What happened
Stories of a serpent in Lake Storsjön in central Sweden go back to the 17th century – a manuscript from 1635 credits the rune master Kettil Runske with binding the creature with a spell carved on the runestone on the island of Frösön. In the 1890s reports multiplied so much that in 1894 locals founded a company whose aim was to capture the animal. It received support from King Oscar II. Baited traps were set and the lake was combed, but the monster was not caught, and the failed hunt was lampooned by cartoonist Albert Engström in the satirical magazine “Strix.” In 1899 naturalist Peter Olsson published a collection of 22 eyewitness accounts. In 1986 the regional authorities granted the creature legal protection as an endangered species – the regulation was not repealed until 2005.
Witnesses
Residents of the Östersund and Frösön area; 22 accounts were collected in 1899 by naturalist Peter Olsson.
Explanations and hypotheses
Witnesses usually describe humps, or a neck and a head resembling that of a dog or a cat. Olsson leaned toward an unknown aquatic mammal, while modern skeptics point to swimming moose and deer, otters, large fish, logs and waves caused by wind and boats on the long, deep lake. In 2008 a film crew claimed that a thermal camera had recorded the warm body of a large animal in the water, but the footage did not convince scientists.
Unexplained There is no convincing explanation.
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