Loch Ness Hunters Set Sights on Irish Monster

Updated: Wed, Jun 13 8:01 AM EDT

By Kevin Smith

DUBLIN (Reuters) - An international team of monster hunters is due in Ireland this month in search of a fabled serpent with the body of a giant eel and a horse-like head.

The three-man team, led by veteran Swedish monster hunter Jan Sundberg, plans to sweep Lough Ree in the Irish midlands for signs of a creature they think could be related to an elusive Norwegian lake beast known to locals as "Selma."

"There have been a number of sightings in Ireland over the years of a beast that fits Selma's description. We want to see if we can record and compare the sounds," Sundberg told Reuters.

Sundberg, 54, who earlier this year carried out an "ultimately disappointing" search for Scotland's legendary Loch Ness monster, said he had already spoken to a fisherman in the southern county of Cork who had recently hooked "an ugly, eel-like" creature more than nine feet long.

"Unfortunately he was unable to land it, but these kind of things have been spotted all over Ireland for centuries."

Sundberg has used adapted submarine-detecting equipment to make more than 100 recordings in Norway's Seljord lake -- reputed home of Selma -- which had baffled scientists.

"It sounds like an eel, which makes a very strange creaking noise, except it must be 50-meters long because it's so loud," he said.

Close range footage of a huge anaconda-like creature with spikes on its back had also been taken by two Norwegian fisherman but would not be released until after his team's next expedition to the lake in August.

Experts in Ireland, while confirming the myths surrounding the "horse eel," were doubtful about Sundberg's chances. "I've read accounts of these things going back many years but my research tells me this is a culturally based phenomenon rather than a scientifically based one," Daithi O hOgain, professor of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin, said.

Tales of great reptilian monsters inhabiting Irish lakes had their roots in apocalyptic stories of "great beasts being cast into fiery lakes" as told to Irish pagans by Christian missionaries in the 6th and 7th centuries, he said.

"Alternatively, a lot of these sightings are made by inebriated people," he said.

However, he was reluctant to dampen Sundberg's enthusiasm.

Sundberg, whose Global Underwater Search Team is due in Ireland on June 22, refused to be deflected.

"We've talked to a lot of people about these eel creatures over the years and I can tell you there is great consistency in the stories," he said.