Thetis Lake — the Thetis Lake Monster, August 1972

OVERVIEW

The Thetis Lake Monster is a cryptid and admitted hoax of Victoria, British Columbia. In 1972 two teenage boys said they saw a creature with silvery scales, sharp claws and spikes on its head emerge at Thetis Lake beach in the evening.

HISTORY

The Victoria Daily Times reported the boys' account on 22 August 1972. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigated and found nothing; two other boys fishing across the lake said they had seen it too.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

HOAX. When the writer Daniel Loxton contacted one of the boys years later, he admitted they had made it up for attention. Loxton found the description matched the monster of Monster from the Surf, shown on local television a few days before: 'Four days later, local teenagers reported being attacked at the Thetis beach after dark by a scaled monster.'

VISITING

A public regional park and swimming beach.