Chena River, Fairbanks Alaska. A swimming beast is caught on tape. What is it?

At various times of year, Bureau of Land Management Fairbanks District Office Public Affairs Specialist Craig McCaa likes to go down to the Chena River to share photos of changing Fairbanks weather.

On Oct. 18, he decided to walk his camera down to the University Avenue bridge that crosses the river to snap a few pictures of ice forming on the water's surface.

But instead of finding just snow and ice, McCaa saw a "strange thing" moving back and forth in the current of the murky river.

"It never fully revealed itself," he said in a phone interview Tuesday.

McCaa took a video and posted it to the "Bureau of Land Management – Alaska" Facebook page Tuesday afternoon. By evening it had been watched about 20,900 times. Speculation has run rampant on what the creepy object — or creature — swaying in the water might be.

This is really wild. What could be this big and swim in this style in Alaska? I'm looking for ideas and don't suggest any bias from this post. Link to article

Link to Facebook video

Your links do not work my friend , i would love to see what you got , maybe just copy paste the link instead of using the ATS tools ?

a reply to: TheGreazel

www.adn.com...

try that

Video didn't work at the link either but it does on the BLM's Facebook page.

Doesn't look like it's swimming to me, looks like it's being dragged

a reply to: SlowNail

i agree...

From a point well above the water... perhaps with a very long fishing rod

Looks like two frozen logs with some snow/ice caught in the current.

Doesn't really seem to be making any forward progress. If you look up the address of the district office:

Fairbanks District Office
222 University Avenue
Fairbanks, AK 99709

on Google maps or similar, you'll see that there's a bridge directly up river from the BLM office.



I'm guessing that they're having a little pre-Halloween fun with people and that it's debris caught on a line that is attached (intentionally or not) to the bridge. The current is making it appear to undulate in a swimming motion. There's nothing that would be swimming on the surface long enough for snow to accumulate on it like that.

My wife showed me this on her FB news feed a little bit ago. I was hoping ATS would catch it.

At first the thing in question looks pretty freaky!

At second glance I agree with one of the commenters, it may actually be an icy rope attached to an anchor and its flowing around with the current.

The other good guess Is a giant sturgeon, but that seems to be unlikely.

I wish it was a sea monster, but I think it's just a rope.

It reminds me of the Laargerflot worm from Iceland. I'm gonna check this again, I'm a keen fisherman so hopefully I can rule that out. The ice/snow on top was unusual tbh..

a reply to: bryan2006

A swimming beast is caught on tape. What is it?

I am always very suspicious when the vid is cut before the natural end of whats being filmed.

Makes me wonder why the vid was cut before the natural logical ending pioint and what if anything, went on after the vid was cut.

Short video which is suss As always. I wouldn't have thought sturgeon? that's if it is a real thing, they dwell more at the bottom..It also quite convenient how it immediately pans into this thing, maybe the person did just zoom in at that moment? Wouldn't say it's fake solely beside of snow on top but it's weird. can't say I believe either way for sure. many called the Laargerflot worm a bunch of logs, but imo that's legit. Thrill of the hunt hey?!

Looks like a snow-covered half submerged plastic sewage pipe from China.

a reply to: bryan2006
Picture of giant sturgeon. This one is 12 to 14 foot long.

It looks like a giant surgeon, that's dragging ice from the river on it's back.
2nd

Whenever a video has the blinking REC and battery life on the video, I file it in the fake pile. No real video actually has that unless you are taping it through the viewfinder of an 80's camera.

I hate being at work and not allowed access to youtube.

I wanna see!

Yah, video is cut (conveniently) before we get to see what it really is. Whatever it is, its been sitting on the surface long enough to let snow build up on it. Probably a stuck tree branch undulating in the current.

To really get our attention someone should have continued recording and thrown a rock at it...

With the inclusion of the ominous music the only thing missing is our Jeremy:

At first, I thought it was swimming, but at the first of the video you can tell its not moving because of the ice at the top of the video, then the line of shade from the bridge stays in the same spot. So I agree, it's tied to something, or if it is "swimming", it seems to be staying perfectly with the current of the river. IMO, I don't believe it's of the living.