The Indian Lake What-Is-It
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So let NerdWallet do the heavy lifting for your finances this year and head over to their 2025 Best of Awards at nerdwallet.com slash awards to find the best financial products today. Okay, so we're going to follow this road and we're going to take it all the way to the end. Okay, now we're driving parallel to Interstate 190 right now. Yep, yep. And we're just a bit northwest from the heart of Worcester, Massachusetts. Okay, yep, right down here just to the end. It's a...

Dead end. Well, I don't like the way you just said dead, Jeff. I know. I guess I can't help but feel a little ominous. Okay, we can stop here at the end of the road. All right. We're standing near the edge of Indian Lake in Worcester. We are. And keep your eyes focused on the water, Ray, because we've come to Indian Lake to search for a monster.

Hello, I'm Jeff Belanger. Welcome to episode 380 of the New England Legends podcast. And I'm Ray Ogier. Thank you for joining us on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England, one story at a time. We're always on the hunt for monsters, ghosts, UFOs, roadside oddities, strange history, and anything else that goes bump in the night.

Did you know that most of our story leads come from you? This one did. Thank you to Lauren Middleton for the tip. Thank you, Lauren. We also want to remind you that our annual charity zombie prom is coming up Saturday, February 22nd in Milford, Massachusetts. All proceeds go to benefit Community Harvest Project. You can find a link for more info and to buy tickets in the episode description or on our website. We'll go searching for this lake monster right after this word from our sponsor.

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Introducing NerdWallet's 2025 Best of Awards list. Your shortcut to the best credit cards, savings accounts, and more. The nerds have done the work for you. Researching and reviewing over 1,100 financial products to bring you only the best of the best. Looking for a balanced transfer credit card with 0% APR? They've got a winner for that. Or a bank account with a top rate to hit your savings goals? They've got a winner for that too. Know you're getting the best products for you without doing all the research yourself.

A lake monster in the city of Worcester? That's what they say. And if a lake monster isn't scary enough, this monster may have also lurked on land too. And

And there were enough sightings that it made the newspapers back in 1904. All right, here's a little more background on Indian Lake. Indian Lake, also known as North Pond, is located in the northern part of Worcester. It's 15 feet at its deepest point. It's about 240 acres in size.

and it was a major source for water and mill power for Worcester in the 1800s. In 1828, a dam was built at the outlet to the pond that increased the size of the pond, or lake, depending on who you ask, making North Pond part of the reservoir system that fed the Blackstone Canal. The canal didn't last too long because the railroad came in, and that was a preferred way to move goods and people. North Pond was also used for ice harvesting in the mid-1800s. Now, by the late 1800s and into the early 1900s,

The lake became most commonly used for recreation. Many houses were built around the lake at the turn of the century. More people swimming in the lake meant more people watching the water. To find out what happened, let's head back to 1904 and look for this monster.

It's early August of 1904 here in Worcester, Massachusetts. It's a hot summer day. A great day to be by the shores of the lake, a lake only recently renamed from North Pond to Indian Lake. Well, no matter what you call it, it's a nice spot. The view around the lake is changing, too. For years, this body of water helped drive commerce, water wheels for factories, and the Blackstone Canal. But as time changed, as rail lines were laid down all across the state and the country, and as the automobile looks like it's poised to go widespread...

Indian Lake is becoming an ideal place for homes and parks. Well, who wouldn't want to live by a gorgeous lake? Someone who's afraid of a monster, for one. What do you mean? Well, lately there's been talk of a strange creature on these waters, unlike anything anyone's ever seen before. Whoa, what was that? I think it's coming from this direction. It's Mrs. Boyd. She's pointing at the water. What is that?

There's some kind of creature racing away from us in the lake. I mean, at first it looked like it was swimming, almost like gliding on top of the water. But then it looked like it was diving, almost like a dolphin. Yeah.

And then it looked like it was kind of flying just above the surface of the water before it vanished. I didn't get a good look at this thing, but Mrs. Boyd did. What did you see? Imagine a big Newfoundland dog with heavy black whiskers, with wings like those of a vulture, and a tail like a great sea serpent. And you will have a good idea of what the thing looked like. I was standing on the shore at the time it appeared.

It had flaming red eyes and a cruel, wicked-looking face. It struck me at first that it might be a sea serpent, but I had never heard of a sea monster that had wings before. I could not see much of the tail of the creature except that it was long and slimy. The thing resembled something like the mermaids you see in a circus. The stubby wings which the thing flapped incessantly was the strangest thing about it.

It churned them up and down on the water very fast and plowed through the water angrily as it noticed that it was being watched. It did not attempt to lift itself out of the water and fly. It was content to move along in the water and disappear in the cove. I never took any stock in sea serpents or water monsters, but I did take a lot of stock in sea serpents.

But there is certainly something that cannot be explained about this creature. I just spoke to a neighbor of Mrs. Boyd who also saw this creature, 16-year-old Marjorie Halden. She said it was a horrid looking thing. She said it scared her almost to death and she's never seen a dog with wings before.

Mrs. Boyd is considered a practical woman by her neighbors and friends. She's not one to make up stories. Without another name to give it, the newspapers label this Indian Lake creature a what-is-it. What-is-it is a term that's been around for a long time. It's really the perfect term if you think about it. Well, yes. What is it? I have no idea, but the community is buzzing, and it may be related to another strange incident that occurred nearby on land.

Let's take a walk. All right, where are we heading? Just a few blocks from here to the pool room at Barber's Crossing. All right, let's go inside. Oh, you think we have time to shoot a little eight ball? Loser buys the beer. Deal. All right, so the main reason we're here is because we're looking for the proprietor, William Henry Levitt. I think that's him over there. Okay, you rack him up. I'll go talk to him.

So Mr. Levitt told me last Thursday night he was standing in his doorway on West Boylston Street, just outside, when a large animal startled him. He said it looked like a big Newfoundland dog. But then it climbed up a telephone pole right near where he was standing and then crawled down headfirst.

That's when he knew it was no dog. He thought maybe it was a bear. Bears aren't impossible around here, but they don't usually come to this part of town. It's too many people, too busy. Yeah, no, I get it. And Mr. Levitt said he locked himself in the pool hall and barricaded the door until this bear left. He said when it came down the pole, it ran off in the direction of Indian Lake.

And he got a good look at the animal. He said it had two red bloodshot eyes. Did Mr. Levitt see the wings and the scaly tail? He did not. He thought it was some kind of bear. And that was enough to scare him. I just heard that Mr. Conrad, who owns the restaurant across the street, said he also saw some strange animal Thursday night, but didn't get a good look at it like Mr. Levitt did. What is it? What is it? That's what everyone wants to know. Let's head back down to the lake.

Hold on a second. I'm just going to grab a newspaper here on the corner from the kid. Thank you. Wow. Looks like what is it made the front page? It has. Oh, my gosh. So this is the Wednesday, August 3rd, 1904 Worcester Daily Telegram. Go ahead and give these headlines a read, Ray. All right.

It says, Greendale, of course, is a neighborhood in Worcester right near the lake. Now, from those headlines, you'd think there's some serious danger here, wouldn't you? Yeah, well, I guess they know how to sell a newspaper. Yeah.

Still, this strange creature, whatever it is, has caused a stir, and locals are looking for answers. Some are suggesting a scientific study of the lake should be done to try to figure out what this creature is, because people want to know, what is it? And that brings us back to today.

All right, I missed this old term. What is it? I've also heard it shortened to what's it? Yeah, it's like the term UFO. Oh, what do you mean? Well, unidentified flying object. You might jump to a certain conclusion with that term, but no one is specifically saying flying machines from another world. Oh, sure. With a what is it, same thing. Could be some deranged creature or escaped circus animal. Yeah, I mean, I guess it could be. And the thing about this story is that the creature showed up shortly after the name of the body of water was changed from North Pond to Indian Lake.

Now, whether the sightings have anything to do with the name change is anyone's guess, but the newspaper article speculated maybe the creature was angry about the name change. So we're supposed to believe this mammal-looking creature, which can also potentially fly and lives in the water with a scaly tail, can also read? Okay, good point. We can't help but make connections, I guess. But what I love about this article is that they quoted four different people who all live and work within a few blocks of each other.

The article names names. I mean, if you were local back then, these are your neighbors. You wouldn't call them names or doubt their word. They saw something and they reported it. Now, I can't stress enough how small Indian Lake is. In fact, it's so small it used to be called a pond. Right. So where would a creature like that one described hide? Right. Plus, today, almost every bit of land around the lake is filled with homes, plus a few public parks. And it's only 15 feet deep. Right. There would be nowhere for this creature to hide.

Well, it could be that this strange beast passed through back in 1904 and wasn't seen again. The story sort of dies off after the news coverage. But it's enough that when you've heard the tale, you can't help but gaze out at the lake and ask yourself if today is the day the what is it returns.

You never know. And that takes us to After the Legend, where we take a deeper dive into this week's story and sometimes veer off course. After the Legend is brought to you by our Patreon patrons. Can't thank them enough. They are the backbone of everything we do. They help us with our production costs, our marketing, web hosting, travel, and everything else that we do.

We can't bring you two episodes each week without them. And it's just three bucks per month. And for that, you get early ad-free access to new episodes, plus bonus episodes and content that no one else gets to hear. Please help us out by going to patreon.com slash new England legends and signing up. You can also click on our Patreon link in the episode description. And if you want to see some pictures of Indian Lake, you can click on the link in our episode description or go to our website and go to episode 380.com.

Also, I want to say Lauren Middleton did send us the tip on this. Thank you, Lauren. She also does our website and app and so many other things. Very talented. But also, thank you to Joe McCougan, who used her library card for us and got us a copy of the 1904 newspaper article that was the source for this week's story. Also relevant, Joe used to live by Indian Lake. Oh, yeah? Right in those neighborhoods. And so I asked her, I said, have you ever heard of this? And she said no, she had not heard of it.

She'd never heard this story before seeing the headline from 120 years ago. Love a good monster story. I know. So a Newfoundland dog. Those are big. Yeah. Right? Beautiful dogs. Absolutely gorgeous. But they don't have wings. Right. They don't have scaly tails. They can absolutely... They probably don't climb down poles headfirst. Or even up poles. They climb up poles. Right. When was the last time you saw a Newfie in a tree? Right. Never. Right? So, yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think it's...

But Newfoundlands are a specific breed of dog. Sort of look like a bear from the back, I guess, but then white underneath. Right. So unmistakable. What I love is, so the witness, Mr. Levitt, on the street...

Now, he thought a bear happened by. It's not impossible. Very rare, unlikely that on a busy street, a bear would make its way. Could be a rabid bear. Could be disoriented. Well, even worse. Yeah. Even more of a reason to hide, right? Right. Scared or whatever. So, okay, sure. I get it. Whoa, that doesn't belong here. So you hide, and then you watch it, and it goes up a pole, and you're like, oh, bears do that. Sure. And then climb down the pole. Yeah. Bears do that. So he's probably thinking some bear— But headfirst? Yeah.

Sure. I've never seen a bear go down headfirst. A bear can, yeah, those claws can dig into anything. So absolutely, of course, he would be scared. Didn't mention the wings, didn't mention the tail or anything else. Which would be noticeable, I would think. You'd think. You'd think that would be the lead. Be like, this thing with wings that looked like a bear's body. You would lead with that. I would lead with that. Like, it had wings and it was huge. But the dude across the street saw something similar. Yeah.

Right. Now let's say Newfoundland dog, right? Yeah. The wingspan it would take to how much, pick a number. How much do you think they weigh? 150 pounds? Between 100 and 150. Yeah. Let's say a hundred. Yeah. Let's say it's a younger one or whatever. Let's say it's a hundred pounds. It's probably more. We could Google it.

it. Uh, let's do that. How much are you going to Google it now? We're on it. Look at that. But think about the wingspan it would take to lift 100 pounds. Oh yeah, absolutely. I never thought of that in the air, right? Birds. One thing, right? What about dragons? I mean, it would probably be half the size of a dragon's wings. Weight of a Newfoundland dog, 130 to 150. Nice job. So we were close. We were close. Uh, females can go a hundred to 120. Um, so, uh,

Anyway, so yeah, so the wingspan it would take to lift an animal that large into the sky would be significant. Yeah.

But, you know, all bets are off when we're talking about flying lake mammal sea monsters that fly. That's right. All right? And calling it a sea monster is interesting because the lake was not that huge back then either. No, and where is it going to hide, like we mentioned? Yeah. 15 feet deep. Yeah, it's not a big body of water. It never was. It's like a goldfish in a little goldfish bowl. Yeah. They don't have many places to go. No, you're going to find it. Unless there's some kind of mythical portal underneath.

Underneath the lake. Now you're getting to it. Yes. Now we got it. Now going in and out. Yeah. Maybe heading up to Maine. Maybe this is, what's her name up in Maine? Back to his home planet. Yeah. Who's, I don't know up in Maine. Who? The sea serpent. Oh, Cassie. Champ is in Vermont. Vermont. I'm sorry. Cassie though. There is one in Maine. Cassie the sea serpent's off the coast of Maine. Gotcha. So maybe that's it. Maybe these things just hop around. Champ is. From bodies of water to bodies of water. Yeah. Lake Champlain. Champlain.

So who knows, right? We don't know, but obviously a lot of people saw it. It caused a stir. The newspapers did an article. Those headlines, though, are great, like going after women and girls. I'm like, well, that's the only witnesses you had.

Right. If the witness was like a man and a 16-year-old boy, I guess it would have said like going after men. And assuming that it's going after these people when it was just spotted. Just seen. That was the witness. They happened to be outside and looked and saw it and reported it. But like we said, they're trying to sell newspapers. Right. So it sounds better that way. But it's funny when people think like, oh, fake news and made up headlines and clickbait is new, right? Yeah.

Come on. That's clickbait 1904. Yeah. Right? But she wasn't, like her family and friends said, she's not, that's not like her to make up stories. Well, right. Right. And she didn't write the headline. She just said, this is what I saw. Yeah. Call it whatever you want. Like, that's what I saw. And then the headline is just like, monster plaguing Worcester. We're all going to die. You know? Dun, dun, dun. And it was right at the top center of the first front page. Above the fold? Above the fold. Yeah. You know, right there for all to see right on the cover. So. How long did it last, these sightings?

I don't think we mentioned that. I couldn't find a follow-up on it. Okay. Which makes me think, like, that was it. So those three people saw something. Four. Well, four, you're right. So, yeah. Oh, and the two of us. Right. Yeah. Six. And there could have been others who weren't quoted. Yeah.

But, but yeah. And that's the kind of thing too. Like, I mean, imagine your neighbor, this, this, you know, it's, it's hard for us to put our minds back before the days of like Facebook and social media and everything else. But that was media back then in 1904. You didn't have a radio. No, you got, yeah, right. And then when you did have a radio, you still waited for that morning and afternoon newspaper to tell you what's happening, what's going on. And so, you know, if, if,

imagine you lived on the lake and you got the paper and you saw the headline and you saw your next door neighbor quoted, you'd be like, Hey, what'd you see? Right. Right. Like, and I'm sure you'd tease her. Sure. A little bit. You're God given, right? Yeah, of course. Like you'd tease a little bit. And then, but then when they, they look you dead in the eye and say,

Look, I don't know what that was, but I saw something weird right over there. And I had no reason to lie about it. Yeah. Like, what do I get for that? Right. And then you suddenly, like, there's a little gravitas to that. You're like, yeah, let's keep the cat inside tonight. Right. Right. I think some people enjoy being crazy. Right. So they tell tall tales. Right. But then there's other people like, listen, if this gets out, people are going to think I'm nuts. Right.

this is what it comes down to and this is what it's always come down to when you're talking about anything weird like paranormal or whatever you have a sighting that doesn't make sense to you but it's profoundly affected you because you're like look if you live around a lake i promise you it doesn't take long for you to become an expert on the kind of things you see around the lake sure the animals the birds this the water snakes like all the various things the creatures and critters that will be around your lake it

there's normal, right? And then there's not normal. Right. And you see something and you go, what is that? What is it? Right. What's it? What's it? What's it? What's it was like a common thing. Like, oh, I saw what's it? It's the first time, by the way, I've ever heard. Yeah, I know. But it's, it's old timey, right? Nobody uses it anymore. Love it though. But, but it is so like, you know, cause it's like, what'd you see? I saw what's it?

Like that was, it's like today we might say Bigfoot. If I say Bigfoot, well, you fill it in. Right. Bigfoot could have been a what's it. Right. In 1900, you know? So no, it's one of those things that it's a great, we should bring that term back. Maybe this will help a little bit. It'd be like, oh, I saw a what's it. If everyone listening right now, use it once today. Yeah. What's a, I saw a what's it. It's like, yeah. Yeah. And here's another experiment. Use it in a sentence on our Facebook group page.

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, try it. Just to see who's listening and who's active on our Facebook group page. The other day, I did see an up dog. An up dog? What's an... Come on! What's up, dog? What's up, dog? Not much, just chilling. Sorry. Welcome. A little office throwback there. There you go. Anyway, keep your eyes peeled. If you're by Indian Lake, you never know the what's it could be poised to return.

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Until next time, remember, the bizarre is closer than you think.