We have all heard of the Loch Ness Monster or even “Champ” from Lake Champlain, but our very own Flathead Lake Monster is now a member of the crypto critter cast of characters. Destination America recently aired an episode of Monsters and Mysteries in America that featured re-enactments of sightings of Montana’s very own lake monster.

According to Wikipedia.org

The first documented sighting of the Flathead Lake Monster was in 1889. James C. Kerr skippered the U.S. Grant, a lake steamboat that made its rounds in Lake Flathead. On one trip Kerr and his passengers saw what first appeared to be a log or another approaching boat in the water. After coming closer, they realized an unusually large whale-like object was coming toward them in the lake. Frightened, one of the passengers on the steamer pulled out the rifle that he was carrying. He did not kill the creature, but this sighting started the legend of the Flathead Lake Monster.

The monster is usually described as a large eel-shaped creature, round with a wavy body like a snake, that spans from twenty to forty feet. It is brownish to blue-black with grayish-black eyes. It has often been described as looking like a whale or a giant sturgeon – one of the oldest families of bony fish in existence, often found in lakes and rivers. One other account described the beast as a giant eel-like creature that was very shiny and had a head shaped like a bowling ball. It has been reported to have many humps coming above the surface of the water when spotted, pointing toward the possibility that it is a creature similar to or the same as the Loch Ness Monster.

 

See a re-enactment of a Flathead Lake Monster sighting from Monsters and Mysteries in America