Scientists making the dive into one of the coldest lakes on the planet have made a discovery that some believe proves the existence of Russia’s own “Loch Ness Monster”.Russian researchers have officially reached the bottom of Labynkyr, the first time the feat has ever been achieved, seeing as how the lake’s location, the Siberian village of Oymyakon in Yakutia, is home to one of the three lowest air temperatures on Earth. Leading the history-making Russian Geographical Society dive team is Dmitry Shilley, who told reporters that the research was as much about adventure as it was about science.
“By now almost all the land on earth has been studied, but terra firma is only 30% of the planet”, he said. “I’m sure there are a lot of secrets under water, so that’s where all of the science will go in the near future”.
Not only has Guiness World Records taken note of the dive, but so too have cryptozoologists, who have watched the mysterious lake closely since the 50′s, when the head of the USSR’s Acadamy of Science Siberian geological unit Viktor Tverdokhlebov unwittingly created the legend of the Labynkyr Devil, a monster the Russians have long considered their own Loch Ness Monster.
In his diary, Viktor stated:
“…There was some kind of an animal….As it approached, I grew overwhelmed by a strange consternation, freezing me inside. A dark grey oval bulk was seen in the water. On it were two symmetrical white spots, looking like eyes of an animal, and something like a stick poked out of it… Maybe a fin? We only saw a little part of the animal, but could guess a huge solid body under water. No doubt, that was a predator, one of the strongest in the world”.
From then on, all eyes were on the remote lake, and sightings of the “Devil” have persisted ever since. Even as recent as last year, the monster was being sought in expeditions. Associate Professor Lyudmila Emeliyanova, of Moscow State University, told The Siberian Times that she had recorded ‘several seriously big underwater objects’ with her own sonar readings.
Photo of a large object mapped in Labynkyr in 2006
‘The object was very dense, of homogeneous structure, surely not a fish nor a shoal of fish, and it was above the bottom,” she told The Daily Mail. “I was very surprised but not scared nor shocked, after all we did not see this animal, we only registered a strange object in the water. But I can clearly say – at the moment, as a scientist, I cannot offer you any explanation of what this object might be.”
The locals have long told stories of a large-jawed creature that makes a “primeval shriek” before it tackles it’s prey. Well, according to the Voice of Russia, Dmitri Shiller and the RGO dive team may have found the remains of those massive jaws in their research.
While their expedition was mainly launched to collect samples of the lake’s flora and fauna, they also made it a point to map the bottom of the lake, home to a giant crack that reaches depths of around 80 meters. While doing so with the help of an underwater scanner, the team made an interesting discovery: the large jaws and skeletal remains of a big, unidentified mammal. Could it be evidence of the Labynkyr Devil? The team can’t know for sure without retrieving the remains themselves, but the find has certainly sparked interest in a return trip into the water.
Now keep in mind, this is a lake, unconnected to any larger bodies of water. Whatever creature the bones belong to has resided in that lake for a long time, which is the most exciting part of the find if you ask me. Devil or not, it’s neat to see that something big has been, or at least was, living in the isolated waters for who knows how long.
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