Lake Monster Footage That Experts Are Taking Seriously

A serpentine beast swimming through a Chilean lake, massive shapes sending schools of fish into a total panic off the California coast, and a long unknown creature filmed beneath the frozen waters of Iceland. This is lake monster footage that experts are taking seriously. What on earth is this thing? Yeah, that is not driftwood, and I say that because if you just saw this thing floating along in a straight line, you might think it was a log. Some commenters said it kind of looked like that, but notice how the creature swims through the water in those first few seconds. This video was captured in Lake Ranco in Chile, where people have been reporting a weird creature since the 1800s, simply called the Lake Ranco Monster. Instead of smooth reptilian skin or scales, witnesses say this thing is covered in dark fur, shaggy hair, even when it's dripping wet. People who see its head describe it looking almost like a seal or a shaggy dog. When it swims, it also pushes up two humps out of the water that sit about three feet high and three feet apart, moving like a coiled snake gliding across the lake before diving down, leaving these huge, violent ripples behind. Out in Eastern Turkey, there's this massive body of water called Lake Van. People over there have talked about a creature living in the lake for years, but things got really interesting back in 1997. A 26-year-old teaching assistant named Unal Kozak went out to the lake with a camera, and they ended up catching something on video. The footage shows a dark shape in the water, looks like the head of a very large creature. Apart from the clip, you can also see what looks like a long, smooth back curving out of the water. When Kozak released the tape, it went viral before going viral was a thing. News crews picked it up, and eventually CNN aired the footage worldwide. What really got people was not just the size of this thing, but how it was moving. The creature seemed to travel with a distinct undulating motion, rolling through the water instead of swimming side to side like a normal fish. Thousands of people claim to have seen the monster over the years, but Kozak's 1997 tape is still the most famous piece of evidence on record. Is this actually some massive, unknown species, or is it a misidentified animal? Let us know what you think down in the comments. Back in October of 2018, a surfer named George was sitting out on the sand at Huntington Beach, California. He grew up there, so he knew the area like the back of his hand. But when he looked out at the water, he noticed fish losing their minds, thrashing around, jumping out of the water, basically fleeing for their lives from something big right underneath them. So George looked a little closer, and he sees this weird, massive shape in the water. He managed to grab his camera, and pull a few shots before whatever it was sank back down. George spent his entire life surfing those waters, he knew what dolphins, seals and sharks looked like, but he'd never seen anything like this. Now, if you're asking what we're looking at here, I don't know. Nobody does. According to the uploader, Connell Malarkey, they were in the middle of shooting an independent movie called Fishing with David Lynch, out on loaf oil in Ireland, when this massive thing surfaced right near them, and they had zero clue what it was. Malarkey said his gut reaction was that it was a whale, but another guy in a boat, who got much closer, said it definitely didn't look like one. In the comments, Malarkey brought up how tough it was to lock down any specific species. He'd seen whales in the wild before, but he swore he'd never seen one swim like this, and the body markings just didn't match. As for its exact size, hard to pinpoint, but judging by the massive wake, and how much water was churning up, whatever was under there was huge. Back in January of 2025, one of the live webcams overlooking Loch Ness picked up something really weird. A guy named Andy, who's been visiting the loch regularly since the 80s, was watching the feed when he noticed a strange shape moving near the shore. It was cruising towards Sherry Island, and it turned around, slipped right back into the deeper water, before disappearing completely. The whole thing lasted about 7 minutes. Now, Andy is very familiar with the wildlife in the lake. He knew immediately this was not a typical animal. The team running the camera, Loch Ness Exploration, ended up sharing the clip. They made sure to emphasize this was not some random wave, or a boat wake. Whatever was moving through the water was alive, and clearly pretty big. This isn't the only recent case, either. Back in August of 2023, another regular watcher named Owen O'Fadigan caught a massive black hump on camera. He watched it pop up, glide across the water, and then go back under the second a boat started getting close. Owen said that fish in the lake don't leave wakes like that, and seals or otters don't move like what he saw. To him, there's really only one obvious answer as to what was swimming out there. But what do you think? Back in February of 2012, this farmer in East Iceland set up a camera right by a river that flows into Lake Lagerflot. It ended up capturing some pretty unbelievable footage, a video that lots of people now consider the best evidence ever filmed of a famous Icelandic legend, the Lagerflot Worm. The footage shows what looks like this big, snake-like creature, maybe anywhere from 30 to 90 feet long some say, wriggling its way through the icy water. The video picked up so much attention that a truth committee was put together to evaluate the footage, and they ended up voting 7 to 6 that the video was authentic, and even handed the farmer a small cash prize for catching it on camera. Stories about the Lagerflot Worm go all the way back to the 1300s. Legend says it's this giant water monster that can grow longer than a football field. In 2012, a 17-year-old girl named Lisbeth, while on a family trip, managed to capture this footage of some sort of long creature gliding under the surface of the water. It had approximately 40 to 50 humps. The creature is known as Selma, Norway's most famous lake monster. She lives over in Lake Seljordvatnet in Telmark. People have been seeing this thing since the 1750s, and over 500 eyewitness reports describe her as 30 to 45 feet, kind of like a massive humped anaconda. Some of the early stories are completely insane. Back in 1880, a guy named Bjorn and his mom chopped a Selma in half when it attacked them. The tail squirmed back into the deep water, and then the front half just rotted on the shore. Then in 1918, a fisherman apparently saw a horse-headed creature swim right up to a bridge, stop, and sink straight down. That same summer, a man found giant chunks of meat floating near the beach, and later saw a black, crocodile-like beast with thin feet crawling onto the rocks. Encounters just kept happening. In 1996, two fishermen saw a horse-like head on a 10-foot neck rise out of the water and stare at them, just 8 inches away. Then in July of 2001, a father and son walking down the lake saw what looked like a pile of old tires on the beach. Turns out it was a giant snake, at least 30 feet long, they said. The son tripped. The noise made the beast turn its head around to look at them, and then it slithered into the lake. By 2000, researchers actually tried to trap a live one. A group called the Global Underwater Search Team brought out this massive 18-foot net called the Comet. They were hoping to catch the creature. Unfortunately, the trap came up empty, but supposedly, it did pick up some really weird sonar hits. Finally, back in June of 2019, a man named Jim LaRock was hanging out with his two kids as mother-in-laws right on Skaha Lake in British Columbia, Canada. Everything was totally calm until Jim noticed a bizarre wake cutting across the water. All he heard was a swooshing sound, swoosh swoosh, Jim told the news. He quickly grabbed his phone to record whatever was gliding through the water, and horrifyingly, right near whatever this thing was, his son was out on a paddle board. Eventually, he turns and sees a flipper come out of the water, hit the water, and that's when he turned around and started coming back, Jim went on to say. Looking out over the lake, Jim said he just couldn't believe what he was seeing, a giant snake-like thing with a whole series of fins moving together. He estimated it had to have been at least 120 feet long. When the video hit the news, locals started showing up at the liquor store Jim owns just to see the raw video on his phone. As for Jim, he has no doubts about what he caught on camera that day. This is, in my opinion, a definitive Ogopogo sighting, he said. But that has been the video, and I will catch you, yes you specifically, in the next one.