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墨書 Inktalez
Lake Dakatawa is located at the northern end of Papua New Guinea's New Britain Province, specifically on Willowmas Peninsula. It covers an area of approximately 48 square kilometers and has a maximum depth of 400 feet, making it a vast alkaline freshwater lake.
Since the 1970s, this lake has attracted widespread media attention worldwide due to a mysterious water creature.
Local residents claim that a gigantic and incomprehensible animal has inhabited the area for at least 200 years, which brings us to today's topic—the Lake Dakatawa monster known as Migo.
Migo, also referred to as Masalai, is typically described as a fierce and massive aquatic creature, measuring between 30 to 35 feet in length. It possesses a neck resembling that of a horse and a mane, along with a long head equipped with sharp fangs. Its limbs resemble those of a sea turtle, while its tail appears similar to that of a crocodile.
It is said that Migo surfaces on the lake during evenings or bright moonlit nights.
Both terms, Migo and Masalai, originate from the local Papua Pidgin language. Strictly speaking, Masalai refers to a type of supernatural worship or supernatural being residing in Papua New Guinea, rather than specifically denoting one particular animal.
There are numerous legends and folklore surrounding Masalai, which is why the term Migo serves as the precise designation used by local tribes for this creature.
The earliest written record of Migo dates back to February 1, 1972, in a report published by Hakusei Kyouhei, the director of the Japan Pacific Resource Development Institute and a marine biologist. However, for some reason, the original report has not been found. The version that exists comes from the April issue of the Japanese magazine Ocean World published in the same year.
The article mentions that an expedition team traveled to an area known as Primitive Island in Papua New Guinea and stayed there for two months. At the northern end of Willowmas Peninsula lies a Crater Lake where a creature called Masalai resides. The locals fear it and consider it the master of that place.
The expedition team focused their interviews on a tribe called Bulumuri located on the eastern side of the lake. The oldest member of the tribe, Francis Weaver, informed them that most Bulumuri people have seen Masalai.
He described the creature's size as comparable to the large doors of a hotel in the distance, approximately 10 meters wide. It has a large mouth like that of a pike filled with sharp teeth. Its head is broad and long, covered in fur like that of a horse. Its back resembles a massive black mountain, its limbs are similar to those of a sea turtle, and its tail looks like that of a crocodile.
As for its coloration, Weaver stated that it exhibits multiple hues; sometimes it appears black and other times deep brown. Moreover, they prefer to refer to this monster as Migo and regard it with both awe and fear.
Migo does not swim around in the vast lake but instead lingers around the two small islands in the center of the lake.
Based on people's descriptions, Hakusei Kyouhei believes they are not fabricating stories, as they can answer questions so accurately and quickly, proving they have indeed witnessed something beyond their understanding.
In 1994, Tokyo Television organized a film crew to investigate Lake Dakatawa, inviting Professor Roy McCall, a biologist from Chicago, to serve as the scientific advisor for the documentary. The program later aired in a series hosted that same year.
The crew set up cameras around the lake and successfully captured footage of the lake monster.
Unfortunately, this documentary was only broadcast in Japan at the time, and due to its limited audience, a complete version of the film has not been found; only a brief clip was extracted from a video by a Japanese blogger.
From the blogs of several cryptozoologists, it was learned that in 1995, Jon Downs, director of the Futeng Zoological Center in England, received a copy of the video from Japanese journalist Takashi Takashi and invited paleontologist Darren Nash to view it. He also forwarded it to Dr. Karl Schuch, a cryptozoologist.
Possibly due to copyright issues, the video was not shared publicly. The few screenshots archived from Professor Darren Nash's blog show that the image quality is relatively poor and heavily pixelated.
Of course, this could also be an issue with the version we have seen. The sketches of Migo were drawn by Lisa Tao from the Futeng Zoological Center based on the video.
The central part of the image shows how it swims across the surface of the lake, with a hump-like shape. However, unlike the smooth humps of serpentine lake monsters we previously learned about, its skin appears to have some irregular protrusions.
The final image with additional annotations comes from 1996 and was drawn by Professor Darren Nash. In the latter part of his blog, he even imagined and completed this drawing based on people's descriptions.
According to several scholars' accounts, there were only a few seconds of footage showing the monster being filmed in the documentary, and it was indeed not very clear.
However, according to Professor Roy McCall's information, the original footage consisted of two parts; one longer segment lasted about five minutes and was filmed approximately 1200 yards away from the creature, with an estimated length close to 50 feet.
The video presents a large, elongated animal entering from the right side of the frame, gliding across the water's surface before disappearing off-screen. Some close-up shots suggest that its hump-shaped body has serrated features, though this could also be an illusion caused by the blurriness of the image.
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