The Norwegian lake monsters

People who have lived all their life by the Snåsa lake in Nord-Trøndelag have seen things they can not explain.

July 3, 2005, Einar Johannes Sandnes was on a fishing trip by the Snåsa lake along with a friend. They had settled down at the lake’s shore to have a cup of coffee and enjoy the weather.

Sandnes sat with his back to the water as he turned around and saw something. He had the mobile phone in his hand and took a picture.

The picture was first known to the public a year and a half later, in newspaper articles in Snåsningen and Adresseavisen. Sandnes told the newspaper in 2007 that the creature was 15-20 meters away when he took the picture.

– I saw something raising up from the water. It was maybe a meter above the water and kept calm, Sandnes said.

Ten years later, Sandnes told TV 2 that he did not know what he was taking a picture of.

– I do not want to speculate about it, says the 58-year-old.

– Have you ever seen anything like that before?

– Not such things, but yes, I have seen inexplicable things both by the water’s edge and in the lake, which I do not understand what could be, he says.

After the photo was printed in the newspaper and Sandnes told his story, he said that there were others who contacted him to tell about similar incidents.

One man told him that he had once seen a creature get up from the water and pull something from land into the water. As he went to the place where it had happened, he saw clear tracks of the creature at the shore.

Norway’s most famous lake monster is apparently found in Seljordsvannet in Telemark. There is a private lookout tower for people who want to look for the creature, and this week also a live webcam was set up in the tower so people can see if they can spot Selma, which it has been named, should it appear.

But Seljordsvannet is far from the only water in Norway that allegedly houses inexplicable creatures. The Snåsa lake in Nord-Trøndelag is Norway’s sixth largest lake and possibly also conceals a secret or two.

The lake monster in the Snåsa lake was first described by the academic Gerhard Schøning in the 1770s.

– He told of three lake monsters, says Hallvard Sandnes, who works for Snåsa municipality, and is familiar with the history of the lake monster.

– As of today, the lake has a dam, but at that time there was a waterfall at the end of the water. Schøning said that he saw a lake monster disappear through the waterfall, while two others remained in the water, says Sandnes.

In 2007, the lake monster was named Kudulla after the name Kudulen, which was previously used for the Snåsa lake.

Over the years, there have been many reports of people who have seen things they can not explain on the water. One story that has made a special impression on Hallvard Sandnes originates from the 1980s. A man who was convinced that the lake monster was just fiction, told the local newspaper about an experience that had made him a believer.

– He had seen something he could not explain. It was not a swimming moose or anything else from his conceptual world, says Sandnes.

– Do you think there’s something in the lake?

– Yes, of course.

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