There have been many strange creatures reported in the oceans and seas of this world. It seems that every couple of years a report of something strange reaches the news wires, or the television news. Sometimes these creatures are in lakes or even rivers. There is much folk lore attached to the sighting of water creatures and some of it has been examined for hundreds of years without any results, but does that mean that strange creatures don't exist in some of the larger bodies of water on this planet? Not at all, we find new types of fish and animals every year. It is usually not the case that they haven't been seen, they just haven't been seen by the right people, such as scientists. An example of this are some of the animals in Africa. Natives had claimed for centuries that some of these unknown (unknown by us) animals existed, but we wouldn't believe them until it was verified by the scientific community.

If we look at some of the folk lore, we notice that many of the supposed lake monsters were supposed to look like enormous snakes. This type of creature is yet to be verified, but it is a strange fact that they were almost always described that way. Some of the supposed ocean monsters were also reported to be of that shape. Why would that particular shape be picked? I think that if these creatures don't exist than the snake shape was picked because snakes are thought of as notoriously evil, and when people saw some of the larger ones, they began to think that if a snake could get that big, why couldn't it get big enough to crush a ship? On the other hand, someone may have actually seen a creature like this and lived to tell the tale. We have to remember that much of the ocean and many very deep lakes are yet to be explored and they just might hold some surprises for us. Who knows what type of creatures live at these incredible depths? At first we thought that nothing could live at such pressures, but we were surprised to see that there was life down there. Life had adapted to the incredible pressure.

There are plenty of reports from people who say that they have seen strange creatures, while they were on or near the water. One man stated that he was fishing in a boat about 40 miles off the coast of North Carolina. His son decided to watch the ocean as they traveled back to land. The boy noticed a light spot on the water and told his father. The father steered the boat towards it. It was some kind of unknown creature that was estimated to be about ten to fifteen feet long, swimming very slowly and about four feet under the water. The shape of the creature was almost triangular and as the boat got next to it, it dove out of sight. What was this creature the people had seen? It was far to large to be a mantaray, yet it had the same general shape. Was it some freak of nature, or some yet undiscovered creature from the deep?

One sea monster that turned out to be real is the giant squid. Even though it is real, it seems that the depictions of it crushing ships and such was just the figment of some scared imaginations. If a ship would disappear, before the advent of radio, someone might think that a giant squid got it. In truth, the giant squid lives in the deep part of the ocean. It grows as big as 43 feet long, but there have been reports of even bigger ones that are as large as 66 feet. There are eight different known species of the animals. Even this animal, as big as it is, has predators after it. It is know that the Sperm Whale and possibly sleeper sharks eat giant squid. Some sea animals are really horrors to look at and I am sure this has contributed to the sea monster reputation. One of these creatures is the Viper fish. You wouldn't want to meet one of these creatures in a dark alley, assuming that it was underwater. The Viper fish reminds me of a sort of skull with needle type teeth sticking out of a fearsome mouth and head. Is it no wonder that some of these creature were thought of as monsters?

Over the years there have been a few lake monsters that have become famous. The very first that comes to mind is Nessie. That is the animal that is supposed to exist in Loch Ness in Scotland and is by far the most famous lake monster of them all. For years a photograph circulated of the monster, but several years back the people that took it admitted that it was a hoax. That has not stopped the search for the creature however, as many people claim to have seen it. Some people believe that Nessie is a prehistoric reptile, such as a plesiosaurs. In other words a dinosaur. They think that maybe it got trapped in the lake and that is why it didn't die out with the rest of the dinosaurs. This theory may not hold water (pardon the pun). The reason for this is that scientists think that there may be some connection between the lake and the ocean and if there is such a creature, it may swim back and forth from the lake to the sea. Another famous lake monster is Champ. Sometimes called Champy, it is a creature that is said to live in Lake Champlain in the north eastern part of North America. This creature is also said to have been sighted by many people and there are those that think it is also a plesiosaurs. Lake monsters have been reported as being seen in many deep lakes in the world.

The proof that lake monsters exist has always been elusive. You can go to places like Youtube and look at videos, but they are hardly proof. Most are obviously the work of people with too much time on their hands and access to photo and video software that allows them to create just about anything, that they want That is the current problem with our rapid advancement in technology, this is one of the down sides. As with the proof of bigfoot that was supposed to have been found a few weeks ago and turned out to be a fraud, proof of lake monsters is being manufactured faster than we can examine it. There seems to always be someone out there that says that they have evidence. In 2005 a Quebec innkeeper stated that he had photographs that show the legendary monster of Lake Massawippi. Could this have been a ploy to get more business for the inn? I have no way of knowing, but you don't hear about the pictures anymore.

Will we find irrefutable evidence in the future that these lake monsters exist and maybe that there are still dinosaurs on the earth? All I can say is this, sometimes animals that are thought to be extinct are rediscovered. An example of this is a duck called the Madagascar Pochard. It was though to have expired somewhere around 1970 and was rediscovered. While this is relatively recent, it has also happened with animals that were thought to have become extinct much further back. The dwarf cloud rat was thought to have become extinct about 112 years ago and was rediscovered. Gracilidris is a species of ant that was thought to have become extinct millions of years ago and was rediscovered., as was the La Plama Giant Lizard which was thought to have become extinct in the 1500s. My point is that you never know what might still be out there.