Sea Monsters In The Great Lakes?

While searching on the computer for sea monsters, two peculiar creatures caught my attention, Bessie and Pressie.

Apparently, Bessie inhabits Lake Erie, while Pressie resides in Lake Superior.

My questions are:

Are there any recent sightings of these creatures?

And

Are there any known creatures associated with Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Ontario? (In my opinion, it would seem odd that there wouldn’t be anything swimming in such a gargantuan body of fresh water.)

Thanks for you help answering my questions.

I've never heard of any monster living in Lake Erie , but Lake Ontario is supposed to have a HUGE snake in it. Not sure of the name but I've heard stories about it. Apparently it ate some fishermen in the late 1970's. Just what I heard though.

Lake Champlain on the New York/Vermont border is home to "Champ", a creature similar to Nessie. My theory? If these creatures exist, I believe they migrate.

Migration cold be a possibility. A monster in one of the Great Lakes that migrates to another body of water could be the same monster, just seen at a different location.

I grew up in southeastern michigan about 5 mins from the detroit river and lake eerie. There is a local paper called the news herald ( could be wrong I no longer liver there so you may have to do some research.) Anyways in one edition of this paper there was an overhead camerashot taken around elizabeth park, grosse isle free bridge of a large shadow swimming beneath the surface in an upstream direction in the detroit river. The pic itself was published in the paper, however I never purchased it myself and held onto a copy.

It could have possibly been a school of shad ( common forage fish), or this lake monster that people claim to have witnessed. The area the picture was taken at is maybe a 1/2 mile upstream from Lake Eerie.

Exact year it was printed, I can only guesstimate was between 97-99 hope this helps.

Very Interesting, Especially since I live relatively close to Grosse Isle (About A Half Hour.) Hm, do you recall what shape the shadow was?

As I recall it was big oval shaped, pic was taken more than likely from one of the local planes that land and take off from the airport on the island there.

I remeber reading stories of sightings of a giant snake around lake Erie as far back as some Indian tribes of the area and as far south as the Akron, Ohio area. There are known eels or even lampreys in the great lakes so maybe it is just an example of an overly large specimen.

Hmmmm Sea monsters (not really monsters mind you, they would simply undiscovered creatures!) would require salt water for life....aren't the lakes here fresh water?

Yup, all of them are fresh water. As previously mentioned, Champ is said to live in Lake Champlain...which is fresh water...

Back in the 70's, When I lived in Bay City, MI., I read an article in a sporting magazine (Michigan Outdoors???) about a pike that was trawled up in the late 1800's-early 1900's in Lake Michigan that was well over 7ft. long and weighed 110 lbs. Also, when they were building the Mackinac Bridge, some of the workers fell in and were bitten, lost limbs from bites, etc. I don't know how true these stories are, could just be Michigan lore.

hm. does a lake has enough "food" for the big snake to live on? if not, how can it survive so long?

If the snake is an undiscovered species, then there could be possible that more of such snake is beneath the lake.

If the snake does has life span like most other living things have, one or more of this snakes could have died long time ago and float up to the surface of the lake, but why aren't there any found?

Northern Pike, Great Lake Muskellunge, Tiger Muskellunge can grow very large and are very abundant in the great lakes. A fish of these types can easily grow over 5 feet. So I am sure there are some lunkers out there that would eat these fish ( pike are cannabalistic, resembling fresh water barricuda.)

Any one of the great lakes could easily support a group of large animals. Go to any river connected to the great lakes during the late fall and spring and these waters abound with migrating fish from the great lakes on their spawning runs. Walleye,Trout,Salmon,Carp,Catfish, Pike,Baitfish of all kinds, etc. Some rivers get so thick the locals say you can walk across the river on the backs of fish.

I've heard stories about large Pike and/or Muskies eating people's small dogs on the shores of Lake St. Claire....dunno if it's true but you can easily stuff a softball in the mouth of a decent sized pike. Pike are found dead with 1/2 a fish hanging from their mouth cuz they bit off more then they could chew. So a very large fish of this size could take a nice chunk out of you since their mouths are lined with razor sharp teeth. Maybe the "snake" is just some extremely large pike with mutated genetics that allowed it to grow way bigger then your average pike? Just a thought.

I live almost on the lake shore of lake Michigan, and have never heard of any folk lore or stories about lake creatures. Been in Michigan most my life born and raised here, UP and lower pen.

Originally posted by BangorangRufio
I've never heard of any monster living in Lake Erie , but Lake Ontario is supposed to have a HUGE snake in it. Not sure of the name but I've heard stories about it. Apparently it ate some fishermen in the late 1970's. Just what I heard though.

I live near Lake Ontario and I haven't seen anything strange recent'y. Although there was one time years ago when I was in my late teens when my family and I went on a picnic. We were swimming in the lake when off near the horizon we saw what looked like a very long log floting in the water. It could have just been a log but there was just some strange feeling we got just staring too long at this log. Could it have been the infamous Sea Serpent we saw? I couldn't really tell you for certain.

Originally posted by LadyV
Hmmmm Sea monsters (not really monsters mind you, they would simply undiscovered creatures!) would require salt water for life....aren't the lakes here fresh water?

ummm

monster

n 1: an imaginary creature usually having various human and animal parts 2: someone or something that is abnormally large and powerful [syn: giant, goliath, behemoth, colossus] 3: a person or animal that is markedly unusual or deformed [syn: freak, monstrosity, lusus naturae] 4: a cruel wicked and inhuman person [syn: fiend, devil, demon, ogre] 5: (medicine) a grossly malformed and usually nonviable fetus [syn: teras]

yeah, if they exist they are definately monsters.

for example: giant squid are rare, but are certainly monsters.

Hm, well, thanks for your insight guys... If i find anything on them, I'll post it here.

I live literally 100 yards from Lake Erie and have spent my entire life fishing this lake (Great Walleye!). I've never heard of any "monster" inhabiting the lake and I associate with a great number of fishermen and boaters who frequent the lake. What I can tell you is that it would not be a likely habitat for such a creature as Lake Erie's average depth is only about 50 feet. Secondly, given the amount of both recreational boaters and freight traffic on the lake I would have expected to hear of this rumor before now. To date, this is the first I have ever heard of it.

I got my undergrad degree at a college that is more or less right on lake champlain. Spent lots of time there. I had a high school science teacher who wrote a book on champ. His name is Mr. Zarzynski (don't know his first name)... I think that the book is just called Champ.

He used to drive around in this big Red Chevy van that had "The Lake Champlain Phenomena Investigation," written on the side. As a kid in high school, I thought the van was hilarious, but the project was cool.

I've never seen Champ though.... never even met someone who claims to have.

Here are some interesting links on the Lake Erie "snake" that I mentioned. Seeems that there have been quite a lot of sightings.

www.monstertracker.com...

users1.ee.net...

www.thestar.com.../Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1107903010924&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968 350116795

[edit on 1-3-2005 by skychief]