A SPOOKY BODY OF WATER NEAR YOU- “Lakes are kind of the spookiest places on Earth,” said Dr. John Downing, professor of biology at UMD and director of Sea Grant on the KAXE Morning Show with Heidi Holtan and John Latimer. He'll be hosting a Halloween webinar forItasca Waterson the creepy, spooky elements of lakes.
For years, Latimer has told KAXE audiences of his love of lakes – swimming and ice skating specifically. Who knew there was more to it?
“I will admit that I do not go in lakes where the visibility is not good. I have swam in a few - I once was in a triathlon in a lake that was shallow and churned up and was absolutely ghostly, you couldn't see your hand at the bottom of the stroke and it was not terrifying, but not comforting. I like clear water," Latimer said.
Dr. Downing says it’s natural that we wonder about the things we can’t observe. “I don’t know if you have ever seen the will o' the wisp,” he said, “...a really interesting sort of spontaneously glowing swamp gas.” Over the years, the people who have followed the glow have drowned, and they are considered evil water fairies.
A will o’ the wisp is defined by Merriam Webster as a ‘flame like phosphorescence caused by gases from decaying plants in marshy areas.’ Dr. Downing saw it once as a kid, but since then the number has dropped, due to how we have changed the chemistry of the planet. “We may have killed them.”
Why are water fairies a problem?
For most people, the disappearance of these will o' the wisps seems like a non-issue. For climate scientists, however, it presents a concern. “It means less of the methane that comes off of these waters will be burnt up, will go to the atmosphere and exacerbates climate change.”
"Lakes are kind of the spookiest places on Earth."Dr. John Downing
He added, “It seems to be vanishingly rare, but seemed to peak around 1945-1950.”
Dr. Downing will not just address water fairies and will o’ the wisps in the free webinar, but he’ll also talk about things like mummies and people who turn into soap.
“Amazingly bizarre things,” he said, “that’s how I got into this, is I worked on carbon cycling, and I found that lakes can hold carbon down. Big particles of carbon down in the bottom of them for centuries without changing.”
Don’t forget monsters
There are also aliens and mummies. “Who cares about the little monsters?” said Dr. Downing. He says people have been reporting dozens of different kinds of monsters, most of them with horse-like heads, weighing tens of thousands of pounds.
“The good news is they are probably herbivores,” he said, so people are probably not at risk of being eaten by a monster.
Dr. Downing gave examples of the Pressie of Lake Superior – a serpent said to be 75 feet in length and spotted since the 17th century.
According to the website Cryptomundo, the reported sightings go back centuries, describing either a spiky cat-like figure or a large hideous serpent. As recent as the mid 1990’s, fisherman watched a large aquatic animal pull a buck deer underwater, leaving behind only its severed head.
Spooky stories from Dr. Downing will be featured on Halloween 2023 at a free noon webinar, through Itasca Waters. Learn more and register here.
