The Monster of the Thames
Posted by: Nick Redfern on August 26th, 2012
Just recently, Neil Arnold – author of such books as Monster! and The Mystery Animals of the British Isles: London – wrote an article for Fortean Times magazine that told of a strange creature inhabiting a particular stretch of English water. Well, the article is now online at the Fortean Times website and begins as follows:
“On 14 December 2011, the Daily Mail ran the story of the ‘Olympic Park beast’, after Mike Wells came forward to report that he’d seen a 16lb (7.3kg) Canada goose dragged beneath the surface of the River Lea by an unseen predator (FT285:8; see also 204:5 for a similar occurrence in 2005). He told the news-paper: ‘We were just passing the time of day looking at a Canada goose 30 yards away, but then it just suddenly disappeared. It went down vertically. There wasn’t any hesitation, it went straight down. It didn’t come back up. My friend and I looked at each other slack-jawed.’
“The search was on for the ‘killer beast’, the newspaper adding that ‘the number of swans on the river and waterways near the newly built £9bn Olympic Park is also dropping’, with many people fearing that a large pike, ‘pet alligator or snake’ was on the loose.”
And, if that has caught your interest, here’s the complete article.
About Nick Redfern
Punk music fan, Tennents Super and Carlsberg Special Brew beer fan, horror film fan, chocolate fan, like to wear black clothes, like to stay up late. Work as a writer.
