Lake Monsters of Alaska

In England, a kayaker took this photo on Lake Windemere, near Bowness in Cumbria. "At a distance, I thought it was some sort of large dog, " said Tom Pickles. "Then I realized just how long it was." Ever since the first reports of Bow-Nessie emerged in 2006 from Lake Windermere, a legend has taken root with people wondering if this could be a not-too-distant relative of the legendary Loch Ness Monster of Scotland.

This is a photo of boats at Urquhart Bay, Loch Ness, Scotland, on Aug. 6, 1983, made by American wildlife photographer Erik Beckjord. It shows splashes on the surface of Loch Ness made by an unidentified object (white mark at center right), which Beckjord claimed could have been made by the Loch Ness Monster.

Robert H. Hines, president of the Academy of Applied Science, released this photo during a 1972 investigation of Loch Ness. Hines said his expedition took photo, which he said showed the fin of the Loch Ness Monster, and that it was substantiated by sonar and other scientific data that strongly suggests there is a large marine creature inhabiting Scotland's Loch Ness.

This mysterious shape was captured by photographer Mark Harrison while riding on a ferry off the Seacombe district of Wirral in the United Kingdom on the morning of May 25. Experts claim that it could be a harbor porpoise or a basking shark, but Harrison says, "Me? Clearly, I believe it's Nessie on her hols!"

This 2000 image shows biologist Bruce Wright in salt waters in southeast Alaska with a small Pacific sleeper shark that was caught on a research cruise. He believes much bigger versions of this shark group could be the true identity of Scotland's Loch Ness Monster and Alaska's Lake Iliamna creature known as Illie.

The giant jaws of a huge marine reptile are on permanent display at Dorset County Museum in the UK. Dating back around 155 million years, the pliosaur skull was discovered on the nearby Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, and is one of the largest and best preserved fossils of its kind ever found.

Was it a dog or a pig or something else? Nobody knows for sure, but this animal was discovered in 2009 on a beach in Southold, on the North Fork area of New York's Long Island. Subsequent photos were published on Montauk Monster.