Selma Lives (Maybe)

It's been confirmed, sort of. Selma, the legendary creature who lives in Norway's Lake Seljord, has been found. Well, at least that's what cryptozoologist Jan-Ove Sundberg thinks. The founder of the Global Underwater Search Team (GUST), he's been gathering evidence for years, and last week he had an announcement to make:

"I have news today. We were just off Sanden Camping today, between noon and 2 p.m. We got two large objects on sonar, they were four to five meters (13-16.5 feet) long, and this was no fish," Sundberg told TV 2 Nettavisen.

"Afterwards we heard some very loud noises on the hydrophone. The sounds were so powerful that the our headphones banged and vibrated."

Banging and vibrating headphones! Ooooooh, scary!!

Sundberg has thought he'd had proof before, but poor quality pictures he came up with last year were unconvincing and won him no new converts. But he knows what he’s up against.

"If researchers are to be satisfied we have to catch it in our traps. Or we have to take photos or film that demonstrates it is an unknown animal. Half-bad pictures from long distance aren't good enough."

Ain't that always the way.

So how many of these creatures are out there? I'm not sure if I've heard of Selma before, but I do know of Nessie, of course, another in Lake Champlain called Champ, and the Ogopogo in British Columbia's Lake Okanagan. GUST has a huge list of sea monsters (and a couple of bigfoots) on its cryptids page. Just to keep themselves honest, the organization keeps track of "hoaxes, misinterpretations, and jokes," as well.