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Thursday, August 11, 2005 |
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Archives
Two new reports of Flathead monster surface Posted: Thursday, Aug 11, 2005 - 03:35:33 pm PDT By RUSS MILLER Bigfork Eagle
A Polson trial attorney and his wife are among the latest to have seen the legendary Flathead Lake monster, a slippery serpent some believe to be a giant eel left over from prehistoric ages. Perhaps it's related to Nessie, the Loch Ness monster, or maybe it's just a big fish."I'm glad I came forward," Jim Manley said earlier this week about the mysterious oddity splashing for several minutes in Big Arm Bay two weeks ago. Since reporting the July 28 sighting to Laney Hanzel and Paul Fugleberg, noted Flathead Lake monster historians, the Manleys have become somewhat famous in Polson. "I'm not a nut-case," Jim Manley said last week. "I have had 10 or so people come up to me in the last week and say they have also seen something strange in the lake over the years or know someone who did," he added. "I hope that by reporting what we saw people will come forward if they see it." "People who know us know we wouldn't make this up," Julia Manley said. "A lot of people are skeptical, like we once were, until you see it yourself. Then you come to believe something is lurking there, swimming in the lake," she added. So what did the Manleys see on a sunny, Thursday afternoon in the water some 300 yards from Sunny Shores Resort? The couple said they were anchored in the bay, relaxing after having gone swimming. The sun was to their backs and it was about 6:30 p.m. when both began hearing rhythmic splashing. "It was loud," Julia said. "After about three splashes we both opened our eyes and looked out on the water and then at each other to see whether we were seeing the same thing." Jim said at first he thought he was seeing a single wave, but no boats had passed by, and the thing was moving. "It had a serpentine look," he added, "with several humps visible above the water. It moved slowly away from shore toward Wild Horse Island." It wasn't a log, both agree, and it was moving against the current. The wind was a little breezy and the lake was mostly calm except for the splashing of the dark-colored "thing," Julia said. "It was something very large." "Julia and I were talking about it while we watched. It stopped splashing but kept moving," Jim added. They watched for two to three minutes and judged it to be about 25 feet long, 75 to 100 yards away. A few feet separated each rounded hump rising and falling nearly two feet out of the water. "It wasn't an optical illusion," Jim said. "The part above surface looked about as long as our boat. What really struck us was how loud the splashing was. It was regular, like waves breaking on a beach." The Manleys said they go boating once a week and have never seen anything in the water like that in the 25 years they have lived in the area. On the day they claim to have seen the "serpent," their boat's battery had gone dead and they were waiting for friends in another boat to come give them a jump. As that boat approached the Manleys from the east, coming toward where the serpentine object had just passed, Jim said the "monster" was still visible. "So I stood in our boat pointing to it, trying to get them to see it. They started looking over there and then the thing sunk into the water. They didn't see it," he said. Both Jim and Julia said they hadn't been drinking that day, nor smoking anything funny. And both said they are glad they had the other there to witness it. For Hanzel, the recent sighting is just another notch in his belt. "I'm the official keeper of things when it comes to the Flathead Lake Monster," Hanzel said last Wednesday after receiving Jim Manley's report. Hanzel, a retired Flathead Lake biologist, began working on the Flathead Lake Monster Project when he was with the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department. He spent more than 30 years working on the lake, and just about as many sailing the lake, but admits he has never seen anything of a monster there. However, while conducting year-round fisheries investigations on the lake with nets and sophisticated acoustic sounding equipment, Hanzel said he observed several unexplainable large holes in the nets he pulled from the water's depths. Before July 28, the most recent talked-about sighting came when an angler, unnamed because he wanted to remain anonymous, reported something very large tailed a lake trout he was pulling out of the water from a depth of 120 feet on Aug. 18, 1998. It was the first reported sighting since 1993 when 13 monster sightings were described. Typically, there are one or two sightings a year, according to Hanzel. The first recorded sighting was in 1889 when passengers and the skipper of the steamer U.S Grant reported seeing the serpent while crossing the lake. The Manley's sighting, and the anonymous sighting reported to Hanzel Monday night, bring the tally of accounts past 80, according to FWP records Hanzel keeps. Most of these reports describe the eel-like Flathead monster as having "humps and smooth skin," and to be longer then 10 feet, or in one case, 60 feet long. Other sightings, about 25 or so, are of the "fish" variety, Hanzel explained. These reports describe something that may be a sturgeon, but they don't fit the description most eyewitnesses give of the Flathead Lake monster. "What impresses me is that people who have never heard of the creature and report seeing something in the lake all report the same thing. A serpent with humps, 25 feet or longer," Hanzel said. "I don't know what the thing is," he added. "It could be something from prehistoric ages." A cyptozoologist once visited the Flathead looking into monster sighting reports and Hanzel said the scientist had traveled the world investigating serpent legends. All the large lakes around the world have their own legendary lake creature, Hanzel said. This latest sightings can only come as good news for Brian Beck, founder and president of Flathead Lake Monster Inc., a Polson business specializing in Monsterwear and other merchandise. Beck said he saw the monster "10 or 12 years ago" near Melita Island while driving a lakeside road. "I looked down and saw what looked like a serpent," he said last week. "I was thinking perhaps, perhaps not, about what I was seeing. Then the next day or so I heard on the radio that other people were saying they had seen something out there." Beck was hooked and dreamed up the idea of his company one day in 1995 while sitting on a dock in Polson where he grew up. The reception to his merchandise has been "pretty good," he added. He said he has "world-class" professional artists creating images for his T-shirts and is reconstructing his Web site where he sells his goods. "I believe there's a monster there," he said. "I really do. I mean I have to. I own the trademark, you know."
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