by Cole Herrold
When people think
of lake monsters, the first creature that instantly is brought to mind is
Nessie. The still surviving aquatic prehistoric reptile is a pop icon and
instantly recognizable to even those who know nothing of the history of the
beast. In America, though, we are teeming with lake monsters. Some are
exceptionally famous like Champ of Lake Champlain or The Flathead Lake Monster,
yet others are less known, living in absolute obscurity to the vast majority of
the public. Then there are those that no one talks about; there is little
written, and usually only then it is just a blurb.
When beginning my research into
cryptozoology being from Pennsylvania, I, of course, had to wonder whether
Pennsylvania had any lake monsters. In the early days, I had little access to
the internet, so pining away through books was my only option, and through
countless tomes, there seemed to be no reference to anything mysterious lurking
in the waterways of PA. It was not until opening a copy of Loren Coleman's Mysterious
America that I found somewhat of a local marine resident. In his index on
lake monsters, Pennsylvania had one entry, Wolf Pond. As a kid reading it, I
was skeptical a pond is small; how could anything as big as a Nessie or Champ
live in a small body of water?
