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Still Waters

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As the rate of unexplained drowning deaths has reportedly crept up in Oklahoma's placid lakes, some observers have turned to an unusual explanation: a freshwater octopus.

The legend of a killer cephalopod lurking in the murky waters of the state's Lake Thunderbird, Lake Tenkiller or Lake Oolagah has been surfacing for at least the past several years.

http://news.yahoo.co...-140800743.html

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Sure, a few drownings and the first thing I think of is giant octopus. I did find the article amusing for it's reference of an episode of "lost tapes" which we know of course were fakes for the sake of novelty and the picture of a salt water octopus.

More curious to me is the "unexplained" drownings in Tulsa Oklahoma as well as who exactly are these "few observers" are that came up with this hypothesis? I didn't find any actual articles relating to drownings that were unexplained there but maybe someone else here can turn up some, as of now I have no clue where the blogger is basing this claim from or even if they actually talked to any of these mysterious "observers". Until further evidence i'm left to conclude...like so many other paranormal stories here, that the author 100% faked the entire blog for the sake of a story which got repeated to a few other sites. In other words, more Advertisment cashcow syndrome.

See this is how BS paranormal stories spread. I hate the internet sometimes.

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One of Oklahoma City's urban myths is based on legends that describe a leech-type monster that grows to the size of a horse with leathery brown skin. As divers have seen giant catfish and a large cat fish can drag a swimmer down, I would agree that these events are more likely than the evolved octopus. Perhaps the long whiskers of a very large catfish could be mistaken for tentacles.

Edited by highdesert50
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Until rather recently I lived on the south shore of Lake Thunderbird... If ANYTHING is able to live in that lake I will be amazed... It is fed by several creeks and they are all made of red clay... Lake Thunderbird is

known locally as Lake Dirtybird... It is a red clay lake and visibility is measured in inches not feet - and very few inches at that...

I've never heard tales of any octopus or squid in our lakes - but monster catfish are found occasionally...

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(SCENE 32-FINAL)

Cut to millions of dead people on the beach.

CAPT. EDGAR climbs out of the sea with Big Red in his hands, limp and dead.

CAPT. EDGAR: "This is what you caused, you tentacled menace!" He tosses the thing onto the sand. "THIS is what you did to humanity. You caused us to fight each other, when the real reason was because of you..." He kneels down in a dramatic pose, staring into the sky, fists waving. "(SHOUTING) BIG RED! YOU CAUSED THIS!"

CAPT. EDGAR: "(VOICEOVER) THE DEATHS OF MILLIONS...ALL BECAUSE OF...YOU!!!"

During the voiceover, the camera pans into the ocean, to a cluster of red octopus eggs. As CAPT. EDGAR says "YOU", a couple eggs start to pulsate. A few glowing eyes can be seen in them.

TITLE CARD-THE END (?)

-Cue CREDITS

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Large Catfish more likely,they are very territorial especially when protecting their eggs.

http://www.spiegel.d...e-a-557636.html

They don't have teeth as such,but abrasive pads,I suppose if one grabbed a swimmers foot and it was of decent size,it would be capable of pulling a swimmer under.

Edited by shaddow134
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You see...this right here is why I don't swim in lakes, I've seen enough of those huge European catfish attacks to not risk this kind of encounter, actually in truth lakes have always freaked me out...

Edited by TheSpoonyOne
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I don't see any reason that there could Not be a freshwater octopus. However, the odds seem very much against it. And aren't these all man-made lakes?

More likely is that there are lots of plastic bags floating about in the lake and occationally they will wrap around a swimmers leg and get them all excited.

The catfish theory is pretty good too. The bigger ones can be dangerous.

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I don't see any reason that there could Not be a freshwater octopus. However, the odds seem very much against it. And aren't these all man-made lakes?

More likely is that there are lots of plastic bags floating about in the lake and occationally they will wrap around a swimmers leg and get them all excited.

The catfish theory is pretty good too. The bigger ones can be dangerous.

Yes every lake in the state is man-made, so any octopi that might be there would have to have been a "pet" that was released... so slim to none in the way of chances...

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Until rather recently I lived on the south shore of Lake Thunderbird... If ANYTHING is able to live in that lake I will be amazed... It is fed by several creeks and they are all made of red clay... Lake Thunderbird is

known locally as Lake Dirtybird... It is a red clay lake and visibility is measured in inches not feet - and very few inches at that...

I've never heard tales of any octopus or squid in our lakes - but monster catfish are found occasionally...

Who then, would actually go 'swimming' in a lake like that? Sounds...nasty. I will tell you this much...I grew up in lakes around North East and East Texas...we learned to ski, we learned to swim, we didn't have any 'pools' so...we swam in lakes...But Now..you couldn't pay me to swim in a lake around here or anywhere else. There are no Fresh Water Octopus species...but there are a LOT of alligators in the lakes and rivers...there wasn't when I was a kid. I remember just a few years ago...an eight foot alligator was caught by someone fishing in City Lake Park in McKinney, TX...a tiny lake with a walking path of 1 mile around it...so yeah...alligators in the sewer.

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Wow. I'd not heard the alligators had moved in quite that far.

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Wow. I'd not heard the alligators had moved in quite that far.

Oh yeah! The Sabine River bottoms...the Trinity River Bottoms...you know, little Johnny wants a baby Gator like he saw in the Arkansas Alligator Exhibit and Daddy thinks it would be an awesome show and tell for second grade and the next thing you know...its slid between the wires in the hurricane fence and is gone. Where does it go? A good rainstorm and it is literally...alligator in the sewer. I don't know how they get here but can you imagine...floating around in the lake...and thinking about how lucky you are that you are in a lake where it is safe...and then from the edge...the alligator silently moves in toward its target...and if it isn't an alligator...well...I'm sure you've seen gars the size of alligators...what's the difference really...a gar might not roll you over and take you down to the bottom ...but if bites you and you panic ...you will still probably drown.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/species/alligator/safety/index.phtml

The American alligator was once very common in rivers, creeks, and backwater sloughs of East and South Texas. Unregulated market hunting and habitat alteration resulted in near extirpation of the species in Texas by the 1950's. Legal protection, enhanced habitat conditions, and new water impoundment projects have resulted in a rapid repopulation of Texas by alligators during the past 20 years. To complicate matters, an ever-expanding human population continues to encroach upon the alligator's domain. These factors contribute to increased encounters between alligators and people.

Edited by joc
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I just hate how articles like this will just try to allude the reader like that. Just getting to be too many of them.

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Blue catfish is native to 20 states, primarily within the Mississippi River Basin but also in rivers along the Gulf Coast. It has been introduced in another nine states, including Virginia. It is a big river species; it grows quickly, and it’s popular among anglers for aggressive behavior and good quality meat. It is the largest catfish in North America and the third largest obligate freshwater fish in North America, behind the lake sturgeon and paddlefish.

Incredibly, there are also stories of places where catfish have attacked and even eaten people. Large catfish in North America and Europe have reportedly bitten humans, and one species of very large catfish in Northern India is rumored to stalk and occasionally kill local villagers. These stories are often sensationalized and exaggerated however and there is very little hard evidence of catfish behaving aggressively toward people. To learn more about these stories, and the truth behind them

http://newswatch.nat...hogan-explains/

there always has been and always will be tales of "monsters under the surface"

bull sharks up our rivers and possibly as far as the great lakes, now THAT is a man-eating monster

Edited by QuiteContrary
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Little reality check: first there are no known freshwater cephalopods that I am aware of. Second this would have to be a large animal to drag down a human, at least a human that can swim reasonably well. A competent diver can overcome the Pacific Giant Octopus, the largest known species. Then the way octopi reproduce is to lay hundreds or perhaps thousands of eggs, guarded by the female; she generally dies upon their hatching. So, you should have a large, dead female octopus showing up on the shore on occasion. And even the young of the giant squid start life smaller than your thumb, so baby or juvenile forms of the "lake octopus" would almost certainly be caught from time to time.

Again I would suggest Occam's Razor; there are more likely explanations that don't require an unknown lake monster.

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treeocto.jpg

The Pacific Northwest tree octopus (Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America. Their habitat lies on the Eastern side of the Olympic mountain range, adjacent to Hood Canal. These solitary cephalopods reach an average size (measured from arm-tip to mantle-tip,) of 30-33 cm. Unlike most other cephalopods, tree octopuses are amphibious, spending only their early life and the period of their mating season in their ancestral aquatic environment. Because of the moistness of the rainforests and specialized skin adaptations, they are able to keep from becoming desiccated for prolonged periods of time, but given the chance they would prefer resting in pooled water.

An intelligent and inquisitive being (it has the largest brain-to-body ratio for any mollusk), the tree octopus explores its arboreal world by both touch and sight. Adaptations its ancestors originally evolved in the three dimensional environment of the sea have been put to good use in the spatially complex maze of the coniferous Olympic rainforests. The challenges and richness of this environment (and the intimate way in which it interacts with it,) may account for the tree octopus's advanced behavioral development. (Some evolutionary theorists suppose that "arboreal adaptation" is what laid the groundwork in primates for the evolution of the human mind.)

Reaching out with one of her eight arms, each covered in sensitive suckers, a tree octopus might grab a branch to pull herself along in a form of locomotion called tentaculation; or she might be preparing to strike at an insect or small vertebrate, such as a frog or rodent, or steal an egg from a bird's nest; or she might even be examining some object that caught her fancy, instinctively desiring to manipulate it with her dexterous limbs (really deserving the title "sensory organs" more than mere "limbs",) in order to better know it.

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Little reality check: first there are no known freshwater cephalopods that I am aware of. Second this would have to be a large animal to drag down a human, at least a human that can swim reasonably well. A competent diver can overcome the Pacific Giant Octopus, the largest known species. Then the way octopi reproduce is to lay hundreds or perhaps thousands of eggs, guarded by the female; she generally dies upon their hatching. So, you should have a large, dead female octopus showing up on the shore on occasion. And even the young of the giant squid start life smaller than your thumb, so baby or juvenile forms of the "lake octopus" would almost certainly be caught from time to time.

Again I would suggest Occam's Razor; there are more likely explanations that don't require an unknown lake monster.

My first thought when I saw the subject was, "A fresh water octopus? Really?"

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Fresh water Octopus to me is fried Calamari with a cup of icewater, and a squeeze of Lemon.

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You see...this right here is why I don't swim in lakes, I've seen enough of those huge European catfish attacks to not risk this kind of encounter, actually in truth lakes have always freaked me out...

I had a Fish try to engulf my big toe once.It did not have any teeth, and I did not see it.I got freaked, and shook it off.I figured it must have thought my toe was a fat Maggot.I sure would hate to have a Snapping Turtle bite anything on me.

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treeocto.jpg

The Pacific Northwest tree octopus (Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America. Their habitat lies on the Eastern side of the Olympic mountain range, adjacent to Hood Canal. These solitary cephalopods reach an average size (measured from arm-tip to mantle-tip,) of 30-33 cm. Unlike most other cephalopods, tree octopuses are amphibious, spending only their early life and the period of their mating season in their ancestral aquatic environment. Because of the moistness of the rainforests and specialized skin adaptations, they are able to keep from becoming desiccated for prolonged periods of time, but given the chance they would prefer resting in pooled water.

An intelligent and inquisitive being (it has the largest brain-to-body ratio for any mollusk), the tree octopus explores its arboreal world by both touch and sight. Adaptations its ancestors originally evolved in the three dimensional environment of the sea have been put to good use in the spatially complex maze of the coniferous Olympic rainforests. The challenges and richness of this environment (and the intimate way in which it interacts with it,) may account for the tree octopus's advanced behavioral development. (Some evolutionary theorists suppose that "arboreal adaptation" is what laid the groundwork in primates for the evolution of the human mind.)

Reaching out with one of her eight arms, each covered in sensitive suckers, a tree octopus might grab a branch to pull herself along in a form of locomotion called tentaculation; or she might be preparing to strike at an insect or small vertebrate, such as a frog or rodent, or steal an egg from a bird's nest; or she might even be examining some object that caught her fancy, instinctively desiring to manipulate it with her dexterous limbs (really deserving the title "sensory organs" more than mere "limbs",) in order to better know it.

Ha, ha, that's great and we must protect them at all cost, being the primary food of the sasquatch! NIce one, lol!

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I'm more floored that we have a land-adapted air-breathing octopuss than a freshwater adaptation.

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