All language subtitles for The Alaska Triangle S01E03 The Alaskan Loch Ness Monster 1080p AMZN WEB-DL DDP2 0 H 264-BurCyg_track3_[eng]

NARRATOR: Alaska,

a vast, remote wilderness
twice the size of Texas.

There are dangerous,
unpredictable forces

at work here.

NARRATOR: In one of
the most mysterious

corners of the globe...

A lot of things can kill you
out here without even trying.

NARRATOR: ...this is a place
hundreds of times more deadly

than the Bermuda Triangle.

MAN: Oh, my God.

NARRATOR:
Stories of alien abductions...

I believe it was a UFO.

NARRATOR: ...the paranormal,

vanishing airplanes,
and strange beasts...

The Alaskan Bigfoot.
He can rip you in half.

These accounts
are really widespread.

[Bleep] it peeked out
of the tree right there.

NARRATOR: ...have haunted those
who dare set foot here.

In the last 30 years,

16,000 people have disappeared
without a trace.

More people have disappeared
than the Bermuda Triangle,

two to three times the amount.

NARRATOR: Witnesses tell us
their shocking stories...

I was petrified.

NARRATOR: ...and we've gathered
some of the world's

leading experts
in their field...

I'm always after
scientific evidence

that can be
independently corroborated.

NARRATOR: ...to try and unlock

the mystery of
the Alaska Triangle.

♪♪

Just like the Bermuda Triangle,
the Alaska Triangle

is a place of mysterious events
and unexplained phenomena,

and one of the strangest stories

has emerged from the depths
of this vast and isolated lake.

Both outside experts
and locals have been left

asking the question,

"What exactly is it
that lies beneath these waters?"

I was sitting there in awe,

just dumbstruck of what the heck
am I looking at?

There's definitely
something big down there.

♪♪

NARRATOR: In Alaska,

there are over 3,000 rivers
and 3 million lakes,

most still unexplored.

Local folklore tells of
hidden channels

linking the waterways

and monstrous beasts
lurking in the depths.

We're not dealing with a mirage,
a deluded individual.

We're not dealing with
mistaken identities.

We've got something
that needs explaining.

NARRATOR: The most terrifying
creature of them all

is said to live here
in Lake Iliamna.

And now multiple eyewitnesses
have stepped forward to suggest

that this monster
is no mere legend.

♪♪

At 77 miles long
and 25 miles wide,

Iliamna is the biggest lake
in Alaska.

It's the second-biggest
freshwater lake

in the whole
of the United States.

It's also one of the hardest
places to get to

in the whole of the US.

It's hundreds of miles
from the nearest main road.

When viewed from the air,

the lake is shaped
like a giant fish.

Could this be a clue
to what lurks within?

♪♪

Cryptozoologist Cliff Barackman,

one of America's leading
Bigfoot investigators,

now has his sights fixed on
finding the monster of the lake.

♪♪

His first stop is the lake's
southern shore,

close to the village
of Kokhanok.

♪♪

I'm Cliff Barackman,
and I am in Kokhanok, Alaska,

on the shores of Lake Iliamna,
Alaska's largest lake.

In some places, this lake
is over 1,000 feet deep.

There's no telling what could be
swimming around

in the bottom of this lake.

NARRATOR: Cliff is here to meet
the latest eyewitness.

It's none less than the borough
manager, Nathan Hill.

On this beach one afternoon
in 2017,

Nathan was one of a handful
of people at this very spot

who witnessed the monster
out on the lake.

So, Nathan, the reason I came
up here is to investigate

some of the stories about the
creature that lives in the lake.

What's your experience
with the creature?

It was a calm day,
and I looked out,

and I saw something
in the lake.

And there was at least
half a dozen people

that had gathered around
to see what was out there.

And at that time,
I had my cellphone,

and I was recording in case
something was to surface.

Probably somewhere between
300 and 500 yards off the beach,

there was something that made
some pretty big wakes,

and everybody there
witnessed it,

and I got it
on a short video clip.

Nathan hasn't posted
his video online.

In fact,
this is the first time

he's agreed to show it
to any outsider.

♪♪

At first, it doesn't look as if
there's anything to see,

but then towards the top
left of the frame,

something strange appears.

HILL: No, look, wait, there!
Look at that right there.

- See it?
- What is that?

- Gary, what is it?
- Whoa.

NARRATOR: It looks like
a giant sea serpent

with three humps
breaking the surface.

♪♪

If Nathan is right
about the distance,

that would make just the visible
part of this lake creature

40 to 50 feet long.

Wow.
Crazy, right?

That's cool.
That's really cool.

Yeah.
That's great.

The quality is poor,

so we're going to
send off the video

for some expert analysis.

- Three of them.
- Look, Gary.

Shortly after this sighting,
Nathan's friend, Thaniel,

had a monster experience
of his own.

He's a fisherman
and was out in his canoe

when the creature surfaced
just yards from him.

What did it
look like?

Like a giant snake creature.Uh-huh.

Wide as the canoe
and three to four times longer

than the canoe and black,
leathery-looking kind of skin.

It had, like,
the arch where --

You know,
it didn't just go straight.

It actually had, like, a little
arch with it or something.

Like a jaw.Like the snout came out.

An arched neck means
this was no giant fish,

and it didn't move
like a fish either.

Where it has, like, the head,
the hump, and the hump,

it would do its --
It was like that.

I was sitting there in awe,
just dumbstruck

of what the heck
am I looking at?

Thaniel's description
does seem to match the monster

than Nathan caught on video,

a giant serpent-like creature
with humps.

♪♪

And from the safety
of the shore,

Thaniel took his own video.

♪♪

He managed to capture
this glimpse of the creature

just before it disappeared
under the surface.

KEESLING: Yeah, what is that?

♪♪

NARRATOR:
It's only in modern times

that people around the lake
have had phones and cameras,

but stories of the creature
go way back.

The native people of the area
have lived here

for nearly 10,000 years.

♪♪

For them, the story of the
lake monster is no fairy tale.

It's part of their oral history.

Raymond Wassille
is a native elder.

I heard stories from
all my eldest before me

of how they saw it,

and stories are the ones that
tell the truth for the nomadics

because they didn't know
how to write it.

NARRATOR: As a young man,

Raymond himself had a close-up
encounter with the monster

when he was out on the lake
with his family.

♪♪

WASSILLE: My dad was on
the cabin looking at it.

He said, "It's longer
than the boat,"

and the boat was almost, like,
32-footer end-to-end.

It looked like it had a hump,

and then I couldn't judge it,

but it looked like it had three
on the way back to it,

then it kind of sloped,
and it had a tail,

and the head looked like
it could swallow you.

♪♪

NARRATOR: Three humps, just like
in the video filmed by Nathan.

♪♪

Anthropologist
Robbin Lavine is an expert

on the native folklore.

As an outsider,
she was always skeptical

about these stories
of a lake monster.

That is, until one July day
back in 2008.

A colleague of mine and I were
flying back into a fish camp

where we had been
conducting research,

and we were on our way down,
flying over a bay.

We were very close to landing,

and I saw something
in the shallows,

something I hadn't seen before.

At first I thought it were
two seals twisting together,

and then I realized no,
it was one creature.

NARRATOR: Robbin's first thought
was a beluga whale.

Belugas do swim in the waters
of Alaska,

and the size was about right,

but belugas are
almost white in color.

The creature Robbin saw
was dark.

It was pebble-colored.

It had a sinuous movement
about it,

but it was definitely
not an eel.

I could see pectoral fins.
I could see tail fins.

As soon as we landed and we were
taxiing up to the shore,

I asked the pilot,
"What was that that we saw

just in the bay
as we were descending?"

and he got really excited.

"What did you see?
What did you see?"

and I told him, and he said,
"Congratulations.

You've seen
the Iliamna lake monster."

♪♪

I was really surprised,
but it was at that time

then that I recalled
the stories I had heard,

the stories that I had dismissed
years earlier

about something in the water.

NARRATOR: Does Lake Iliamna
really have a giant

unknown creature
living in its waters?

It sounds extraordinary,
but this whole area is rife

with stories of strange beasts
and mysterious creatures.

Around here, news of
a lake monster

wouldn't even be that unusual.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
All over the Alaska Triangle,

there is talk of undiscovered
species and strange animals.

The best known is
the monstrous beast

said to live in Lake Iliamna,
the state's biggest lake,

but the mysteries
surrounding this lake

go beyond what lurks beneath.

Schoolteacher Sarah Armstrong
lives overlooking the lake,

but she grew up most in fear
of Iliamna's Bigfoot creature,

what the locals call
the Hairy Man.

I remember growing up
as a little girl,

we would tease each other
when we were out late at night,

"Watch out for the Hairy Man,"
and you know,

it would kind of give you this
spooky feeling and the chills.

NARRATOR:
But it was as an adult

that Sarah
had a firsthand experience.

Myself and two of my friends,
we were going on a camping trip,

and Ray, who's up in the bow,
says, "What the hell is that?"

And we're all looking
in this direction,

and our minds are just wondering
what it is we're seeing

and trying
to focus your eyes,

and within just a blink
of an eye, it was gone.

It just disappeared,

and we were just kind of in awe
and stunned for a moment,

and then we look
at each other like,

"Is that what we think
we just saw?

Did we just see this?"

It just looked like
a tall, black figure.

I didn't really feel scared.

I was just maybe more curious
about the whole thing

and kind of amazed

that what we saw is what we saw.

Something I've heard
about my whole life,

I actually witnessed.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
There have been sightings

of other strange cryptids

around the lake too,

including a bird the size
of a small plane

said to resemble
a prehistoric pterodactyl.

♪♪

But the greatest is
the Lake Iliamna creature.

If it exists, it would dwarf
anything in Alaska.

In fact, there's only one
obvious comparison,

the most famous lake monster
in the world,

the Loch Ness Monster.

♪♪

Does Lake Iliamna in Alaska

really have its own
prehistoric monster?

♪♪

Dr. Robert Alley
is a retired professor

from the University of Alaska
and an expert cryptozoologist.

Everyone has heard
of the Loch Ness Monster.

Well, it stands to reason
if there could be a monster

in Loch Ness, there could
be monsters elsewhere too.

There's definitely
something there.

There have been photos,
sonograms,

pictures that have caused waves
around the world.

♪♪

Many researchers have
hypothesized that Loch Ness

could hold a relic population
of plesiosaurs,

that is, extinct marine reptile.

NARRATOR:
The head of a plesiosaur

would be an exact match

for the monster spotted
by Thaniel Keesling

when he was out in his canoe.

KEESLING:
It had, like, that arch.

Like a jaw.Like, the snout came out.

And it's a good match
for the traditional image

of the Loch Ness Monster.

♪♪

And this Loch Ness photo
from the '50s

seems to show a huge
water creature with humps,

just like the monster
seen by Nathan Hill.

♪♪

Every year, a million people
visit Loch Ness

in the hope of catching a
glimpse of the mysterious beast.

Compared to Loch Ness,

Lake Iliamna
is remote and isolated.

Few tourists come here,

and only about 600 people
live on its shores.

The lake is also over 50 times
bigger than Loch Ness.

If finding the Loch Ness Monster
is difficult,

then what are the chances here?

There's one man who thinks
the monster

may already have been found.

We got a quick giveaway here.

This Memorial Day Weekend,

Americans will take time
to remember and honor

those who died
while serving our country.

NARRATOR: Local radio deejay
Bob Bird has unearthed evidence

that back in 1967,

the monster of Lake Iliamna
was not only found but caught.

In a plane like this,
Chuck Crapaschutz,

who was a Christian missionary,

spotted from the air
and radioed some friends,

"I've got this large fish

swimming right
underneath the surface."

NARRATOR: Word quickly spread
around the air waves

that this could be
the lake monster,

and the idea was mooted
to try to catch it.

BIRD: Somebody with a sense of
adventure took a float plane,

put on some probably very strong
halibut line with large hooks,

and cinching them
to a cleat like that,

tossed the meat
into the water.

Well, as he lollygagged
on the floats,

before too long,

his plane was
being towed around.

NARRATOR: Beneath the surface,

some giant creature
with immense strength

was pulling the plane
across the water.

Eventually,
the monster broke free.

On inspecting the damage,

it was clear that it was
well beyond the capabilities

of any known lake creature.

His plane was towed around.

He looked at the hooks.

They had been straightened out

and maybe others
had been bitten off.

NARRATOR: It would take
unbelievable strength

to straighten out
the large tuna hooks

and bite through the thick
stainless-steel cables.

The creature would have
to be gigantic,

as big as a dinosaur perhaps.

If we're talking about
a plesiosaur,

a creature like this
would absolutely

have no probably towing
a plane around

on the surface of the lake.

These creatures were huge,
up to 50 feet.

To them, a float plane
on the surface of the lake

would be like a toy.

NARRATOR: If there is a giant
dinosaur-like creature

hiding in the lake,

then cryptozoologist
Cliff Barackman

is determined to find it.

He's decided to put
all his trust

in local fisherman
Richard Walton.

♪♪

Thank you for letting me
on your boat

and showing me around
a little bit.

Is it safe to say you know
this lake pretty well?

WALTON: We've traveled this lake
quite a bit

over the course
of our lifetime,

you know, because it's
kind of what you do here.

This is
your road system.

This is how you get around to
all the different communities.

Like Loch Ness,

Lake Iliamna
is exceptionally deep,

and what lies beneath the
surface is largely unexplored.

If there's anywhere
a lake monster

can lie hidden in the depths,
it's here.

NARRATOR: But for Cliff,
comparisons with Loch Ness

go deeper than you might think.

All throughout British Columbia
and Alaska,

there are literally
hundreds of lakes

that have reported lake monsters
living in them,

and what I find interesting
about that is that

the latitude is very similar
to that of Scotland,

where the Loch Ness Monster is.

NARRATOR: Similarities of
climate and water temperature

may partially account for this,
and in these colder parts,

it's easier for creatures
to remain hidden

as there's more wilderness
and fewer people.

♪♪

But there are times when
something strange is spotted

even in a populated area.

In 2016, right in the middle
of the Triangle,

what looks like a giant serpent
rose from the icy depths.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
In the Alaska Triangle,

it's not inconceivable
that strange,

unknown creatures could be
hiding in the forests

or lurking in its waters.

Even large new animals
are still being discovered.

In June 2016, this 24-foot whale
washed up in Alaska

and was found to be
an entirely new species.

♪♪

Now journalist and researcher
Andrew Gough

has pinpointed the
Alaska Triangle as being ripe

for new discoveries
of river and lake creatures.

It's really a perfect storm,

a remote location
with huge bodies of water.

It's full of species
that we have yet to identify

or even begun to understand,

so the natural reaction
is to call them monsters,

and you can understand that,

but really they're
just new species,

and they probably have been here
even longer than we have.

It's the ideal spot for species
to go unnoticed

for hundreds of years.

NARRATOR: In November 2016,

there was a sighting
that created an online storm.

This video appeared,

linked to the Alaska Bureau
of Land Management.

Within days, it racked up
over a million views.

♪♪

The location -- the Chena River,
Fairbanks,

right in the middle
of the Alaska Triangle,

where government worker and
keen photographer Craig McCaa

happens to be based.

He was out on a routine job

inspecting the river
from this bridge.

I was walking out on the bridge
that you can see behind me there

and taking some photos of ice
beginning to form.

This was in late October,

which is early winter
in Fairbanks,

and took out my camera,
pointed it this direction,

and my attention was caught
by movement

in the river right beneath me.

I looked down in the water,
and I did a total stop.

NARRATOR:
When Craig looked down,

he saw something extraordinary,

so he got out his phone
and took this video.

♪♪

Right below him was
what looked like a giant,

serpent-like ice monster
strong enough

to be swimming upstream
in the fast-flowing current.

♪♪

So I'm looking at it now,

right in the river,
right over there.

It's a little strange
to see this thing

swirling back and forth
in the river.

It's got a rough texture.

You can see that
it has ice on it,

and a lot of the rest of it
is obscured by the murky water.

NARRATOR:
Close analysis of the video

puts this strange creature
at about 20 feet long,

but that's just
the visible part.

There is no known animal
in this river

with a size anything like that.

It sent a shiver down my spine.

I had never seen
anything like that.

NARRATOR:
Is this an unknown species

or a relic from prehistory?

♪♪

It's certainly true that
prehistoric creatures

do exist in these waters.

These blood-sucking fish,
known as lampreys,

were around 200 million years
before the dinosaurs,

and they can still
be found in Alaska,

even here in
the middle of Fairbanks.

In fact, in June 2015,
bizarrely,

they began falling on
to the streets of the city.

Fish literally started
raining from the sky.

How on Earth does that happen?

♪♪

NARRATOR: In Cardiff
in the United Kingdom,

Dr. Rhys Jones

is a senior lecturer
in bio sciences

and an environmental researcher.

When I say fish,
I mean fish like this one here.

This is a lamprey.

Superficially looks a little bit
like an eel,

but actually
if I turn it around,

have a look at the face on that.

♪♪

Gough: These are sharp tooth,
foot-long,

blood-sucking eel-like fishes.

These are vampire fishes
that attach themselves

to other animals
and suck their blood.

Now, they're rarely seen,
let alone caught,

but here they are
falling from the sky

miles from any river.

How can that be?

It's hard to imagine what these

ordinary people
would have thought.

They must have been terrified,

mystified,
and utterly freaked out.

NARRATOR: How the lamprey came
to be falling from the sky

has never been established.

But could the serpent-like
ice creature

be a kind of giant,
prehistoric blood-sucking fish?

McCAA: When I started filming
this object in the river,

I didn't really know,

and I still don't know
what it was.

It moved like a giant fish,
I have to say that,

the way it undulated
in the current

and it kind of held its place.

♪♪

Generally speaking,
what's in the Chena River

is some species of freshwater
fish like Arctic grayling,

northern pike, burbot.

There's mammals that pass
through the river

or beaver that live in
and around the river,

but I can't think of anything

that's more than 3
or 4 feet long,

and what I saw was much,
much longer than that.

Nature still provides these
mysteries from time to time

that force you
to stop and think,

"What am I looking at?
How can I explain this?"

♪♪

NARRATOR: Whether a strange
giant fish or not,

could this creature be related
to the monster of Lake Iliamna?

♪♪

The Chena River is a tributary
to the mighty Yukon River,

which connects many
of the waterways

and lakes of Alaska
to the coast,

and then from there,

it's a short journey upriver
to Lake Iliamna.

This means that there's
a ready network

for these creatures to disperse
throughout the Triangle,

but is there any evidence
of more than one lake monster?

♪♪

Loch Ness has only ever
had sightings

of individual monsters,

but now one listener
to Bob Bird's radio show

has phoned in with some
startling new evidence

which, if true,
would mean in Lake Iliamna,

there's more than one monster.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
Alaska's largest lake, Iliamna,

is said to be
the home of a monster

just like Loch Ness in Scotland,
and the local radio station

has been taking calls
on the subject.

♪♪

ANNOUNCER: Welcome back to
"The Bird's Eye View" on KSRM.

NARRATOR: Deejay Bob Bird has
had one call that suggests

the Lake Iliamna creature
is not alone.

Increasingly,
the calls to Bob's show

aren't just about
Lake Iliamna.

Bob's many listeners
have added

to the evidence of monsters
elsewhere in the region too.

♪♪

BIRD: There's also similar
sightings in other large lakes,

Lake Clark,
which feeds into Lake Iliamna,

has its own legends,
Becharof Lake,

which is south of Iliamna,
had a very credible sighting.

NARRATOR: Bob is now convinced
that witnesses to the monster

are genuine.

We're not dealing with a mirage,
a deluded individual.

We're not dealing with
mistaken identities.

We've got something
that needs explaining.

NARRATOR: Bob's own
investigations have led him

to what could be
a secret government report

on these lake monsters.

BIRD: As I understand it,

the Alaska Department
of Fish and Game

kept once a file
on the sightings

to see what sort of consistency
there might be in the reports.

I don't know if
that file exists anymore

because as a journalist,
two years ago,

I asked them to find it for me,
and they didn't have it.

I have no doubt
there was once a file.

NARRATOR: What was in that file?

We don't know.

But the caller to Bob's show

has agreed to tell
his story on camera.

These things were awful big,
and there was a lot of them.

NARRATOR: One clear afternoon
in the late '90s,

local businessman Gary Nielsen

was out on the lake
with his wife.

My wife was looking
over the side, and she screams,

and she's on my side
of the boat in my lap

screaming at me to go faster,

so I just automatically hit
the throttle fast forward,

and as I looked back
to where she was looking,

there was these two heads
probably about that long

and about that wide,

just the heads, and they
were traveling like that,

and they were looking at us
as we were going by.

The heads were maybe
2 feet long, maybe longer,

16 to 18 inches wide,
triangular-shaped,

very sleek-looking,
and the bodies were awful long,

but I couldn't tell
the body length

because I was too busy trying
to get into the shallow water.

These things were big.

NARRATOR: Gary's detailed
description matches

that of other witnesses

and also that
of the Loch Ness Monster.

For the scientists,
multiple monsters is a given.

If there's one monster,
there has to be more than one.

There has to be
a breeding population.

There can never be just one.

When you have
a biological population,

you've got to have
significant numbers

for maintaining a gene pool.

NARRATOR: There's one particular
aspect of the lake creatures

that haunts Gary to this day.

The eyes were so huge.

They were just big, round,

the best description
is dead black eyes,

like they were made for deep
water where there's less light.

NARRATOR: Huge eyes made for
deep water could be a clue

to how these monsters
are connected to the Triangle.

There's an old native belief

that the separate waterways
and lakes

are linked
by underground channels.

It's a story that Robbin Lavine
has come across

as a part of her work
with the native people.

One of the stories I heard
when I was out there

was that there was
a possibility,

that the elders say that there
may be an underwater passage,

a tunnel from Iliamna Lake
to the saltwater inlet.

NARRATOR:
Could it really be possible

that these links exists?

Well, there's some firm science
that suggests they do,

and with access to the sea

through large
underwater passageways,

any number of giant creatures
could be in there.

♪♪

NARRATOR: Evidence is building
that there are unknown creatures

lurking in the depths
of Lake Iliamna in Alaska.

But if it's true, how did
these creatures get here?

♪♪

Bruce Wright
is a former professor

from the University of Alaska,

and he's been researching
the bed of the lake.

WRIGHT: It's so deep.

It's at least 1,200 feet,
but nobody knows.

Nobody has taken a rock
tied to a string

and dropped it down
to the bottom.

NARRATOR: As well as being of
unknown depth,

the lake lies on top
of unstable bedrock.

It's a geologically active area.

There probably are cracks
down at the bottom of the lake.

Kind of makes you wonder,
well, maybe there's a link

to the ocean
through these things.

NARRATOR: From the coast,
any number of creatures

could navigate their way
up into Lake Iliamna.

♪♪

For Gary Nielsen and his wife,

spotting two lake monsters
was just the start.

As I was watching them,
I saw all these other wakes

all around and up in front,

and some of the ripples or wakes
were, like, 2 feet high.

NARRATOR:
Multiple wakes 2 feet high.

They could only be caused
by something massive

moving in the water.

NIELSEN:
We didn't bother to go out there

and try to see
how big those big ones

were because we were busy
trying to stay alive

in the shallow water.

NARRATOR:
But there's another scientific question that needs answering.

If the lake has a large
population of giant,

pre-historic beasts,
what are they feeding on?

How are they surviving?

The answer lies in Alaska's
abundant wildlife.

♪♪

WRIGHT: Alaska has a really wide
variety of marine animals

because it's so productive
up here.

A lot of that is driven
by the cleanliness

of the waters off of Alaska,

but also there's
high oxygen levels,

so we have good
phytoplankton bloom,

and that energy drives

this really rich valuable
set of organisms

that live up here
and lots of fish.

NARRATOR: If a large unknown
species was to exist anywhere,

this would be the place.

Food is plentiful,
and one fish in particular

provides a direct link
to Loch Ness in Scotland.

WRIGHT:
There's five million salmon

that are entering this big lake,

moving up into the rivers,

or spawning
right along the shoreline,

and the salmon really drive
the terrestrial ecosystem.

The energy from the salmon
moves through the ecosystem

via bears and eagles
that eat the salmon

and move those nutrients
up into the ecosystem.

In fact, if you go out and you
look at the stable isotopes

of certain atoms in the trees,

you'll find out that
they're mostly made of salmon.

NARRATOR: Like Loch Ness,
because of the salmon,

Lake Iliamna could sustain

any number
of fish-eating plesiosaurs,

and multiple monsters
would increase

the danger out on the lake.

♪♪

It's a theory that Gary
now holds to

because of his own encounter.

And there's old stories
about that that I never,

ever believed from way back when

of them pulling people
out of kayaks or boats even.

I never believed them
until that moment.

♪♪

NARRATOR: Out on the lake,
cryptozoologist Cliff Barackman

is determined to investigate

what's going on
beneath the surface.

If there was
just one lake creature,

it could be anywhere,
but multiple creatures

would significantly increase
his chance of seeing something,

and the boat's sonar

can detect anything
big moving beneath them.

A lot of fisherman rely on tools
like this, you know,

for their livelihood, you know,
to find big schools of fish,

for the same nets
and all that stuff,

but this would also be
a very effective tool

to see any large animal
under the surface too.

Not just smaller fish,
but, like,

something large like
one of these lake creatures.

♪♪

With the sonar deployed,
the hunt is on.

♪♪

NARRATOR: Over recent years,
new video footage

has come to light
of strange creatures

in the waters
of the Alaska Triangle.

♪♪

Out on the biggest lake
in Alaska,

cryptozoologist Cliff Barackman
and fisherman Richard

are using sonar to try to find
one of these elusive beasts.

Mysterious shapes
pass by beneath them,

but it's impossible
to identify what they are.

Is this a plesiosaur, head up,
swimming deep beneath them?

WALTON: It's something,
moving across the screen.

BARACKMAN: That's a big one,
whatever it is.

The best image Cliff has is
the video taken by Nathan Hill,

the local borough manager.

It's this video we're keen
to have analyzed,

and we're showing it
to Dr. Alley.

I'm looking here at a video
of Lake Iliamna,

and we can actually see
three objects above the water

that appear to be curved

and not linear like
a wave would be,

so it's suggestive
of a biological creature.

And in fact, if you had to
compare it with something,

with any one thing,
you would want to compare it

with those three-humped
little statuesques

that you see in the gift shops
at Loch Ness showing head,

middle, lump, one, two, three,

and you know you
don't have schools of porpoise

jumping in Lake Iliamna,

and it's doubtful that three
sturgeon are going to arise.

What this suggests is something
that is swimming in the manner

not of a reptile or a fish
with a lateral undulation

or amphibian,
but rather a mammal.

This is a tremendously
exciting thing to watch,

possibly unidentified species
or fossil mammals

that we think are extinct
may actually still be living,

trapped in fresh water.

It would suggest just as
equally a plesiosaur.

So there are those
who say it's a mammal.

There are those who say no,
it's got to be a reptile.

We know it's got to be
something.

Something is in there,
but what it is?

♪♪

NARRATOR: Out on the lake,

Cliff and Richard
find no conclusive evidence.

Considering the size of the task
at hand,

this is no great surprise.

According to scientists,

even with a large number
of lake monsters,

sightings could still remain
very rare.

If you have salty water
at the bottom of the lake

that is oxygenated
by some geological phenomena,

you could have some
really unusual animals

living down there that could
stay down there, be inactive,

and then when
the salmon show up,

go eat your 5,000 pounds
of salmon

and then just
go back down there.

NARRATOR: For those who have
seen the monster,

an unknown species
certainly fits the bill.

It's easy to dismiss what we
call myths, what we call legends

until you've actually witnessed
it yourself,

and then you realize that what
people might refer to as a myth,

what people might
refer to as a legend

is actually local knowledge.

♪♪

What I saw was perhaps its own
unique type of species

as yet undiscovered.

♪♪

WRIGHT:
At first, I wasn't convinced.

I'm a pretty skeptical
scientist.

I like to hold in my hand
what we're talking about.

But it's hard to talk
to anybody out there

that hasn't interacted
with this animal or seen it.

To talk to all these people,

and it's just convincing
there's something out there.

♪♪

LAVINE: We have so many
more questions to answer,

and that's
the wonder of Alaska.

NIELSEN: Be aware.

A lot of things
can kill you out here

without even trying.

♪♪