Jon Solo Sebastian 01/05/2025:

Happy 2025! I’m back with my first cryptid piece of the year! Did you know Lake Erie has its own version of a Loch Ness Monster? Did you know her name is Bessie? AND, did you know Cleveland’s American Hockey League (AHL) team was named The Lake Erie Monsters before changing their name to The Cleveland Monsters? Like some of the folklore of other cryptids, or monsters I’ve written about last year, city sports teams take on the names of the creatures they’re known for; an example would be the Jersey Devils, or the aforementioned Cleveland Monsters.

I don’t believe Bessie is as popular as other beasties from other cities or states across America, but I would like to help bump it up a notch considering how close I live to the lake. Let’s make this go viral! If you live in the Cleveland area, or any of the cities or states near Lake Erie and have a Bessie story, please reach out so we can chat, or even make plans to search for it; even though it hasn’t been seen for quite some time, it might still be lurking out there.

Now that we know there’s potentially a large, and allegedly prehistoric beast lurking the lake, we need to know what to look out for while we’re sailing the seas of cheese (10 points if you get that reference).

Lake Erie isn’t the sea of cheese. So please just take that as a fun little reference if you grew up in the 90’s!

What does Bessie look like?

Sightings of this mythical or real beast date back to 1793 near Sandusky, Ohio. Some sources state the beast had been seen long before that year, but this is when sightings began to pick up and while the reports have dwindled, we still hear about her in 2024.

The descriptions of the beast vary slightly aside from its length, which is said to be approximately 40-50 feet long. Some say it resembles a giant serpent or a dragon. The color of its scales range from green to brown to silver or copper, even. That complicates things when it comes to agreeing on what Bessie actually is. There could be more than one of them living in the lake, which could explain the differences in color, or the variations could factor in the time of day, and reflections of sunlight and such. I’m no expert, but I highly doubt Lake Erie is swarming with these creatures.

Another ding against its actual existence is the disparity of what she looks like. The majority of witnesses never deviate from the length of the beast—forty to fifty feet, but her face is a different matter. Some sightings make mention of her having a dog-like head with ostrich eyes. I also mentioned her being called a dragon, but where are her wings? Maybe she’s an ancient Japanese dragon. Those dragons didn’t have wings, but how would she have gotten all the way over to Lake Erie? The most common description of Bessie is that she is a forty foot long scaly serpent with humps, and “many cryptozoologists suspect that Bessie may be an ancestor of the plesiosaur, a massive marine reptile creature that was thought to have gone extinct with the dinosaurs.”

What else can we learn about her aside from her appearance?

According to eye witnesses and fishermen, Bessie might be a solid entry in the Olympics because she is said to be an extremely fast swimmer. Some say they’ve watched her chill in the water for more than a few minutes, while others state that she’s there and gone with the snap of a finger.

Hockey Team and Beer

Hockey and beer sounds like a solid combination to me! Firstly, the owner of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, Dan Gilbert, purchased the dormant Utah Grizzlies of the American Hockey League (AHL) in 2006 to bring Hockey to Cleveland. As stated earlier, they were originally known as the Lake Erie Monsters before changing the name to the Cleveland Monsters in 2016. How did they get the name for the team? That’s pretty easy to answer. From Wikipedia, “The name was chosen from researching focus groups around the Cleveland area and the logo incorporated the geographical connection in the region with Lake Erie.” I personally love that they took local folklore into account when naming this team after Bessie, the Lake Erie Monster, herself.

Now, for the beer side of this, we head over to the infamous Great Lakes Brewing Company; if you’re from the area or surrounding states, you’ve likely heard of them, and have sampled their beers. This was simply a match waiting to happen. A highly rated brewing company located in the same area of local folklore about a monster lurking in the lake; you can’t write it up better than that one, folks. They had the cryptid, they just needed to create the right flavorful beer for it, and they did. They’ve apparently made some adjustments to the original brew, but it is still highly rated, so give it a chance if you’re into that sort of thing.

Is Bessie real or just another snake in the sea?

Skeptics say it’s impossible for a giant creature to reside in Lake Erie. I dislike the word impossible because just about anything is possible. While I understand to a point, due to the amount of ship travel, international border patrol between Canada and The United States, the residencies that surround the lake, on top of Lake Erie being the shallowest of the Great Lakes—her existence has the odds stacked against her. Lake Erie receives high traffic volume year round (unless it freezes), so you’d think there would be some rock hard evidence, or some clear images of Bessie by now, if it was really there. Many cryptozoologists counter these arguments by saying it’s possible the creature has adapted to its environment over time, so Bessie could in fact, be out there. It’s more than likely just a folktale, but a fun one; and a local one for me! What do you think? Have you seen her, or do you at least believe she could be swimming around Lake Erie?