion if they were bodies. If there was large bodies below the surface the mass would make a bigger wake.
Look at the stills – screen captures – posted on the last Tianchi thread on this site. You can see it in the footage but not as readily as the stills. The second from the top shows long bodies or necks extending down from the part of the head that is breaking the surface. This is visible for most or all of the objects, and it isn’t a shadow on the surface because the neck or body is at a slightly different angle for each object and you can see the color change between the part that is below the surface and that above the surface. It looks a lot like the classic profile of an aquatic snake going to the surface to take a breath.
As far as ducks go – again, this isn’t what any of the eyewitnesses, even the ones observing for allegedly over an hour, observed. And ducks at least look around once in a while – to see what is going on around them, check for predators above the surface, etc. You don’t see any head or neck above the surface coming from the objects at the surface, or any wings, feet, etc. I still don’t see much support for this explanation.
Alligator-
Sorry no plesiosaur, no oarfish, no otters on this one. Gotta stick with ducks.
You sound like you think your opinion is definitive or conclusive on this, even when there is no evidence to support it.
And again, I didn’t mention the word plesiosaur. It seems like the only ones bringing that word up are those refuting it when no one has claimed it. A straw plesiosaur, I guess. Or just a tactic to try to make anyone that disagrees with you seem like a kook, even when the evidence supports them.
“# shovethenos responds: September 19th, 2007 at 2:16 am
Alligator-
Sorry no plesiosaur, no oarfish, no otters on this one. Gotta stick with ducks.
You sound like you think your opinion is definitive or conclusive on this, even when there is no evidence to support it.
And again, I didn’t mention the word plesiosaur. It seems like the only ones bringing that word up are those refuting it when no one has claimed it. A straw plesiosaur, I guess. Or just a tactic to try to make anyone that disagrees with you seem like a kook, even when the evidence supports them.”
Lighten up there a bit shovethnos. No offense was intended. I am merely expressing my opinion of how I interpret what I see in the video – just like everyone else here does. If I thought cryptozoology was simply kook stuff, I’d say so and I probably wouldn’t be here in the first place. Am I skeptical on a lot things? Sure, I am but even I’ve seen and heard some things that I’ve had difficulty explaining. On the other hand I’ve had experience with wildlife and waterfowl and this is what I see in this video. If better video or a carcass of an unknown critter turns up in this lake, I’ll cheer and admit I was wrong. As for the plesiosaur remark, that was a general comment not intended to slam you or anyone. If Loren should think my post was out of line or attacking or demeaning to you or anyone else then I’ll just stay out of here. In the meantime, some of us are going to look at the same thing and come to different conclusions.
I’d consider a formation of Otters.
Monsters? maybe. but it could be fish…
nah, probably Pleisiasaurus.
It may be worth referring back to earlier photographs of unidentified creatures from Tainchi Lake when assessing this video.
The first one, when magnified seems to show a large shadow under water, which coincides with a sighting of two creatures by about 100 tourists in August this year. Not a great photograph! Could be anything.
http://www.cctv.com/program/cultureexpress/20070824/108046.shtml
The second photo shows what appears to be a head sticking out of the water, although the object is blurred when compared to the background which is in focus. This would seem to indicate the object was moving. Maybe a duck flapping it’s wings?!
http://www.cctv.com/program/cultureexpress/20070824/108046_1.shtml
There is no guaruntee of course that what is in these photos represent the same creatures in the video. We cannot make that assumption.
See what you think.