By Roy Barnes
Loch Ness, Scotland. Lake Van, Turkey. Lake Hodges, California. Seljord Lake, Norway. All of these areas have had reported sightings of monsters. Well, North Carolina has its own alleged monster of the waterway called The Lake Norman Monster, or “Normie” to his close friends.
On a map, Lake Norman looks like a giant ink blot, and has some 520 miles of shore line, but is only 34 miles long and 50 square miles, holding some 32,000 acres of water (roughly 3 billion gallons). It’s not surprising that a monster allegedly lurks here amidst all the lake’s nooks and crannies, whose fingers-like shoreline is filled with ostentatious-looking homes and thriving trees from the pine, oak, and willow family. The monster, if it does exist, can hide in 130 feet of water in its deepest part (the south end at the Cowans Ford Dam which is less than 15 miles from downtown Charlotte). The average depth of Lake Norman is only around 30 feet.
Meeting Captain Gus
The day before getting on the boat, I had a chance to talk with a local boat captain named “Captain Gus”, who’s lived in this area since 1960 and guides lake cruises and fishing tours.
Captain Gus said that when people have claimed to see The Lake Norman Monster, what they may have seen in reality is a 4-foot female gar who’s spawning and being followed closely by 15-20 male gar (who’re three feet long), which Captain Gus calls “a Daisy chain”, giving off the impression of a long monster-type fish.
This gregarious fellow is very philosophical about this pre-occupation with the alleged monster in the lake, saying that if people talk openly about seeing UFO’s or lake monsters such as “Normie”, then others will think they’re crazy. Yet creating a website about these subjects is considered more acceptable in the minds of people, which is why you’ll find a website dedicated to the Lake Norman monster here.