- STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A team of monster-hunters were searching Sweden's
Great Lake on Sunday for a mysterious creature said to have inhabited it
for at least 360 years.
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- A fleet of 15 vessels with researchers
and six divers set off from Ostersund in Jamtland County, central Sweden,
on Sunday morning equipped with an underwater video camera and echo equipment
hoping to solve the centuries-old mystery.
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- Several hours into the search, project
spokesman Anders Brattgra said it was too early to say if anything conclusive
had yet been found in what is the biggest search of the Great Lake.
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- "We can't say yet if there is any
firm sign of the monster in the lake," Brattgra told Reuters by phone
from the banks of the lake.
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- "But all the results from the day
will be analyzed at about 4 p.m. (1400 GMT) and maybe then we will know."
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- The town of Ostersund, 370 miles northwest
of Stockholm on the banks of Sweden's fifth-largest lake, has been puzzled
for centuries about reported sightings of a horse or snake-like creature
in the Great Lake.
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- Sightings of the monster, Sweden's answer
to Scotland's Loch Ness monster, has been reported on 150 occasions by
450 people since 1635 when a local parson mentioned the creature in a parish
register.
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- By the late 19th century the frequency
of sightings rose and in 1894 a group from Ostersund set up a company called
the Company to Capture the Great Lake Monster to track down the animal,
using traps baited with pigs and live calves.
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- Sweden's then king, Oscar II, known for
his interest in science, became involved and contributed funds to the company.
There are no records of the company having any success.
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- Brattgra said this year's effort was
by far the largest search to date and involved British specialist Adrian
Shine, who has hunted for Loch Ness's monster, Nessie, for the past 20
years.
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- "People are taking it quite seriously,"
he said.
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- "So far they have explored about
five square kilometers of the lake, so it is going according to plan.
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- "There are a lot of people here
and it is a beautiful sunny day so everyone is having a good time."
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- He said very little was known about the
Great Lake, which is very large and very deep. Often locals discover rare
fish of up to one meter or more in length in the murky depths of the lake.
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- "If we have no luck this year then
maybe we will organize another search, an even bigger one, next year,"
Brattgra said.
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- In recent years there has been a number
of reported sightings with witnesses' reports falling into two distinct
categories.
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- Some report seeing a large eel about
three meters (10 feet) long and one meter (3.3 feet) wide that is gray-brown
while others report a large serpent of up to 14 meters (46 feet) with humps
and a small dog-like head.
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- In 1986 the county administration of
Jamtland declared anyone trying to capture, injure or kill the monster
could be prosecuted under the Nature Conservancy Law.
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- By BELINDA GOLDSMITH, Reuters
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