Alaskan Marine Cryptid Update

In 2009, Kelly Nash and his sons Kyle and Jasen obtained footage of a group of unknown animals that were pursued by a pod of beluga whales in Nushagak Bay, Alaska.

I promised readers of Cryptomundo that I would continue to try and ascertain what happened to the missing footage of the animal that was a remarkable fit for a living, breathing version of the Naden Harbour carcass. I submit the following report from the BCSCC Quarterly four your information and edification:

Two and a half years ago, the cryptozoological world faced one of the greatest disappointments ever when supposed footage of a pod of Cadborosauruses was not shown on Hillstranded: Alaska Monster Hunt.

Paul Leblond and John Kirk had seen the footage obtained by fisherman Kelly Nash and his sons Kyle and Jason in June, 2007 and were stunned to see that at least one of the creatures was a living, breathing version of the animal depicted in the photos of the Naden Harbour carcass of 1937.

When the Nash footage was shown on Alaskan Monster Hunt, glaringly omitted from this program was the sequence containing the Naden Harbour lookalike turning its head to look full on at the camera. Kirk and Leblond were baffled by so great an omission that they set about trying to find out what had happened. Enquiries were made to Kelly Nash and the production company to whom Nash had sold his footage, and while Nash did reply, the production company did not.

Nash’s reply stated that he did not know why they did not use the footage, but there was something about that answer that was not proving unsatisfactory to John Kirk especially.

For two years John continued to look into why the footage was not featured, but was not getting anywhere until developments in December 2013 provided the answer to this perplexing question.

John was approached to appear on MSNBC’s news program Caught on Camera. His assignment was to discuss the question of Ogopogo and Cadborosaurus for the TV audience. When the producers asked John what Cadborosaurus footage he thought suitable for use, John advised them to try and procure the Kelly Nash footage.

MSNBC advised John they had already done so. John was surprised as the footage had been sold to a production firm who did not seem to want to do anything more with it. As John questioned a program researcher about how they managed to obtain the footage and if Kelly was alright with this, researcher advised John of the sad news of Kelly’s passing in October, 2013. Kelly was just 60 years-old and his death left his family utterly devastated. We at the BCSCC were greatly saddened to hear the news and felt a tremendous amount of sympathy for the Nash family on their loss.

In subsequent discussions with program producer, John raised the matter of finally airing the footage of the Naden Harbour lookalike, but was shocked to find out that the footage from the production company, though extensive, did not contain images of the creature that bore an incredible resemblance to the specimen obtained in the Queen Charlottes (now Haida Gwaii).

This was simply baffling to John and he went back to the original correspondence from Kelly Nash to see if he could find an answer to his question of what had happened to the definitive footage.

When John and Paul had originally viewed the footage at separate times on the same day, they had done so on a laptop computer and a DVD player attached to a TV. At no time did they see the footage played from the camera that had videotaped the encounter on Hi8 tape.

Kelly Nash had hired a video specialist to make compilation DVDs and CDs on which to show, magnified, clarified and slow motion sequences of the video. Kelly was adamant that the sequences he thought were best were the best evidence of the existence of some sort of unknown creature in the frigid waters of the North Pacific Ocean. While John and Paul were impressed by the footage in general it was the sequence with the living Naden Harbour creature that was the clincher.

In fact when Kelly sent John images from his footage to support his request that his footage be viewed, they weren’t very impressive, but nothing could have prepared John and Paul for what they saw.

If the production company did not have the footage, then where was it? In the original correspondence from Kelly in May, 2009 Kelly included a diagram of the area in which the creatures were seen including a sketch of the beasts themselves.

What John and Paul had not previously noted was that the diagram showed the camera location as well. As he scrutinized the diagram once more, John saw that there were in fact TWO cameras that had been used. One was run by Jasen Nash and the other by Kelly and Kyle Nash.

It dawned on John that what Kelly had possibly done was to sell the production company the footage from one camera while the footage from the other one was overlooked. It is most likely that the Naden Harbour creature sequence was not on the tape that went to the Hillstranded producers.

John continued to press the producer to talk to Kyle Nash as to where the footage might be. Kelly had mentioned that the camera which contained the Naden Harbour lookalike was broken so that the video, which could be played in the camera, could not be removed from the camera.

When Lizzie had interviewed Kyle Nash he showed them the first camera which proved to be in proper working order. So where was the second camera? It took a while for him to remember, but when Kyle did so he dropped a bombshell. He recalled that the second camera had fallen into the hands of a friend of his who may have taped over the vital sequence. Kyle thought that when this happened the friend had recorded over the original Alaskan sea creature footage.

To John this news felt like a Floyd Mayweather punch to the gut and he could barely believe what he was hearing. It seemed that all was lost.

In that moment of loss and despair, it occurred to John that there were still all the DVDs and CDs that he and Paul had viewed at a hotel in Burlington, Washington. The footage was definitely on those discs. Lizzie Blenk spoke to Kyle Nash and thankfully he seems to recall placing a number of his father’s DVDs in a box after Kelly had passed away, but was unsure which box these discs were in. As the Nash family is still grieving the loss of their father, we decided not to trouble the Nash family at this time to find the footage for us.

They will need considerable time to grieve and when they indicate that they are open to looking at the matter again, we will then be in touch with them to see if they can locate the seemingly once-thought lost footage.

The air date for the program in which the already-seen Nash footage is going to be included is tentatively set for 25th May, 2014, but perhaps by then the Nashes will have found the footage and the world may yet be able to see for themselves what a real, living, breathing cryptid looks like.

Although there is the chance that the discs may never be found, we are hoping that they will. We do not want this to be like other incidents where cameras have fallen into the drink or lens caps left on by hapless camera operators meaning precious footage is lost forever.

John Kirk About John Kirk
One of the founders of the BCSCC, John Kirk has enjoyed a varied and exciting career path. Both a print and broadcast journalist, John Kirk has in recent years been at the forefront of much of the BCSCC’s expeditions, investigations and publishing. John has been particularly interested in the phenomenon of unknown aquatic cryptids around the world and is the author of In the Domain of the Lake Monsters (Key Porter Books, 1998). In addition to his interest in freshwater cryptids, John has been keenly interested in investigating the possible existence of sasquatch and other bipedal hominids of the world, and in particular, the Yeren of China. John is also chairman of the Crypto Safari organization, which specializes in sending teams of investigators to remote parts of the world to search for animals as yet unidentified by science. John travelled with a Crypto Safari team to Cameroon and northern Republic of Congo to interview witnesses among the Baka pygmies and Bantu bushmen who have sighted a large unknown animal that bears more than a superficial resemblance to a dinosaur. Since 1996, John Kirk has been editor and publisher of the BCSCC Quarterly which is the flagship publication of the BCSCC. In demand at conferences, seminars, lectures and on television and radio programs, John has spoken all over North America and has appeared in programs on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, TLC, Discovery, CBC, CTV and the BBC. In his personal life John spends much time studying the histories of Scottish Clans and is himself the president of the Clan Kirk Society. John is also an avid soccer enthusiast and player.

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