The Oklahoma Octopus


In following excerpt is from my book People are Seeing Something: A Survey of Lake Monsters in the United States and Canada, I discuss the legend of the Oklahoma Octopus.

The Oklahoma Octopus

According to local rumors, a swift and deadly killer stalks several manmade lakes in the Sooner State. If true, this stealthy predator is perhaps the most bizarre, intriguing, and frightening lake monster in all of North America.

It has been said that a dramatic rise in drowning accidents, accidents which have occurred under unusual circumstances,1 have many Oklahoma residents believing that their lakes are being stalked by an underwater predator. Some have claimed that this mysterious creature is a type of freshwater octopus.

According to the Army Corps of Engineers office in Tulsa, as of 2008, occurrences of drowning were happening at a rate not seen since 2001. The Oklahoma Lake Patrol reported in mid-2008, that there had already been a 40 percent increase in drowning from 2007.

A heartbreaking incident occurred in 2007, when a boy who had swam too far from shore started to drown. As the boy struggled to stay afloat, he cried out that something was pulling him down. A rescue was attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, and the child drowned; his body was never recovered.2

The Lakes

Three of Oklahoma’s lakes, each manmade, are thought by some to hold a species of freshwater octopus. Lake Thunderbird, Lake Tenkiller, and Oologah Lake are the supposed homes of the “Oklahoma Octopus.”

Oologah Lake is located in northeastern Oklahoma and provides drinking water for the Tulsa metro area. The 46 square mile lake was created decades ago when the Verdigris River was dammed.3The Army Corps of Engineers constructed the dam and manage it to this day.

Between the years of 1947 and 1952, the Illinois River was dammed in eastern Oklahoma. The river gave way to a large manmade body of water—Ten Killer Ferry Lake, or Lake Tenkiller as it is alternately known. Located in Sequoyah and Cherokee counties, Lake Tenkiller spans an area of 12,900 acres or nearly 20 square miles and has about 130 miles of shoreline. Being one of the few clear water lakes in the state, Lake Tenkiller is a popular destination for scuba divers.4

The murky waters Lake Thunderbird, known to many locals as “Lake Dirty Bird,” provide water for Norman, Del City, and Midwest City. The 6,000-acre lake, located in central Oklahoma, is the centerpiece of Lake Thunderbird State Park, a popular recreational destination.5

An Octopus?

The three lakes all share a common origin; they are all manmade, and their construction was fairly recent. The three lakes also share rumors of an octopus-like creature. This monster is said to have reddish-brown, leathery skin, long tentacles, and is said to be about the size of a horse.6

Skeptics make a good argument against the existence of a killer cephalopod living in Oklahoma by asking the questions:

“How did an octopus adapt to freshwater?” and,“If a freshwater octopus does exist, how did it come to inhabit manmade lakes?”

Believers in the possibility of a freshwater octopus will point to adaptations that can be observed throughout the Animal Kingdom. Given enough time, and under the right circumstances, seemingly miraculous adaptations can occur in a species. Believers can direct the skeptics to freshwater jellyfish, which live in North America, as an example of nature’s ability to change an organism over time.

In the prehistoric past, Oklahoma was covered by shallow seas. Could an octopus population have been trapped in lakes and rivers as ancient sea levels receded? If so, could the modern-day Oklahoma Octopus be a descendant of the octopi that were landlocked many millennia ago?

The second question is harder for a freshwater octopus advocate to answer. This question has bothered me since first learning of the Oklahoma Octopus:

“If a freshwater octopus does somehow exist in modern-day Oklahoma, how did it take up residence in three manmade lakes?”

This is a question that I cannot satisfactorily answer. In order for the freshwater octopus to be living in a manmade lake, it would have to have been trapped when the dam was constructed. This means there would have to have been breeding populations of freshwater octopi living in Oklahoma’s rivers as recently as the 1940s. There is no evidence of this.

While a stray octopus entering a river from the sea, and even staying there for a short time, is something that has been observed before, there is absolutely no evidence or reason to believe that three rivers in Oklahoma recently held breeding populations of octopi that adapted to live and thrive in freshwater.

Native American Legends

When researching cryptids, the legends and folklore of indigenous peoples are of great interest to the researcher. Although these legends cannot always be taken at face value, they do provide context for the monsters, and most importantly, establish a pattern of sightings centuries before modern technology. There is little in the way of credible Native American legends that validate the existence of the Oklahoma Octopus. Scouring the internet yields very little. About the only claim available is that the natives believed in a leech-like creature with white tentacles that lived in ponds and would snatch unsuspecting people as they came to the edge for a drink.

Of course, stories and folklore of Native Americans is often hard to document. However, in this case, there are not any sources that I can find that clearly point to an Indian belief in a freshwater octopus. With other cryptids, such as Champ, there are petroglyphs of a sea serpent near Lake Champlain. The Ogopogo has well established Native American lore associated with it, and European settlers to the area corroborated the fact that the native population believed in a giant serpent that inhabited Okanagan Lake. This is not the case with the leech-like creature that Indians in Oklahoma supposedly believed in. About all that is available is the same thing on the internet repeated over and over, without pointing to a source. Even if the information is true, that there was a belief in a giant leech, it still does little to help prove the existence of a fresh water octopus living in manmade lakes in Oklahoma, because the question still remains—how did it come to inhabit manmade lakes?

The Lost Tapes Episode

In my estimation, the Oklahoma Octopus, if there is such a beast, owes its fame to the television show Lost Tapes. The Animal Planet program featured the Oklahoma Octopus in an episode that premiered in 2009. Lost Tapes uses a unique blend of facts, either narrated or eerily displayed in text on the screen, with actors who are performing a dramatization using a written script that closely matches what one might expect from an encounter with a cryptid. Perhaps lost on many Lost Tapesviewers is a disclaimer of sorts that states, “The story was inspired by the possibility that hidden creatures exist.”

I do not have a problem with Lost Tapes; in fact, I find the episodes to be very entertaining. It shares similarities with another show that I have enjoyed, History’s Cryptid: The Swamp Beast, a drama involving an animal control team, local police, and a remote community that is being terrorized by a legendary beast known as the Rougarou.

My criticism does not lie with the Lost Tapes television program; rather, my problem is that in my research, nearly everything involving the Oklahoma Octopus can be directly traced back to the Lost Tapesepisode. Somehow, be it intentional or coincidental, the events depicted in the show have become recorded as “fact” and used as “evidence” for the existence of the Oklahoma Octopus.

Upon first learning of the Oklahoma Octopus, I was very excited to begin researching this strange creature. However, it did not take long for me to develop a high degree of skepticism. Almost immediately I had my doubts that an octopus could somehow be terrorizing manmade lakes. But putting those reservations aside, as I delved into my research, it became a frustrating exercise. As mentioned earlier, finding anything of substance from the folklore of indigenous people was fruitless. Moreover, I found that there were no real sources available to draw information from, and what was available seemed to always circle back to the Lost Tapes.

The Lost Tapes episode chronicles a day on the lake with five teenagers. The teens get together and head to the lake to celebrate the end of their senior year. As the day goes on, three of the five are taken underwater by a creature with long tentacles and are never to be seen again. Two of the teens narrowly escape, but are left with blister wounds, much like what you would expect to see from an attack by a creature with large tentacles...

Read the rest....

Notes

  1. "Oklahoma Octopus." Lost Tapes. Directed by Doug Segal. 2009. New York, NY: Animal Planet.
  2. Johnny Johnson. "Girl Drowns at Lake Tenkiller." NewsOK. August 12,2007. Accessed January 8, 2016. http://newsok.com/article/3103660.
  3. "Oklahoma Lakes." OutdoorsOK. Accessed February 7, 2015. http://www.outdoorsok.com/oklahoma/lakes/.
  4. OutdoorsOK, "Oklahoma Lakes."
  5. Ibid.
  6. Lost Tapes, "Oklahoma Octopus."

My Most Popular Posts

Giant Bones in West Virginia

Image
When the Bible famously declared that “there were giants on the earth in those days,” in Genesis 6:4, the writer wasn’t kidding—especially when it comes to West Virginia. In the early days of our nation, people routinely unearthed giant bones in the Mountain State. Giant Bones Countless newspapers and county histories in the 1800s told the story of giant bones. Stories such as these were commonplace: “It is said that a jawbone was plowed up near Moorefield which would pass over the outside of a common man's lower jaw; that it contained eight jaw teeth on either side, and that they sat transversely in their sockets. A bone of that size would have belonged to a man eight or nine feet high… Another jawbone of enormous size is recorded as having been discovered near Martinsburg.” Hu Maxwell and H. L. Swisher,  History of Hampshire County West Virginia from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present  (Morgantown, WV: A. Brown Boughner, 1897) “While digging a grave on Trace Fork, Lincoln
Read more

The Giants from the West

Image
The ethnologist James Mooney (1861–1921) wrote of ancient giants in his 1902 book, Myths of the Cherokee . The section titled "The Giants from the West" is an intriguing account. I have reprinted it below: THE GIANTS FROM THE WEST James Wafford, of the western Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in 1806, says that his grandmother, who must have been born about the middle of the last century, told him that she had heard from the old people that long before her time a party of giants had come once to visit the Cherokee. They were nearly twice as tall as common men, and had their eyes set slanting in their heads, so that the Cherokee called them Tsunil' kalu', "The Slant-eyed people," because they looked like the giant hunter Tsul'kalu' (see the story). They said that these giants lived very far away in the direction in which the sun goes down. The Cherokee received them as friends, and they stayed some time, and then returned to their home in the we
Read more

The Giants of Ancient Tennessee

Image
John Haywood (1753-1826) was a historian known as the "father of Tennessee history." These days, he might be best known for documenting giant skeletons found in Tennessee, as well as popularizing the "Tennessee Pygmies." In Haywood's 1823 work, The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee , he documented several unique discoveries. These include giant skeletons found in Tennessee, particularly in and around White County. Haywood devoted a section to the giant skeletons found in Tennessee in his book. The entire section (Chapter VIII, section 1) is printed below: First, then—Of their Size. This is ascertained by the length and dimensions of the skeletons which are found in East and West Tennessee. These will prove demonstratively, that the ancient inhabitants of this country, either the primitive or secondary settlers, were of gigantic stature , compared with the present races of Indians.  On the farm of Mr. John Miller, of White county, are a numbe
Read more

A Large Turtle

Image
Large turtle tales are among my favorite types of cryptid encounters . Perhaps that is why I spent over a week on the outskirts of Roswell, New Mexico in 2022. I had hoped to catch a glimpse of the fabled large turtles the "size of a Volkswagen." (I did not.) Maybe the best turtle tale is the story of Oscar, the Beast of Busco. This enormous turtle, with a shell as big as "the top of a car" caused a ruckus in an Indiana town in 1949. In 1883, the Scientific American published a blurb about a large turtle—large is an understatement!—spotted at sea. I reprinted the entire text below: A Large Turtle "Captain Augustus G. Hall and the crew of the schooner Annie L. Hall vouch for the following: On March 30, while on the Grand Bank, in latitude 40° 10’, longitude 33°, they discovered an immense live trunk turtle, which was at first thought to be a Reptiles and Amphibians 535 vessel bottom up. The schooner passed within twenty-five feet of the monster, and those on bo
Read more

The Wa-gas

Image
In her book To the American Indian, Lucy Thompson (1856–1932), a member of the Yurok tribe whose Yurok name was Che-na-wah Weitch-ah-wah, recorded many of the tales of her people. One of the most interesting stories in the book is that of the Wa-gas. According to Thompson, the Wa-gas were an ancient race of white people that lived in North America many thousands of years ago. However, these folks were much different than Europeans who colonized the Americas in recent times. The following excerpt comes from Thompson’s book in a section titled “ Traditions of the Ancient White People” :
Read more

Bigfoot Musings From the Lowcountry

Image
The Lowcountry of South Carolina is a great destination. The food and the beaches are amazing. Cities such as Beaufort and Charleston are full of history, stunning architecture, and antebellum homes with manicured lawns that embody the deep South. Large oak trees draped with Spanish moss form canopies along narrow streets and side roads. And of course, there is Bigfoot. Visits to Lowcountry I spent a week in the Lowcountry in the summer of 2020 and again in January 2022. But I was a good hour’s drive from Hilton Head; thirty minutes away from Beaufort; and around forty-five minutes from Charleston. I stayed at a campground “in the middle of nowhere.” The nearest town was Yemassee—a small community whose roads leading in were riddled with potholes the size of kitchen sinks. The point of this post is not potholes, Spanish moss, or antebellum homes—Bigfoot is the star here. As I usually do when I arrive in a new place, I began thinking of the elusive beast. I checked the Bigfoot Field Re
Read more

Ahuizotl

Image
The Ahuizotl is the legendary water monster of Aztec folklore once thought to live in lakes and rivers around Tenochtitlan, Mexico. Its name means “thorny one of the water” or “spiny aquatic thing.” The Aztecs had many legends of the Ahuizotl. The Florentine Codex, a manuscript compiled in the 16 th century describing aspects of life before the arrival of the Spanish mentions the creature. Descriptions This strange beast is similar in appearance to a small dog with monkey-like hands. The most unique feature of the animal is a long, slender tail with a human-like hand of the end. Using its unusual tail, the beast would snag its prey—humans—and drag them to a watery demise. The Ahuizotl feasted upon its victims; it was particularly fond of eating the eyeballs, teeth, and fingernails of its human prey. Several days after becoming a fatality of the water beast, the victim’s corpse would wash ashore with missing nails, teeth, and eyeballs. Some have described the Ahuizotl as some sort of
Read more

The "Mystery Noises" in Moodus

Image
When I arrived in Moodus, Connecticut in early-May 2022, I was surprised when a friend texted me an article from the New England Historical Society. The piece was titled “The Mysterious Moodus Noises of Connecticut,” and recounted the history of strange, unexplained noises that occur around the village of Moodus. The Moodus Noises I read the article at once. I couldn't believe that I had stumbled upon a place renowned for strange activity. According to the article: The Wangunk Indians had told the colonists of the fearful noises that they tried to appease. In fact, the Indians called the land around Mt. Tom “Machemoodus,” meaning place of bad noises. The settlers shortened the name to Moodus, now a village in East Haddam. Once Puritans moved to the area in the early-1700s, they heard the noises, too. And they, too, attributed the sounds to a supernatural source. The superstitious Puritans believed God was angry with them for their sins. Meanwhile, the local Indians believed the
Read more

Lucy the Phantom Hitchhiker

Image
According to local legend, there is a phantom hitchhiker named Lucy along the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail just outside of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. This trail is a six-mile, one-way drive that cuts through a dense tree canopy. Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail is easily accessible from downtown Gatlinburg and lands you a world away from the busy streets in mere minutes. The trail follows Roaring Fork, a beautiful cold-water stream typical of those found in the Great Smoky Mountains. The white-water crashes against large boulders and there are small waterfalls and deep pools of frigid mountain water along the way. Mills, old structures, and historic homesites are scattered along the trail—a reminder that people used to live and work here. One of those old mountain folks that lived along the trail in the early 1900s was Lucy. As the story goes, Lucy was a young lady who died tragically when her family’s cabin burned down. Sometime after her death, a man named Foster (I don’t know if this
Read more