Holy Mackerel: The True Story of South Bay Bessie, Lake Erie's Monster

Lake Erie's monster is named after a nuclear power plant. In 1817 a schooner crew reported a serpent 35 or 40 feet long. In 1931 Sandusky "captured" one, and a museum curator identified it as an Indian python. In 1990 a Huron marina owner put up a reward for a live one, and by 1993 it had grown to $102,700 in cash and prizes. Two centuries of the Lake Erie monster, told from the old newspapers.

Every fact in this film has a source, listed below. If a record says we got something wrong, tell us and we will pin a correction.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open
0:52 The Schooner
2:45 The Cleveland Monster
4:11 The Serpent Century
6:00 Molly
7:05 South Bay Bessie
11:00 The Fish

SOURCES
- The American Monthly Magazine and Critical Review, Sept. and Oct. 1817 · Daily National Intelligencer, Sept. 16, 1817 · Alexandria Gazette, Sept. 19, 1817
- Samuel L. Mitchill, American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. 15 (1829) · The Marine Record, Apr. 23, 1885 and Aug. 15, 1895
- Niles' Weekly Register, July 11, 1818 · The Plain Dealer, June 16, 1985 · John Grabowski, in Cleveland Magazine, 2019
- Omaha Daily Bee and Stark County Democrat, May 1887 · Daily Tobacco Leaf-Chronicle, The Evening World, The Sun, Los Angeles Herald, 1892
- The New York Times, May 14, 1893 · Chicago Daily Tribune, Aug. 10, 1895
- AP, UP and INS wire stories, July 22-23, 1931 · South Bend News-Times, Bismarck Tribune, Milan Ledger, July 1931 · Editor & Publisher, Aug. 8, 1931
- Associated Press, 1990 and 1993 · The Columbus Dispatch, Toledo Blade and Huron local press, 1990-1993 · The Wall Street Journal, July 29, 1993
- Charles E. Herdendorf, EcoSphere Technical Report No. 118 (1990) · Margaret Beattie Bogue, Fishing the Great Lakes (2000)
- Charles Cassady Jr. (2009) · Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark (1999) · The Morning Journal (Lorain), June 21, 2005
- Maps: Natural Earth (public domain)

Picture and footage credits are in the film's closing credits. Pre-1927 newspaper and magazine pages are public domain (Library of Congress Chronicling America; Internet Archive). The cartoon Bessie is our mascot, not evidence. Maps and illustrations are by Cracked Buckeye; illustrations show the setting, never a reconstruction of what anyone saw.

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