In Utah folklore, the North Shore Monster or Old Briney is a monster purported to live in Utah's Great Salt Lake.
In the 1840s, a certain Brother Bainbridge reported seeing a monster with a dolphin-like body in the lake near Antelope Island.[1] At dusk or evening of the early summer of 1877, J.H. McNeil of Kelton, Box Elder County, and several other employees of the Barnes and Co. Salt Works company on the lake's north shore reported seeing a huge creature with a crocodile-like body and the head of a horse in the waters of the Great Salt Lake. The creature made a "fearsome bellowing noise" and charged the workers, who promptly ran up a nearby hillside and hid in the brush until morning. Some believe the "monster" was a bison. Others blame these sightings on related cryptids, such as the "Salt Lake Whales" or even the "Great Brine Shrimp".
Local legend maintains that in 1875, entrepreneur James Wickham had two whales released into the Great Salt Lake, with the intent of using them as a tourist attraction.[2] [3] The whales are said to have disappeared into the lake and been subsequently sighted multiple times over a number of months, but there have never been any confirmed sightings of the whales since the time of their supposed release.[4] Scientists believe they could not have survived due to the high salinity of the lake.[5] Some believe that the strange monster seen by McNeil and his friends in 1877 was one of the two whales or one of their offspring.
The Great Brine Shrimp, or "Old Briney" is a cryptid that is purported to live in the Great Salt Lake. Briney is often described as resembling a larger version of the lake's native brine shrimp, ranging from the size of a large dog to that of a horse.[6] During the Cambrian period, the Great Salt Lake Basin and much of Northwest Utah was covered by the vast Lake Bonneville, and fossils of species like anomalocaris have been found throughout the region.[7] [8] Much like the popular Loch Ness Monster, an explanation for the Great Brine Shrimp is that it evolved from ancient marine life that was trapped in the Salt Lake by receding shore lines.[9] The Great Brine Shrimp is depicted in a 1976 independent horror short film or "creature feature" by Salt Lake local, Mike Cassidy. The Giant Brine Shrimp tells a fictional story in which a brine shrimp of exaggerated size terrorizes the downtown Salt Lake area.[10] [11]