Mysterious monster lake Tanganyika

Tanganyika is a long and deep freshwater lake in Africa, with huge fisheries resources for the border areas of Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi and Zambia. Lake Tanganyika also attracts public opinion about mysterious monsters.

Lake Tanganyika monster described by German doctor, Thierfelder in 1914. From the scientist’s notes The people of Lake Tanganyika have long spread about the appearance of a large and ferocious creature living at the bottom of the lake. The Tabwa tribesmen in northern Zambia call it the “God of Fishing”, they often hold rituals before the fishing season to pray for the “god” to facilitate the trip. The first reports of the monster appeared in 1893, when a survey led by Irish explorer Joseph Augustus Moloney went to the lake and met missionaries in the area. The monks told them of a large “sea serpent”, lurking in the murky depths of Lake Tanganyika, also sometimes seen lying in the sun on the shore. Another 1907 report came from the English naturalist Lord Walter Rothschild. He said he had heard stories of a large tusks monster lurking in the southern part of the lake, said to be quite ferocious. Rothschild did not see the creature, but said one of the witnesses was a South African police officer who recounted it and he believed them. Tales of the monster of Lake Tanganyika continued to circulate through the 1900s, mostly from foreigners, with a growing presence in the area. In 1914, a German doctor, MV Thierfelder walked along the banks of a remote lake in Burundi, where he set up a medical station to help deal with the alarming situation of sleeping diseases. One day, he went hunting with a local guide named Ilsgensmeier. This man took him around the area of ​​the lake, which is bordered by a cliff, and here they saw an entity that the German doctor did not know how to describe. It was a giant sea monster that he later estimated to be 30 meters long. “Suddenly, I saw from the lake a monster that looked like a monstrous snake appeared,” he said of the monster. It did not zigzag like a snake, but vertically above the water, at a fairly rapid speed, straight up to the area bordering on the rocky shore, where I was lying still. It has no legs, near the head there are slender, fin-like structures on the sides. The whole body is light brown, without scales, but covered with a thick, smooth coat. The head of the animal is difficult to discern, because it appears only briefly in the water, but is not large and not clearly separated from the body. It is not like the head of a snake, but quite like the head of a mammal, like a manatee. However, its mouth seemed narrow and elongated. After moving among the otters for a while, the giant beast turned around and plunged into the lake, merging with the undulating waves. Where is the truth? Lake Tanganyika seen from satellite (left) and the area is said to have appeared monsters. In 1920, another remarkable story emerged, also of a foreigner, French writer and explorer, Victor Forbin. He said he had collected many reports on creatures called “amphibians, of enormous size, similar to elephants, rhinos and hippos in many different ways”. But Forbin’s documents in later years were considered untrustworthy, mostly just rumors and false assumptions, even the famous mysterious animal researcher, Bernard Heuvelmans, expressed doubted the authenticity of his stories. In 1928, there were numerous reports of an underwater reptile being seen by sailors on ships passing through the lake, and on one occasion they even spotted traces of this creature on shallow, described as the claw of a giant bird. These stories inspired explorer George Gray. He conducted a search throughout the area but was unable to locate the strange creature, other than reports from natives. Witness sightings after the 20th century began to dwindle, leaving one wondering what was seen, if it was a monster, where it was. Is this an unidentified reptile or a thick-skinned animal (pachyderm) with an unidentified horn? It is difficult to answer because the descriptions vary widely, from a sleek, zigzag reptile, to a large, lumbering hippopotamus. This made one consider, whether there could be more than one beast in the lake area. Whether the story is based on a real creature or just a part of the imagination, the monster Lake Tanganyika has become a bizarre African story and the search is not necessarily over. But with a depth of 1,436m (second deepest in the world), 670km long of the lake, it is not easy to detect strange creatures here.