The state of Idaho is found in the Pacific North-West of the United States, it is a strange and interesting shape looking like as if a chunk of it was broken off like a cracker. The state is bordered with Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Montana and Wyoming as well as a small strip at the top of the state bordering with Canada. The state is one of the less populated and less densely inhabited that we have covered in this series so far, most of the state’s population is found in the south in the Snake River Plain. The state capital is Boise where the Old Idaho Penitentiary can be found, which is said to be haunted and of which we will go over later.
The state’s geography is rugged and mountainous and includes rivers, lakes, rapids and the Shoshone Falls. The state has the largest unspoiled natural areas in the United States and the ominously named Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness Area is the largest contiguous area of protected wilderness within the United States and includes a number of National Forests.
Manufacturing, agriculture, mining, forestry and tourism play a significant part in Idaho’s economy and the state creates around one-third of the nationwide yield of potatoes. The state also has a number of science and technology firms. The state is also home to the Idaho National Laboratory which is the largest Department of Energy facility in the country.
But enough with all that introduction stuff, let’s get to the paranormal and unexplained stuff that happens or has happened in Idaho!
The state is actually quite known for having a number of purported and reported water cryptids in the states lakes out in the wilderness areas, despite the general isolation and large wilderness areas and forests of the state there aren’t many reports of humanoid cryptids or even many other types of cryptids on the land such as in the wilderness and forests, it could be due to the isolated areas not getting too many visited compared to other places or it could simply be there just isn’t many land cryptids in the state of Idaho.
You may finally be relieved to hear that Bigfoot isn’t so commonly reported in the state of Idaho either, despite bordering with Washington and Oregon, two states where the famous cryptid is often reported and Idaho instead hosts a number of more unique localized cryptids. I’m sure many of us love the big furry guy, but it has to be admitted that it can often get far too much time in the limelight of the cryptozoological world.
So, with that, let’s get on to some water cryptids, of which the state appears to have quite a few of. The first one I am going to start with is Sharlie due to it sounding similar to my own name and also, I have had my name pronounced in this humourous way on a number of occasions. The water cryptid has a very similar description to the Loch Ness Monster including that it looks similar to a plesiosaurus with a big round body, back humps, four flippers and a long, long neck with a serpentine head on the top.
It is said to be found in the Payette Lake in southwestern Idaho which is next to the resort town of McCall, both the lake and the town is a popular tourist attraction site. There isn’t too much outstanding of the lake itself, compared to some of the previous lakes we’ve had in the series, except that it is a nice-looking place and has a little dam and the lake drains into Snake River, the largest tributary of the Columbia River.
The first sighting of Sharlie the sea serpent is recorded from 1920 when workers cutting ties on the upper end of the lake saw what they first thought was simply a log floating in the river, until suddenly it begun to move and swim about off of its own accord and soon disappeared. Further sightings were recorded by groups of people who claimed to see it during the 1940s, describing it at 30-40 feet, with humps and scaly skin. When news of these sightings spread it led to a surge of tourism to the area, for people who were interested in getting a glimpse of the water beast themselves.
The water beast got its name from a 1954 contest in a local newspaper, the Star News, with Sharlie being the winning name. Some believe Sharlie could simply just be mis-identification of a large fish such as a sturgeon, which is often named as the typical culprit for most sightings of water cryptids. It could also be that the area has taken advantage of the legend and used it to promote tourism to the area through propping up or even making up certain stories to get more people to come – it is certainly a possibility. But even if that is the case, I still support Sharlie the water serpent!
Unfortunately, Sharlie doesn’t seem to be as active as its famous Loch Ness Monster brethren, with the last sighting reported in 2002, but you never know, perhaps you’ll be the one to make a new sighting if deciding to visit the area!
Next up we have one heck of a water cryptid that had a single but rather legendary encounter with those who encountered it, that were so frightened of it they decided to attack! Or so the story goes. The creature has a rather unique description and is so far one of my favourite descriptions of a water cryptid… so here go.
Now as with all legends, which is what I am calling this as that is what it seems like more than anything, there are slightly different telling’s of it from one person to the next, that’s folklore for you, people add bits, forget parts, take away other bits, tweak it, it’s never exactly the same. Some stories say it was encountered by a group of frontiersmen while others say it was simply an old fisherman. Whatever iteration, the men were nonetheless scared enough to attack it. First of all, though, is the description.
Again, the description varies, but overall, it is described as having an elephant like trunk, connected to a serpentine head, webbed, spiny fins coming out of its neck, black whiskers on the sides of its face, long razor-sharp fangs, a singular black horn protruding from its head and a red forked-tongue that… get this… could shoot poison.
And that still isn’t all, its reptilian skin mottled yellow and black with the rest of its body being dull and grey. Said to be 20 or more feet in length, with spikes or needles that protruded out of its spine, going down from its head all the way to its tail. Its reptilian body was thick and round. It had several sets of legs, said to be 12 legs in total, stubby in appearance, the feet on these legs would alternate between hooved and sharp-claws.
It’s one heck of a description for a beast only seen once. The sightings allegedly occurring in a river somewhere in or near Swan Valley, near the Wyoming border sometime in the 1860s. The person or people who saw it became so scared that one of them literally shot the poor thing in its eye, after it emerged from the lake. The monster squirmed in pain and shot out poison, perhaps as self-defense, and this poison caused anything it touched to wither away and die. The monster also released an over-powering stench to the surrounding area. Some stories say the beast collapsed there while others say it was then shot in its yellow belly causing it to convulse and drop to the ground, seemingly dead.
After this the men or man ran back to either get help or prepare a wagon to go back to the river, collect the beast’s dead body and then study it, but upon returning… as it always seems to go the beast was nowhere to be seen! It was assumed it slithered back into the river after not actually being dead after all and that it either died later on in the lake or is still hiding away down in whatever lake it was seen, perhaps too scared to show itself again to humans.
Finally, to really drive home how many water cryptids seemingly exist in Idaho we will move on to one called Paddler. The water serpent is said to be located in Lake Pend Oreille, which is located in the northern Idaho panhandle and is the largest lake in the state of Idaho, some areas of the lake go as deep as 1,150ft making it the fifth deepest lake in the United State. The lake is surrounded by National Forests and a few small towns.
So with its status as quite a major lake, it is without much of a surprise that it would have its own water cryptid and its name comes from a sighting on September 1977 after a young girl was allegedly attacked by an unidentified creature from the lake and of which local journalists reporting on the case named the Pend Oreille Paddler.
The first reports of the lake serpent are believed to have surfaced around the late 1940s, coincidentally… or perhaps not so coincidentally, shortly after a Naval Research Station was established at the southwestern edge of the lake, which after the conclusion of World War II, some point after 1945 the Naval Station was scaled down but the Navy’s Acoustic Research Department continued to operate in the area even until this day, developing unique experimental hardware and floating platforms as well as submarine research, leaving some to speculate that the Paddler was actually misidentification of undisclosed underwater tests being performed by the Acoustic Research Department.
It could well make sense as the creature itself lacks much of a description, with most sightings usually being strange underwater disturbances or grey objects that emerge very briefly from the water before disappearing back under again. There have been many sightings of such strange activity over the years and it even still continues now from time to time, with new sightings not uncommon.
So, what is it? An actual elusive sea serpent or simply secretive naval tests being performed by the Navy’s Acoustic Research Department?
Next up we will move on to a Native American legend before we conclude with the supposed haunting at the Old Idaho Penitentiary in the state capital of Boise.
The legend I speak of is the Nimerigar, tales of a race of little people apparently found in the Rocky Mountains, of which part of stretches into the state of Idaho of which isn’t clearly localised but something interesting to speak of nonetheless, the legend comes from the Shoshone Native American’s.
The name Nimerigar roughly translates from the Shoshone and Pauite languages meaning quite macabrely “people eaters” and that they indeed were according to the legend as well as being viewed as evil and enemies of humankind. An unfortunate encounter with these little fellows would not have a good outcome due to them being aggressive and often armed with tiny bows from which they would shoot tiny poison arrows from. The evil little people were believed by the Shoshone to crack their own brethren over the head, killing them, if they were viewed as too ill to be a participating member of their society.
Some stories said that the group would be cannibalistic as a way to feed their society and those who were weak or ill who were subsequently killed were eaten by the other Nimerigar, instead of just letting the body go to waste.
The Nimerigar themselves are described as around 2-3 feet in height with razor sharp canine teeth. There was fear in the Shoshone tribe that these little people would kidnap their kids from tribal camps or that they would use trickery to doom a camp into turmoil and infighting.
In Idaho these little peoples were said to be most prominent in the Owyhee Mountain’s in Owyhee County within the southwestern corner of the state close to the Oregon state border.
And finally, we move on to the haunted segment where we head to the state capital of Boise and into the Old Idaho Penitentiary.
The Old Idaho Penitentiary was an operational prison from 1872 until 1973 and during its time as an active prison it had over 13,000 convicts pass through and stay behind its walls. The prison since becoming un-operational has since served as a historical site for tourists and includes museums and a botanical garden. The prison was constructed in 1870 when the land was known as the territory of Idaho 20-years before statehood was granted. The convicts at the prison quarried the stone to build a sandstone wall around the prison site and also took part in a number of other constructions there as well.
Infamous inmates included Harry Orchard who assassinated the Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg in 1905 and Lyda Southard, known as Lady Bluebeard who murdered a number of her husbands to collect upon their life insurance.
Serious riots occurred in the Prison in 1952, 1971 and 1973 over living conditions not too long before the prison was shut down.
Due to its long history and the dark convicts it kept locked away and the violence the place has seen over the years, it is no wonder why the place is considered haunted by the paranormal. Raymond Snowden was one such infamous convict of the prison before its closure and was locked up for brutally killing a woman called Cora Dean after attempting to rape her, after which he stabbed her 29 times as she put up a fight, he got the nickname of Idaho’s Jack the Ripper and was later hanged at the Old Penitentiary for his barbaric crime.
It is said now that he is one of the ghosts that haunts the Old Idaho Penitentiary primarily around Cell House #5 which is where he was executed. Alleged unexplained activity associated with this ghost is noise as if someone is struggling to breathe – of which it is said according to reports when Snowden was hanged it took a full 15-minutes for him to suffocate to death, rather than snapping his neck and killing him instantly.
Other unexplained activity at the prison includes sinister feelings, unexplained sounds and disembodied voices. The solitary confinement cells are said to be particularly active, with a number of apparent dark entities said to haunt it.
Up next will be Utah!
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