mr rainmaker777
Ape Hunter
Posts: 157
(5/24/04 12:05 pm)
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Bear Lake serpent sighting
hjnews.townnews.com/artic...news04.txt
QUOTE
Bear Lake serpent sighting
written by Joseph C. Rich
By John Wright
GARDEN CITY -- Brian Hirschi may have doubted the existence
of the legendary Bear Lake Monster when he purchased a
pontoon-boat replica of the creature three years ago.
But all that changed one evening in the summer of 2002. After a
long day of giving tours aboard the vessel, Hirschi was anchoring
for the night a few hundred yards offshore when he had a haunting
rendezvous with the slimy serpent.
Now, he's convinced that the scores of other eyewitness accounts
of the monster, which date back to American Indian times, are
true. And he shrugs off naysayers who suggest that the legendary
creature is just a tall tale or marketing ploy.
"When you join the elite group of people who've seen it, you don't
care what everybody else thinks," the 29-year-old Hirschi said
Thursday.
That elite group reportedly includes LDS Church presidents
Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow and Joseph F. Smith. Even
Brigham Young is said to have once supplied a rope to a local
resident who wanted to snare the creature.
Hirschi's encounter, one of the more recent sightings, occurred at
about sunset as he was drifting backward to make the boat's
anchor lines tight. About a hundred feet off the stern of the vessel,
he noticed two small humps three feet apart in the water. His first
thought was that somebody had left behind a water ski, but
suddenly the humps disappeared beneath the surface.
"I thought this was strange, but I had seen stranger things on the
lake," Hirschi said in a written account of the encounter he posted
on the Internet last year.
About 30 seconds later, he felt something scrape the bottom of the
boat and then lift it out of the water about six inches.
"This grabbed my attention because I knew there were no
underwater rocks or obstacles that could have caused this, plus the
80,000-pound boat doesn't just get lifted out of the water easily."
A few moments later, less than 50 feet from the side of the boat,
the monster shot out of the lake. When it landed, it made
enormous waves that rocked the boat violently. Hirschi clung to
the rail to keep his balance, all the while trying to keep his eyes on
"whatever had just come out of the water." The monster resurfaced
about 200 yards away as it swam toward the middle of the lake at
a high rate of speed.
Hirschi stood on the boat for 20 minutes in shock before deciding
he'd better get to shore before dark. He hopped on his Sea Doo
and drove back to his business, Performance Rental, as fast as he
could, almost beaching the watercraft with the engine still running.
"I wondered if I should tell anybody," Hirschi said. "After some
thought, I finally decided I wouldn't tell anybody because they
might think I had gone crazy from spending too much time on the
monster boat. Plus, there were no other witnesses to verify the
sighting. ... It is not until now (a year later) that I have finally
decided to tell my story and let people know to be on the lookout
for the Bear Lake Monster because it is still alive and lurking."
Hirschi said he believes the monster approached his boat to
determine whether it was a similar species. Conrad Nebeker, the
Indian Creek resident who constructed the boat in 1996 to
entertain his grandkids, modeled it as closely as possible after
eyewitness accounts of the monster, which is said to be a green,
slimy, serpent-like creature with red eyes, fangs and bunchy ears.
Hirschi said the creature he saw was also about the same length as
the boat. However, based on his encounter, he's decided to add
red lights to replicate the monster's glowing eyes, a smoke machine
to emanate mist from the replicas nostrils and an audio device to
play a roaring sound.
Hirschi, a Cache Valley native who graduated from Logan High
School and Utah State University, said his father and grandfather
were both from the Bear Lake Valley, and he spent summers there
during his childhood. He has maintained that living arrangement as
an adult, offering 45-minute tours of the lake aboard the monster
boat seven days a week beginning in mid-June.
During the tours, Hirschi recounts some of the folklore about the
monster. He said he always carries a camera, just in case his
passengers are lucky enough to catch a glimpse.
"We tell them there's always a chance," he said.
"The Indians have a tradition concerning a strange, serpent-like
creature inhabiting the waters of Bear Lake, which they say carried
off some of their braves many moons ago. Since then, they will not
sleep close to the lake. Neither will they swim in it, nor let their
squaws and papooses bathe in it."
-- From 1968 newspaper article
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