Sea Monsters of North America

Liz Ardskin, PhD.

An Overview

No sooner did humans take to the lakes and costal waters of North America in boats than they began to tell of frightening encounters with strange water-dwelling creatures. Native Americans sometimes left visual records of what they saw in the form of petroglyphs. European settlers would hear their tales and disregard them as legends and superstitions. But it wasn’t long before they, too, began to see things that were so fantastic in size and appearance that there was only one term for them -- sea monsters. North America is not only surrounded by water, but it contains tens of thousands of lakes. People have been seeing “monsters” in some of its larger lakes for hundreds of years. Among the most notable lake monsters are “Champ”, the creature said to inhabit Lake Champlain, the 110-mile-long lake which borders New York and Vermont. “Bessie” is said to frequent the western waters of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes, while “Ogopogo” allegedly cruises Okanagan Lake, a body of water about 80 miles long in southern British Columbia.

Residents of the Pacific Northwest who live near or spend time on the water occasionally report seeing “Caddy” (short for Cadborosaurus). This monster prefers the sea, and has been spotted at various times around the coasts of Oregon and Washington, and around Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of British Columbia.

Could They Be the Same Creature?

What’s immediately striking about the descriptions of this fearsome foursome is how similar they are. All are described as having long necks and heads that resemble that of a horse or camel. They are said to be snake-like, with bodies one to two feet in diameter and anywhere from 12 to 80 feet long sometimes moving through the water in straight, log-like fashion, at other times moving as a series of undulating humps. They are dark-colored, usually green, brown or black. Some witnesses report seeing flippers, and tails that are fluked and horizontal as opposed to vertical like most fish. Though they are occasionally blamed for boating and swimming mishaps, these creatures have been seen eating fish, seals and seabirds, but never people.

So What Are They Really?

Some cryptozoologists (people who study animals whose existence has been described in anecdotes and folklore but never scientifically verified) theorize that Caddy, Champ, Bessie, and Ogopogo are throwbacks to prehistoric times and are a type of plesiosaur that lives and breeds in underwater crevices and caves. Others say they are more likely to be descendants of basilosaurus, a serpent-like, primitive whale that was 45 to 70 feet long. Debunkers say that what witnesses claim to have seen were nothing more than strange wave formations, or bobbing logs, or sturgeon, truly monstrous-looking fish that spend their lives in both fresh and salt water and can grow to be more than 20 feet long.

Wanted: Dead or Alive

None of these sea monsters has ever been captured, let alone photographed or videotaped to the satisfaction of skeptics. Occasionally, however carcasses that fit their description wash ashore or are inadvertently hauled up in fishing nets. But more often than not, after tissue analyses are performed, these dead creatures turn out to be basking sharks.

Why are the carcasses of basking sharks so often confused with those of “sea serpents?” When alive a basking shark is huge -- over 30 feet long. When it dies and decomposes, the massive gill structure with which it fed drops away, leaving nothing but the small upper position of its head and its long backbone. Its dorsal fin and the lower tail fluke also slough off, and its pelvic fins become distorted as they decay, so that it soon looks like a long, snake-like creature with flippers.

Someday, someone will prove or disprove, once and for all, the existence of sea monsters in North America. With a lot of curiosity, dedication, and luck, that someone could even be you.