New Footage: Killarney Lake Monster

Thornography

bigeasyeah wrote: »

Id head down to Killarney for two strings of sausages.

I'd second that!

But in all seriousness, Its obviously fungi's replacement, and where the Kerry Corpo. keep their spare fungi's just in case the other in Dingle croke's, which over the years probably has

And its being trained very well since it surfaces when cameras are around! Tis awful business keeping him in a small ickle lake doh.

Do the Sausages have to be cooked ?

Kess73

People need to keep in mind that the lake had no official fish surveys done on it until 6 or 7 years ago.

Up to that point locals were talking about a giant serpent like beast which they called Muckie.

From the POV of someone who have a pretty open mind, but who also spends a lot of time on and around water fishing, especially lake fishing including the lake in question. It has a healthy population of ferox trout, which basically are brown trout which turn cannibal and end up growing to unusual sizes as they switch from eating insects to eating other fish.

It also has a good population of char, ordinary brown trout, salmon, eel, and a few species of smaller fish.

While an outsized eel is not beyond the realms of possibility, the way whatever that it moves through the water is wrong for an eel. I would have leaned towards either an unusually large ferox trout hunting near the surface, which would cause smaller fish to jump, or a large otter chasing fish.


The splashes on the surface from the jumping fish look about right for fish in the 2lbs to 3 lbs bracket with the last splash being from something closer to the 8lbs bracket.

Ferox Trout have been caught to 26lbs by rod in this country, and can be three feet long at that point and capable of leaving a large wake, an unusually large one could look very siimilar to what was seen in that footage.

I take the cormorant comment onboard also, but I think the wake and trail looks like it was caused by something larger than a cormoront, hence me leaning towards a huge ferox.


Interestingly the lake I normally fish on, Lough Derg, has a very similar monster story as Muckross. With a large creature/fish spotted many times down through the years. Lough Derg also has some very big Ferox trout in it, as well as pike that grow even bigger, and it a much larger body of water than the Killarney lakes as it is over 40km in length.

Lough Ree is another that has had something reported in it also.


What is interesting also is the fact that Muckross lake and Loch Ness have almost the same species of fish in them, and both lakes share characteristics like similar depths and similar average water temps.


In the first series of fish surveys held at Muckross they did get some hits on the radar, one was stupidly big and I have no doubt that it was some anomoly as it picked up something that had similar dimensions to a large whale, and something that size would not stay hidden in a lake that has a max depth of about 200 feet. But they also have a number of smaller hits over the years with things that were larger than what is normally found in Irish freshwaters, ranging from about 4 feet in length to about 6 feet in length.


So Muckross, Ree and Ness, I do think that there may be something in them, but I think it will turn out to be a similar species in each case, and one that has grown unusually big due to the lack of a natural predator on it.

In the case of Derg I think it is a very big pike, as Derg is a much shallower lake that the others, and as such has a higher water temp all year round, which promotes more growth in the larger fish species as there is a faster growth rate in the bait fish and insects due to the extra heat.


Steve Altan's book "The Loch" touches on the giant eel theory, and while a lot of what he wrote was purely for the storyline (including putting two large dead conger eel, a saltwater eel that grows really big, on the shores of loch Ness as a hoax.), there is some potential for some of his ideas in that book to be fact.

squod

Whoever said bird wins [probably cormorant].

The original videographer had the gain set too high on the cam. Once you adjust for that, presto. You can see birds flying from the water.

Slow Motion

Good post Kess73, any links to articles on the other lake monsters you refer to?

Slow Motion

squod wrote: »

Whoever said bird wins [probably cormorant].

The original videographer had the gain set too high on the cam. Once you adjust for that, presto. You can see birds flying from the water.

That could be anything, it is vaguely bird shaped, just like a lot of photos are of vaguely bigfoot shapes and vaguely UFO shapes, you need to do a bit more than that to nail down the bird hypothesis!

Kess73

Slow Motion wrote: »

Good post Kess73, any links to articles on the other lake monsters you refer to?

I got it in a book I have about Irish ghosts, legend, and myths. It has a chapter on lake monsters in it.


I will dig out the book later and get it's proper title and who wrote it.

What I will say also is that water (and the imagination of the person viewing) magnifies anything in it, so say a person was to see a four foot pike that was swimming three feet below the surface. Chances are that the fish would appear to be about six foot to them.

I remember when I first started cage diving and I saw my first great white up close. I thought it was massive and about 18 feet long. I was astounding by it's size. Afterwards when we were out of the cage I was informed that it was only about 12 feet long.

The majority of people who do not come into contact with unusual animals a lot, in fact in most situations, would be very bad at guessing a length or weight until they become more experienced at it.

I have always liked the idea of a giant eel in Lock Ness for example. And I have argued that biologically it is possible for an eel or eels to reach that size. But I tend to lean towards either a giant ferox trout or pike for most of the Irish lake monsters. My logic behind that is there are a large number of Irish lakes that have had sightings, from hundreds of years ago to more recent times, and nearly all the lakes where these sightings have happened are now lakes that are well known for having very big pike in them, so it is not beyond the relms of possibility that when those sightings happened that there were much larger pike there than nowadays as the waters back then would not have been fished like they have been for the last hundred years

But there is an interesting alternative, and one that has been found, although rarely, in British waters and there would be no reason why it could not find it's way into Irish waters.

And that is a Sturgeon. They grow to massive sizes, both in length and weight. There are mostly a freshwater species.

Below is a picture of one caught by rod, and it is by no means a giant by sturgeon standards as they can grow to more than twice that one's length and many times it's weight. They often swim just below the surface and create huge wakes and one that rolled near the surfaces would defo look like the traditional Nessie hump, but generally spend more time on the bottom than near the surface so there would not be regular sightings of them especially if they were in small numbers.

6th

SlowMo, there is a list of lake monster etc here: http://www.6thsensitive.com/articles.html

Theres also a google map I made linked from that page.

squod

Slow Motion wrote: »

That could be anything, it is vaguely bird shaped, just like a lot of photos are of vaguely bigfoot shapes and vaguely UFO shapes, you need to do a bit more than that to nail down the bird hypothesis!

Interseting comment. I have done, can't repost shed loads of frames containing screenshots of the said bird. Any fool can do as I've done. Don't take my word for it, do this for youself. I used three of Nero9s' simplest tools to try to undo what the videographer did.

6th

squod wrote: »

I used three of Nero9s' simplest tools to try to undo what the videographer did.

But its compressed footage. You do realize that, right?

squod

6th wrote: »

But its compressed footage. You do realize that, right?

The file is in .flv format at about 320 lines. The actual problem is the videographer had the gain turned up or just turned on. When he clearly didn't need to. (He didn't need to be so far away either).

This gave a false sense of low contrast in the video. As I said any fool could do as I've done, so please, don't take my word for it. Try it for yourself.

DyldeBrill

I'm going down there on saturday.I'll take some video while I cisit the lake.6th do you know anything else on Kilarney as a place, if so could you pm me

Slow Motion

squod wrote: »

Interseting comment. I have done, can't repost shed loads of frames containing screenshots of the said bird. Any fool can do as I've done. Don't take my word for it, do this for youself. I used three of Nero9s' simplest tools to try to undo what the videographer did.

I wasn't having a go squire;) Just pointing out that without seeing the original uncompressed footage as 6th mentioned earlier it is hard to come up with a concrete explanation of what is there!

squod

DyldeBrill wrote: »

I'm going down there on saturday.I'll take some video while I cisit the lake.6th do you know anything else on Kilarney as a place, if so could you pm me

If it's possible to take a boat tour do, the guides on the last one I took told me how deep it was in places, up to 250ft at the base of Torc waterfall, in Muckross lake.

Lough leane is the largest lakes at 19 square kilometers with a maximum depth of 200ft. This lake holds some of the rarest species of fish in the country.

squod

Slow Motion wrote: »

I wasn't having a go squire;) Just pointing out that without seeing the original uncompressed footage as 6th mentioned earlier it is hard to come up with a concrete explanation of what is there!

I didn't mean to come across as someone offended. My apologies.

Kess73

Slow Motion wrote: »

Good post Kess73, any links to articles on the other lake monsters you refer to?

Irish Ghosts Stories by Patrick Byrnes is the first book I found during my rummage through my book collection.

It is a collection of various sightings in Ireland, and has a lake monster chapter in it that has sightings from Lough Derg, and many other Clare lakes, as well as the lakes mentioned.


In the book it is Crow Island that gets the most mentions for sightings on Lough Derg.

There was a large flurry of sightings in the 1960's and 1970's. With the creature being described as being black/blue in colour and quite long, leaving a wake as it moved under the surface.



To go back to my giant pike theory for sightings from decades, even hundreds of years ago.

The below picture is of a pike caught in Holland, it is not a record breaker, but gives an idea of size. Now the record rod caught fish is a bit heavier and longer, and skeleton remains have shown that much bigger fish were present in the last hundred years, with evidence of six and seven foot fish. Who is to say that there are still not some giants around nowadays when four footers are still being caught today?

Day Lewin

Jimimy, that pike certainly would qualify as a lake monster! Wild swimmers watch out!

fiacha

I've spent a lot of time wildfowling and fishing on Irish loughs. I have often seen ducks (individuals and small groups) and cormorants "skimming" the surface for long distances. The bird seen taking off from the lough in a curved path looks like a cormorant to me.

I was very interested in the two objects moving from the island to the shore on the right of the frame (4m10s). It's a pity that the camera pans away just as they are about to reach the shore and possibly reveal themselves.

I don't envy anyone trying to make sense of this video as water/wind/currents and nature have a habit of playing tricks on our minds

I don't consider myself to be a sceptic, but nothing on this video looks out of the ordinary to me.

Great forum btw, some very interesting threads here.