Customer Reviews

Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures

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When two authors active in skeptic organization CSICOP decide to publish a book about lake monsters it's not much of an accomplishment to correctly assume what kind of book it'll turn out to be. Skeptical analyses, critical discussions, debunking of earlier research that has often been flawed and/or incorrect, and on-site investigations and interviews.

And, well, that's exactly what Lake Monster Mysteries is all about. Throughout the book Joe Nickell and colleague Benjamin Radford presents a number of lakes in the U.S. and Canada (as well as Loch Ness in Scotland) that all claim to be the home of one or more lake monsters. The reader is presented with a short but informative background to each lake and its alleged monsters, offered details about some of the most important research to date, and is taken along with Nickell and Radford as they carry out their fieldwork and analyses of some of the most famous photographs and sightings.

Which is all both interesting and worthwhile, but to the reader who has an earlier interest in these lakes and their mysterious inhabitants the book fails to offer very much new material. However, this doesn't mean it's not a very good contribution to cryptozoological research. Nickell and Radford - who not very surprisingly come out as extremely skeptical to everyone and everything - are very efficient in their work when they point out many of the errors that precious researchers have done and later used in their own books, and it's difficult not to agree with them when they show the reader how something as mundane as a floating log or otters swimming in a straight line very easily can fool even the most experienced of observer and create the illusion that it's really a slime sea serpent cruising along the surface of the water.

It's not a very thick book though, and you'll finish it in a heartbeat. The lakes under investigation are all situated in the U.S. or Canada: Lake Champlain, Lake Memphremagog, Silver Lake, Lake Crescent, Lake George, and Lake Okanagan. True, Loch Ness also has a chapter of its own, but neither Nickell nor Radford visit the lake in person, and those mysterious lakes from the rest of the world that are mentioned at the end of the book aren't given very much attention.

Therefore "Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures" is somewhat misleading, and should have been changed to "Investigating North America's Most Elusive Creatures". Furthermore, it's sometimes easy to get the feeling that Nickell and Radford have been somewhat in too much of a hurry when dismissing the existence of the lake monsters, after having spent a day or two at the lake without seeing anything unusual and thus concluding that there's nothing unusual to be seen.

But the good outweighs the bad, and all in all Lake Monster Mysteries is a sweet read indeed. The most fascinating chapter is without a doubt the one about Lake Okanagan and its monster Ogopogo. Here the authors make a detour from the perspective of the hardcore skeptic and spend time discussing the folklore surrounding the lake, and if this had been done in the other chapters as well the final score would have been close to the highest possible.

CSI investigators Ben Radford and Joe Nickell provide overviews of the most famous lake monsters in the world, and detailed analysis of the best evidence that has been provided to date. They do this in a series of essays which cover most of the well known lake monsters of North America, as well as Loch Ness and brief observations of other world wide lake monster phenomena. The book looks for the best evidence of mysterious creatures and analyzes that evidence very critically. Photos, illustrations, and detailed citations will provide both the credulous and the skeptical with plenty to think about. I, for one, am anxious to see some good video of otters crossing a lake after hearing how frequently people mistake such a natural occurrence for something much more mysterious.

If you're an amateur cryptozoologist and you're going to be looking for lake monsters, be sure and pack some good cameras, some measuring equipment, some sun-block, and a copy of "Lake Monster Mysteries." It will give you something very good to read for what might be quite a long wait.

Lake Monster Mysteries, by Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell, is a genuinely excellent skeptically-leaning book about the various rumored creatures of the world's freshwater lakes.

The book focuses primarily on alleged monsters of the lakes of New England and eastern Canada, but it also addresses the Loch Ness Monster of Scotland, a famous lake monster in British Columbia, and a variety of creatures from around the world.

The book is written clearly and concisely, and is a fast read, and by the end of it I think most readers will not only have a good idea of how to think about lake monsters, but also a good idea of how one ought to think about all sorts of strange phenomena.

I found its explorations of "expectant attention"--or how witnesses expecting to see something report far different experiences and interpretations of events than those who aren't expecting anything--to be especially helpful.

The best part of this book, though, is how it's such a great showcase of hands-on skepticism--not the armchair variety that so many true believers love to deride; it shows what real skeptical investigation can and should be. Radford and Nickell track down witnesses and original sources, go to the lakes, perform tests, scrutinize photos and videos, check every fact, and keep their minds open until the evidence leads them to solid conclusions.

I really enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to anyone interested in cryptozoology, skepticism, or just an entertaining but scholarly read. I'd love to read a sequel to it--perhaps about sea monsters, or perhaps merely about other notable lake monsters.

Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell have written a concise analysis of lake monsters. Radford and Nickell do not dismiss out-of-hand and they do not engage in armchair skepticism either. This is a hands-on objective investigation of lake monsters. All of the evidence for lake monsters is thoroughly examined.

When it comes to lake monsters the most important question we can ask is, "What is the evidence for lake monsters?" We learn things from Radford and Nickell such as, where are the bodies of these supposed creatures? Where are the bones? We also learn that if one of these creatures exists there has to be about 15-20 creatures to sustain a breeding population. Before we consider something to be a monster, lets rule-out other known entities. For instance, lets rule-out whether or not what people are seeing in these lakes are floating logs, otters, beavers, or even swimming deer.

We start the book by looking at the case of Loch Ness. Joe Nickell points out how wide and varied the eyewitness accounts are. Photographic and video evidence is thoroughly examined. In addition to examining specific cases of supposed lake monsters we also have four appendixes at the end of the book. One of the appendixes is titled "Eyewitness (Un)Reliability" which discusses how flawed and unreliable anecdotal evidence is.

If you want to know what the best evidence is for lake monsters, read this book! If you want to know whether or not that evidence stands up to scrutiny, read this book!

but I couldn't give it all five.

Sure its well researched & written but the subject forces the book to become repetitive no monsters found & all the lakes have the same results when the sightings are investigated. Except for the giant frog, once you've read the first couple of chapters you may as well skip to the conclusion.

Lake Monster Mysteries is very disappointing book.
I was hoping for a balanced look at the Lake Monster phenomena but, sadly this is not the case.

I believe that there are three possibilities about lake monsters.
1. They do exist
2. They had in the past, but no longer exist (died off due to pollution etc.)
3. They never existed.

Unfortunately, the authors conveniently take they never existed approach and not interested in looking for new evidence. The majority of the book is that people make mistakes, the video footage is inconclusive and that the Mansi photo at Lake Champlain could be a tree stump floating in the water.

The best evidence for the existence of Lake Monsters would be Lake Okanagan in BC Canada. The water is clear, unlike Loch Ness and the first recorded sighting of something in the lake was 1872, over sixty years before the Nessie phenomena started. But, looking for an animal (or animals) that is afraid of humans, in a lake that is 80 miles long, would require several months of investigation but, the authors only spend one week at Lake Okanagan and instead of going to the lake in Summer where most sightings take place, they arrive in February!. This to me is proof that the authors were not serious about their book or quest.

For many Okanagan sighting's, Joe Nickell has a drawing of otters swimming in a line as the most probable explanation of a large creature undulating in the water.
However, he provides no pictures of this happening? It would seem that a picture of otters swimming in a line is just as elusive! Plus, the otter theory does not explain sightings of something following in the wakes of boats. Also, why would otters be swimming a half mile or more out in the Lake with a depth well over 200 ft deep? There are years where no sightings are reported, does that mean otters or beavers stopped swimming that year?

What has also disappointed me is that there is no critical analysis or even a mention of some of the most credible sightings of Ogopogo.
Sighting from Barbra Clark, Ed Fletchter, the Wongs, the Tozar -Aikman and Daryl Ellis for example.

What about the 1937 picture of a supposed Cadborosaurus carcass cut from the stomach of a Sperm Whale? It would seem to be excellent proof that there are still unknown animals waiting to be discovered?
Just Google search "Cadborosaurus" and click images for the picture (b+w with two white buildings) or type "Cadborosaurus" in Wikipedia and see for yourself, that there might be something there.


In the very least, I was hoping for a field guide to sightings of a USO (unidentified swimming Obects). What to look for and what questions to ask during the sighting, which would make witnesses better observers. There was nothing of the sort. Such as pictures of strange waves that could be interpreted as a lake monster, how an animal such as a swimming beaver with a large wake could look to be an animal 15 feet long, a swimming moose or deer from a distance could to the untrained observer be a lake monster. But, no picture of a swimming deer or moose, and all one has to do is Google "swimming deer" and see many pictures that could have been put into the book.

I have done a lot of research and I believe that there is something to the Lake Monster phenomena and have made two trips to Lake Okanagan in 2000 and 2004 to see for my self. I did see something unusual in the lake but, nothing that would convince a skeptic. However, if I could spend 6 months or more out on the lake with more equipment such as an ROV, thermal imaging cameras, results would be more promising. So, I am hoping to be able to make another trip in the near future. But, with out financial help, it makes it tough to do a serious search of Lake Okanagan. I am not willing to give up so easily at the possibility of large unknown animals, until a thorough study of Lake Okanagan is done.

Overall, I think the Authors were lazy and don't care about what people are seeing, which is a shame, because there just might be something waiting to be discovered. What I do know is that with the Authors mentality, mysteries will never be solved.

Books on Ogopogo by Mary Moon, Arlene Gaal and John Kirk are worth checking out.

Details on the sightings by Barbra Clark, Ed Fletchter, the Wongs, the Tozar -Aikman and Daryl Ellis, can be found in books by Arlene Gaal and John Kirk. [...]
For some sightings of Ogopogo.

Anyone who's seen Radford and his ilk on the History Channel documentaries and such knows that, while he claims to be a fair-minded investigator, he is a professional debunker: while he accuses others of assuming the fantastic and working backwards to only those facts that support their positions, he does JUST THE OPPOSITE, viz., assumes the negative and works backwards to only those "facts" that support HIS position. His arguments always border on the ridiculous (e.g., the lake monster that all those people saw cavorting on the water _could_ be a log) and are "supported" by the most foolish of experiments (e.g., staged performances that prove [as if this bore any relevance] that people have difficulty judging size at a distance). That this man can face the camera with any seriousness and suggest that, e.g., a hunter with thirty years' experience can't tell a bear from a sasquatch at a short distance, or that a mobile, symmetrical object with visibly articulated musculature _could_ be a log, is an absolute disgrace. Radford is by no means a scientist, and as soon as he opens his mouth, your best policy is quickly to change the channel to something more reliable, such as Vince "I Can't Wear These Headphones All Day" selling his magic spill-sopping cloths.