Like the Scots living around their famous lake, many residents in the Beothuk Trail community of Robert’s Arm on the shore of Crescent Lake tend to wonder what all the fuss is about. However, earliest Indian legends tell of the wooden haoot, the "pond devil" or the "swimming demon" haoot tuwedyee. In the local oral tradition, sightings of Cressie go back to the turn of the century when one of Robert’s Arm’s first residents, remembered today as "Grandmother Anthony", was startled from her berry picking by a giant serpent out on the lake. In another daylight sighting of the early 1950's, two local woodsmen on the shores of the lake noticed what they though was a boon log just off shore. Puzzled that it was drifting into the wind, the men motored hurriedly out in time to witness the upturned "log", now huge, black, and rounded slip beneath the waters of the lake. One of the gentlemen, Mr. Andrew Burton, long since retired and deceased, recalls that they wasted no time in regaining the shore!

Since then occasional sightings raise only a few eyebrows in the area; local mothers threaten misbehaving children with, "Be good of the monster in the lake will get you!"

In the late spring of 1990, a slim, black shape was observed at about 9:00am to rise momentarily five feet from a patch of churning water before sinking immediately out of sight just off the southern end of the lake; was it a rotten log? The observer refuses to be identified.

On July 9th of 1991, at about 12:10pm, "Cressie" was sighted again. Mr. Fred Parsons, a local retired school teacher, newspaper correspondent, and 1991 winner of "Citizen of the Year Award" from the town of Robert’s Arm for his volunteer work in the area, saw a dark, undulating serpent-shaped creature surface while it crossed the lake. Mr. Parsons’ estimation of its length exceeded twenty feet.

On Thursday afternoon, September 5th, 1991, at approximately 4:30pm, Mr. Pierce Rideout, a resident of Robert’s Arm, was driving his pickup truck at the approach to that town, when he noticed a disturbance on the surface of Crescent Lake. He observed through the open window of his truck what seemed to be the bow wave of a small boat about 150 yards off shore, or three quarters of the way from the small beach near Warr’s Service Station (now Bruce Warr and Sons Limited) and the forested point of land across the lake.

It appeared to Mr. Rideout that a slowly moving object had just dropped below the surface, but as he watched it rose to sight again: a black, fifteen foot long shape pitching forward in a rolling motion much as a whale does but with no sign of a fin, "sail", paddle, or fluke. Nor did it show a head or neck. It then sank out of sight and did not reappear.

Mr. Rideout had the object in sight for about three minutes. His initial report was given to this writer the following Tuesday night; he remarked at the time that several days before his sighting he had freely ridiculed the notion of a "lake monster" in Crescent Lake but that his attitude had changed since Thursday.

In mid July, 2000, Richard Goudie and Robbie Watkins were two of a group of people landscaping on the Hazelnut Hiking and Adventure Trail who saw Cressie.

Doubters scoff and claim that bubbles of gas from the decomposing pulpwood littering the lake bottom is likely the explanation. Others point out the huge, mysterious hole punched in the winter lake ice early in the eighties. RCMP divers, fearing a snowmobile mishap, uncovered nothing. No, not even dynamite!

Other RCMP divers, several years later, may have accidentally discovered related "monsters" while investigating an unfortunate drowning accident in another similar-sized lake in the area, South Pond. They returned to the surface with descriptions of giant eels as thick as a man’s thigh. Many believe Cressie to be such a creature. Adult eels have been know to reach several feet or more, but a "monster eel"? In the early thirties, Danish marine biologists discovered evidence of a sixty foot long eel. They found a deep-sea eel larva six feet long; normal eel larva grow no more than four inches!

The life cycle of the North American Anguilloidei or freshwater eel involves spawning at sea, maturing while navigating up brooks, streams and rivers and finally a long adult like spent in the depths of ponds and lakes. As with all fishes, eels do not stop growing during their lifetime. Although Cressie appears to be enormous, no one has ever spotted such a monster attempting to navigate down Tommy’s Arm Brook, the lake’s only outlet to the sea less than two miles away. Would not Cressie have to leave the lake to spawn in salt water? Perhaps not!

Long time residents of the area claim that Crescent Lake is three hundred feet deep in places, much less than the 754 foot depth of Loch Ness, but still putting its bottom below the low-tide level of Robert’s Arm harbour half a mile away. In addition, early lakeside homeowners have to sometimes contend with brackish drinking water. Is the bottom of Crescent Lake actually ocean water? If so, Cressie needs only to "migrate" three hundred feet down to spawn! If adult Cressie's continue living after spawning, who knows how big they could grow?

The giant eel shown above is based upon the account of Cressie, which is not as friendly as it's name sounds. The most frightening story of Cressie, took place in the mid 1980s. The story involved rescue divers diving into the lake to search for survivors of a downed helicopter. But what they found was much more frightening..... They found themselves surrounded by a school of large eels that were as they claimed "as thick as a man's thigh" which proceeded to attack them, noone was seriously injured but the men were pretty shaken up. The only thing odd about this story, is that the eels attacked in a school. But they could of been feeding upon the corpse of the pilot.......

Oh, those black things in the background are the creature's school. Can you imagine being attacked by a WHOLE FREAKIN SCHOOL of these things! It would be like Pirahna on steroids!

One of the most interesting items came from John Weatherley, who was kind enough to allow us to share with you his memories of a close encounter of the giant-eel kind. Thanks, John! It's an account that we are actively researching to try and uncover more data on; and if anything surfaces we will post it to this blog.

For your reading pleasure, here's John's account:

"Greetings Jon,
"I enjoyed your interview on Coast to Coast AM this morning - (3 AM here in Florida). I was particularly interest in your theory regarding giant eels in northern lakes e.g. Loch Ness. Perhaps you could help me identify the creatures that I and many hundreds saw a few years ago?
"I am British and live in Florida. My family and I came to Florida by sea from Australia in 1969. Our ship left Acuapulco and sailed along the west coast towards the Panama canal. It was the first week of July 1969. The sea was calm and we were cruising quite slowly because of congestion in the canal.
"As we cruised along the west coast of Costa Rica and Panama we were about 7 or 8 miles from shore and just a few yards from the flotsam line. It was clearly defined line of sea weed about 30 feet wide with odd bits of wood and the occasional small tree limb,
"We cruised along this path for several hours in bright sunshine between about 10 AM and 2 PM. There were many fish visible and some very large turtles but the significant sighting were huge eels. These creatures were always in pairs and we saw a pair perhaps every 20 minutes or so.
"They averaged about 15 feet long and had a diameter of about 1.5 feet. They were khaki or olive in colour and were identical to the eels for which I used to fish as a boy in my home town of Canterbury Kent, except they were so large. They were lazily swimming very slowly along through the flotsam or just wallowing at the very surface.
"The ship was carrying about 1200 passengers and most were on deck on this idyllic day so the eels were seen by many people. Most were engaged in counting the enormous numbers of sharks which were clearly visible around the ship.
"I wonder if you have any idea what species of eel these were? They could easily have swallowed a child or a small adult. Regards, John Weatherley."

Dragon in the Debris

Captain Lionel Leslie was informed of the another alleged hair-eel slaying sometime at the very end of the nineteenth century. Workers were clearing out the Caledonian canal at Corpach when they discovered a creature that "resembled an eel but was much larger than any eel ever seen and it had a long mane." Costello writes that the beast was killed by the workers but Holiday states it was found already dead. The workers were under the impression the strange find had originated from Loch Ness. The body most likely was disposed of with the rest of the debris.

how does this relate to cryptozoology?

so what if cressie is a giant eel, it is not a cryptid, just an oopa

You do realise no eels thi size have been officially discovered? None discovered? Hitherto unproven? Mysterious? A mysterious creature that is unproven and undiscovered? Like a cryptid?

Its quite a strange, unbelievable cryptid, but it still counts.

the home of cressie in no way can support 20 plus ft long eels. sorry. it just cant. unless u can provide me a link with the ecology of the lake, its highly unlikely it exists.

more plausible than eels is otters

Passive agressive much...

OK, good for you. Now run along and hunt bigfoot in some hicks backyard.

the significant sighting were huge eels. These creatures were always in pairs and we saw a pair perhaps every 20 minutes or so.
"They averaged about 15 feet long and had a diameter of about 1.5 feet. They were khaki or olive in colour and were identical to the eels for which I used to fish as a boy in my home town of Canterbury Kent, except they were so large. They were lazily swimming very slowly along through the flotsam or just wallowing at the very surface.

I agree with Makaya: common sea otters, because of the distance and lack of perspective erroneously perceived to be very large.

On January 31, 1930, the Danish research ship "The Dana" captured what researchers believed to be a six-feet long eel larva near South Africa's Cape of Good Hope. This would have meant there were very long eels in the sea, since the typical eel larva is three inches (76 mm) long, while the adults can grow from about 4 feet (1.2 m) to 16 feet (4.9 m) long. In 1970, Dr. David G. Smith of the University of Miami identified the larva found as that of the spiny eel, an eel-like fish whose larval length is equal to its adult length, while the larval length of the true eel is much shorter than its adult length.

Here is a story and pic of a Giant Eel. It apparently lived in a small trout pond. It would be easy to mistake for a log.
Giant Eel


http://www.occultopedia.com/g/giant_eel.htm


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel
I had remembered reading of a giant eel larva when I was a kid. But, as you can see from Wiki it appears to have been a fish larva of the spiny eel. The wiki article does say that eels can get as long as 16 feet and that is no slouch.

ur very disrespectful. why do u have a grudge againt the bigfoot subject? its way more likely to exist than lake monsters, since way more people are scannnig the lakes daily, and few if any barely go searching in the pacific nw

Im suprised he hasn't mentioned the giant squid.
Its a bit like the eel story but with more water.

Um..no a new speices qualifies as a new species.
If the giant eel does exisr in lakes then it is possoable for a large population.
there are loads of fish in the great lakes.

My god people! Does it matter if it doesn't qualify as a cryptid? They are all bullcrap anyway.

y are u on here then? ur more of a pseudoskeptic than a skeptic.

why post on something u think is bs, when u can be spending time doing other things, like ur hw!

I love these forums, the people are great. How am I pseudoskeptic? Im hardcore man, I don't believe in ANY cryptids, ghosts, religon, even that there are aliens anywhere our solar system. I am hardcore.

thats not hardcore, its being ignorant. i dont believe in aliens due to reasons why there cant be any in our solar system. u just dont believe bc "it seems cool"

The homework point is so true. Im meant to be on exam leave studying, yet here I am wasting my time on my beloved forum lol. Aw well, when I fail my end of year exams maybe I'lll become a homeless man in the bush, searching for cryptids in my spare time.

i hope some redneck shoots u in the leg

Geez bro, I was joking. You seem very angry. How was your relationship with your mother?

listen, , im not a violent person

i feel horrible when someone dies.

i, however, have no patience for childish pranks and hoaxs, and i am not going to shoot u for it. i just HOPE someone accidently wounds u and then u can learn ur lesson

my mom is fine

If somone accidentally wounded me the first thing I would say would be "LOL!"

Learn to take a joke buddy.

i can take jokes, but when u insult people for their views, its annoying. ive been threatened by people in my life, to the point that one of my classmates told me the exact address, sister brother, mom dad, grandma, dog, house i live in to the tee (whether he got it from someone else, idk)

i however, have no sympathy for people pranking other people in gorilla suits. the perpatrator deserves what ever is coming to him, from a spear to an m-16, whatever. i would feel horrible if they got killed. i wouldnt feel bad if they got a painful wound and learned their lesson

People are jerks. People have jerks to you because you're different, but Im not one of those people. Im a friend, not a foe

Yes. Seems to have little to back it up, I believe its just a myth making use of the popularity of the 'Loch Ness Monster'

So what is Morag? As with the Nessie I think the best bet are giant sterile eels. The common eels swims out to the Sargasso Sea to breed then die. The baby eels follow scent trails back to their ancestral fresh waters homes and the cycle begins again.

Sometimes, however a mutation occurs and the eel is sterile. These stay in fresh water and keep on growing. Known as eunuch eels no one knows how old they get or how big. In February 2004 two Canadian tourists came upon a 25-foot eel floating in the shallows of Loch Ness. At first they thought it was dead but when it began to move they beat a hasty retreat. In the 1980s a 20-foot eel was reported in the Birmingham Ship Canal. Another 20 foot eel was supposedly caught in the cooling system in some aluminum works in Dores in the 1990s.

One theory suggests that these rare, naturally occurring, mutations may now be on the increase due to pollution. PCBs and Beta Blocker chemicals have long been implicated in causing sterility in fish. Could they be causing more eunuch eels in the deep lakes of Scotland? For now we just don’t know but David, Lisa, and I are planning a return trip later in the year to try and find out more.

Had sad.

I was hoping for an intelligent discussion on the possibility that eunuch eels may be responsible for many of 'lake monster' sightings around the world. A theory I find highly persuasive

http://www.earthdive.com/site/news/newsdetail.asp?id=275



http://www.cfz.org.uk/expeditions/morag/morag.htm

how heavy would these eels be? 50-100 pounds?

To be honest I wouldn't know. But it's significant that no-one knows just how big such eels might grow, nor how long they might live - especially in cold waters like Loch Ness.