Now from fishing boats to kayaks.
Most people take up kayaking as a way to escape,
bask in nature, and relax.
But just going with the flow was not
an option for the guys who had this intense and unusual
aquatic encounter.
June 29, 2017, on Yale Lake in Southwest Washington.
Two men take their kayaks out for
a relaxing afternoon when the calm
waters are suddenly disturbed.
MAN: Weird [bleep].
NARRATOR: The video seems to show bubbles rising
to the surface of the water in the center of the lake
as the kayakers paddle towards them.
MAN: Just bubbles coming from the bottom
of the lake, no current.
MAN: I'm afraid to put my hand in the water.
NARRATOR: One kayaker dips his camera below the waterline,
and we see debris and thousands of bubbles swirling.
MAN: Kind of weird down here.
NARRATOR: The bubbling is so intense,
the other kayaker panics and paddles off.
MAN: Go, go, go.
NARRATOR: Then an ominous burst of murky brown water
erupts, as hundreds of leaves are belched up to the surface.
MAN: What the [bleep].
What's happening?
MAN: Something just happened that we caught on camera.
Dude, it stinks.
NARRATOR: Field researcher and author
Ken Gerhard tries to help us understand
what we're seeing in the video.
My first thoughts are, is there
something alive beneath the water
that's creating these bubbles and this disturbance
in the water?
Yale Lake is connected to the Columbia River, which has been
said to be home to this massive creature
called Colossal Claude.
Sightings date back to the early 1930s.
The general physical description is a huge animal about 40 feet
long, with a serpentine, although a very
thick, powerful body and what was described
as a very evil, snaky head.
Many of the lakes around the world where these monsters have
been reported all boast healthy populations of salmon
and trout, so perhaps these lake monsters
might also live in the ocean and follow the salmon populations
into fresh water to feed.
There are dozens, maybe thousands,
of undiscovered creatures inhabiting the world's lakes.
Recently, researchers uncovered around 40 new species
in Lake Mweru, located between Zambia
and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
But was whatever these kayakers saw a creature from the deep?
Let's see what's swimming in our experts' thought bubbles.
Marine biologist Dr. Shea Conger begins her analysis
by addressing the Lake Monster Theory.
SHEA CONGER: The number of salmon in the Columbia River's
dramatically decreased, and this is
an important resource, not only for humans, but for wildlife.
So if there were some sort of abnormally large animal
in Yale Lake, it probably wouldn't have a lot of food
to live off of.
And so it's pretty unlikely that there are undiscovered
large animals in Yale Lake.
There are actually a couple of freshwater
seal populations in the world.
But if this were something like a seal or a whale,
we would definitely see the animal itself.
And seals really only hold their breath
for maybe 20 minutes at a time.
NARRATOR: What about those bubbles?
Geologist Bob Anderson helps us figure out
what could be happening here.
Natural gas and oil are formed between sedimentary layers,
and you get a lot of carboniferous materials
that are from the time before the dinosaurs.
And these areas get buried deep down,
and that pressure and heat causes
those organic materials to break down into hydrocarbons.
And all it takes is a crack in the rock, and they just release
and they pop real fast.
NARRATOR: The Carboniferous period
occurred 300 million years ago.
So these organic materials have been
building pressure for quite some time, just waiting to blow.
When you look at the video and you
add in the combination of those bubbles and the smell
at the end--
MAN: Dude, it stinks.
BOB ANDERSON: To me, it's a dead clue
that it's some type of a natural gas that's coming up.
NARRATOR: This happens all over the world.
Massive underwater craters have been discovered
off the coast of Norway, up to 147
feet deep and 2,624 feet wide.
Researchers have deemed them the cause
of expulsions of gas rising to the surface in the area.
Our verdict?
Natural gas.
The smell was the clincher.
The kayaker complained about the horrible aroma, which
is a common attribute of methane gas
when it mixes with hydrogen sulfide,
causing a rotten egg odor.
While the men didn't come across Colossal Claude,
they did still stumble upon a remarkable piece
of natural history.