Why Bear Lake Again?

In a look at Water Babies and, of course, the Bear Lake Monsters, D. Robert Carter has written a new article in the Provo, Utah Daily Herald, entitled “Mysterious Monsters Inhabited Utah Valley Waters,” published, according to google news alerts, a little after midnight, local time, Sunday, April 30, 2006.

The “Pawapicts, or Water Babies, whom native Americans believed inhabited the waters of Utah Lake, Provo River and other aqua pura” are said to come “in various shapes and sizes. Most Ute accounts agree that they had long black hair and cried like infants.” The stories overlap with Merbeing lore.

The Bear Lake Monsters seem a special obsession of newspaper writers in Utah. Does any one have any theories why? We’ve mentioned this before, here, “Great Bear Lake Monster.”

For those interested in further history, resources and previous articles on the Bear Lake Monster, please see The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep, pages 192-199, where you will find a map of the lakes with sightings in Utah, details of their encounter histories, recent accounts, and bibliographical sources for further research.

But help me out here. Is there something I am missing in not understanding why reporters linked to the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints routinely and quite regularly, seemingly every summer, write about the same details of the same 18th century sightings of these cryptids?

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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