I saw something once, something big and monstrous and unbelievable. I’m not talking about Bigfoot or the Lochness Monster, which I can’t bring myself to believe in. My monster was more mundane then an eight foot tall North American ape or a leftover brontosaurus. What I saw does exist. Nobody disputes that; it just wasn’t supposed to be where I saw it.
It was five years ago, while padding on North South Lake, upstate, in the Catskills. I had the whole family out on the water, enjoying a sunny afternoon in our canoe. There were lots of folks out that day camping, picnicking, fishing, paddling, swimming and hiking on the footpaths around the lake and in the surrounding woods.
My youngest was in the bow, my wife was behind him, paddle in hand, then my older son sat behind her, using our little blue cooler as a seat. I was in the stern, paddling and steering. As we crossed over an area of submerged water lilies, my wife and kids were looking right but my attention was pulled in the other direction by some people on shore, loitering around a little stone bridge. I thought one of them might jump off the bridge into the lake, which I didn’t want to miss. When that didn’t happen I turned my attention back to paddling.
On my next stroke, just as I inserted the blade of my paddle into the water, it appeared. It swam silently, emerging from beneath the canoe, right under my wife’s seat. The biggest damn turtle that anyone has ever seen; it was a beast. It swam away from us at an angle, just beneath the water’s surface above a bright green bed of seaweed growing on the shallow bottom. The water was clear as glass and it didn’t disturb the surface a bit. It was unreal. Just like that; one moment I’m paddling along, and the next I’m looking at something out of a Godzilla movie.
I was gobsmacked. The shell was four feet across with a GIGANTIC head and a big meaty tail that looked like it belonged on a dinosaur. It had big spiky ridges across its shell, bits of bright red and yellow spots and long claws hanging from the ends of its feet. I can still see those claws in my mind’s eye. For a moment, it was close enough to reach out and touch if I were quicker or less surprised or completely stupid.
And just like that it was gone. With all four of us in the canoe I couldn’t turn around quickly. I drove my paddle into the water to stop and calmly asked my family if they had seen the snapping turtle. They hadn’t. I managed to get the canoe turned around as I explained what I’d seen. I asked my wife if she had her camera along. She questioned my judgement in pursuing a turtle that was large enough to tip our boat over.
“Turtles don’t eat people” I assured her as I scanned the lilies for another sign of the monster. Desperate, I called out to the people on shore, “Did you just see that snapping turtle? Did you see where it went?” They shrugged. It was gone and after a while before I gave up looking. We enjoyed the rest of a beautiful day on the Lake. But in my mind I was riding an emotional roller coaster, processing what I’d seen. We packed up the truck and went home.
The first thing I did when we got home was to start researching snapping turtles. The Common Snapper that lives in New York doesn’t get as big as the one I’d seen, not nearly as big. Then I found his cousin, that lives in the south, called the Alligator Snapping Turtle. Alligator Snappers, I learned, grow much bigger and when I started looking at pictures of them I was fully convinced that this was what I saw. I searched “alligator snapping turtle in NY” and found an article about one found on Long Island and removed by Animal Control. The article stated clearly that it had to be released as a pet because these turtles do not live in New York.
Like other people who have seen something incredible, I couldn’t shut up about it. Anybody who expressed the slightest interest in boating, fishing or really, anything outdoorsy, would hear my story. I’m not sure anyone believed me, including the three who were in the canoe with me. The reactions ranged from polite, patronizing to skeptical: “I doubt it was that big, probably just a regular snapping turtle.” I’ve seen dozens of common snappers over the years, going back to 5th grade when I first saw one pulled out of Belvedere Lake near Oneonta.
Common Snappers are a dull green and, while they have pointy protrusions around the edge of their shell — called a carapace — they don’t have the multiple rows of (alligator-like) ridges running front to back across the top of their shell. Common Snappers shells are rounded and relatively smooth.
I understand the skepticism. How could a turtle be that big? What I saw would be near the size of the largest Alligator Snapping Turtles on record. According to Wikipedia 249 lbs is the largest ever verified. There is one unverified report of a turtle over 400 lbs and estimated to over 160 years old. There are also reports of Alligator Snappers, presumably pets, being found far outside of their range in Oregon, Germany and the Czech Republic.
North South Lake has been a tourist destination for a long time. It’s the site of the Catskill House, which was built in 1823. The state took over the tract in 1929 and eventually razed the hotel site in 1963. It’s not impossible that the pet-released-to-the-wild scenario took place there years ago, maybe before World War One when North South was still two separate lakes. My turtle remained undiscovered, peacefully living the life of an apex predator (and growing) on the bottom of the lake for a hundred years.
Eventually I grew tired of people looking at me like I was full of it or prone to hysterics. I felt like one of the guys on cable who make a whole show out of walking through the woods at night in search of Bigfoot. Every episode, one of them turns to the camera and says “Did you hear that? That’s definitely a squatch!”
The experience gives me sympathy for people who sincerely believe they’ve seen a Bigfoot or a UFO. It doesn’t matter what the rest of us know to be true. Like them, I know what I saw in that lake. That’s all I have — no proof other then my own non-expert witness testimony.
So I stopped telling people about the giant turtle. At some point we found new places to camp, paddle and explore. It had been several years since I visited North South Lake. I started thinking about it again when I purchased an Empire Pass this spring. I bought it primarily to access Nyack Beach, one of my favorite Hudson River kayak put-ins but the pass meant I wouldn’t have to pay to park at North South or a number of other state run facilities.
I figured I would go back and poke around a bit, this time with our lifeproof-encased iPhones along in case I got a glimpse of my turtle. On a recent Saturday when Junior and I had nothing better to do, we loaded two kayaks on top of my truck and headed for the Catskills. We parked on the North Lake side and unloaded our kayaks.
Junior’s favorite boat in our fleet is a maneuverable little no-nonsense 8 footer called a Yakboard. I brought the shorter of my two touring kayaks for myself, a red, white and blue Dagger we call “the bomb pop.” If we got lucky and bumped into our monster snapper, I’d do my best to get a picture of him with one of us in the shot, even better. We could use the length of our boats to estimate size.
It was another beautiful day to be out on the lake. We had a great time and paddled every inch of that lake, taking our time to pay special attention to where I’d seen him the first time and places with similar vegetation and conditions. We saw some very small turtles. We saw ducks, geese, a beaver and eventually, one small common snapper. We also had an epic water squirter battle when we got bored with our search.
Like most monster hunters, I came home with nothing but a story. Like most monster hunters, I put in a nominal, superficial effort and gave up quickly. I knew it was a long shot, but my lack of success hasn’t diminished my certainty about what I saw all those years ago. We had fun looking and now that my turtle is front of mind again, I’m thinking about going back again. Maybe I’ll bring the grill and some burgers and go back out for an afternoon search as well. It doesn’t really matter. I know what I saw.
This is an awesome story and yes, we do believe you! I mean, if they can pull an alligator at of the Hackensack river, we are sure you saw what you saw..
Needless to say, we have seen a few lights in the sky and let me tell you.. What we saw was for sure not something that looked like a plane or any flying craft we know.
This needs some spooky music……
Thanks Albas. I am actually even more eager to get back to Pico now so I can hear more about those lights.
Great story! I need to add this to my list of places to paddle and continue the quest to find the beast.
We saw a bigger one walking route 30 by blue lake, deep large waters can support larger life and stay well hidden. Stay long enough in the wild and you see and smell some strange stuff.
I just found “a baby” alligator snapper down in my basement’s window well. I’m in Monroe County NY (Rochester) and the little guy was trying to climb out. I was downstairs in my basement and thought I heard some tapping…a familiar sound of small toads that often seek refuge. But nope, it tried to climb up the window…first a tiny head, then tiny feet with needle like claws followed by the shell.
This Was Not some creekside snapper with the smooth surfaced shell. When I got my work gloves and picked him up, it looked like something from “the land before time”. Amazing spikes and camouflaged shell. He was smaller than the palm of my hand with a “whip like tail” that was nearly the length of his shell. Very spry and extremely eager to forage. “Totally illegal” as an animal control officer who happened to be at the town park I released him into (heavier brush in back with a small creek/stream) shrugged and looked the other way. He knew of nobody close by to care for it and no DEC ECO would run out anytime soon as cool as it was…there were bigger fish to fry on their agenda and I was pressed for time. I hope it was the right thing or at the very least, understandable. In some states I now know they are treated as invasive and euthanized or in others considered “vulnerable”. Tough call…at least for me at that time this morning.
Wow, I find those last two comments somewhat validating. It sounds like there are a few alligator snappers around NYS, both big and small. I wonder how many.
Hey there, Brownski.
Not for nothing, but I saw an alligator snapping turtle in a park in Westchester about two weeks ago. They’re very distinctive looking at VERY large so I have a high degree of confidence that I identified it correctly. I also rescued one that was crossing the road with my son on a camping trip in upstate New York in the late Spring – it was immense and at least 40 pounds of turtle. I was up close and personal with it so, again, I am very confident I identified it correctly.
Given my non-scientific study of the species – an infrequent-camper who has seen two of these in over the last 12 months – I’m willing to bet it has become an invasive species in the East that nobody is tracking yet (at least publicly).
Dave
Another (possible) sighting in Watertown/Black River, Brownski!
My husband and I were walking on the Black River Trail today, and while enjoying this lovely autumn weather we’re having, saw a baby turtle just minding it’s business on the paved path. We picked the little guy up, not wanting him to be squished (tons of foot, and bike traffic today) and put him in the marshy area near by. Did some googling later to figure out what he was precisely, only to find out that he very well could be an alligator snapping turtle! Well this led me to search if this type of turtle is common in upstate NY (my husband and myself are not NY natives), which from the sounds of it, that’s a resounding NO. As others are saying, sounds like this species is becoming, common? Invasive? A lot more sighted to say the least.
H.
About 30 years ago I was camping around Harriman state park upstate NY . I was cleaning up the plates after cooking Frank’s and beans and some left over food was floating around .then I noticed a huge rock in the water as I was washing up, I noticed the rock getting closer ,then I realized that it was a huge snapper at least twice the size I’ve ever seen about 3 feet across . I have been fishing for years around Poconos and never seen one that big before or since . So they do have big ones what kind of snapper is anyone guess.
I saw a huge one in Orange County NY, in Ridgebury Lake, we used to fish there as kids. Once in a while there would be a commotion on the top of the water, and a duck would go missing with to the feathers scattered about. So we knew there was something in there.
One day when I was riding my bike up Ridgeberry Road which is a hill. There’s a place we can stop and rest that has a small bridge with the stream going under it. I looked down and saw the biggest alligator snapping turtle I’ve ever seen in my life, I was by myself unfortunately, but he was about 3 1/2 feet across in shell, had huge head and huge tail, and had these red and yellow eyes, with tremendous spikes on it shell.
When I got a little bit older and started hanging out with the girls in the neighborhood they would always want to go swimming in Ridgebury Lake, and I would say hell no you have no idea what lives in there. And I would tell people and they would think I was crazy. Somebody was letting exotic pets go in that area, because a few years later they had found snakeheads in the lake.
Love this story and if for nothing else it validates my own. Been quarantined up in Coxsackie for the past few months and the property has a small lake that I’ve been swimming and canoeing on, at one end on several occasions i have spotted a massive turtle!! There are a few smaller ones popping there heads out once in a while, but this guy has go to be 3 feet. I have him submerging on video but left my camera on Shore the few times i could have gotten a good shot of him. But i will get that picture one of these days by hook or by crook so people won’t think I’m trying to sell them a Lochness story!
I saw one in a pond outside of Keene Valley, NY in 2018. It had definitive spikes and was quite big. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera.
Well all my life I have been going to White Lake NY in Sullivan County (Woodstock was my 1st concert- oh boy).
While fishing with my cousin on Amber Lake we spotted something ridged moving slowly along. We paddled over and as we got close it sped up and slipped under water like a submarine. The biggest thing we ever saw and although we continued to fish in Amber Lake we never put our hands in the water. EVER. Well last year while having coffee about 7AM on White Lake (attached to Amber) my buddy and I were gazing into the water off our dock and then the ground moved. Well it wasn’t the ground but it was THE biggest turtle either of us ever saw. 3 to 4 feet across with 2 white slash marks on its neck. Must have been hit by a prop of a boat.
Googled it and yes it was 1 of those alligator jobs from the south. Others have seen it also but you can’t believe how big the head is, or its claws. Told my cousin and we wondered if by chance it could be the same one from all those years ago.
I’ve just been told second hand how alligator turtles 4 ft across with a 4 ft tail are coming up out of the water north of the Poconos near the New York state line. I thought it was ridiculous until I read the stories here.
“It was a dark and stormy night…”. Lol, ok, ok… it was a beautiful spring morning in April, about 5 years ago at my home on a private man-made lake in the southern Finger Lakes region of New York State. We were having coffee down at the lake’s edge when about 15’ from us in the water I noticed a large apparently dead turtle (shell guessed to be about a foot long), floating upended on its side. We were in the throes of deciding what we should do with the carcass when we realized it was slowly rising, turning and sinking. Bill went up to the house to get one of the kayaks so we could get a closer look, while my camera and I became privy to one of the most jaw-dropping things I’ve ever witnessed in nature. The bobbing arc we’d seen was only a fraction of the full size of what lurked beneath the water. Fascinated, I watched as features began appearing – ominous-looking football-sized head, huge bear-like claws, 3’ long spikey shell and equally long slightly curled saw-toothed tail began slowly breaking the surface, rolling and sinking again ?
But wait! There’s more! Lol…
As I watched, absolutely spellbound, a second creature joined the dance, and I began to realize I had intruded on a spring mating ritual between a pair of alligator snapping turtles – pretty rare in NY, and absolutely unforgettable. When Bill returned with the kayak we went out on the lake and as the morning unfolded we witnessed many more turtles of all shapes and sizes than I’ve ever seen before or since – some visible just under the water’s surface, and smaller ones sunning themselves on the abundant half-submerged dead tree limbs.
I saw an AST on Staten Island
Yup I grew up in the Glens Falls area and we used to catch them big and small up and down the Champlain Canal. As far as I can tell common snappers all have the smooth shells even as babies with few ridges. The ones with with the bumpy spikes are either an unknown species that looks just like them or burry deep enough in the mud to get through the winter. It is strange they aren’t listed anywhere.
I saw one 50 years ago with binoculars in tiny Duane Lake, north of the Catskills. I wrote it up for a school composition assignment. Others reported seeing it, too.
Was kayaking today in North South Lake with a group of individuals and we saw it. Massive turtle.
Now that’s something. I find all the comments here extremely validating but that last one in particular. Did any of your party happen to get a pic, Bronce?
Brownski, no we didn’t get a picture. We all were paddling towards the south end of the lake. We then saw a shell with the small spikes on the surface of the water. As we got near it we can tell it was a massive turtle. We left it alone.
I’m glad I found this article. I was up in the Adirondacks back in 2012, and I was staying with my then girlfriend and her family, who rented out this old house by a large pond for a week in July. The property came with a couple of kayaks and a canoe. If you followed one end of the pond it took you down this winding creek that was rather wide and seemed to stretch for miles through the woods.
My ex’s brother took the kayak out and was gone for a couple of hours. When he came back to the house, he told all of us about a “dinosaur” he saw while kayaking. He described it as the largest turtle he’d ever seen. The family wrote him off, but I was intrigued.
Later that night, right before sunset, the brother and I took the canoe out to go fishing. We had no luck, so we started heading back to shore. As we were paddling, the water near the canoe started to ripple and this absolutely enormous turtle, likely 4 feet wide, passed directly beneath the boat. It was hard to determine it’s length, but I would guess it was around 5-6 feet long.
The two of us completely froze and watched as this creature moved to a spot about 30 feet from us. Within moments the turtle was joined by at least two others of equal size, and they appeared to feast on fish before submerging.
By this point, the sun had set. We paddled back and tried to explain to the rest of the family what we saw, but it was laughed off.
Like the author, I have spent years telling people about it while also searching for similar accounts. This article is the only thing I’ve found that makes me feel less crazy for witnessing what I did on thay July night ten years ago.
The author’s illustration is startling accurate, if not underscoring the size of the turtles I encountered. I’m not a biologist, so I have no rational explanation for what I experienced, but it’s comforting to know I’m not insane for witnessing these creatures.
Thank you! We just saw a huge Alligator snapping turtle yesterday in Rockland Lake, NY
We were terrified bc at first sight we thought it was an actual alligator.
Nobody believed us, so I started searching for reptiles with large black ridges with a long tail and then your article came up
We were kayaking when we saw it.
It was HUGE!!!
Thanks for validating our experience when everyone thinks we are wrong about what we saw!
Yup, NEVER putting my hands in the water again, ever! Lol
Hi I grew up in Merrick Long Island New York. I saw Alligator Snapping Turtles adults, hatchling, female laying eggs. It was between 1959 and 1966. I know what a Common Snapping turtle looks like and what adult and hatchling Alligator Snapping Turtles look like. This is a viable population living there. Probably individuals were released by people who were on vacation in Florida and brought them back to Long Island with them.
My family has an island on Upper St. Regis Lake in the Adirondacks. One morning about 33 years ago I was on a deck over one of the boathouses. I was looking down at the glassy water when this giant turtle emerged. I was shocked and thought I was looking at a dinosaur, so I ran to get my mother or see if one of my siblings would come see this amazing creature. By the time I got back to the deck, it was gone and no one believed I had been what I thought, but I know what I saw and I wasn’t exaggerating. I’m glad to have found this thread, as now I know it wasn’t just me and that these beasts do exist. I remember noting that the turtle I saw would have been too wide to fit in the boat slip, so it was huge. I wish I’d have had a camera to have caught a photo.
Back in the late 90s I was driving south back into Syracuse across the I81 bridge in Brewerton. This is the west end of Oneida Lake. There was what I thought was a snapper the size of a car tire crossing the interstate. Could possibly have been a transplanted alligator snapper due to its size.
Hello Brownski!
Greetings from Buffalo – the real upstate NY!
My wife (of 44 years!) and I live on a suburban, shallow 7 acre pond fed and discharged by a stream. Upsteam are a network of marshy ponds generally inaccessible by humans.
The LM bass fishing has been legendary with routine 3-5 lb catches and an 8.1 lb measured and released in 2020.
We fish from a spartan, 14×6 flat-deck pontoon boat with dual swivel seats and a calf-high rail.
In fall 2022 we were fishing in 2’ of clear water and my wife jumped off the forward swivel in a sudden start and called me to the fore as her eyes had caught a large beast moving toward the bow of our boat.
As I straddled the tips of the pontoons, I witnessed a giant turtle with a head the size of an NFL football, slowly cross our bow from the side. I could see carapace between my legs and on the outside of both pontoons at the same time! The boat is 6’ wide with the pontoons angling in slightly. I’m putting the length of the carapace at or around 6’.
BTW – the fishing has been progressively and inexplicably less productive in recent years.
I think we found out why!
My father found an Alligators Snapping turtle crossing the road in Wyoming County New York in the early 1990s. He put it in his truck and drove it home to show us. It was 100% an alligator snapping turtle. The image of the ugliest monster I ever saw in my life was burned into my 10ish year old mind.
It never occurred to any of us at the time that it was an invasive species and didn’t “belong” in New York.
I believe you. I know they’ve at least been in Western New York for 3 decades.