Was there a giant cephalopod in Devil's Lake?

I've always wondered why Devil's Lake in Lincoln City, Oregon was called Devil's Lake and now thanks to the book Spooky Oregon by Se Schlosser I now know. It would seem that in the lake there may have been, at least according to Native American legend, a tentacled monstrosity. To verify this legend, I did a search and sure enough it's a real one, and seems to share similarities with tale about a Devil's Lake in Wisconsin.

The short story as for as the Oregon one goes is that the Siletz Indian tribe centuries ago used to really like of the area of Devil's Lake. Then one night when a group of warriors was dispatched across the lake, massive tentacles burst forth from the waters destroying the canoes. The warriors where then flung around, beaten against the water and debris, and died from drowning or injury. From then on the lake was called Devil's Lake.

The lake itself was formed around 14,000 BC, but remains connected to the ocean via a 120ft river. At it's deepest goes down about 22ft. The lake's salinity I'd assume is freshwater since it has fresh water fish living there. However given that there is such a short river (shortest in the world apparently) connecting the ocean to the lake, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's somewhere between fresh and brackish...who knows. Anyways cephalopods (squids, octopi, and nautiluses) are not supposed to be able to survive in freshwater (excepting a species of squid that is able to survive in brackish water) and yet those are the only things with tentacles that I think would match the description of the offending monster. Reports have circulated around the world however of chance encounters with cephalopods that appear to be living in freshwater, some apparently have even attacked people.

Assuming that by some chance the legend indeed tells of an encounter with some unidentified cephalopod what type could it be? I think the giant and colossal squids are dead in the water in this case (no pun intended) due to the lake's depth being to shallow for creatures of their size. Perhaps it was some other semi-largish squid, yet I don't feel a squid could attack the way the one in the story given their body shape in general. That leaves us with the octopus (because nautiluses are totally out of the question since they don't get really large at all) which I think could attack in such a manner much easier then a squid.

Now the Giant Pacific Octopus is the largest known octopus and actually lives here in the Pacific Northwest. It can survive in a variety of depths, but does not the reach a size in which it can trash canoes, excepting of course it wound up in one. So maybe it was an unknown octopus of large size capable of surviving in semi-fresh water despite the fact cephalopods generally can't. Or perhaps the more likely scenario is that it was an fluke accident that the octopus grew to such large size to begin with, with conditions in Devil's Lake being just right for it to thrive in spite of what we know about cephalopods. Either way, it's all fun conjecture until all this talk about tentacled beasties gets someone eaten by a Cthulhu spawn.

Modified from a picture originally taken by someone from NOAA.

Sources and Further Reading:
History & Legend
Welcome to Lincoln City, Oregon

Also be sure to check the links throughout the post, especially the book I mention in the beginning!

The Megalodon!

Here is one for my prehistory loving fans.

Carcharodon Megalodon, was the largest shark ever to exist. In fact the Megalodon probably could have swallowed a great white shark, plus some, whole, that's how large it was. While the overall size of this bad boy is still highly debated, it's estimated that it was at least 43ft long, or possibly even 60ft. One person, who mistakenly placed the wrong teeth into some spots on a jaw reconstruction, estimated 80ft, however, as I said he made a mistake. Turns out the shark was 150ft, and he wasn't to happy about the 80ft estimate, so he promptly traveled forward in time to eat the guy who made the mistake...ok...now I'm just totally making stuff up. Like I said, the real estimate lies between about 43ft to 60ft, depending on who you go with.

Now like all big groovy critters that once existed on this planet, the Megalodon went extinct, or at least it supposedly did some 1.5 million years ago. Now that's a long time, but considering that the Coelocanth supposedly died out some 65 million years ago, only to be discovered lounging along the coast of South Africa in 1938 while he was on vacation. Needless to say, a species that was supposed to be dead around 65 million years ago surviving into today is quite remarkable. Now look at the 1.5 million year estimate for the Megalodon and compare that to 65 million. That's about 63.5 million years difference, so I say the odds of Megalodon still existing today are actually quite good, or at least compared to say a dinosaur living today.

Let's see now, where would we find a Megalodon...oh perhaps Australia. Great waves, groovy accents, and the most venomous creatures in the world; yeah I'd be chilling there if I was a prehistoric shark. While there I'd also make sure to be spotted by the odd fisherman or two just to strike some fear into them. Oh heck, how about a bunch of fisherman like that incident in 1918 at Broughton Island. There a bunch of fishermen refused to go to sea for several days all because they saw a gigantic white colored shark. Now some of them were rather prone to exaggeration, so initial estimates of the length were 300ft, however some people not as prone to exaggeration gave the more reasonable length of 115ft or so. Maybe the 80ft estimate guy was correct...or it's a completely different monster shark. Either way, fishermen are used to seeing large sea creatures, so odds are whatever they saw was something big they've not seen before.

Now the story of a bunch of scared stiff fishermen probably isn't the best evidence out there, but well...um...it's some of the best evidence supporting the Megalodon's possible survival. If you wanted to look at it in more scientific terms you could go with the fact that the larger a predator is, the less of them there are. Also we know that large creatures like the Giant Squid, Colossal Squid, and Cthulhu, ok maybe not Cthulhu, exist in the ocean's depths and are so rarely seen that we thought they were just legend for a long time. So I guess what I'm saying is...there's a chance...a slim one, but a good one and that is what counts in the end.


Sources and Further Reading:
Megalodon - Wikipedia
Does Megalodon Still Live? - Elasmo-research
Does Carcharodon Megalodon Still Exist?
Could Megalodon Still Exist?

Note: The shark in the picture is a Great White and not a Megalodon...as far as I know, no real Megalodon photos exist, unless someone is hiding one out there...