Meandrous Monster Migrates to Utah Lake
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 7th, 2006
A week ago it was mentioned here that D. Robert Carter wrote an article in the Provo, Utah Daily Herald, entitled “Mysterious Monsters Inhabited Utah Valley Waters.” Today, Sunday, May 07, 2006, part two, "The Meandrous Monster Migrates to Utah Lake" has been published.
The article gives a good overview. Also the possible mammalian nature of the Bear Lake Monster is reinforced with various passages recalled, as per this item extracted.
A May 18, 1874, letter from William Budge, who lived in Paris, Idaho, told of a monster sighting on Bear Lake.
Budge, William Broomhead, and Molando Pratt were returning from general conference in Salt Lake City when they spotted the monster about three miles from Lake Town. Budge reported that it swam in the lake about 100 yards ahead of the party and 20 yards from shore. At first the men thought the creature in the lake might be a very large duck, but as they drove closer, the men could tell the creature was an animal they judged to be about five or six feet long.
The animal dived underwater and came up about 100 feet from the three men, giving them a good look at its strange countenance as it swam through the still water about as fast as a man could walk. Pratt’s description read:
"It’s face and part of it’s head was distinctly seen, covered with fur, or short hair of a light snuff color. The face of the animal was apparently flat, very wide between the yes, and tapering to the nose with very full large eyes, and prominent ears, the ears resembling those of a horse, but scarcely as long. The whole face, in shape, was like that of a fox, but so large that the space between the eyes, equaled that of the distance between the eyes of a common cow."
See all of Carter’s article for more about other Utah lake cryptids and local reactions.
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.
Uh Oh! The Link posted above doesn’t seem to work – but not to worry, there’s another kokodhem responds: May 7th, 2006 at 11:56 am
That link has also been snuffed.
Sounds to me kinda like a giant otter, like something from the pleistocene. I’ve been to Bear Lake several times, but alas haven’t seen the critter…
Wow, that would be amazing to study these creatures in the wild.
Sounds like a large otter in the description.
Most consider it to be a Giant Beaver, Casteroides ohioensis, common throughout much of North America until just after the last ice age. Although the first fossil remains of the Giant Beaver were discovered in Ohio in 1837, scientists had already been in search of live specimens. The British Naturalist Charles Fothergill went in search of them in Upper Canada in 1828, convinced of their existence based on Native American accounts. Many 19th century stories of Giant Beavers, sometimes simply described as hairy lake monsters, come from the Ute Tribe of Utah. Many accounts point to their presence in Bear Lake, where legend holds that a man was swallowed whole by one near Pelican Point. The Shoshone Tribe reported them in Bear Lake Valley, most notably after the blizzard of 1830, which killed all of the Buffalo in the region. Perhaps a lack of food due to the harsh winter forced some of them onto land. The last sighting of one that I am aware of was in 2000. Loren Coleman’s Field Guide to Lake Monsters offers a wonderful collection of sightings.