Solving the case of the Oklahoma octopus

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Anon. 1982

The newspaper article about the incident that likely started the Oklahoma octopus myth (Anon., 1982).

A giant, maneating octopus alleged to inhabit Oklahoma lakes first received widespread attention through a 2009 episode of Lost Tapes (Segal, 2009). Although this was a fictional TV series in the found footage genre, it did not invent the Oklahoma octopus. The earliest references in print came from two books in 2007: Scott Francis’ Monster Spotter’s Guide to North America (Francis, 2007) and Oberon Zell-Ravenheart and Ash DeKirk’s A Wizard’s Bestiary (Zell-Ravenheart & DeKirk, 2007). Both agreed that the octopus is large1 and dangerous, has reddish brown, leathery skin, and lives in Lakes Thunderbird, Oologah, and Tenkiller. Francis speculated that it could be drowning swimmers, which was used as the plot of the episode. Zell-Ravenheart and DeKirk stated that local Native Americans were afraid of it for a long time. However, both failed to cite any evidence or sources for their claims.

The same year, Rod Lott wrote an article for the Oklahoma Gazette in response to Francis (Lott, 2007). He interviewed state park managers and divers from Lakes Thunderbird and Tenkiller, and none of them had heard of the octopus before. Lott also interviewed cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, who proposed that the stories began with carcasses dumped as pranks. The lack of specific sightings and witnesses, as well as the vague invocations of mysterious deaths and Native American legends, are classic tropes of fakelore. There is also the fact that all three lakes are reservoirs not built until the 1950’s-1970’s (Johnson, 2009). Additionally, while some octopuses can survive in brackish estuaries (e.g., Sakamoto et al., 2015), none are restricted to freshwater environments. Taken together, it is clear that the Oklahoma octopus is a modern hoax and not an unknown species.

McClellan-Kerr map

A map showing Lock and Dam 18 (yellow) and Lakes Oologah and Tenkiller (pink), modified from US Army Corps of Engineers (n.d.).

Locating the origin of this idea has proven to be a challenge. The oldest reference rediscovered yet was a 2006 Japanese blogpost by “UMA Fan”2 (UMA Fan, 2006).3 It contains much of the same information as the aforementioned books, but again no sources were cited. Everything discussed so far was compiled in recent investigations by J.A. Hernandez (Hernandez, 2022) and “Truth is Scarier than Fiction” (Truth is Scarier than Fiction, 2022). Now, I may have finally found the inspiration for the Oklahoma octopus, as detailed in the following article from the June 2, 1982 issue of The Daily Oklahoman (Anon., 1982).

“The last thing Bryan Collins and Jerry Potter expected to catch when they went fishing in the Verdigris River was an octopus. ‘We were just walking along and I looked over by the water and I saw it,’ said Bryan, 11. ‘I couldn’t tell what it was at first.’ It turned out to be an octopus with a tentacle span of 34 inches. The creature was dead when the boys found it Monday. The discovery was made near Lock and Dam 18 on the McClellan-Kerr Navigation Channel. ‘We take them down there all the time,’ said the boys’ grandfather, Reo Cleveland. ‘They do a lot of snooping and wandering around down there. We do a lot of fishing there, too. But we’ve never pulled out anything like that.’ Jim Bond, regional coordinator for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife in Tulsa, said he suspected the creature had been found elsewhere and was dumped in the river. ‘It’s normally a salt-water species,’ Bond said. But, Bond added, ‘There’s a little bit of everything in there. It’s hard to tell what’ll turn up.’ “

Lock and Dam 18 on the Verdigris River is positioned between Lakes Oologah and Tenkiller (US Army Corps of Engineers, n.d.). The close proximity of those sites, the presence of a physical specimen, and the very early date make this event the best candidate. It supports Coleman’s hypothesis that a planted body initiated the whole thing. Octopuses have appeared in other landlocked states (see Arment & LaGrange, 2000 for examples) and these occurrences were possibly further influences. How exactly the Oklahoma octopus got exaggerated into the current version remains to be seen, but the question of its beginning might be answered.

Notes

1It ranges from horse-sized according to Zell-Ravenheart and DeKirk to 20+ feet long according to Francis.

2UMA is an acronym for “unidentified mysterious animal” and is a popular alternative for the word cryptid in Japan.

3In 1999, cryptozoologist Mark A. Hall made an offhand comment about “tentacled creatures” in Oklahoma lakes in his newsletter Wonders (Hall, 1999). He identified them as “freshwater scorpions”, so whether or not they are related to the octopus is unclear.

Addendum (5/23/2024)

Coincidentally, Truth is Scarier than Fiction released another video later the very day that this blogpost went up (Truth is Scarier than Fiction, 2024). He announced that Awr Bamiyas had uncovered a 1987 article by Russell Bates in INFO Journal (Bates, 1987). This article told tales of the Kiowa (to which Bates belonged) and other tribes in Oklahoma, including one nearly identical to the octopus. I tracked down a copy and uploaded it to my Cryptozoological Reference Library; the relevant excerpt is reproduced below.

“In the matter of other water creatures, I have only heard that the Caddo people once camped near small lakes that spring literally out of sandstone cliffs some ten miles north of here. This would have been some two hundred or more years ago. They would never let their women go for water without being accompanied by an armed man because something lived in those lakes that would snare and drag a human deep underwater into caverns carved by the springs. What little I know of them is that they are about the size of a horse, have several arms or tentacles and very tiny eyes. Oddly, they are reddish-brown, look leathery, and make no sound at all, much like some kind of snail or slug that has no shell. The only recent seemingly related matter is the fact that a small swimming resort was built on one of those lakes, calling itself Salyer’s Lake. It had paddleboats and canoes and cabins and it also had the highest drowning rate of any such resort in all of Oklahoma. Several of the bodies were never recovered due to a maze of underwater sandstone caverns around the edges of the lake. Interestingly, all who drowned were whites because during the time it was open, the resort was (of course) whites only. It finally had to close in the ‘60s as it was deemed a public hazard by state authorities and also because people just stopped going to a place where they were almost guaranteed to drown. Near the end of its run, it at last integrated its attendance to try to survive. A few blacks dared to swim there and sure enough, two were drowned. But none of the Indians in this region would have gone there even if they were being paid. Most knew or were told of the things that live in the underwater caves that the Caddoes knew and feared. Today, the ruins of the closed Salyer’s Lake and Camp still stand on the highway between Binger and Cogar just a few miles north of Anadarko. No one seems to either want to revive it or to re-develop it. Maybe somebody finally told them why the Indians avoid the place at all costs. Oklahoma at last began to receive man-made lakes in the late 1950s and through the ‘60s. Unexplainably high drowning rates exist at Tenkiller Lake, Lake Thunderbird, and Lake Oolagah. I know this as well: you could not get me to either fish or to go swimming in those lakes if you offered me gold.”

Bates’ account has the exact same details (size, color, texture, diet, locations, etc.) as the newer authors and was clearly their main source. While he described the creature as having tentacles and a molluscan appearance, he never explicitly referred to it as an octopus. Nonetheless, considering the similarities and the timeline, I still think it plausible that he and the others were inspired by the 1982 report. I am doubtful that the octopus is genuine Native American folklore, given that Bates supposedly heard it secondhand from a different tribe and the absence of any prior documentation.

References

Published by Tyler Greenfield

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