Lake Erie

In my RV travels across the nation, I’ve spent a fair amount of time on the shores of Lake Erie. Lake Erie is the twelfth largest lake on Earth and the primary source of drinking water for over 11 million people. The lake spans almost 10,000 square miles and holds six quadrillion gallons of water.

For someone like me that has an interest in the weird and unexplained, some of the towns along Lake Erie are perfect for a visit. There are ancient burial mounds and tales of giants, lake monsters, haunted buildings, Bigfoot sightings and more.

Monroe Monster

In early autumn 2021, I stayed in a Michigan state park on the outskirts of the town of Monroe. Immediately, I began thinking of the “Monroe Monster.” The Monroe Monster made a name for itself in the summer of 1965 after locals began spotting the creature. The monster made headlines nationwide after it attacked a teenage girl named Christine Van Acker while she sat in a car with her mother.

According to a report in the Independent (Long Beach, CA),  a “black, 7-foot, 400-pound, grunting “thing” covered in hair” attacked the pair as they sat in their car. The creature reached through the car window and grabbed Christine Van Acker’s hair and punched her in the eye. Van Acker said: “he was all hairy and the hairs were like quills. They pricked whenever I touched them.”

A picture of Van Acker sporting a black eye from the attack accompanied the article.


Conneaut Giants

During a stay in Ashtabula County, Ohio in 2021, I was on the trail of the fabled Conneaut Giants. The bones of these ancient giants lay in mounds and massive graves along the tributaries of Lake Erie. Unfortunately, there is not a lot left of the mounds that held the remains of these mighty men of renown. I was disappointed in a visit to a park alongside Conneaut Creek. No mounds remained here, only a sign paying tribute to the legend of ancient giants in the area. It read:

Euro-American farmers had no qualms about disturbing Native American graves and burial mounds, and reported finding numerous bones “belonging to men of large stature” in Wright’s  graveyard. Over time, as published accounts of these finds were repeated, the details were embellished. By 1844, for instance, the prehistoric inhabitants of Conneaut were described as “nearly allied to a race of giants,” and in 1847 as “men of gigantic structure.”

…The belief that burial mounds, ceremonial earthworks, and even natural features such as the hill known as Conneaut Fort had been built by an ancient population of giants unrelated to modern native American was a common myth in the 19th century. In fact, such accounts of the “Conneaut Giants” and other “vanished civilizations” were based on poorly recorded data and a lack of understanding of how to calculate living human proportions from fractured, incomplete remains.

Locally, however, there are some residents and amateur archaeologists who claim to have seen large bones and skulls in the Conneaut area as described in the 19th century and believe in the legend of the “Conneaut Giants.” Learn more and draw your own conclusions.

Giants were fun to think about while visiting Lake Erie. But the thought of lake monsters swimming in Lake Erie truly captured my imagination.

South Bay Bessie

Lake Erie is home to a lake monster known as South Bay Bessie, or Bessie for short. Bessie is about 30–40 feet in length, dark in color, about one to two feet in diameter, and snake-like in appearance. The first known, or at least documented, Bessie sighting occurred in 1793 when the Captain and crew of the Felicity had a sighting.1 Going further back in time, the indigenous Seneca tribe believed a giant serpent inhabited Lake Erie.2

In 1817, Captain Shubael West and the crew of the schooner, Delia, saw a serpent about 35–40 long in lake Erie.3 Later in the same year, a different boat crew had a sighting of a 60-foot, copper-colored creature. The crew fired their muskets at the monster, but were unable to do any visible harm to the it.

A third sighting occurred in 1817 when the Dusseau brothers, two French settlers in the present-day Toledo area, saw a ‘dying Bessie’ thrashing about on the shore. What they saw was shaped like a sturgeon, but was 20-30 feet long and had arms. The creature startled the pair and they fled. The brothers returned to the beach later, but the creature was gone, perhaps carried out into the lake by waves after it had died. All that remained on the bank were marks from where the large animal had been squirming and some silvery scales about the size of a half dollar.4

Creature Chronicles

Editor Ron Schaffner’s Creature Chronicles #14, printed in October 1991, listed a number of Bessie sightings in Lake Erie. I have reprinted some of the sightings below:

1969 - Jim Schindler stated that a serpent came within 6 feet of him near South Bass Island. Although he did not see the length, the width was about 2 feet…

9/1981 - Theresa Kovach of Akron saw a snake-like reptile that "was so large that could easily capsize a boat…

Summer, 1985 - Tony Schill of Avon, Ohio was boating with friends north of Vermilion when they reported the serpent. It was dark brown and had a flat tail. Tony stated that "5 humps came out of the water…"

September 3, 1990 - Bob Soracco was jet skiing off Port Clinton when he thought he spotted a porpoise…He told reporters that he saw humps with grey spots. "It was very long as I moved closer and it was going down.

September 4, 1990 - Harold Bricker and his family were fishing north of Cedar Point Amusement Park when a serpent type creature swam by their boat…[the creature was] 35 feet long with a snake-like head…the Bricker's reported their sighting to the ODNR rangers at East Harbor State Park.

September 11, 1990 - Fire inspectors, Jim Johnson and Steve Dircks, of Huron saw the creature from a third story window facing Lake Erie. They described it as dark blue or black at about 30-45 feet long. He further stated that he saw three parts of the creature above water." It laid there motionless for three to six minutes and was flat on top."

I did not see anything out of the ordinary swimming in Lake Erie. But I have no doubt that most anything could be lurking in there.

Notes

1. "Bessie (Lake Monster)." World EBook Library. Accessed February 6, 2015.

2. "Does a Sea Monster Haunt Lake Erie's Shores?" Newsvine. October 10, 2006. Accessed February 1, 2015.

3. George M. Eberhart, Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology. Vol. 2. (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2002), 511.

4. Newsvine, "Does a Sea Monster Haunt Lake Erie's Shores?"

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

Pensacola Sea Monster Attacks Teenage Boys

Image
On March 26, 1962, the Ocala Star-Banner ran an article about a Pensacola sea monster that attacked five teenage boys. The piece was titled “4 Teenage Skindivers Still Missing After Raft is Abandoned.” The text of the story is as follows: Four teenaged skindivers remained missing today after abandoning their tide-swept rubber raft in the Gulf of Mexico Saturday. A fifth youth swam two miles to shore about dark Saturday. The four were Bradford Rice, 14, Warren Felley, 16, Eric Ruyle, 16, and Larry Stuart Bill, 17. The fifth youth was Brian McCleary, 16 found sleeping on a beach near Fort McRae early Sunday. McCleary said he and the other four were skindiving in the gulf when the tide began carrying them to sea. Swells broke over their raft. He said they tried to move to a buoy but missed. Then, he said, they abandoned the raft to swim ashore. The raft washed ashore on Gulf Beach. Face masks, shoes, and fins were inside. McCleary said he, Bill and Ruyle developed cra
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

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

Paw Paw Tunnel

Image
The Paw Paw Tunnel in Oldtown, Maryland goes back to the days of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, better known as the C&O Canal. The C&O Canal operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland. The canal was primarily used to transport coal from the Allegheny Mountains. Building the 184-mile canal was a huge undertaking at the time; the lands to the west were remote and mountainous. A section of the canal, in Allegany County, Maryland, just across the river from present-day Paw Paw, West Virginia had to be bored through a mountain in order to bypass the Paw Paw bends, a 6-mile section of the Potomac with several horseshoe bends. Work on the tunnel began in 1836 and was completed in 1850. However, the tunnel was initially estimated to be complete in 1838. The work was slow-going and hazardous; using only hand tools and dynamite, works were only able to tunnel about 12 feet per day. Cave-ins were commonplace, as were injuries and
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

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