Alaska News

Discovery investigates Alaska's 'Loch Ness Monster'

Discovery Channel announced that it will host a one-hour special called "Alaskan Monster Hunt" Tuesday at 9 p.m. that will introduce Alaska's very own Loch Ness monster to the world. Prominent crytpozoologists -- hopefully more prominent than the guys that uploaded a video of their encounter with big foot to YouTube then promptly disappeared -- will set out in scientific terms why 'Cadborosaurus' (the technical-sounding designation for Nessie) is apparent in a grainy video that a Bristol Bay fisherman captured in 2009. Judge for yourself, but an excerpt from the special that purports to show the creature looks more to us like a group of whales, seals, or sea lions than any definitive discovery of Nessie in the Last Frontier. As with all things cryptozoologic, the video evidence appears inconclusive. "While many have speculated that 'Cadborosaurus' is actually a frill shark, a large eel, or some kind of fish, ('North Pacific Megaserpent' researcher Paul) LeBlond countered that it cannot be a fish due to the way Cadborosaurus moves," the Discovery Channel's website says. Paul LeBlond, a cryptozoologist who is associated with the special, added that it "must be a mammal or a reptile, since it oscillates up and down in a vertical plain, which eliminates sideways-oscillating fish." LeBlond also rules out whales, despite the apparent blowhole on the creature, saying "these don't look like whales...these are large animals, there's a whole family of them, it's swimming up and down, it's probably propelling itself by the flap of its tail, and it's not moving sideways like a fish would." Sounds a bit like a whale, doesn't it? See the other preview videos here, or decide for yourself when the special airs on Tuesday.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

ADVERTISEMENT