DESERT SEA SERPENT

            Every story of the old west in this series is true. While many western stories have the ring of campfire tall tales you will find none here. Every story is based on fact whether about a mighty warrior humbled by flickering lights or this one about a sea serpent said to live in a desert lake.

                                                   DESERT SEA SERPENT

                                                                        by

                                                       Michael A. McKeever

            Beware of the giant serpent warned the Paiute Indians. Their people had seen it uncounted times over uncounted years. It was, they said, so huge it could easily swallow a man whole. And it was silent as it swam the lake, giving no warning as it approached and then just as silently vanishing beneath the waves. Do not go out on the lake, they said ominously, but stay safely on its shores.

            The lake is called Pyramid Lake after its barren islands that water and wind carved into pyramids. Once it was part of a vast primeval inland sea covering much of the western Nevada desert. Today at 188 square miles it is still an impressive lake, the sky above it alive with flocks of birds. It is surrounded by the Northern Paiute Reservation.

            The Paiutes were not the only ones to see the giant serpent. Early white settlers reported seeing it as well. With each sighting both the tale and the monster seemed to grow in length. Finally in late 1869 a mining engineer named Spence arrived at Pyramid Lake. But he didn't come looking for monster snakes. He was looking for borax, a dry salt used to make everything from soap to glass.

            Spence, a methodical man, set to work taking water samples and searching the shoreline for certain white crystals. Finding them, he mixed the crystals with chemicals and lit the mixture with a match. A flickering green flame meant it was borax.

            Spence had heard stories of the giant snake but he dismissed them as nothing more than wild tales spun over campfires. After all he was an engineer, a man of science and mathematics, not given to nonsense.

            Planning to search the lake’s far shore, he set out with two assistants in a rowboat. The assistants, having also heard stories of a monster swimming snake, were nervous. But Spence urged them on. Rowing steadily, the men pulled out into the middle of the lake. It was a calm day and the surface was as flat as a sheet of blue glass. The only ripples came from the boat and its oars.

            Suddenly one of the assistants gasped and pointed with a shaking finger. There, basking in the sun, was the sea serpent! Hundreds of feet long, its serpentine body was covered with scales that shimmered in the desert heat. Making no move toward the men, it bobbed gently in the water.

            The ever-cool Spence encouraged his frightened men to row closer. Then he noticed something odd about the scales. With each ripple of the water some of them seemed to float away. A slight breeze came up and more of the scales fell off into the water.

            The three men sighed in relief. They knew they were safe. The sea serpent was in reality nothing more than a huge floating conglomeration of fresh-water worms. Clinging together they had been molded by the water into a long floating tube. But whenever a strong wave or a puff of wind came up the worms untangled. Seen from a distance it did indeed look as if a giant snake had slipped beneath the surface.

            Spence mentioned the phenomenon in his report and like the “giant snake” itself in a brisk wind, the legend of the desert sea serpent unraveled. Yet some were still not convinced and the sightings continued.

            In 1883 a group of women saw the “serpent” shimmering in the sun. It was, they breathlessly reported, as big as a balloon and had a mouth as wide as a road. Six years later some fishermen described the creature as having an alligator’s body but with a seal’s flippers and a frog’s mouth. It also, they insisted, swallowed entire schools of trout. A 1925 description added that the monster’s head had “hideous horns.”

            Of course today everyone knows perfectly well that there is no desert sea serpent, that mining engineer Spence was right. It’s only a hodgepodge of worms clinging together, pushed this way and that by wind and waves.

            But, just in case, in 1959 the Nevada State Assembly officially placed the creature under the protection of the state. Henceforth and forever, by Nevada State Law, the “Pyramid Lake Monster” may not be “molested, hunted or captured.” Just in case.