The Flathead Lake Monster - Montana's Aquatic Cryptid

What lies in the murky depths of Flathead lake?

Situated neatly between the Mission and Salish Mountain Ranges Northwest Montana, the lake has long been a hotbed for sightings that defy description ...

One recurring sighting - that of the Flathead Lake Monster (or Flessie) - has been constant for well over a century.

 Today we dive into its waters.




works cited:


https://www.jstor.org/stable/25746452?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/533052.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3Ad146d4b6e5ed41c5e832ff85c4a86fab&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40914539?searchText=lake%20monsters&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dlake%2Bmonsters%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A723b24f3b96cc1b239f31e404af1b5f0

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1748929?searchText=lake%20monsters&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dlake%2Bmonsters%26utm_source%3Dgoogle%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A3c95b3f77d76c297970671f8bc926102?searchText=lake%20monsters&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dlake%2Bmonsters%26utm_source%3Dgoogle%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A3c95b3f77d76c297970671f8bc926102?searchText=lake%20monsters&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dlake%2Bmonsters%26utm_source%3Dgoogle%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A3c95b3f77d76c297970671f8bc926102?searchText=lake%20monsters&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dlake%2Bmonsters%26utm_source%3Dgoogle%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A3c95b3f77d76c297970671f8bc926102?searchText=lake%20monsters&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dlake%2Bmonsters%26utm_source%3Dgoogle%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A3c95b3f77d76c297970671f8bc926102?searchText=lake%20monsters&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dlake%2Bmonsters%26utm_source%3Dgoogle%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A3c95b3f77d76c297970671f8bc926102?searchText=lake%20monsters&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dlake%2Bmonsters%26utm_source%3Dgoogle%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A3c95b3f77d76c297970671f8bc926102?searchText=lake%20monsters&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dlake%2Bmonsters%26utm_source%3Dgoogle%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A3c95b3f77d76c297970671f8bc926102

https://www.flatheadlakers.org/flathead-lake-monster

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Transcript

Choppy water disturbs the morning mist …. 

 … not another soul lines the far horizon; soft creaks of your boat fill the silence… 

You’ll go out again, like most days before -  fishing pole at hand  … in your short life you’ve been told the same story at your small town along the shore … 

Here, there be monsters …. But you’re not one for made up stories … 

You steer forward - your small town fades into the growing haze

Flathead lake, situated neatly between the Mission and Salish Mountain Ranges Northwest Montana,  has long had … an … interesting reputation.  

Beyond memory, tales tell of strange occurrences in the lake, flash sightings of large moving objects and suspicious have long centered around activity within its murky depths. 

 Today we dive into it’s waters. 

I’m walking over to take a swim in flathead lake - we parked the van for the night about a half mile away… 

There’s something universal in human nature - you have it I have it - it the desire to know everything …. To see everything, to explore everything …. 

It’s when we don’t know everything, when we can’t see or explore everything … that’s where fear and anxiety and speculation surface …  

I’ve always thought that this is root of the countless cryptids, monsters and otherwise unexpected creatures everyone sees...

But I’ve an open mind with this - a blank slate …. 

I and I do think there’s enough space in our hearts and minds and lives to allow for some things “unexplained” …. 

So that’s what we’re doing today …. 

We look for something definitively unexplained right here in Northwest Montana. 

We search for the ever illusive “The Flathead Lake Monster”  

We’ll explore its origins, various sightings, descriptions throughout the years as well as look into lake monsters more broadly … reports of which have taken place and continue to take place all round the world… 

But let’s start first with the lake I’m about to dive into …  Flathead Lake …. what makes this particular lake a suitable home for the aforementioned Flathead Lake Monster…. now adorably referred to as “Flessie” 

Ignorance is the womb of monsters 

Henry Ward Beecher 

As the glaciers receded 12,000 years ago, a large deep basin formed morphing into what would become the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi - spanning 200 square miles and reaching depths of up to 370 feet… 

Later given the name “Flathead lake”,  a misnomer from Early European explorers who mistakenly believed the tribes residing around the lake to practice of “head flattening” - which, although definitely not the case- persists as the name for the lake…

Still, Flathead lake - even prior the first reported sighting of the Flathead lake monster in 1889 - seems to have always had a mysterious quality to it -  often lying at the center of stories and myths… 

The Kootenai people, for example - one of three tribes on the Flathead reservation - have a long told tale about the lake: 

It was a cold and particularly brutal winter … 

As the snow thickens, two girls spot large antlers purporting from the long frozen lake … 

Curious, they approach with a large portion of their tribe to chop them off … 

But when the girl touches the antlers the ice breaks violently and a wild creature - now free - violently swims forward further breaking the ice … the girls manage to get away - but many who they brought with die … 

This, it’s said, is why there are now so few Kootenai (KOOT - EN - AY) … 

I’ve done enough running from monsters, it’s time to do some chasing …. 

 - Noah Schnapp 

I’m at the shore of the lake, took some photos, flew my drone, and now there’s only one thing left to do … dive in the lake …. 

But before I do, I’ve a question 

Why is it that lakes in particular are prone to sightings of monsters? 

Is it - like a was saying earlier - just our own uncomfortable feelings around the unknown? We see a shape or a movement in the water that slightly abnormal and our imaginations run wild? 

Is it something else? 

Or - is it - as a good amount of people will say - a good home for creatures and undocumented animals we’ve simply never seen? 

Just some thoughts - tell Noodles I love here  -  if this is the last you here of me … 

It’s no secret …  

Water is mysterious, more difficult to explore  than dry land - forest or otherwise … 

But are there alternative reasons for the many sea and lake monsters reported so frequently around the world…? 

Name a place - there’s a lake monster. 

The Potawatomi with the monster serpent of lake manitou,  Kussie in Japan’s Lake Kusssharo, Lake Tanganyika monster in Tanzania na dog course, we can’t forgo the infamous lock ness monster …. 

Could there be other reasons for all of these sightings? 

In a journal published by the American association for the advancement of science, entitled Atmospheric refraction and lake monsters by W.H Lehn, he insists … yep!

Lehn credits atmospheric distortion as a very large factor in the sightings of lake monsters around the world,,, specifically in lakes located within northern latitudes … 

I won’t get to far into it, it’s a pretty dry read, but essentially — during these atmospheric distortions, the surface of the lake is much colder than the temperature of the air above it … 

This occurs during periods of increased sightings … 

For example, Oo something like 250 sightings of Nessie at Loch Ness, only 31 were made an air temperatures below 55 degrees… 

So the thought is - during times when the lake is cold and the air is not you’re more likely to see something… 

Basically, a marrage …. A trick of the light… 

It’s a good start - other theories maintain many of these monsters could just be a misidentification of other animals like otters or sturgeons… 

More skeptical minds insists lake monsters are a ploy to draw in tourists … 

But hey, these are just theories  … many still insist the world has and needs it’s monsters

Well the first thing is that, I love monsters; I identify with monsters. 

 - Guillmo Del Toro 

Some say 40 feet long with blue/black skin lingers beneath the waves and shaped like an eel… 

Others,  say its shorter, only 20 feet and resembles a whale or giant sturgeon… it’s several humps often petruding from the choppy water …. 

Whatever the case, many agree that there’s something in these waters … 

The first recoded sighting of “Flessie” occurrs in 1889 … 

When James C Kerr converts a 30-foot sailboat into a steamship which would ferry passengers across the waters …. 

And one particular voyage, an insolent occurrs… 

What at first looks like an adrift log beside the boat, suddenly disturbs the water and moves elsewhere … 

One passenger, terrified, pulls out a riffle and shoots into the water! 

Unsurprisingly, whatever “it” was plunges back into the depths … 

It was later described as a slow - moving whale like creature … 

But this is far from the only sighting, of Flossie, as the years progress sightings of strange creatures grow more frequent … 

Sightings of quote “a body as  big around as an oil barrel” a “a creature with the head of a sheep” became commonplace …. 

One story from the 1940’s credits the monster as saving a child from drowning - the boy - who falls out of a boat -  tells his mother that someone or … something …  large pulled him to safety… 

In the 50’s - responding to a fishing coipition - C Leslie Griffith catches a 7 foot, 6 inch, 181 pound white surgeon - leading many to believe the fish could be the basis for many of the sightings …  

But belief in the monster persists to this day… swimming slowly beneath the many boats and tourists above… 

Battle not with monsters, for then you become one of them.

- John Steinbeck

Alright, I’m back - I swam for a good 20 minutes - diving down with my Go- Pro, and nothing … 

Just weeds and waves - nice swim though - really expected the water to be colder …

I’ll go over the footage later, but for now - it’s about to get dark so I should start walking back. 

Maybe Flossie gave me the slip, maybe the conditions werent right - and maybe it’s just fun swimming in the lake looking around - 

And to me, this is what Flessie, lake monsters, the everything unexplained comes down to - 

Live is infinitely more interesting when you don’t know everything …. 

When there are stories to tell, mysteries to pursue, surprises to find … 

Real or not, it doesn’t much matter to me - for now I’ll just say this - 

I bid they due Flessie - thanks for letting me swim a bit in your lake … 

The water’s calm … 

The familiar hum of your motor fills the air as you make your way back to shore … 

The days catch weighs your flimsy boat … a successful day … 

Something hit your boat …  the water’s calm, you look around to see still no other boats on the horizon… 

A pause … 

Maybe, you say, there’s something to those stories, your pace quickens as your small town appears once again on the coast of Flathead lake… 

It’s Noah here, let’s start with some practical tips if you want to visit Flathead lake … 

So it’s roughly 30 miles southwest from glacier national park - so if you’re heading to glacier or already there - flathead is an easy day trip … 

There are two towns along the lake - Bigfork to the north of the lake  and Polson on the south - both cute towns … 

You can see the sunset along the lake at Bigfork then go to Flathead lake brewing - they do a good job … 

Then Polson has a cherry picking festival every July, which I missed - but I’ve heard great things about … 

A trip out to the lake to fish or otherwise would be incredibly easy to find … 

The town of Kalispell in north if you’re making your way up to glacier - it has a cute Main Street with shops and galleries and such … 

And then there’s glacier national park, which is you’re in the area - in seasons - July - September - is a must … 

Make sure you get a vehicle reservation when you go to glacier to get on the good roads and hikes before 3:00 when it will be crowded - it’s a bit of a pain but entirely worth it in my opinion - the lake of crowds is so refreshing especially in such a beautiful place…. 

And of course, if you see Flessie - give here a high five from me! 

With that said, thank you - I really appreciate your time if you appreacte the work Noodles and I put into the show - share it with a friend!