Author Denver Michaels

On July 29, 1880, the Northern Pacific Farmer , a Wadena, Minnesota newspaper, ran a piece reported by the  New York Evening Star . The report recounted a harrowing encounter between fishermen and a "sea serpent." The event took place on Cayuga Lake, the longest of New York's Finger Lakes. (Yes, I know the creature should be called a lake monster rather than a sea serpent—the paper called it a sea serpent.) The Finger Lakes were formed by glaciers during the last ice age. In my research into the lake monster phenomenon, it is glacial lakes such as these that hold the bulk of lake monster sightings. Cayuga Lake reaches a depth of 435 feet and maintains an average depth of 182 feet—perfect for a large cryptid to dwell and remain undetected. The encounter occurred on a summer evening when a salesman from Broadway was fishing with a local farmer. The pair were trolling and two fish carriages were trailing behind the boat. Suddenly, a whirlpool emerged; one of the carriages di...

I spent a weekend in Calvert County, Maryland recently. I have been there many times and find it to be a fascinating area. I am especially drawn to the Calvert Cliffs which hold vast deposits of fossilized fauna from the Miocene epoch (about 23–5 million years ago). Well, that and Chessie, the Chesapeake Bay Monster. But more on Chessie later. Let's talk fossils first.  Calvert Cliffs Fossils According to the website fossilguy.com: The fossil bearing Calvert Cliffs of Maryland is part of a large collection of fossiliferous exposures, called the Chesapeake Group. The Chesapeake Group encompasses exposures around the Chesapeake Bay, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. These exposures were created by sediment accumulation in the Salisbury Embayment, an area encompassing the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia coastal plains which is often covered by the ocean (Kent, 1994, p.111).  The Calvert Cliffs run for roughly 24 miles from near Chesapeake Beach to Drum Point on the western ...

The Venetian merchant, explorer, and author Marco Polo (1254–1324) traveled the world and recorded many strange things he encountered along the way in his writings. This includes cryptid encounters. Maybe the most notable strange encounter that Polo had in his travels occurred in Asia when he saw the Great Serpents of Karazan. The enormous snakes were ten paces, or 25 feet in length and 10 spans, or 7.5 feet in girth. Did Polo witness some sort of prehistoric creature that had survived into his day? Especially in light of  the Chinese legends of dragons , this thought may be worthy of consideration.  Dragon legends exist not only in Asia, but all over the world. Could the Marco Polo dragons have been some sort of dinosaur that had survived extinction? Hard evidence is lacking, but there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence to draw from. Consider this strange creature resembling a dinosaur that is found at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century—not lo...

In early-January 2022, I spent some time in southern Georgia along the coast. I could not help but think of the legendary beast, the Altamaha-ha while I was there. "Altie" is a water monster that frequents the Altamaha River and the endless marshes in the area. I wrote about Altie in my book   People are Seeing Something . The following is an excerpt: The Altamaha-ha The marshy, briny waters of southern Georgia are home to an unusual creature known as the Altamaha-ha. The monster takes its name from the Altamaha River, which is the third largest contributor of fresh water to the Atlantic Ocean on the East Coast. The Altamaha’s watershed contains 14,000 square miles, and the Altamaha River basin drains almost one quarter of the state of Georgia. 1 With its many swamps, creeks, rivers, abandoned rice fields, and brackish marshes, the Altamaha River Basin provides an extraordinarily rich habitat for a large cryptid. In addition, the Altamaha River with its marshes and swamps ar...

In 1896, a strange carcass washed ashore near St. Augustine, Florida . Two boys discovered the St. Augustine Monster and reported their find to Dr. DeWitt Webb, a local physician and founder of the St. Augustine Historical Society and Institute of Science. Webb examined the carcass on December 1 and in his estimation, it weighed at least five tons. He believed a giant octopus had washed ashore. The mysterious carcass became an area attraction and garnered the attention of news outlets. The New York Herald ran the following piece on January 3, 1897: Its head was nearly destroyed, and only the stumps of two arms were visible ... The body, as it lies somewhat imbedded in the sand, is 18 feet long and about 7 feet wide, while it rises 3 1⁄2 feet above the sand ... The weight of the body and head would have been at least four or five tons. If the eight arms held the proportions usually seen in smaller species of the octopus, they would have been at least 75 to 100 feet in length and about ...

Devils Lake is North Dakota’s largest natural body of water and it is the second largest lake in the state behind Lake Sakakawea. Devils Lake is an endoheric lake, meaning it has no outlet, and its waters are brackish. Devils Lake is home to legends of a lake monster . For hundreds of years, stretching back to the days before European arrival on the plains, tales of a monster have persisted along the lake, though modern-day sightings of the Devils Lake Monster are lacking. Perhaps for good cause; during the 1940s, the lake had dried to a point that it could barely sustain fish populations. The local newspaper for the town of Devils Lake ran a piece on July 10, 1908. The story told of a horned serpent-like creature in Devils Lake that made strange noises in the evening: There is truly some horrible monster animal inhabiting Devils Lake. It was seen Thursday evening just as the sun was going down and those enjoying the cool breezes from the lake that evening were thrown into a fit and r...

In the Book of Job, chapters 40 and 41, God speaks to Job and points out the wonders of his creation. In chapter 40, God discusses the "chief of the ways of God," an enormous herbivore he calls Behemoth . In chapter 41, God continues and speaks at length on something he calls Leviathan. Though Leviathan is normally thought of in allegorical terms, some outside-the-box thinkers have proposed that Leviathan might be a sea serpent type of creature.  Job 41 reads: Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? 2 Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? 3 Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee? 4 Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? 5 Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? 6 Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him among the merchants? 7 Canst thou fill his...

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...

In the spring of 2022, I spent three weeks in Massachusetts. I stayed a stone's throw from Cape Cod, which led me to think about what might be lurking in the waters off the coast. This brought to mind the legends of the Gloucester Harbor Sea Serpent. Though Gloucester Harbor is a good bit north of Cape Cod, I still got lost in thoughts of its sea serpent during my trips to the cape. The Gloucester Harbor sea serpent is the classic, quintessential sea monster . It frequented Gloucester Harbor, Massachusetts from the 1600s to the 1960s. Perhaps it still swings by from time to time. Old Accounts Renowned traveler John Josselyn mentioned the Gloucester Harbor sea serpent in his writings. Locals told Josselyn of a large serpent they spotted laying on a rock—this became the first documented sea serpent sighting in North America. The fearsome creature lay coiled and resembled a cable. Those who saw the serpent considered firing at it with muskets; they did not however, fearing their own ...