Giant Snakes of Utah?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 6th, 2010
Some folks share their stories with Cryptomundo. Here’s one received this week, unedited for content. It appears to fall into the classification of “Giant Serpent Folklore.”
More than twelve years ago, an elderly Piute Indian lady and a male friend – both from Price, Utah – were chasing down a Piute story from the lady’s youth. The lady’s grandfather had said there was an undergound city, and gold mines, under the Henry Mountains in Utah, near the former site of what the grandfather described as the “Serpent Temple”. The grandfather had a hand drawn picture of the entrance to the temple – showing giant snakes carved in rock. He claimed the picture was from his family and the temple had been destroyed and buried to hide the site. To shorten the story substantially, in their searches of the mountain, the male claims to have been watching some cattle at a spring near the site and suddenly saw a monstrous snake strike a small under 1 year old calf of say 150+ lbs in size. He estimated the snake to be over 35ft in length. He claimed it knocked the calf over and quickly wrapped around it and he watched fascinated and terrified as it took a rather long period of time to engulf the calf.
Ultimately he claimed to have seen it and other of similar size multiple times, and went so far as to ask the local rancher if he had been losing any calves. The rancher replied rustlers were apparently taking 10 or 12 a year in the area.
The lady claims she was sitting on rock beside the dirt road one day and one came out from a hole in a pile rocks nearby. Terrified, she remained frozen as it raised up to her face height and somewhat opened its mouth so close that she could even smell how foul its breath was. Oddly, the lady, who said she used to capture and eat snakes (especially rattlesnakes) routinely in the mountains in her youth, claimed the snake was like nothing she’d ever seen. She described it’s skin as being leathery, rather than having the scales she was used to seeing. Furthermore its head (“bigger than my head”), had some kind of dorsal ridge down it. After a long moment, it lowered its head and crossed the road at a diagonal, disappearing down the hill on the other side. The tail apparently was on one side of the road as the head reached the other. The lady and the guy claim to have measured the distance at well over 28ft.
I’ve visited the site. No skins, no massive snake scat to be seen. The couple however remained insistent in their stories. They claimed the snakes lived inside the tunnels in the mountain where the temperatures are constant, with plenty of water since the springs came from there. The Piute claims the snakes where put there to protect the site which incidently is also supposed to contain a chamber with wall lined with gold or gold tablets upon which the history of mankind is written.
If the “snakes” were put there, how come they didn’t spread out? Oddly, that might be the easiest part. The Henry Mountains are literally an oasis in the desert, with water, large numbers of deer and one of the largest buffalo herds in the country. But the area around the mountains is rather inhospitable. It would likely be difficult for a cold-blooded creature (or is it cold blooded?) to travel far.
It’s a fun story. Is it true? I believe the Piute lady is dead now. She and her companion stuck to their story over the several years I talked with them. They said they wanted to prove their story to others.
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.
Please take the following with a large grain of salt, as I may have my “facts”, such as they are, incorrect.
A long time ago, a cousin on mine who grew up in Utah mentioned a piece of Mormon lore. In the Book of Mormon, the civilization falls apart, and a number of secret societies develop that are akin to mafia. The lore I heard said that one of those groups was centered in what is now Utah, where they established some sort of base.
What gets me about this tidbit of myth is that the Mormon religion holds that history is written in those societies on gold tablets. Which pretty much agrees with the Piute story.
I offer no opinion on the religion, but I do find the coincidence/sychronicity of the “history written on golden tablets” thing to be intriguing in a lot of ways. Full disclosure: I was raised Mormon, but am no longer an active member.
As for the snake part of the story, which is what is really interesting to us reading here… I got nothing. I’d love to find out what they are, though.
I’ve lived in Utah for 35 years…worked in Law Enforcement all that time….am very familiar with the Henry Mountains….and have never heard of these “giant snakes”. I DO know that we have an abundance of Peyote.
Tales of Underground Cities in the Southwest are absolutely nothing new. Especially tales including large amounts of Gold and Treasure. The Tale of the Dutchman’s Mine comes to mind. Also tales of hideous creatures guarding Gold/Treasure are also part of the tales. Think of European Dragons and their “cache.” 🙂
dhestand
Does peyote=mescaline?
Any indication in Paiute culture or oral traditions of such a religious element?
Otherwise, the closest I can think of (apart from a hoax or 19th century SciFi like the BoM) would be contact with the Anasazi.
Sounds like the type of “tall tale” you’d find in ANY part of the world.
Lots of questions for me to ask here, but the one that’s foremost in my mind is whether or not anyone in history actually wrote anything down on a gold tablet?
coelacanth1938,
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer, Google it, but here’s one page.
Gold is a logical choice to write on if you want something to last, as it’s soft.
The Great Basin, up until a few thousand years ago, was a region of lakes and forests which supported some very large animals such as mammoths, giant ground sloths, giant tortoises and others which are now extinct. As ancient Lake Lahontan and Lake Bonneville dried and drained due to a variety of factors, and human cultures persisted, the animals vanished as well. Within the geology of the Basin and Range there are a number of cave systems, some of which are not well explored and presumably some which are still unknown. If a large snake or other subterranean reptile persisted, and due to its size was not as dependent on basking in the sun in order to thermo-regulate, it might go un-noticed except when it might make a brief appearance to take sustenance or migrate from one portion of a cave system to another. Animals that are adapted to the cool dark conditions of caves are known for their longevity.
I’ve worked in the Great Basin and have taken some time to learn about its fascinating natural history both past and present and have never heard of large creatures such as being attributed to the legend in the article, but considering how remote and sparsely populated some of the places are there, it’s tantalizing to imagine some large long-lived species that is not dependent on the surface except for brief appearances which could elude our modern human knowledge being there.
Well I am all for large snakes in Utah. Especially, since I live in Oklahoma. Long as they stay over there with the mormons, and leave us alone, I am good. Maybe the reason that noone has eve found them is because the (reptile?) has consumed them. These giant cave dwelling snakes have found a way to kill and not be found. They live inside a cave walled with gold and filled with snake scat, since they do not obviously defecate outside of the cave, and keep themselves fed on beef and peyote. You gotta worry about omnivorous, drug addicted snakes who use the restroom where they live.