Norwegian Lake Monster

This picture is taken at a distance of about 20 metres at the Snaasa lake near Steinkjer i North Troendelag. (Photo: Einar Johannes Sandnes )

In Sweden and Norwary, sometimes, “sea serpent” is a term used for lake monsters.

Is this a sea serpent?

Einar Johannes Sandnes wonders if it really was a sea serpent that he saw popping its head out of the lake. What do you think?

By David Brændeland

Could this be a sea serpent? The creature that stuck its head out of Snaasa lake managed to rattle Einar Johannes Sandnes.

It all started as a quite ordinary fishing trip a quiet summer evening.

– We had been fishing all afternoon. When the sun settled late in the evening we went ashore for a cup of coffee. Suddenly I turned and looked towards the lake, and there it was. I managed to take a snapshot with my cell phone before it disappeared, he says to Nettavisen.

He lives nearby Sandnes, whose farm is almost at the beach of the lake, remembers well the episode from June 2005.

– We really got exited and wondered what the creature was, he recollects.

The creature is supposed to have appeared quite close to the men.

– The distance could have been 20 to 50 metres, close to land. It was summer and still light, so it was clearly visible, he adds.

250 metres deep

Sandnes is well known in the area of the 48 km long lake that is situated just north of Steinkjer in North-Troenderlag. He says that he knows of several stories about sea serpents in Snaasa lake.

– There are rumours from time to time. The sea serpent also has been nicknamed – Kudulla. That name is the original name of the lake, he thinks.

A depth of 121 metres is registered. Sandnes tells that a depth of 250 metres was found when the firm NTE laid a communication cable across the lake bottom.

– No wonder if the lake harbours sea serpents, he claims.

Afraid not to be believed

Einar Johannes Sandnes has kept the snapshot of the possible sea serpent on his cell phone for a year and a half. Now he lets Nettavisen go public with it.

– A long time I was sceptical letting anybody see it, I was afraid nobody would believe me, says Sandnes.David Brændeland

Translation of above article by Erik Knatterud. Erik’s comments are below. He contacted the witness after reading the article. It is also apparent from Erik’s comments, that this occurred in Norway, as opposed to Sweden.

Today this article appeared on a newspage on the net. I have contacted the man, a farmer and owner of a forest. He will send me the snapshot later today when he is out of the woods from a long day felling trees in his own forest. The flimsy photo was taken with a cellphone (mobile phone or whatever) in the middle of a bright subartic summer night. There are both old and relatively fresh sightings of these creatures in that lake, a lake well to the north east of the Trondheim fjord in middle Norway, east of town Steinkjer. The photo is really bad quality, taken with one of the earlier cellphones. A bit of surprise and shaky hands probably did not help either.

I will comment no further till I at least get a copy of that photo on to my computer. The witness is a middle aged practical man with little knowledge of computers. Einar Johannes Sandnes is also the chairman of the local land owners association. He has promised to send me a book published by the association with an article in it about sea serpent sightings from the lake.

-He was fishing with a friend. Both men saw the creature.

-He told me that he looked down to check the photo on his phone, but when he lifted its eyes, the neck and head was gone.

-The distance and the location. He told me 20 metres. He never saw it rise from the water, when he turned around it was already there.

-The dark form in the lower part of the pic, in front of the creature, is land. The lake is very deep quite close to the shore where the creature appeared. The creature the must have been close to the shore.

-The height of the neck and head above the surface he estimates to be about 1 1⁄2 metres, from his recollection of what happened in June 2005.

Fake or real, we’ll see!Erik Knatterud
sea serpent chaser

Loren Coleman 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.

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